Huwebes, Setyembre 26, 2024

All of Grace (C. H. Spurgeon,1834 -1892)

 

Ephesians 2:8

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”


Of the things which I have spoken unto you these many years, this is 
the sum. Within the circle of these words my theology is contained, so 
far as it refers to the salvation of men. I rejoice also to remember that 
those of my family who were ministers of Christ before me preached 
this doctrine, and none other. My father, who is still able to bear his 
personal testimony for his Lord, knows no other doctrine, neither did 
his father before him.

I am led to remember this by the fact that a somewhat singular 
circumstance, recorded in my memory, connects this text with myself 
and my grandfather. It is now long years ago. I was announced to 
preach in a certain country town in the Eastern Counties. It does not 
often happen to me to be behind time, for I feel that punctuality is one 
of those little virtues which may prevent great sins. But we have no 
control over railway delays, and breakdowns; and so it happened that I 
reached the appointed place considerably behind the time. Like 
sensible people, they had begun their worship, and had proceeded as 
far as the sermon. As I neared the chapel, I perceived that someone 
was in the pulpit preaching, and who should the preacher be but my 
dear and venerable grandfather! He saw me as I came in at the front 
door and made my way up the aisle, and at once he said, "Here comes 
my grandson! He may preach the gospel better than I can, but he 
cannot preach a better gospel; can you, Charles?" As I made my way 
through the throng, I answered, "You can preach better than I can. 
Pray go on." But he would not agree to that. I must take the sermon, 
and so I did, going on with the subject there and then, just where he 
left off. "There," said he, "I was preaching of 'For by grace are ye 
saved.' I have been setting forth the source and fountain-head of 
salvation; and I am now showing them the channel of it, through faith. 
Now you take it up, and go on." I am so much at home with these 
glorious truths that I could not feel any difficulty in taking from my 
grandfather the thread of his discourse, and joining my thread to it, so 
as to continue without a break. Our agreement in the things of God 
made it easy for us to be joint-preachers of the same discourse. I went 
on with "through faith," and then I proceeded to the next point, "and 
that not of yourselves." Upon this I was explaining the weakness and 
inability of human nature, and the certainty that salvation could not be 
of ourselves, when I had my coat-tail pulled, and my well-beloved 
grandsire took his turn again. "When I spoke of our depraved human 
nature," the good old man said, "I know most about that, dear friends"; 
and so he took up the parable, and for the next five minutes set forth a 
solemn and humbling description of our lost estate, the depravity of 
our nature, and the spiritual death under which we were found. When 
he had said his say in a very gracious manner, his grandson was 
allowed to go on again, to the dear old man's great delight; for now 
and then he would say, in a gentle tone, "Good! Good!" Once he said, 
"Tell them that again, Charles," and, of course, I did tell them that 
again. It was a happy exercise to me to take my share in bearing 
witness to truths of such vital importance, which are so deeply 
impressed upon my heart. While announcing this text I seem to hear 
that dear voice, which has been so long lost to earth, saying to me, 
"TELL THEM THAT AGAIN." I am not contradicting the testimony 
of forefathers who are now with God. If my grandfather could return to 
earth, he would find me where he left me, steadfast in the faith, and 
true to that form of doctrine which was once delivered to the saints.

I shall handle the text briefly, by way of making a few statements. The 
first statement is clearly contained in the text:--

I. There Is Present Salvation.

The apostle says, "Ye are saved." Not "ye shall be," or "ye may be"; 
but "ye are saved." He says not, "Ye are partly saved," nor "in the way 
to being saved," nor "hopeful of salvation"; but "by grace are ye 
saved." Let us be as clear on this point as he was, and let us never rest 
till we know that we are saved. At this moment we are either saved or 
unsaved. That is clear. To which class do we belong? I hope that, by 
the witness of the Holy Ghost, we may be so assured of our safety as to 
sing, "The Lord is my strength and my song; he also is become my 
salvation." Upon this I will not linger, but pass on to note the next 
point.

II. A Present Salvation Must Be Through Grace.

If we can say of any man, or of any set of people, "Ye are saved," we 
shall have to preface it with the words "by grace." There is no other 
present salvation except that which begins and ends with grace. As far 
as I know, I do not think that anyone in the wide world pretends to 
preach or to possess a present salvation, except those who believe 
salvation to be all of grace. No one in the Church of Rome claims to e 
now saved-- completely and eternally saved. Such a profession would 
be heretical. Some few Catholics may hope to enter heaven when they 
die, but the most of them have the miserable prospect of purgatory 
before their eyes. We see constant requests for prayers for departed 
souls, and this would not be if those souls were saved, and glorified 
with their Saviour. Masses for the repose of the soul indicate the 
incompleteness of the salvation Rome has to offer. Well may it be so, 
since Papal salvation is by works, and even if salvation by good works 
were possible, no man can ever be sure that he has performed enough 
of them to secure his salvation.

Among those who dwell around us, we find many who are altogether 
strangers to the doctrine of grace, and these never dream of present 
salvation. Possibly they trust that they may be saved when they die; 
they half hope that, after years of watchful holiness, they may, 
perhaps, be saved at last; but, to be saved now, and to know that they 
are saved, is quite beyond them, and they think it presumption.

There can be no present salvation unless it be upon this footing-- "By 
grace are ye saved." It is a very singular thing that no one has risen up 
to preach a present salvation by works. I suppose it would be too 
absurd. The works being unfinished, the salvation would be 
incomplete; or, the salvation being complete, the main motive of the 
legalist would be gone.

Salvation must be by grace. If man be lost by sin, how can he be saved 
except through the grace of God? If he has sinned, he is condemned; 
and how can he, of himself, reverse that condemnation? Suppose that 
he should keep the law all the rest of his life, he will then only have 
done what he was always bound to have done, and he will still be an 
unprofitable servant. What is to become of the past? How can old sins 
be blotted out? How can the old ruin be retrieved? According to 
Scripture, and according to common sense, salvation can only be 
through the free favour of God.

Salvation in the present tense must be by the free favour of God. 
Persons may contend for salvation by works, but you will not hear 
anyone support his own argument by saying, "I am myself saved by 
what I have done." That would be a superfluity of naughtiness to 
which few men would go. Pride could hardly compass itself about with 
such extravagant boasting. No, if we are saved, it must be by the free 
favour of God. No one professes to be an example of the opposite view.

Salvation to be complete must be by free favour. The saints, when they 
come to die, never conclude their lives by hoping in their good works. 
Those who have lived the most holy and useful lives invariably look to 
free grace in their final moments. I never stood by the bedside of a 
godly man who reposed any confidence whatever in his own prayers, 
or repentance, or religiousness. I have heard eminently holy men 
quoting in death the words, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
sinners." In fact, the nearer men come to heaven, and the more 
prepared they are for it, the more simply is their trust in the merit of 
the Lord Jesus, and the more intensely do they abhor all trust in 
themselves. If this be the case in our last moments, when the conflict 
is almost over, much more ought we to feel it to be so while we are in 
the thick of the fight. If a man be completely saved in this present time 
of warfare, how can it be except by grace. While he has to mourn over 
sin that dwelleth in him, while he has to confess innumerable 
shortcomings and transgressions, while sin is mixed with all he does, 
how can he believe that he is completely saved except it be by the free 
favour of God?

Paul speaks of this salvation as belonging to the Ephesians, "By grace 
are ye saved." The Ephesians had been given to curious arts and works 
of divination. They had thus made a covenant with the powers of 
darkness. Now if such as these were saved, it must be by grace alone. 
So is it with us also: our original condition and character render it 
certain that, if saved at all, we must owe it to the free favour of God. I 
know it is so in my own case; and I believe the same rule holds good 
in the rest of believers. This is clear enough, and so I advance to the 
next observation:--

III. Present Salvation by Grace Must Be Through Faith.

A present salvation must be through grace, and salvation by grace 
must be through faith. You cannot get a hold of salvation by grace by 
any other means than by faith. This live coal from off the altar needs 
the golden tongs of faith with which to carry it. I suppose that it might 
have been possible, if God had so willed it, that salvation might have 
been through works, and yet by grace; for if Adam had perfectly 
obeyed the law of God, still he would only have done what he was 
bound to do; and so, if God should have rewarded him, the reward 
itself must have been according to grace, since the Creator owes 
nothing to the creature. This would have been a very difficult system 
to work, while the object of it was perfect; but in our case it would not 
work at all. Salvation in our case means deliverance from guilt and 
ruin, and this could not have been laid hold of by a measure of good 
works, since we are not in a condition to perform any. Suppose I had 
to preach that you as sinners must do certain works, and then you 
would be saved; and suppose that you could perform them; such a 
salvation would not then have been seen to be altogether of grace; it 
would have soon appeared to be of debt. Apprehended in such a 
fashion, it would have come to you in some measure as the reward of 
work done, and its whole aspect would have been changed. Salvation 
by grace can only be gripped by the hand of faith: the attempt to lay 
hold upon it by the doing of certain acts of law would cause the grace 
to evaporate. "Therefore, it is of faith that it might be by grace." "If by 
grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. 
But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no 
more work."

Some try to lay hold upon salvation by grace through the use of 
ceremonies; but it will not do. You are christened, confirmed, and 
caused to receive "the holy sacrament" from priestly hands, or you are 
baptized, join the church, sit at the Lord's table: does this bring you 
salvation? I ask you, "have you salvation?" "You dare not say." If you 
did claim salvation of a sort, yet I am sure it would not be in your 
minds salvation by grace.

Again, you cannot lay hold upon salvation by grace through your 
feelings. The hand of faith is constructed for the grasping of a present 
salvation by grace. But feeling is not adapted for that end. If you go 
about to say, "I must feel that I am saved. I must feel so much sorrow 
and so much joy or else I will not admit that I am saved," you will find 
that this method will not answer. As well might you hope to see with 
your ear, or taste with your eye, or hear with your nose, as to believe 
by feeling: it is the wrong organ. After you have believed, you can 
enjoy salvation by feeling its heavenly influences; but to dream of 
getting a grasp of it by your own feelings is as foolish as to attempt to 
bear away the sunlight in the palm of your hand, or the breath of 
heaven between the lashes of your eyes. There is an essential absurdity 
in the whole affair.

Moreover, the evidence yielded by feeling is singularly fickle. When 
your feelings are peaceful and delightful, they are soon broken in 
upon, and become restless and melancholy. The most fickle of 
elements, the most feeble of creatures, the most contemptible 
circumstances, may sink or raise your spirits: experienced men come 
to think less and less of their present emotions as they reflect upon the 
little reliance which can be safely placed upon them. Faith receives the 
statement of God concerning His way of gracious pardon, and thus it 
brings salvation to the man believing; but feeling, warming under 
passionate appeals, yielding itself deliriously to a hope which it dares 
not examine, whirling round and round in a sort of dervish dance of 
excitement which has become necessary for its own sustaining, is all 
on a stir, like the troubled sea which cannot rest. From its boilings and 
ragings, feeling is apt to drop to lukewarmness, despondency, despair 
and all the kindred evils. Feelings are a set of cloudy, windy 
phenomena which cannot be trusted in reference to the eternal verities 
of God. We now go a step further:--

IV. Salvation by Grace, Through Faith, Is Not of Ourselves.

The salvation, and the faith, and the whole gracious work together, are 
not of ourselves. 

