Retreat Impossible

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

Judges 11:34-40

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh to his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances…

I. WHAT WE HAVE DONE. "I have opened my mouth unto the Lord."

1. We have opened our mouths before the Lord, first, "by confessing our faith in Jesus Christ."

2. We have also avowed and declared before the living God that we are Christ's disciples and followers.

3. We have opened our mouth to the Lord, next, because as we believe in Jesus Christ, and take Him to be our Master, so we "have admitted the Redeemer's claims to our persons and services, and have resolved to live for Him alone in our days." We have made a dedication of ourselves to His service, declaring that we are not our own, but bought with a price.

4. We have cast in our lot with His people.

II. WHAT WE CANNOT DO. "I cannot go back." Having once become Christians, we cannot apostatise from the faith. We cannot go back, even by temporary turnings aside.

1. If we did go back, we should show that we have been altogether false until now.

2. We should incur frightful penalties. To go back is death, shame, eternal ruin.

3. It would be so unreasonable. If you give up the religion of Jesus Christ, what other religion would you have? If you were to give up the pleasures of godliness, what other pleasures would you have? "Oh," says one, "we could go into the world." Could you? If you are a child of God you are spoiled for the world.

4. I have no inclination to go back. The man who is married to a good wife thinks to himself, "If I had to marry again to-morrow morning, she should be the bride, and happy would we be." And so, if we had our choice to make again, we would choose our dear Lord over again, only with much more eagerness and earnestness than we did at first.

5. We have opened our mouth to the Lord, and we cannot go back because we are so happy as we now are. A man does not turn his back upon that which has become his life and his joy; he is bound to it by the bliss which he derives from it. Can the Swiss forget his country when he listens to the home-music which he heard as a child amidst his native hills? Does not the home-sickness come over him so that he longs to be among the Alps again? Does not the Englishman, wherever he wanders, whether by land or sea, feel his heart instinctively turn to the white cliffs of Albion, and does he not say that with all her faults he loves his country still? Who would cease to be that which he loves to be?

6. And then, besides that, we cannot go back from what we have said, for Divine grace impels us onward. There is a secret power more mighty than all other forces called the force of grace, and this has captured us.

III. SOMETHING WHICH WE MUST DO. If there is a present sacrifice demanded of us, we must make it directly. If there is anything in your business, and you cannot be a Christian if you do it, abjure it at once and for ever. If you are to do this, however, you must ask for more grace. One other admonition to Christian people is this — burn the boats behind you. When the Roman commander meant victory he landed his troops on the coast where he knew there were thousands of enemies, and he burned the boats, so as to cut off all chance of retreat. "But how are we to get away if we are beaten?" "That is just it," said he; "we will not be beaten; we will not dream of such a thing." "Burn the boats" — that is what you Christian people must do. "Make no provision for the flesh." Let the separation between you and the world be final and irreversible. Say, "Here I go for Christ and His Cross, for the truth of the Bible, for the laws of God, for holiness, for trust in Jesus; and never will I go back, come what may."

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