First, they are not of our former deservings: they are not the reward of 
former good endeavours. No unregenerate person has lived so well that 
God is bound to give him further grace, and to bestow on him eternal 
life; else it were no longer of grace, but of debt. Salvation is given to 
us, not earned by us. Our first life is always a wandering away from 
God, and our new life of return to God is always a work of undeserved 
mercy, wrought upon those who greatly need, but never deserve it. 

It is not of ourselves, in the further sense, that it is not out of our 
original excellence. Salvation comes from above; it is never evolved 
from within. Can eternal life be evolved from the bare ribs of death? 
Some dare to tell us that faith in Christ, and the new birth, are only the 
development of good things that lay hidden in us by nature; but in this, 
like their father, they speak of their own. Sirs, if an heir of wrath is left 
to be developed, he will become more and more fit for the place 
prepared for the devil and his angels! You may take the unregenerate 
man, and educate him to the highest; but he remains, and must forever 
remain, dead in sin, unless a higher power shall come in and save him 
from himself. Grace brings into the heart an entirely foreign element. 
It does not improve and perpetuate; it kills and makes alive. There is 
no continuity between the state of nature and the state of grace: the one 
is darkness and the other is light; the one is death and the other is life. 
Grace, when it comes to us, is like a firebrand dropped into the sea, 
where it would certainly be quenched were it not of such a miraculous 
quality that it baffles the water-floods, and sets up its reign of fire and 
light even in the depths. 

Salvation by grace, through faith is not of ourselves in the sense of 
being the result of our own power. We are bound to view salvation as 
being as surely a divine act as creation, or providence, or resurrection. 
At every point of the process of salvation this word is appropriate--
"not of yourselves." From the first desire after it to the full reception of 
it by faith, it is evermore of the Lord alone, and not of ourselves. The 
man believes, but that belief is only one result among many of the 
implantation of divine life within the man's soul by God Himself. 

Even the very will thus to be saved by grace is not of ourselves, but it 
is the gift of God. There lies the stress of the question. A man ought to 
believe in Jesus: it is his duty to receive him whom God has set forth 
to be a propitiation for sins. But man will not believe in Jesus; he 
prefers anything to faith in his redeemer. Unless the Spirit of God 
convinces the judgment, and constrains the will, man has no heart to 
believe in Jesus unto eternal life. I ask any saved man to look back 
upon his own conversion, and explain how it came about. You turned 
to Christ, and believed in his name: these were your own acts and 
deeds. But what caused you thus to turn? What sacred force was that 
which turned you from sin to righteousness? Do you attribute this 
singular renewal to the existence of a something better in you than has 
been yet discovered in your unconverted neighbour? No, you confess 
that you might have been what he now is if it had not been that there 
was a potent something which touched the spring of your will, 
enlightened your understanding, and guided you to the foot of the 
cross. Gratefully we confess the fact; it must be so. Salvation by grace, 
through faith, is not of ourselves, and none of us would dream of 
taking any honour to ourselves from our conversion, or from any 
gracious effect which has flowed from the first divine cause. Last of 
all:--

V. "By Grace Are Ye Saved Through Faith; and That Not of 
Yourselves: It Is the Gift of God."

Salvation may be called Theodora, or God's gift: and each saved soul 
may be surnamed Dorothea, which is another form of the same 
expression. Multiply your phrases, and expand your expositions; but 
salvation truly traced to its well-head is all contained in the gift 
unspeakable, the free, unmeasured benison of love. 

Salvation is the gift of God, in opposition to a wage. When a man pays 
another his wage, he does what is right; and no one dreams of 
belauding him for it. But we praise God for salvation because it is not 
the payment of debt, but the gift of grace. No man enters eternal life 
on earth, or in heaven, as his due: it is the gift of God. We say, 
"nothing is freer than a gift". Salvation is so purely, so absolutely a gift 
of God, that nothing can be more free. God gives it because he chooses 
to give it, according to that grand text which has made many a man 
bite his lip in wrath, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, I 
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." You are all 
guilty and condemned, and the great King pardons whom he wills 
from among you. This is his royal prerogative. He saves in infinite 
sovereignty of grace. 

Salvation is the gift of God: that is to say completely so, in opposition 
to the notion of growth. Salvation is not a natural production from 
within: it is brought from a foreign zone, and planted within the heart 
by heavenly hands. Salvation is in its entirety a gift from God. If thou 
wilt have it, there it is, complete. Wilt thou have it as a perfect gift? 
"No; I will produce it in my own workshop." Thou canst not forge a 
work so rare and costly, upon which even Jesus spent his life's blood. 
Here is a garment without seam, woven from the top throughout. It 
will cover thee and make thee glorious. Wilt thou have it? "No; I will 
sit at the loom, and I will weave a raiment of my own!" Proud fool that 
thou art! Thou spinnest cobwebs. Thou weavest a dream. Oh! that thou 
wouldst freely take what Christ upon the cross declared to be finished.

It is the gift of God: that is, it is eternally secure in opposition to the 
gifts of men, which soon pass away. "Not as the world giveth, give I 
unto you," says our Lord Jesus. If my Lord Jesus gives you salvation at 
this moment, you have it, and you have it forever. He will never take it 
back again; and if he does not take it from you, who can? If he saves 
you now through faith, you are saved--so saved that you shall never 
perish, neither shall any pluck you out of his hand. May it be so with 
every one of us! Amen.
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A Solemn Deprival (C. H. Spurgeon, 1834 -1892)

 

Ephesians 2:12

“That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:”


We shall have two things to consider this evening--the misery of our past 
estate, and the great deliverance which God has wrought for us. As for:--

I. The Misery of Our Past Estate 

Be it known unto you that, in common with the rest of mankind, believers 
were once without Christ. No tongue can tell the depth of wretchedness that 
lies in those two words. There is no poverty like it, no want like it, and 
for those who die so, there is no ruin like that it will bring. Without 
Christ! If this be the description of some of you, we need not talk to you 
about the fires of hell; let this be enough to startle you, that you are in 
such a desperate state as to be without Christ. Oh! what terrible evils lie 
clustering thick within these two words!

The man who is without Christ is without any of those spiritual blessings 
which only Christ can bestow. Christ is the life of the believer, but the man 
who is without Christ is dead in trespasses and sins. There he lies; let us 
stand and weep over his corpse. It is decent and clean, and well laid out, 
but life is absent, and, life being absent, there is no knowledge, no feeling, 
no power. What can we do? Shall we take the word of God and preach to 
this dead sinner? We are bidden to do so, and, therefore, we will attempt it; 
but so long as he is without Christ no result will follow, any more than 
when Elisha's servant laid the staff upon the child--there was no noise, nor 
sound, nor hearing. As long as that sinner is without Christ, we may give 
him ordinances, if we dare; we may pray for him, we may keep him under 
the sound of the ministry, but everything will be in vain. Till thou, O 
quickening Spirit, come to that sinner, he will still be dead in trespasses 
and sins. Till Jesus is revealed to him there can be no life.

So, too, Christ is the light of the world. Light is the gift of Christ. "In 
him was light, and the light was the life of men." Men sit in darkness 
until Jesus appears. The gloom is thick and dense; not sun, nor moon, nor 
star appeareth, and there can be no light to illumine the understanding, 
the affections, the conscience. Man has no power to get light. He may 
strike the damp match of reason, but it will not yield him a clear flame. 
The candle of superstition, with its tiny glare, will but expose the 
darkness in which he is wrapped. Rise, morning star! Come, Jesus, come! 
Thou art the sun of righteousness, and healing is beneath thy wings. 
Without Christ there is no light of true spiritual knowledge, no light of 
true spiritual enjoyment, no light in which the brightness of truth can be 
seen, or the warmth of fellowship proved. The soul, like the men of 
Napthali, sits in darkness, and seeth no light.

Without Christ there is no peace. See that poor soul hunted by the dogs of 
hell. It flies swift as the wind, but faster far do the hunters pursue. It 
seeks a covert yonder in the pleasures of the world, but the baying of the 
hell-hounds affright it in the festive haunts. It seeks to toil up the 
mountain of good works, but its legs are all too weak to bear it beyond the 
oppressor's rule. It doubles; it changes its tack; it goes from right to 
left but the hell-dogs are too swift of foot, and too strong of wind to 
lose their prey, and till Jesus Christ shall open his bosom for that poor 
hunted thing to hide itself within, it shall have no peace.

Without Christ there is no rest. The wicked are like the troubled sea, which 
cannot rest, and only Jesus can say to that sea, "Peace, be still."

Without Christ there is no safety. The vessel must fly before the gale, for it 
has no anchor on board; it may dash upon the rocks, for it has no chart and 
no pilot. Come what may, it is given up to the mercy of wind and waves. 
Safety it cannot know without Christ. But let Christ come on board that 
soul, and it may laugh at all the storms of earth, and e'en the whirlwinds 
which the Prince of the Power of the air may raise need not confound it, 
but without Christ there is no safety for it.

Without Christ again, there is no hope. Sitting wrecked upon this desert 
rock, the lone soul looks far away, but marks nothing that can give it joy. 
If, perchance, it fancies that a sail is in the distance, it is soon 
undeceived. The poor soul is thirsty, and around it flows only a sea of 
brine, soon to change to an ocean of fire. It looks upward, and there is an 
angry God--downward, and there are yawning gulfs--on the right hand, and 
there are accusing sounds--on the left hand, and there are tempting fiends. 
It is all lost! lost! lost! without Christ, utterly lost, and until Christ 
comes not a single beam of hope can make glad that anxious eye.

Without Christ, beloved, remember that all the religious acts of men are 
vanity. What are they but mere air-bags, having nothing in them whatever 
that God can accept? There is the semblance of worship, the altar, the 
victim, the wood laid in order, and the votaries bow the knee, or prostrate 
their bodies, but Christ alone can send the fire of heaven's acceptance. 
Without Christ the offering, like that of Cain's, shall lie upon the stones, 
but it shall never rise in fragrant smoke, accepted by the God of heaven. 
Without Christ your church-goings are a form of slavery, your chapel-
meetings a bondage. Without Christ your prayers are but empty wind, your 
repentances are wasted tears, your almsgivings and your good deeds are but 
a coating of thin veneer to hide your base iniquities. Your professions are 
white-washed sepulchres, fair to look upon, but inwardly full of rottenness. 
Without Christ your religion is dead, corrupt, a stench, a nuisance before 
God--a thing of abhorrence, for where there is no Christ there is no life in 
any devotion, nothing in it for God to see that can possibly please him. 
And this, mark you, is a true description, not of some, but of all who are 
without Christ. You moral people without Christ, you are lost as much as 
the immoral. You rich and respectable people, without Christ, you will be 
as surely damned as the prostitute that walks the streets at midnight. 
Without Christ, though you should heap up your charitable donations, 
endow your almshouses and hospitals, yea, though you should give your 
bodies to be burned, no merit would be imputed to you. All these things 
would profit you nothing. Without Christ, e'en if you might be raised on 
the wings of flaming zeal, or pursue your eager course with the enthusiasm 
of a martyr, you shall yet prove to be but the slave of your own passion, and 
the victim of your own folly. Unsanctified and unblest, you must, then, be 
shut out of heaven, and banished from the presence of God. Without 
Christ, you are destitute of every benefit which he, and he alone, can 
bestow.

Without Christ, implies, of course, that you are without the benefit of all 
those gracious offices of Christ, which are so necessary to the sons of men, 
you have no true prophet. You may pin your faith to the sleeve of man, and 
be deceived. You may be orthodox in your creed, but unless you have 
Christ in your heart, you have no hope of glory. Without Christ truth itself 
will prove a terror to you. Like Balaam, your eyes may be open while your 
life is alienated. Without Christ that very cross which does save some will 
become to you as a gallows upon which your soul shall die. Without Christ 
you have no priest to atone or to intercede on your behalf. There is no 
fountain in which you can wash away your guilt; no passover blood which 
you can sprinkle on your lintel to turn aside the destroying angel; no 
smoking altar of incense for you; no smiling God sitting between the 
cherubim. Without Christ you are an alien from everything which the 
priesthood can procure for your welfare. Without Christ you have no 
shepherd to tend, no King to help you; you cannot call in the day of trouble 
upon one who is strong to deliver. The angels of God, who are the standing 
army of King Jesus, are your enemies and not your friends. Without Christ, 
Providence is working your ill, and not your good. Without Christ you have 
no advocate to plead your cause in heaven; you have no representative to 
stand up yonder and represent you, and prepare a place for you. Without 
Christ you are as sheep without a shepherd; without Christ you are a body 
without a head; without Christ you are miserable orphans without a father, 
and your widowed soul is without a husband. Without Christ you are 
without a Saviour; how will you do? what will become of you when you 
find out the value of salvation at the last pinch, the dreary point of 
despair? and without a friend in heaven, you must needs be if you are 
without Christ. To sum up all, you are without anything that can make life 
blessed, or death happy. Without Christ, though you be rich as Croesus, and 
famous as Alexander, and wise as Socrates, yet are you naked, and poor, and 
miserable, for you lack him by whom are all things, and for whom are all 
things, and who is himself all in all.

Surely this might be enough to arouse the conscience of the most heedless? 
But ah! without any of the blessings which Christ brings, and to miss all 
the good offices which Christ fills--this is only to linger on the side 
issues! The imminent peril is to be without Christ himself. Do you see, 
there, the Saviour in human form--God made flesh, dwelling among us? He 
loves his people, and came to earth to wipe out an iniquity which had 
stained them most vilely, and to work out a righteousness which should 
cover them most gloriously, but without Christ that living Saviour is 
nothing to you. Do you see him led away as a sheep to the slaughter, 
fastened to the cruel wood--bleeding, dying? Without Christ you are without 
the virtue of that great sacrifice; you are without the merit of that 
atoning blood. Do you see him lying in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, 
asleep in death? That sleep is a burial of all the sins of his people, but 
without Christ your sins are not atoned for; your transgressions are yet 
unburied; they walk the earth; they shall go before you to judgment; they 
shall clamour for your condemnation; they shall drag you down without hope. 
Without Christ, remember, you have no share in his resurrection. Bursting 
the bonds of death, you, too, shall rise, but not to newness of life, nor 
yet to glory, for shame and everlasting contempt shall be your portion if 
you be without Christ. See him as he mounts on high; he rides in his 
triumphal car through the streets of heaven; he scatters gifts for men, but 
without Christ there are none of those gifts for you. There are no 
blessings for those who are without Christ. 

He sits on that exalted throne, and pleads and reigns for ever, but without 
Christ you have no part in his intercession, and you shall have no share in 
his glory. He is coming. Hark! the trumpet rings. My ear prophetic seems 
to catch the strain! He comes, surrounded by majestic pomp, and all his 
saints shall reign with him, but without Christ you can have no part nor lot 
in all that splendour. He goes back to his Father, and surrenders his 
kingdom, and his people are for ever safe with him. Without Christ there 
shall be none to wipe away the tears from your eyes; no one to lead you to 
the fountain of living waters; no hand to give you a palm-branch; no smile 
to make your immortality blessed. Oh! my dear hearers, I cannot tell you 
what unutterable abysses of wretchedness and misery are comprised here 
within the fulness of the meaning of these dreadful words--without Christ.

At this present hour, if you are without Christ, you lack the very essence of 
good, by reason of which your choicest privileges are an empty boast, 
instead of a substantial boon. Without Christ all the ordinances and means 
of grace are nothing worth. Even this precious Book, that might be 
weighed with diamonds, and he that was wise would choose the Book, and 
leave the precious stones--even this sacred volume is of no benefit to you. 
You may have Bibles in your houses, as I trust you all have, but what is the 
Bible but a dead letter without Christ? Ah! I would you could all say what 
a poor woman once said. "I have Christ here," as she put her hand on the 
Bible, "and I have Christ here," as she put her hand on her heart, "and I 
have Christ there," as she raised up her eyes towards heaven; but if you 
have not Christ in the heart, you will not find Christ in the Book, for he is 
discovered there in his sweetness, and his blessedness, and his excellence, 
only by those who know Him and love him in their hearts. Do not get the 
idea that a certain quantity of Bible-reading, and particular times spent in 
repeating prayers, and regular attendance at a place of worship, and the 
systematic contribution of a guinea or so to the support of public worship 
and private charities will ensure the salvation of your souls. No, you must 
be born again. And that you cannot be; for it is not possible that you could 
have been born again if you are still living without Christ. To have Christ 
is the indispensable condition of entering heaven. If you have him, though 
compassed about with a thousand infirmities, you shall yet see the 
brightness of the eternal glory; but if you have not Christ, alas! for all 
your toil, and the wearisome slavery of your religion, you can but weave a 
righteousness of your own, which shall disappoint your hope, and incur the 
displeasure of God.

And without Christ, dear friends, there comes the solemn reflection that 
ere long ye shall perish. Of that I do not like to talk, but I would like 
you to think of it. Without Christ you may live, young man--though, mark, 
you shall miss the richest joys of life. Without Christ you may live, hale, 
strong man, in middle age--though, mark, without him you shall miss the 
greatest support amidst your troubles. Without Christ you may live, old 
man, and lean upon your staff, content with the earth into which you are so 
soon to drop, though, mark you, you shall lose the sweetest consolation 
which your weakness could have found. But remember, man, thou art soon to 
die. It matters not how strong thou art; death is stronger than thou, and 
he will pull thee down, even as the stag-hound drags down his victim, and 
then "how wilt thou do in the swellings of Jordan," without Christ? How 
wilt thou do when the eyes begin to close, without Christ? How wilt thou 
do, sinner, when the death-rattle is in thy throat, without Christ? When 
they prop thee up with pillows, when they stand weeping round thine 
expiring form, when the pulse grows faint and few, when thou hast to lift 
the veil, and stand disembodied before the dreadful eyes of an angry God, 
how wilt thou do without Christ? And when the judgment-trump shall wake 
thee from thy slumber in the tomb, and body and soul shall stand together 
at that last and dread assize, in the midst of that tremendous crowd, 
sinner, how wilt thou do without Christ? When the reapers come forth to 
gather in the harvest of God, and the sickles are red with blood, and the 
vintage is cast into the wine-press of his wrath, and it is trodden until 
the blood runs forth up to the horse's girdles--how wilt thou do then, I 
conjure thee, without Christ? Oh! sinner, I pray thee let these words sound 
in thine ears till they ring into thy heart. I would like you to think of 
them tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Without Christ! I would like 
to make thee think of dying, of being judged, of being condemned, without 
Christ! May God in his mercy enable thee to see thy state, and fly to him 
who is able to save, even unto the uttermost, all them that come unto God 
by him. Christ is to be had for the asking. Christ is to be had for the 
receiving. Stretch out thy withered hand and take him; trust him, and he 
will be thine evermore; and thou shalt be with him where he is, in an 
eternity of joy. Having thus reviewed the misery of our past estate, let us 
endeavour, with the little time we have left, to:--

II. Excite the Thankfulness of God's People for What the Lord Has Done for 
Them.

We are not without Christ now, but let me ask you, who are believers, 
where you would have been now without Christ? As for some of you, you 
might, indeed you would have been, tonight in the ale-house or gin-palace. 
You would have been with the boisterous crew that make merriment on the 
Lord's Day; you know you would, for "such were some of you." You might 
have been ever worse; you might have been in the harlot's house; you 
might have been violating the laws of man as well as the laws of God, "for 
even such" were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified. 
Where might you not have been without Christ? You might have been in 
hell; you might have been shut out for ever from all mercy, condemned to 
eternal banishment from the presence of God. I think the Indian's picture is 
a very fair one of where we should have been without Christ. When asked 
what Christ had done for him, he picked up a worm, put it on the ground, 
and made a ring of straw and wood round it, which he set alight. As the 
wood began to glow the poor worm began to twist and wriggle in agony, 
whereupon he stooped down, took it gently up with his finger, and said, 
"That is what Jesus did for me; I was surrounded, without power to help 
myself, by a ring of dreadful fire that must have been my ruin, but his 
pierced hand lifted me out of the burning." Think of that, Christians, and, 
as your hearts melt, come to his table, and praise him that you are not now 
without Christ.

Then think what his blood has done for you. Take only one thing out of a 
thousand. It has put away your many, many sins. You were without Christ, 
and your sins stood like yonder mountain, whose black and rugged cliff 
threaten the very skies. There fell a drop of Jesu's blood upon it, and it all 
vanished in a moment. The sins of all your days had gone in an instant by 
the application of the precious blood! Oh! bless Jehovah's name that you 
can now say:--

                   "Now freed from sin I walk at large,
                   My Saviour's blood my full discharge,
                      Content at his dear feet I lay,
                     A sinner saved, and homage pay."

Bethink you, too, now that you have Christ, of the way in which he came 
and made you partaker of himself. Oh! how long he stood in the cold, 
knocking at the door of your heart. You would not have him; you despised 
him; you resisted him; you kicked against him; you did, as it were, spit in 
his face, and put him to open shame to be rid of him. Yet he would have 
you, and so, overcoming all your objections, and overlooking all your 
unworthiness, at length he rescued you and avouched you to be his own.

Consider, beloved, what might have been your case had he left you to your 
own free agency. You might have had his blood on your head in 
aggravation of your guilt. Instead of that, you have got his blood applied to 
your heart, in token of your pardon. You know right well what a difference 
that makes. Oh! that was a dreadful cry in the streets of Jerusalem, "His 
blood be on us and our children," and Jerusalem's streets flowing with gore 
witnessed how terrible a thing it is to have Christ's blood visited on his 
enemies. But, beloved, you have that precious blood for the cleansing of 
your conscience. It has sealed your acceptance, and you can, therefore, 
rejoice in the ransom he has paid, and the remission you have received 
with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

And I would not have you forget the vast expense which it cost to procure 
this priceless boon. Christ could not have been yours had he lived in 
heaven. He must come down to earth, and even then he could not be fully 
yours till he had bled and died. Oh! the dreadful portals through which 
Christ had to pass before he could find his way to you! He finds you now 
right easily, but before he could come to you he must himself pass through 
the grave! Think of that, and be astonished!

And why are you not left to be without Christ? I suppose there are some 
persons whose minds naturally incline towards the doctrines of free will. I 
can only say that mine inclines as naturally towards the doctrines of 
sovereign grace. I cannot understand the reason why I am saved, except 
upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot, if I look ever so 
earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a partaker 
of divine grace. If I am not tonight without Christ, it is only because Christ 
Jesus would have his will with me, and that will was that I should be with 
him where he is, and should share his glory. I can put the crown nowhere 
but upon the head of him whose mighty grace has saved me from going 
down into the pit.

Beloved, let us mention one thing more out of the thousand things which 
we must leave unsaid. Remember what you have got tonight now that you 
have got Christ. No, no, no, do not be telling me what you have not got. 
You have not got a certain income, you say; you have not got a 
competence; you have not got wealth; you have not got friends; you have 
not got a comfortable house. No, but you have got your Saviour; you have 
got Christ, and what does that mean? "He that spared not his own Son, but 
freely delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him, also, freely 
give us all things?" The man who has got Christ has got everything. There 
are all things in one in Christ Jesus, and if you once get him you are rich to 
all the intents of bliss. What, have Jesus Christ, and be discontented? Have 
Christ and murmur? Beloved, let me chide you gently, and pray you to lay 
aside that evil habit. If you have Christ, then you have God the Father to be 
your protector, and God the Spirit to be your comforter. You have present 
things working together for your good, and future things to unravel your 
happier portion; you have angels to be your servitors both on earth and in 
heaven. You have all the wheels of Providence revolving for your benefit; 
you have the stones of the field in league with you; you have your daily 
trials sanctified to your benefit; and you have your earthly joys hinged from 
their doors and hallowed with a blessing; your gains and your losses are 
alike profitable to you; your additions and your diminutions shall alike 
swell the tide of your soul's satisfaction; you have more than any other 
creatures can boast as their portion; you have more than all the world 
beside could yield to regale your pure taste, and ravish your happy spirits. 
And now, will you not be glad? I would have you come to this feasting-
table this evening, saying within yourselves, "Since I am not without 
Christ, but Jesus Christ is mine, I do rejoice, yea, and I will rejoice."

And oh! dear Christian friends, if you have lost your evidences, go to 
Christ to find them all. Do not go striking your matches to light your 
candles, but go direct to the sun and get your light from his full orb. You 
who are doubting, desponding, and cast down, do not get foraging up the 
mouldy bread of yesterday, but go and get the manna which falls fresh 
today at the foot of the cross. Now you who have been wandering and 
backsliding, do not stay away from Jesus because of your unworthiness, but 
let your very sins impel you to come the faster to your Saviour's feet. Come, 
ye sinners; come, ye saints; come, ye who dare not say that ye are his 
people; come, you whose faith is but as a grain of mustard seed; come, you 
who have not any faith at all; come now to Jesus, who says, "Whosoever 
will, let him come and take of the water of life freely."

May God grant that some who feel that they are without Christ, because 
they have no enjoyment, nor any sense of communion with him, may now 
take hold of his name, his covenant, his promises with a lively faith, nay 
more, may they find him to the rapture of their souls, and he shall have all 
the praise. Amen.
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A Summary of Experience and a Body of Divinity (C. H. Spurgeon, 1834 -1892)

 

1 Thessalonians 1:9-10

“For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;

And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”


In Thessalonica the conversions to the faith were remarkable. Paul 
came there without prestige, without friends, when he was in the very 
lowest condition; for he had just been beaten and imprisoned at 
Philippi, and had fled from that city. Yet it mattered not in what 
condition the ambassador might be; God, who worketh mighty things 
by weak instruments, blessed the word of his servant Paul. No doubt 
when the apostle went into the synagogue to address his own 
countrymen he had great hopes that, by reasoning with them out of 
their own scriptures, he might convince them that Jesus was the 
Christ. He soon found that only a few would search the Scriptures and 
form a judgment on the point; but the bulk of them refused, for we 
read of the Jews of Berea, to whom Paul fled from Thessalonica, 
"These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they 
received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the 
scriptures daily, whether those things were so." Paul must have felt 
disappointed with his own countrymen; indeed, he had often cause to 
do so. His heart was affectionately warm toward them, but their hearts 
were very bitter towards him, reckoning him to be a pervert and an 
apostate. But if he seemed to fail with the Jews, it is evident that he 
was abundantly successful with the Gentiles. These turned from their 
idols to serve the living God, and their turning was so remarkable that 
the Jew's charged Paul and Silas with turning the world upside down.

In those days there was a good deal of practical atheism abroad, and 
therefore the wonder was not so much that men left their idols, as that 
they turned unto the living God. It became a matter of talk all over the 
city, and the Jews in their violence helped to make the matter more 
notorious; for the mobs in the street and the attack upon the house of 
Jason all stirred the thousand tongues of rumour. Everybody spoke of 
the sudden appearance of three poor Jews, of their remarkable 
teaching in the synagogue, and of the conversion of a great multitude 
of devout Greeks, and of the chief women not a few. It was no small 
thing that so many had come straight away from the worship of Jupiter 
and Mercury to worship the unknown God, who could not be seen, nor 
imaged; and to enter the kingdom of one Jesus who had been crucified. 
It set all Macedonia and Achaia wondering; and as with a trumpet 
blast it aroused all the dwellers in those regions. Every ship that sailed 
from Thessalonica carried the news of the strange ferment which was 
moving the City; men were caring for religion and were quitting old 
beliefs for a new and better faith. Thessalonica, situated on one of the 
great Roman roads, and center of a large trade, thus became a center 
for the gospel. Wherever there are true conversions there will be more 
or less of this kind of sounding forth of the gospel. It was especially so 
at Thessalonica; but it is truly so in every church where the Spirit of 
God is uplifting men from the dregs of evil, delivering them from 
drunkenness, and dishonesty, and uncleanness, and worldliness, and 
making them to become holy and earnest in the cause of the great 
Lord. There is sure to be a talk when grace triumphs. This talk is a 
great aid to the gospel: it is no small thing that men should have their 
attention attracted to it by its effects; for it is both natural and just 
that thoughtful men should judge of doctrines by their results; and if the 
most beneficial results follow from the preaching of the word, 
prejudice is disarmed, and the most violent objectors are silenced.

You will notice that in this general talk the converts and the. hers were 
greatly mixed up:--"For they themselves show of us manner of 
entering in we had unto you." I do not know that it is possible for the 
preacher to keep himself distinct from those who profess to be 
converted by him. He is gladly one with them in love to, their souls, 
bat he would have it remembered that he cannot be responsible for all 
their actions. Those who profess to have been converted under any 
ministry have it in their power to damage that ministry far more than 
any adversaries can do. "There!" says the world, when it detects a false 
professor, "this is what comes of such preaching." They judge unfairly, 
I know; but most men are in a great hurry, and will not examine the 
logic of their opponents; while many others are so eager to judge 
unfavorably, that a very little truth, or only a bare report, suffices to 
condemn both the minister and his doctrine. Every man that lives unto 
God with purity of life brings honor to the gospel which converted 
him, to the community to which he belongs, and to the preaching by 
which he was brought to the knowledge of the truth; but the reverse is 
equally true in the case of unworthy adherents. Members of churches, 
will you kindly think of this? Your ministers share the blame of your 
ill conduct if ever you disgrace yourselves. I feel sure that none of you 
wish to bring shame and trouble upon your pastors, however careless 
you may be about your own reputations. Oh, that we could be freed 
from those of whom Paul says, "Many walk, of whom I have told you 
often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the 
cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and 
whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." When these 
are in a church they are its curse. The Thessalonians were not such: 
they were such a people that Paul did not blush to have himself 
implicated in what they did. He was glad to say that the outsiders 
"show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye 
turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait 
for his Son from heaven."

Quitting this line of thought, I would observe that these two verses 
struck me as being singularly full. Oceans of teaching are to be found 
in them. A father of the church in the first ages was wont to cry, "I 
adore the infinity of Holy Scripture." That remark constantly rises 
from my lips when I am studying the sacred Word. This book is more 
than a book,--it is the mother of books, a mine of truth, a mountain of 
meaning. It was an ill-advised opinion which is imputed to the 
Mahommedans at the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, when 
they argued that everything that was good in it was already in the 
Koran, and therefore it might well be destroyed. Yet it is true with 
regard to the inspired Word of God, that it contains everything which 
appertains to eternal life. It is a revelation of which no man can take 
the measure, it compasses heaven and earth, time and eternity. The 
best evidence of its being written by an Infinite mind is its own 
infinity. Within a few of its words there lie hidden immeasurable 
meanings, even as perfume enough to sweeten leagues of space may be 
condensed into a few drops of otto of roses.

The first part of my text contains a summary of Christian experience; 
and the second part contains a body of divinity. Here is ample room 
and verge enough. It is not possible to exhaust such a theme.

I. The first part of the text contains A SUMMARY OF EXPERIENCE; 
"What manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to 
God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his 
Son from heaven." Here we have in miniature the biography of a 
Christian man.

It begins, first, with the entering in of the word,--"What manner of 
entering in we had unto you." When we preach the word you listen, 
and, so far, the word is received. This is a very hopeful circumstance. 
Still, the hearing with the outward ear is comparatively a small matter; 
or, at least, only great because of what may follow from it. The 
preacher feels even with some who listen with attention that he is 
outside the door; he is knocking, and he hopes that he is heard within; 
but the truth is not yet received, the door remains shut, an entrance is 
not granted, and in no case can he be content to speak with the person 
outside the door; he desires an entrance for the Word. All is fruitless 
until Christ entereth into the heart. I have seen the following: the door 
has been a little opened, and the man inside has come to look at the 
messenger, and more distinctly to hear what he may have to say; but 
he has taken care to put the door on the chain, or hold it with his 
hand, for he is not yet ready to admit the guest who is so desirous of 
entertainment. The King's messenger has sometimes tried to put his 
foot within when the door has stood a little open, but he has not always 
been successful, and has not even escaped from a painful hurt when 
the door has been forced back with angry violence. We have called 
again and again with our message, but we have been as men who 
besieged a walled city, and were driven from the gates; yet we had our 
reward, for when the Holy Spirit sweetly moved the hard heart the city 
gates have opened of their own accord, and we have been received 
joyfully. We have heard the hearty cry, "Let the truth come in! Let the 
gospel come in! Let Christ come in! Whatever there is in him we are 
willing to receive; whatever he demands we are willing to give; 
whatever he offers us we are glad to accept. Come and welcome! The 
guest-chamber is prepared. Come and abide in our house for ever!"

The truth has its own ways of entrance; but in general it first affects 
the understanding. The man says, "I see it: I see how God is just, and 
yet the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. I see sin laid on Christ 
that it may not be laid on me, and I perceive that if I believe in Jesus 
Christ my sins are put away by his atonement." To many all that is 
wanted is that they should understand this fundamental truth; for their 
minds are prepared of God to receive it. Only make it plain and they 
catch at it as a hungry man at a piece of bread. They discover in the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus the very thing for which they have been 
looking for years, and so the truth enters by the door of the 
understanding.

Then it usually commences to work upon the conscience, conscience 
being the understanding exercised upon moral truth. The man sees 
himself a sinner, discovering guilt that he was not aware of; and he is 
thus made ready to receive Christ's pardoning grace. He sees that to 
have lived without thinking of God, without loving God, without 
serving God was a great and grievous crime: he feels the offensiveness 
of this neglect. He trembles; he consents unto the law that it is good, 
and he allows that, if the law condemns him, he is worthy to be 
condemned.

When it has thus entered into the understanding and affected the 
conscience, the word of God usually arouses the emotions. Fear is 
awakened, and hope is excited. The man begins to feel as he never felt 
before. His whole manhood is brought under the heavenly spell; his 
very flesh doth creep in harmony with the amazement of his soul. He 
wonders and dreads, weeps and quivers, hopes and doubts; but no, 
emotion is asleep; life is in all. When a tear rises to his eye he brushes 
it away, but it is soon succeeded by another. Repentance calls forth one 
after another of these her sentinels. The proud man is broken down; 
the hard man is softened. The love of God in providing a Saviour, the 
unsearchable riches of divine grace in passing by transgression, 
iniquity, and sin,--these things amaze and overwhelm the penitent. He 
finds himself suddenly dissolved, where aforetime he was hard as 
adamant for the word is entering into him, and exercising its softening 
power.

By-and-by the entrance is complete; for the truth carries the central 
castle of Mansoul, and captures his heart. He who once hated the 
gospel now loves it. At first he loves it, hoping that it may be his, 
though fearing the reverse; yet owning that if it brought no blessing to 
himself, yet it was a lovable and desirable thing. By-and-by the man 
ventures to grasp it, encouraged by the word that bids him lay hold on 
eternal life. One who in digging his land finds a treasure, first looks 
about for fear lest some one else should claim it; anon he dares to 
examine his prize more carefully, and at length he bears it in his 
bosom to his own home. So is it with the gospel; when a man finds it 
by the understanding, he soon embraces it with his heart; and, believe 
me, if it once gets into the heart, the arch-enemy himself will never get 
it out again. Oh, that such an entrance with the gospel might 
commence the spiritual life of all here present who are as yet unsaved.

What comes next? Well, the second stage is conversion. "They 
themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, 
and how ye turned from idols to serve the living and true God." There 
came a turning, a decided turning. The man has come so far in 
carelessness, so far in sin and unbelief; but now he pauses, and he 
deliberately turns round, and faces in that direction to which hitherto 
he had turned his back. Conversion is the turning of a man completely 
round, to hate what he loved and to love what he hated. Conversion is 
to turn to God decidedly and distinctly by an act and deed of the mind 
and will. In some senses we are turned; but in others, like these 
Thessalonians, we turn. It is not conversion to think that you will turn, 
or to promise that you will turn, or resolve that you will turn, but 
actually and in very deed to turn, because the word has had a true 
entrance into your heart. You must not be content with a reformation; 
there must be a revolution: old thrones must fall, and a new king must 
reign. Is it so with you?

These Thessalonians turned from their idols. Do you tell me that you 
have no idols? Think again, and you will not be quite so sure. The 
streets of London are full of fetich worship, and almost every dwelling 
is a joss-house crammed with idols. Why, multitudes of men are 
worshipping not calves of gold, but gold in a more portable shape. 
Small circular idols of gold and silver are much sought after. They are 
very devoutly worshipped by some, and great things are said 
concerning their power. I have heard the epithet of "almighty" 
ascribed to an American form of these idols. Those who do not 
worship gold may yet worship rank, name, pleasure, or honour. Most 
worship self, and I do not know that there is a more degrading form of 
worship than for a man to put himself upon a pedestal and bow down 
thereto and worship it. You might just as well adore cats and 
crocodiles with the ancient Egyptians as pay your life's homage to 
yourselves. No wooden image set up by the most savage tribe can be 
more ugly or degrading than our idol when we adore ourselves. Men 
worship Bacchus still. Do not tell me they do not: why, there is a 
temple to him at every street corner. While every other trade is content 
with a shop or a warehouse, this fiend has his palaces, in which 
plentiful libations are poured forth in his honour. The gods of 
unchastity and vice are yet among us. It would be a shame even to 
speak of the things which are done of them in secret. The lusts of the 
flesh are served even by many who would not like to have it known. 
We have gods many and lords many in this land. God grant that we 
may see, through the preaching of the gospel, many turning from such 
idols. If you love anything better than God you are idolaters: if there is 
anything you would not give up for God it is your idol: if there is 
anything that you seek with greater fervour that is your idol, and 
conversion means a turning from every idol.

But then that is not enough, for some men turn from one idol to 
another. If they do not worship Bacchus they become teetotalers, and 
possibly they worship the golden calf, and become covetous. When 
men quit covetousness they sometimes turn to profligacy. A change of 
false gods is not the change that will save: we must turn unto God, to 
trust, love, and honor him, and him alone.

After conversion comes service. True conversion causes us "to serve 
the living and true God." To serve him means to worship him, to obey 
him, to consecrate one's entire being to his honour and glory, and to be 
his devoted servant.

We are, dear friends, to serve the "living" God. Many men have a dead 
God still. They do not feel that he hears their prayers, they do not feel 
the power of his Spirit moving upon their hearts and lives. They never 
take the Lord into their calculations; he never fills them with joy, nor 
even depresses them with fear; God is unreal and inactive to them. But 
the true convert turns to the living God, who is everywhere, and whose 
presence affects him at every point of his being. This God he is to 
worship, obey, and serve.

Then it is added, to serve the true God; and there is no serving a true 
God with falsehood. Many evidently serve a false god, for they utter 
words of prayer without their hearts, and that is false prayer, unfit for 
the true God, who must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. When 
men's lives are false and artificial they are not a fit service for the God 
of truth. A life is false when it is not the true outcome of the soul, 
when it is fashioned by custom, ruled by observation, restrained by 
selfish motives, and governed by the love of human approbation. What 
a man does against his will is not in truth done by himself at all. If the 
will is not changed the man is not converted, and his religious life is 
not true. He that serves the true God acceptably does it with delight; to 
him sin is misery, and holiness is happiness. This is the sort of service 
which we desire our converts to render: we long to see rebels become 
sons. Oh the sacred alchemy of the Holy Spirit, who can turn men 
from being the slaves of sin to become servants of righteousness!

Carefully notice the order of life's progress: the entering in of the word 
produces conversion, and this produces service. Do not put those 
things out of their places. If you are converts without the word 
entering into you, you are unconverted; and if professing to receive the 
word you are not turned by it, you have not received it. If you claim to 
be converted, and yet do not serve God, you are not converted; and if 
you boast of serving God without being converted, you are not serving 
God. The three things are links which draw on each other.

A fourth matter follows to complete this Christian biography, namely, 
waiting--"To wait for his Son from heaven." That conversion which is 
not followed up by waiting is a false conversion, and will come to 
nothing. We wait, dear brethren, in the holy perseverance of faith; 
having begun with Christ Jesus orr Lord we abide in him; we trust, 
and then we wait. We do not look upon salvation as a thing which 
requires a few minutes of faith, and then all is over; salvation is the 
business of our lives. We receive salvation in an instant, but we work it 
out with fear and trembling all our days. He that is saved continues to 
be saved, and goes on to be saved from day to day, from every sin and 
from every form of evil. We must wait upon the Lord, and renew the 
strength of the life which he has imparted. As a servant waiteth on her 
mistress, or a courtier upon his king, so must we wait upon the Lord.

This waiting also takes the shape of living in the future. A man who, 
waits is not living on the wages of today, but on the recompenses of a 
time which is yet to come; and this is the mark of the Christian, that 
his life is spent in eternity rather than in time, and his citizenship is 
not of earth but of heaven. He has received a believing expectancy 
which makes him both watch and wait. He expects that the Lord Jesus 
will come a second time, and that speedily. He has read of his going 
up. into heaven, and he believes it; and he knows that he will so come 
in like manner as he went up into heaven. For the second advent he 
looks with calm hope: he does not know when it may be, but he keeps. 
himself on the watch as a servant who waits his lord's return. He hopes 
it may be today, he would not wonder if it were tomorrow, for he is 
always looking for and hasting unto the coming of the Son of God. 
The coming of the Lord is his expected reward. He does not expect to 
be rewarded by men, or even to be rewarded of God with temporal 
things in this life, for he has set his affection upon things yet to be 
revealed, things eternal and infinite. In the day when the Christ shall 
come, and the heavens which have received him shall restore him to 
our earth, he shall judge the world in righteousness, and his people 
with his truth, and then shall our day break and our shadows flee 
away. The true believer lives in this near future; his hopes are with 
Jesus on his throne, with Jesus crowned before an assembled universe.

The convert has come to this condition, he is assured of his salvation. 
See how he has been rising from the time when he first held the door 
ajar! He is assured of his salvation; for Paul describes him as one who 
is delivered from the wrath to come; and therefore he looks with holy 
delight to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Once he was afraid of 
this, for he feared that he would come to condemn him; but now he 
knows that when the Lord appears his justification will be made plain 
to the eyes of all men. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, 
in the kingdom of their Father." And so he cries, " Even so, come.Lord 
Jesus!" He would hasten rather than delay the appearing of the Lord. 
He groans in sympathy with travailing creation for the manifestation 
of the sons of God. He cries with all the redeemed host for the day of 
the. Saviour's glory. He could not do this were he not abundantly 
assured that the day would not seal his destruction, but reveal his full 
salvation.

Here, then, you have the story of the Christian man briefly summed 
up, and I think you will not find a passage of merely human writing 
which contains so much in so small a compass. It has unspeakable 
wealth packed away into a narrow casket. Do you understand it? Is this 
the outline of your life? If it is not, the Lord grant that his word may 
have an entrance into you this morning, that you may now believe in 
Jesus Christ and then wait for his glorious appearing.

II. I shall want you to be patient with me while I very briefly unfold 
the second half of this great roll. Here even to a greater degree we 
have mullum in parvo, much in little; A BODY OF DIVINITY packed 
away in a nutshell. " To wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised 
from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to 
come."

To begin my body of divinity, I see here, first, the Deity of Christ. "To 
wait for his Son." "His Son." God has but one Son in the highest sense. 
The Lord Jesus Christ has given to all believers power to become the 
sons of God, but not in the sense in which he, and he alone, is the Son 
of God." Unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my 
Son, this day have I begotten thee?" "When he bringeth in the First-
begotten into the world he saith, Let all the angels of God worship 
him." The Eternal Filiation is a mystery into which it is better for us 
never to pry. Believe it; but how it is, or how it could be, certainly it is 
not for you or for me to attempt to explain. There is one " Son of the 
Highest," who is "God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before 
all worlds," whom we with all our souls adore, and own to be most 
truly God; doing so especially every time in the benediction we 
associate him with the Father and with the Holy Spirit as the one God 
of blessing.

Side by side with this in this text of mine is his humanity. "His son, 
whom he raised from the dead." It is for man to die. God absolutely 
considered dieth not; he therefore took upon himself our mortal frame, 
and was made in fashion as a man; then willingly for our sakes he 
underwent the pangs of death, and being crucified, was dead, and so 
was buried, even as the rest of the dead. He was truly man, "of a 
reasonable soul, and human flesh subsisting": of that we are confident. 
There has been no discussion upon that point in these modern times, 
but there was much questioning thereon in years long gone; for what is 
there so clear that men will not doubt it or mystify it? With us there is 
no question either as to his Deity, which fills us with reverence; or his 
manhood, which inspires us with joy. He is the Son of God and the 
Son of Mary. He, as God, is " immortal, invisible"; and yet for our 
sakes he was seen of men and angels, and in mortal agony yielded up 
the ghost. He suffered for our salvation, died upon the cross, and was 
buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea, being verily and truly 
man.

Notice a third doctrine which is here, and that is the unity of the 
Divine Person of our Lord; for while the apostle speaks of Christ as 
God's Son from heaven, and as one who had died, he adds, "even 
Jesus": that is to say, one known, undivided Person. Although he be 
God and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ. There is but one 
Person of our blessed and adorable Lord: "one altogether; not by 
confusion of substance, but by unity of Person." He is God, he is man; 
perfect God and perfect man; and, as such, Jesus Christ, the one 
Mediator between God and man. There have been mistakes about this 
also made in the church, though I trust not by any one of us here 
present. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ in the unity of his divine 
Person as the one Saviour of men.

Furthermore, in our text we perceive a doctrine about ourselves very 
plainly implied, namely, that men by nature are guilty, for otherwise 
they would not have needed Jesus, a Saviour. They were lost, and so he 
who came from heaven to earth bore the name of Jesus, "for he shall 
save his people from their sins." It is clear, my brethren, that we were 
under the divine wrath, otherwise it could not be said, "He hath 
delivered us from the wrath to come." We who are now delivered were 
once "children of wrath, even as others." And when we are delivered it 
is a meet song to sing, "O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast 
angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me." 
We were guilty, else we had not needed a propitiation by the Saviour's 
death: we were lost, else we had not needed one who should seek and 
save that which is lost; and we were hopelessly lost, otherwise God 
himself would not have shared our nature to work the mighty work of 
our redemption. That truth is in the text, and a great deal more than I 
can mention just now.

But the next doctrine, which is one of the fundamentals of the gospel, 
is that the Lord Jesus Christ died for these fallen men. He could not 
have been raised from the dead if he had not died. That death was 
painful, and ignominious; and it was also substitutionary: "for the 
transgression of my people was he stricken." In the death of Christ lay 
the essence of our redemption. I would not have you dissociate his life 
from his death, it comes into his death as an integral part of it; for as 
the moment we begin to live we, in a sense, begin to die, so the Man of 
Sorrows lived a dying life, which was all preparatory to his passion. 
He lived to die, panting for the baptism wherewith he was to be 
baptized, and reaching forward to it. But it was especially, though not 
only, by his death upon the cross that Jesus put away our sin. Without 
shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Not even the tears of 
Christ, nor the labours of Christ could have redeemed us if he had not 
given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice. "Die he, or justice 
must," or man must die. It was his bowing the head and giving up of 
the ghost which finished the whole work. "It is finished" could not 
have been uttered except by a bleeding, dying Christ. His death is our 
life. Let us always dwell upon that central truth, and when we are 
preaching Christ risen, Christ reigning, or Christ coming, let us never 
so preach any of them as to overshadow Christ crucified. "We preach 
Christ crucified." Some have put up as their ensign, "We preach Christ 
glorified"; and we also preach the same; but yet to us it seems that the 
first and foremost view of Jesus by the sinner is as the Lamb of God 
which taketh away the sin of the world. Therefore do we preach first 
Christ crucified, while at the same time we do not forget that blessed 
hope of the child of God,--namely, Christ in glory soon to descend 
from heaven.

The next doctrine I see in my text is the acceptance of the death of 
Christ by the Father. "Where is that?" say you. Look! "Whom he 
raised from the dead." Not only did Jesus rise from the dead, but the 
Father had a distinct hand therein. God as God gave the token of his 
acceptance of Christ's sacrifice by raising him from the dead. It is true, 
as we sometimes sing,

                     "If Jesus had not paid the debt,
                    He ne'er had been at freedom set."

The Surety would have been held in prison to this day if he had not 
discharged his suretyship engagements, and wiped out all the 
liabilities of his people Therefore it is written, "He was delivered for 
our offences, and was raised again for our justification." In his 
glorious uprising from the dead lies the assurance that we are 
accepted, accepted in the Beloved: the Beloved being himself certainly 
accepted because God brought him again from the dead.

Further on, we have another doctrine, among many more. We have 
here the doctrine of our Lord's resurrection, of which we spake when 
we mentioned the acceptance of his offering. Christ is risen from the 
dead. I pray you, do not think of the Lord Jesus Christ as though he 
were now dead. It is well to dwell upon Gethsemane, Golgotha, and 
Gabbatha; but pray remember the empty tomb, Emmaus, Galilee, and 
Olivet. It is not well to think of Jesus as for ever on the cross or in the 
tomb. "He is not here, but he is risen." Ye may "come and see the 
place where the Lord lay," but he lies there no longer he hath burst the 
bands of death by which he could not be holden: for it was not possible 
that God's holy One could see corruption. The rising of Jesus from the 
dead is that fact of facts which establishes Christianity upon an 
historical basis, and at the same time guarantees to all believers their 
own resurrection from the dead. He is the firstfruits and we are the 
harvest.

Further, there is here the doctrine of his ascension: "to wait for his 
Son from heaven." It is clear that Jesus is in heaven, or he could not 
come from it. He has gone before us as our Forerunner. He has gone to 
his rest and reward; a cloud received him out of sight; he has entered 
into his glory.

I doubt not our poet is right when he says of the angels--

                 "They brought his chariot from on high,
                        To bear him to his throne;
                Clapped their triumphant wings and cried,
                      'The glorious work is done!'"

That ascension of his brought us the Holy Spirit. He "led captivity 
captive, and received gifts for men," and he gave the Holy Ghost as the 
largess of his joyous entry to his Father's courts, that man on earth 
might share in the joy of the Conqueror returning from the battle. "Lift 
up your heads, 0 ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and 
the King of glory shall come in," was the song of that bright day.

But the text tells us more: not only that he has gone into heaven, but 
that he remains there; for these Thessalonians were expecting him to 
come "from heaven," and therefore he was there. What is he doing? "I 
go to prepare a place for you." What is he doing? He is interceding 
with authority before the throne. What is he doing? He is from yonder 
hill-top looking upon his church, which is as a ship upon the sea 
buffeted by many a storm. In the middle watch ye shall see him 
walking on the waters; for he perceives the straining of the oars, the 
leakage of the timbers, the rending of the sails, the dismay of the pilot, 
the trembling of the crew; and he will come unto us, and save us. He is 
sending heavenly succours to his weary ones; he is ruling all things for 
the salvation of his elect, and the accomplishment of his purposes. 
Glory be to his blessed name!

Jesus is in heaven with saving power, too, and that also is in the text: 
"His Son from heaven, even Jesus, which delivereth us from the wrath 
to come." I alter the translation, for it is a present participle in the 
case of each verb, and should run, "Even Jesus, delivering us from the 
wrath coming." He is at this moment delivering. "Wherefore also he is 
able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing 
he ever liveth to make intercession for them." He is away in heaven, 
but he is not divided from us; he is working here the better because he 
is there. He has not separated himself from the service and the conflict 
here below; but he has taken the post from which he can best observe 
and aid. Like some great commander who in the day of battle 
commands a view of the field, and continues watching, directing, and 
so winning the fight, so is Jesus in the best place for helping us. Jesus 
is the master of legions, bidding his angels fly hither and thither, 
where. their spiritual help is needed. My faith sees him securing 
victory in the midst of the earth. My God, my King, thou art working 
all things gloriously from thy vantage ground, and ere long the groans 
and strifes of battle shall end in Hallelujahs unto the Lord God 
Omnipotent! Christ's residence in the heavens is clearly in the text.

Here is conspicuously set forth the second coming, a subject which 
might well have occupied all our time,--" To wait for his Son from 
heaven." Every chapter of this epistle closes with the Second Advent. 
Do not deceive yourselves, oh ye ungodly men who think little of Jesus 
of Nazareth! The day will come when you will change your minds 
about him. As surely as he died, he lives, and as surely as he lives he 
will come to this earth again! With an innumerable company of 
angels, with blast of trumpet that shall strike dismay into the heart of 
all his enemies, Jesus comes! And when he cometh there shall be a 
time of judgment, and the rising again of the dead, and "Every eye 
shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all the kindreds of 
the earth shall wail because of him." He may come tomorrow! We 
know not the times and the seasons; these things are in the Father's 
keeping; but that he comes is certain, and that he will come as a thief 
in the night to the ungodly is certain too. Lay no flattering unction to 
your souls as though when he was crucified there was an end of him; it 
is but the beginning of his dealings with you, though you reject him. 
"Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his 
wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in 
him."

A further doctrine in the text is that Christ is a deliverer--"Jesus 
delivering us from the wrath coming,." What a blessed name is this! 
Deliverer! Press the cheering title to your breast. He delivereth by 
himself bearing the punishment of sin. He has delivered, he is 
delivering, he always will deliver them that put their trust in him.

But there was something to be delivered from, and that is, the coming 
wrath, which is mentioned here. "Oh," saith one, "that is a long, way 
off, that wrath to come!" If it were a long way off it were wise for you 
to prepare for it. He is unsafe who will be destroyed most certainly, 
however distant that destruction may be. A wise man should not be 
content with looking as an ox doth, as far as his eye can carry him, for 
there is so much beyond, as sure as that which is seen. But it is not far-
off wrath which is here mentioned; the text saith, "who delivereth us 
from the wrath coming"; that is, the wrath which is now coming; for 
wrath is even now upon the unbelieving. As for those Jews who had 
rejected Christ. the apostle says of them in the sixteenth verse of the 
next chapter, "Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might 
be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them 
to the uttermost." The siege of Jerusalem, and the blindness of Israel, 
are a terrible comment upon these words. "Indignation and wrath, 
tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the 
Jew first, and also of the Gentile." It is said of every one that believeth 
not in Christ Jesus, that "the wrath of God abideth on him." "God is 
angry with the wicked every day." This wrath abideth upon some of 
you. It is the joy of believers that they are delivered from this wrath 
which is daily coming upon unbelievers, and would come upon 
themselves if they had not been delivered from it by the atoning 
sacrifice.

There is evidently in the text the doctrine of a great division between 
men and men. "He hath delivered us." All men have not faith, and 
therefore all men are not delivered from wrath. Today there is such a 
division; the "condemned-already" and the "justified" are living side 
by side; but ere long the separation shall be more apparent. While 
some will go away into everlasting punishment, the people of God will 
be found pardoned and absolved, and so will be glorified for ever.

Lastly, there is here the doctrine of assurance. Some say, "How are 
you to know that you are saved?" It can be known; it ought to be 
known. "Surely," cries one, "it is presumption to say that you are 
sure." It is presumption to live without knowing that you are delivered 
from wrath. Here the apostle speaks of it as a thing well known, that 
"Jesus delivers us from the wrath coming." He does not say "if," or 
"perhaps," but he writes that it is so, and therefore he knew it, and we 
may know it. My brother, you may know that you are saved. "That 
would make me inexpressibly happy," cries one. Just so, and that is 
one of the reasons why we would have you know it this day. God saith, 
"He that believeth in him hath everlasting life," and therefore the 
believer may be sure that he has it. Our message is, "He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be 
damned." God make you to escape that dreadful doom! May you be 
delivered from the wrath which is coming for Jesus' sake. Amen.

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The Sum and Substance of all Theology (C. H. Spurgeon, 1834 -1892)

 

John 6:37

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.


What a difference there is between the words of Christ, and those 
of all mere man! Most men speak many words, yet say but little; 
Christ speaks few words, yet says very much. In modern books, 
you may read scores of pages, and scarcely come across a new 
thought; but when Christ speaks, every syllable seems to tell. He 
hits the nail on the head each time He lifts the hammer of His 
Word. The Words of Christ are like ingots of solid gold; we 
preachers too often beat out the gold so thin, that whole acres of 
it would scarcely be worth a farthing. The Words of Christ are 
always to be distinguished from those of His creatures, not only 
for their absolute truthfulness, but also for their profound fulness 
of matter. In all His language He is "full of grace and truth." Look 
at the text before us. Here we have, in two small sentences, the 
sum and substance of all theology. The great questions which 
have divided the Church in all ages, the apparently contradictory 
doctrines which have set one minister of Christ against his fellow, 
are here revealed so simply and plainly, "that he may run that 
readeth" (Habakkuk ii.2). Even a child may understand the 
Words of Christ, though perhaps the loftiest human intellect 
cannot fathom the mystery hidden therein.

Take the first sentence of my text: "All that the Father giveth Me 
shall come to Me." What a weighty sentence! Here we have 
taught us what is called, in the present day, "High Calvinistic 
doctrine"--the purpose of God; the certainty that God's purpose 
will stand; the invincibility of God's will; and the absolute 
assurance that Christ "shall see of the travail of His soul, and 
shall be satisfied."

Look at the second sentence of my text: "And him that cometh to 
me I will in no wise cast out." Here we have the richness, the 
fulness, the unlimited extent of the power of Christ to save those 
who put their trust in Him. Here is a text upon which one might 
preach a thousand sermons. We might take these two sentences 
as a life-long text, and never exhaust the theme.

Mark, too, how our Lord Jesus Christ gives us the whole truth. 
We have many ministers who can preach well upon the first 
sentence: "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me." Just 
set them going upon Election, or everlasting covenant 
engagements, and they will be earnest and eloquent, for they are 
fond of dwelling upon these points, and a well-instructed child of 
God can hear them with delight and profit. Such preachers are 
often the fathers of the Church, and the very pillars thereof; but, 
unfortunately, many of these excellent brethren cannot preach so 
well upon the second sentence of my text: "And him that cometh 
to Me I will in no wise cast out." When they get to that truth, they 
are half afraid of it; they hesitate to preach what they consider to 
be a too open salvation. They cannot give the gospel invitation as 
freely as they find it in the Word of God. They do not deny it, yet 
they stutter and stammer sadly, when they get upon this theme.

Then, on the other hand, we have a large number of good 
ministers who can preach on this second clause of the text, but 
they cannot preach on the first clause. How fluent is their 
language as they tell out the freeness of salvation! Here they are 
much at home in their preaching; but, we are sorry to be 
compelled to say that, very often, they are not much at home 
when they come to doctrinal matters, and they would find it 
rather a difficult matter to preach fluently on the first sentence of 
my text. They would, if they attempted to preach from it, 
endeavour to cut out of it all that savours of Divine Sovereignty. 
They do not preach the whole "truth" which "is in Jesus." 

Why is it that some of us do not see both sides of God's revealed 
truth? We persist in closing one eye; we will not see all that may 
be seen if we open both our eyes; and, sometimes, we get angry 
with a brother because he can see a little more than we do. I think 
our text is very much like a stereoscopic picture, for it presents 
two views of the truth. Both views are correct, for they are both 
photographed by the same light. How can we bring these two 
truths together? We get the stereoscope of the scripture, and 
looking with both eyes, the two pictures melt into one. God has 
given us, in His Word, the two pictures of divine truth; but we 
have not all got the stereoscope properly adjusted to make them 
melt into one. When we get to heaven, we shall see how all God's 
truth harmonizes. If we cannot make these two parts of truth 
harmonize now, at any rate we must not dare to blot out one of 
them, for God has given them both.

Now, as God shall help me this morning, I want to expand both 
sentences of my text with equal fidelity and plainness. I shall not 
expect to please some of you while speaking on the first 
sentence, and I shall not be surprised if I fail to please others of 
you when I come to the second sentence; but, in ether case, it will 
be a small matter to me if I have an easy conscience because I 
have proclaimed what I believe to be the whole truth of God. I 
am sure you will be willing to give a patient hearing to that which 
you may not fully receive, if you believe it to be declared in all 
honesty. Reject what I say, if it be not true, but if it be the Word 
of God, receive it; and, be it known unto you that it is at your 
peril if you dare to reject the truthful Word of the glad tidings of 
God.

I. I will begin with the first sentence of the text: "All that the 
Father giveth Me shall come to Me." We have here, first, THE FIRM 
FOUNDATION UPON WHICH OUR SALVATION RESTS.

It rests, you perceive, not on something which man does, but on 
something which God the Father does. The Father gives certain 
persons to His Son, and the Son says, "All that the Father giveth 
Me Shall come to Me." I take it that the meaning of the text is 
this,--that, if any do come to Jesus Christ, it is those whom the 
Father gave to Christ. And the reason why they come,--if we 
search to the very bottom of things,--is, that the Father puts it into 
their hearts to come. The reason why one man is saved, and 
another man is lost, is to be found in God; not in anything which 
the saved man did, or did not do; not in anything which he felt, or 
did not feel; but in something altogether irrespective of himself, 
even in the sovereign grace of God. In the day of God's power, 
the saved are made willing to give their souls to Jesus. The 
language of Scripture must explain this point. "As many as 
received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of 
God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, 
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
but of God" (John i. 12, 13). "So then it is not of him that willeth, 
nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy" (Romans 
ix. 16). If you want to see the fount of grace, you must go to the 
everlasting God; even as, if you want to know why that river runs 
in this direction, and not in that, you must trace it up to its source. 
In the case of every soul that is now in heaven, it was the will of 
God that drew it thither. In the case of every spirit that is on its 
way to glory now, unto God and unto Him alone must be the 
honour of its salvation; for He it is who makes one "differ from 
another" (1 Cor. iv. 7).

I do not care to argue upon this point, except I put it thus: If any 
say, "It is man himself who makes the difference," I reply, "You 
are involving yourself in a great dilemma; if man himself makes 
the difference, then mark--man himself must have the glory." 
Now, I am certain you do not mean to give man the glory of his 
own salvation; you would not have men throw up their caps in 
heaven, and shout, "Unto ourselves be the glory, for we, 
ourselves, were the hinge and turning point of our own salvation." 
No, you would have all the saved cast their crowns at the feet of 
Jesus, and give to Him alone all the honour and all the glory. 
This, however, cannot be, unless, in that critical point, that 
diamond hinge upon which man's salvation shall turn, God shall 
have the control, and not the will of man. You know that those 
who do not believe this truth as a matter of doctrine, do believe it 
in their hearts as a matter of experience.

I was preaching, not very long ago, at a place in Derbyshire, to a 
congregation, nearly all of whom were Methodists, and as I 
preached, they were crying out, "Hallelujah! Glory! Bless the 
Lord!." They were full of excitement, until I went on to say in my 
sermon, "This brings me to the doctrine of Election." There was 
no crying out of "Glory!" and "Hallelujah!" then. Instead, there 
was a great deal of shaking of the head, and a sort of telegraphing 
round the place, as though something dreadful was coming. Now, 
I thought, I must have their attention again, so I said, "You all 
believe in the doctrine of Election?" "No, we don't, lad," said one. 
"Yes, you do, and I am going to preach it to you, and make you 
cry 'Hallelujah!' over it." I am certain they mistrusted my power 
to do that; so, turning a moment from the subject, I said, "Is there 
any difference between you and the ungodly world?" "Ay! Ay! 
Ay!" "Is there any difference between you and the drunkard, the 
harlot, the blasphemer?" "Ay! Ay! Ay!" Ay! there was a 
difference indeed. "Well, now," I said, "there is a great 
difference; who made it, then?" for, whoever made the difference, 
should have the glory of it. "Did you make the difference?" "No, 
lad," said one; and the rest all seemed to join in the chorus. "Who 
made the difference, then? Why, the Lord did it; and did you 
think it wrong for Him to make a difference between you and 
other men?" "No, no," they quickly said. "Very well, then; if it 
was not wrong for God to make the difference, it was not wrong 
for Him to purpose to make it, and that is the doctrine of 
Election." Then they cried, "Hallelujah!" as I said they would.

The doctrine of Election is God's purposing in His heart that He 
would make some men better than other men; that He would give 
to some men more grace than to other men; that some should 
come out and receive the mercy; that others, left to their own free 
will, should reject it; that some should gladly accept the 
invitations of mercy, while others, of their own accord, 
stubbornly refuse the mercy to which the whole world of mankind 
is invited. All men, by nature, refuse the invitations of the gospel. 
God, in the sovereignty of His grace, makes a difference by 
secretly inclining the hearts of some men, by the power of His 
Holy Spirit, to partake of His everlasting mercy in Christ Jesus. I 
am certain that, whether we are Calvinists or Arminians, if our 
hearts are right with God, we shall all adoringly testify: "We love 
Him, because He first loved us." If that be not Election, I know 
not what it is.

II. Now, in the second place, note THE CERTAINTY OF THE ETERNAL 
SALVATION OF ALL WHO WERE GIVEN TO JESUS; "All that the Father giveth 
Me shall come to Me."

This is eternally settled, and so settled that it cannot be altered by 
either man or devil. All whose names are written in the Book of 
Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, all whom 
God the Father designed to save when He gave up His well-
beloved Son to die upon the cross of Calvary, shall in time be 
drawn by the Holy Spirit, and shall surely come to Christ, and be 
kept by the Spirit, through the precious blood of Christ, and be 
folded for ever with His sheep, on the hill-tops of glory.

Mark! "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me." Not one 
of those whom the Father hath given to Jesus shall perish. If any 
were lost, the text would have to read: "Almost all," or, "All but 
one;" but it positively says "All," without any exception; even 
though one may have been, in his unregenerate state, the very 
chief of sinners. Yet even that chosen one, that given one, shall 
come to Jesus; and when he has come, he shall be held by that 
strong love that at first chose him, and he shall never be let go, 
but shall be held fast, even unto the end. Miss Much-afraid, and 
Mrs. Despondency, and Mr. Feeble-mind, shall as certainly come 
to the arms of Christ, as Mr. Great-heart, and Mr. Faithful, and 
Mr. Valiant-for-Truth. If one jewel were lost from Christ's 
crown, then Christ's crown would not be all-glorious. If one 
member of the body of Christ were to perish, Christ's body would 
not be complete. If one of those who are one with Christ should 
miss his way to eternal live, Christ would not be a perfect Christ.

"All that the Father giveth Me Shall come to Me." "But suppose 
they will not come?" I cannot suppose any such thing, for He 
says they "shall come." They shall be made willing in the day of 
God's power. God knows how to make a passage through the 
heart of man; and though man is a free agent, yet God can incline 
him, willingly, to come to Jesus. There are many sentences even 
in Wesley's hymn-book which contain this truth. If God took 
away freedom from man, and then saved him, it would be but a 
small miracle. For God to leave man free to come to Jesus, and 
yet to so move him as to make him come, is a divinely-wrought 
miracle indeed. If we were for a moment to admit that man's will 
could be more than a match for God's will, do you not see where 
we should be landed? Who made man? God! Who made God? 
Shall we lift up man to the sovereign throne of Deity? Who shall 
be master, and have his way, God or man? The will of God, that 
says they "shall come", knows how to make them come.

"But suppose it should be one of those who are living in the 
interior of Africa, and he does not hear the gospel; what then?" 
He shall hear the gospel; either he shall come to the gospel, or 
the gospel shall go to him. Even if no minister should go to such a 
chosen one, he would have the gospel specially revealed to him 
rather than that the promise of the Almighty God should be 
broken.

"But suppose there should be one of God's chosen who has 
become so bad that there is no hope for him? He never attends a 
place of worship; never listens to the gospel; the voce of the 
preacher never reaches him; he has grown hardened in his sin, 
like steel that has been seven times annealed in the fire; what 
then?" That man shall be arrested by God's grace, and that 
obdurate, hard-hearted one shall be made to see the mercy of 
God; the tears shall stream down his cheeks, and he shall be 
made willing to receive Jesus as Saviour. I think that, as God 
could bend my will, and bring me to Christ, He can bring 
anybody.

                  "Why was I made to hear His voice,
                    And enter while there's room;
                When thousands make a wretched choice,
                        And rather than come?
              "'Twas the same love the spread the feast,
                      That sweetly forced me in;
                  Else I had still refused to taste,
                       And perish'd in my sin."

Yes, "sweetly forced me in;"--there is no other word that can so 
accurately describe my case. Oh, how long Jesus Christ stood at 
the door of my heart, and knocked, and knocked, and knocked in 
vain! I asked: "Why should I leave the pleasures of this world?" 
Yet still He knocked, and there was music in every sound of His 
pleading voice; but I said, "Nay, let Him go elsewhere." And 
though, through the window, I could see His thorn-crowned head, 
and the tears standing in His eyes, and the prints of the nails in 
His hands, as He stood and knocked, and said, "Open to Me," yet 
I heeded Him not. Then He sent my mother to me, and she 
pleaded, "let the Saviour in, Charlie;" and I replied, in action, 
though not in words, "Nay, I love thee, my mother; but I do not 
love Christ, thy Saviour." Then came the black hours of sickness; 
but in effect I said, "Nay, I fear not sickness, nor death itself; I 
will still defy my Maker." But it happened, one day, that He 
graciously put in His hand by the hole of the door, and I moved 
toward Him, and then I opened the door, and cried, "Come in! 
Come in!" Alas! alas! He was gone; and for five long years I 
stood, with tears in mine eyes, and I sought Him weeping, but I 
found Him not. I cried after Him, but He answered me not. I said, 
"Whither is He gone? Oh, that I had never rejected Him? Oh, that 
He would but come again!" Surely the angels must then have 
said, "A great change has come over that youth; he would not let 
Christ in when He knocked, but now he wants Christ to come." 
And when He did come, do you think my soul rejected Him? 
Nay, nay; but I fell down at His feet, crying, "Come in! Come in! 
thou Blessed Saviour. I have waited for Thy salvation, O my 
God!"

There is no living soul beyond the reach of hope, no chosen one 
whom Christ cannot bring up even from the very gates of hell. He 
can bare His arm, put out His hand, and pluck the brand "out of 
the fire" (Zechariah iii.2). In a horrible pit, in the miry clay, His 
jewels have been hidden; but down from the throne of light He 
can come, and thrusting in His arm of mercy, He can pull them 
out, and cause them to glitter in His crown for ever. Let it be 
settled in our hearts, as a matter of fact, that what God has 
purposed to do, He will surely accomplish.

I need not dwell longer upon this point, because I think I have 
really brought out the essence of this first sentence of my text: 
"All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me." Permit me just 
to remark, before I pass on, that I am sometimes sad on account 
of the alarm that some Christians seem to have concerning this 
precious and glorious doctrine. We have, in the Baptist 
denomination,--I am sorry to have to say it,--many ministers, 
excellent brethren, who, while they believe this doctrine, yet 
never preach it. On the other hand, we have some ministers, 
excellent brethren, who never preach anything else. They have a 
kind of barrel-organ that only plays five tunes, and they are 
always repeating them. It is either Election, Predestination, 
Particular Redemption, Effectual Calling, Final Perseverance, or 
something of that kind; it is always the same note. But we have 
also a great many others who never preach concerning these 
doctrines, though they admit they are doctrines taught in Sacred 
Scripture. The reason for their silence is, because they say these 
truths are not suitable to be preached from the pulpit. I hold such 
an utterance as that to be very wicked. Is the doctrine here--in 
this Bible? If it is, as God hath taught it, so are we to teach it. 
"But," they say, "not in a mixed assembly." Where can you find 
an unmixed assembly? God has sent the Bible into a mixed 
world, and the gospel is to be preached in " all the world", and 
"to every creature." "Yes," they say, "preach the gospel, but not 
these special truths of the gospel; because, if you preach these 
doctrines, the people will become Antinomians and Hyper-
Calvinists." Not so; the reason why people become Hyper-
Calvinists and Antinomians, is because some, who profess to be 
Calvinists, often keep back part of the truth, and do not, as Paul 
did, "declare all the counsel of God"; they select certain parts of 
Scripture, where their own particular views are taught, and pass 
by other aspects of God's truth. Such preachers as John Newton, 
and in later times, your own Christmas Evans, were men who 
preached the whole truth of God; they kept back nothing that 
God has revealed; and, as the result of their preaching, 
Antinomianism could not find a foot-hold anywhere. We should 
have each doctrine of Scripture in its proper place, and preach it 
fully; and if we want to have a genuine revival of religion, we 
must preach these doctrines of Jehovah's sovereign grace again 
and again. Do not tell me they will not bring revivals. There was 
but one revival that I have ever heard of, apart from Calvinistic 
doctrine, and that was the one in which Wesley took so great a 
part; but then George Whitefield was there also to preach the 
whole Word of God. When people are getting sleepy, if you want 
to arouse and wake them up thoroughly, preach the doctrine of 
Divine Sovereignty to them; for that will do it right speedily.

III. I shall now turn very briefly to the second sentence of my 
text: "And him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."

"Now," says somebody, "he is going to knock down all that he 
has been building up." Well, I would rather be inconsistent with 
myself than with my Master; but I dare not alter this second 
sentence, and I have no desire to alter it. Let it stand as it is, all 
its glorious simplicity:--

         "HIM THAT COMETH TO ME I WILL IN NO WISE CAST OUT."

Let the whole world come, still this promise is big enough to 
embrace them all in its arms. There is no mistake here, the wrong 
man cannot come. If any sinner come to Christ, he is sure to be 
the right one. Mark, too, as there is no limitation in the person 
coming, so there is no limitation in the manner of the coming. 
Says one, "Suppose I come the wrong way?" You cannot come 
the wrong way; it is written, "No man can come to Me, except 
the Father which hath sent Me draw him." "No man can come 
unto Me, except it were given unto him of My Father" (John 
vi.44,65). If, then, you come to Christ in any way, you are drawn 
of the Father, and He cannot draw the wrong way. If you come to 
Christ at all, the power and will to come have been given you of 
the Father. If you come to Christ, He will in no wise cast you out; 
for no possible or conceivable reason will Jesus ever cast out any 
sinner who comes to Him. There is no reason in hell, or on earth, 
or in heaven, why Jesus should cast out the soul that comes to 
Him. If Satan, the foul accuser of the brethren, brings reasons 
why the coming sinner should not be received, Jesus will "cast 
down" the accuser, but He will not "cast out" the sinner. "Come 
unto Me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give 
your rest," is still His invitation and His promise, too.

Let us suppose a case by the way of illustration. Here is a man in 
Swansea,--ragged, dirty, coal-begrimed,--who has received a 
message from Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria. It 
reads in this wise: "You are hereby commanded to come, just as 
you are, to our palace at Windsor, to receive great and special 
favours at our hand. You will stay away at your peril." The man 
reads the message, and at first scarcely understands it; so he 
thinks, "I must wash and prepare myself." Then, he re-reads the 
royal summons, and the words arrest him: "Come just as your 
are." So he starts, and tells the people in the train where he is 
going, and they laugh at him. At length he arrives at Windsor 
Castle; there he is stopped by the guard, and questioned. He 
explains why he has come, and shows the Queen's message; and 
he is allowed to pass. He next meets with a gentlemen in waiting, 
who, after some explanations and expressions of astonishment, 
allows him to enter the ante-room. When there, our friend 
becomes frightened on account of his begrimed and ragged 
appearance; he is half inclined to rush from the place with fear, 
when he remembers the works of the royal command: "Stay away 
at your peril." Presently, the Queen herself appears, and tells him 
how glad she is that he has come just as he was. She says she 
purposes that he shall be suitably clothed, and be made one of the 
princes of her court. She adds, "I told you to come as you were. It 
seemed to be a strange command to you, but I am glad you have 
obeyed, and so come."

I do think this is what Jesus Christ says to every creature under 
heaven. The gospel invitation runs thus: "Come, come, come to 
Christ, just as you are." "But, let me feel more." No, come just as 
you are. "But let me get home to my own room, and let me pray." 
No, no, come to Christ just as you are. As you are, trust in Jesus, 
and He will save you. Oh, do dare to trust Him! If anybody shall 
ask, "Who are you?" answer, "I am nobody." If anyone objects, 
"You are such a filthy sinner," reply, "Yes,'tis true, so I am; but 
He Himself told me to come." If anyone shall say, "You are not 
fit to come," say, "I know I am not fit; but He told me to come." 
Therefore,--

                "Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched,
                   Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
                   Jesus ready stands to save you,
                   Full of pity join'd with power;
                             He is able,
                    He is willing; doubt no more.
                 "Let not conscience make you linger,
                      Nor fitness fondly dream;
                    All the fitness He requireth,
                     Is to feel you need of Him:
                          This He gives you;
                   'Tis the Spirit's rising beam."

Sinner, trust in Jesus: and if thou dost perish trusting in Jesus, I 
will perish with thee. I will make my bed in hell, side by side 
with thee, sinner, if thou canst perish trusting in Christ, and thou 
shalt lie there, and taunt me to all eternity for having taught thee 
falsely, if we perish. But that can never be; those who trust in 
Jesus shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of His 
hand. Come to Jesus, and He will in no wise cast thee out.

May the Lord bless the words I have spoken! Though hastily 
suggested to my mind, and feebly delivered to you, the Lord bless 
them, for Christ's sake! Amen.
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