Category Archives: Metropolitan Tabernacle – Vol 9

544. Lessons from Lydia’s Conversion — Acts 16:13-14

“…it was assuredly a work of grace, for we are expressly told, “whose heart the Lord opened.” She did not open her own heart. Her prayers did not do it; Paul did not do it; the Lord himself must open the heart, to receive the things which make for our peace.” ~ C.H.S.


“And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”—Acts 16:13-14.

Main Points:
1. Lydia’s conversion in itself – 4:13
2. In contrast with another – 22:26
3. In comparison with that other – 32:09
4. As a model of conversions in our day – 36:20

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…it was assuredly a work of grace, for we are expressly told, “whose heart the Lord opened.” She did not open her own heart. Her prayers did not do it; Paul did not do it; the Lord himself must open the heart, to receive the things which make for our peace. To operate savingly upon human hearts belongs to God alone. We can get at human brains, but God alone can arouse human affections. We may reach them, we grant you, in the natural and common way, but so to reach them, as that the enemy of God shall become his friend, and that the stony heart shall be turned into flesh, is the work of grace, and nothing short of divine power can accomplish it.

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” He alone can cut the bands which fasten the heart; he alone can put the key into the hole of the door and open it, and get admittance for himself. He is the heart’s master as he is the heart’s maker, and conversion in every case is the Lord’s work alone.

Brethren, I do not think much of a conversion where it does not touch a man’s substance; and those people who pretend to be Christ’s people, and yet live only for themselves, and do nothing for him or for his Church, give but sorry evidence of having been born again. A love to the people of God has ever been a distinguishing mark of the true convert.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon


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515. The Sinner’s Advocate — 1 John 2:1

“He seems to say to the great Father in the day when the sinner stands arraigned—“Yes, my Father, that sinner was unrighteous, but remember that I was accepted as his substitute; I stood to keep the law for him… I have covered him from head to foot with my doing and my dying; I have so arrayed him that not even the angels are adorned as he is, for though they may be clothed with the perfect righteousness of a creature, I have given him the righteousness of God himself…” ~ C.H.S.


“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”—1 John 2:1.

Main Points:
1. The saint is still a sinner – 6:48 
2. Our sins do not deprive us of Christ – 22:53 
3. The Advocate is provided for sinners – 27:56 
4. Practically remembering this truth – 37:15 

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Is God so good?—then I will not grieve him. Is he so ready to forgive my transgressions?—then I will love him and offend no more. Gratitude hath bands which are stronger than iron, although softer than silk. Think not, sirs, that the Christian needs to be flogged to virtue by the whip of the law! Dream not that we hate sin merely because of the hell which follows it! If there were no heaven for the righteous, the sons of God would follow after goodness, because their regenerated spirit pants for it; and if there were no hell for the wicked, from the necessity of his new-born nature the true Christian would strive to escape from all iniquity. Loved of God, we feel we must love him in return. Richly, yea, divinely forgiven, we feel that we cannot live any longer in sin. Since Jesus died to rid us from all uncleanness, we feel that we cannot crucify our Lord afresh, and put him to an open shame. We need no nobler or more cogent arguments to lead a man to thorough consecration to God’s cause and detestation of all evil than those fetched from the free grace of God.

The Christian no longer loves sin: it is the object of his sternest horror; he no longer regards it as a mere trifle, plays with it, or talks of it with unconcern. He looks upon it as a deadly serpent, whose very shadow is to be avoided. He would no more venture voluntarily to put its cup to his lip than a man would drink poison who had once almost lost his life through it. Sin is dejected in the Christian’s heart, though it is not ejected. Sin may enter the heart, and fight for dominion, but it cannot sit upon the throne.

He chose us when we were sinners; he bought us when we were sinners; he loved us when we were dead in trespasses and sins; and if we are as bad as that to-day, he loves us still. If our right to heaven rested on the covenant of works, that unstable tenure, it would soon fail us; but seeing it rests on the covenant of grace, which has no conditions in it, but which is of pure immutable grace from first to last, therefore be it known unto you, O sons of God, that notwithstanding all your faults and failings, wanderings and backslidings, he is your God and you are his children; he will be your God to all eternity, and you shall be his children world without end.

Notice next, it is “Jesus Christ the righteous.” This is not only his character, but it is his plea. It is his character, and if my advocate be righteous then I am sure he would not take up a bad cause… therefore if I sin, if I be put down among the any men that sin, yet if he pleads for me my case must be good, for he would not take up a bad one. But how can he do this? Why, because he meets the charge of unrighteousness against me by this plea on his part, that he is righteous. He seems to say to the great Father in the day when the sinner stands arraigned—“Yes, my Father, that sinner was unrighteous, but remember that I was accepted as his substitute; I stood to keep the law for him, and gave my active obedience; I went up to the cross and bled, and so gave my passive obedience; I have covered him from head to foot with my doing and my dying; I have so arrayed him that not even the angels are adorned as he is, for though they may be clothed with the perfect righteousness of a creature, I have given him the righteousness of God himself; I am become unto my people the Lord their righteousness; see, I have taken the jewels out of my crown to bedeck them; the garments from my own back to cover them, and the blood from my own veins to make the dye in which I have dipped their garments, till they are purpled with imperial glory.” What can there be asked more for the sinner than this? Jesus Christ the righteous stands up to plead for me, and pleads his righteousness; and mark, he does this not if I do not sin, but if I do sin. There is the beauty of my text. It does not say—“If any man do not sin we have an advocate;” but “if any man sin we have an advocate,” so that when I have sinned, and come creeping up to my closet with a guilty conscience and an aching heart, and feel that I am not worthy to be called God’s son, I have still an advocate, because I am one of the any men that sin. I sin, and I have an advocate. Oh! I know not how to express the joy I feel in my soul to be able to put it so! It is not—“If any man be righteous we have an advocate;” it is not—“If any man be prayerful, and careful, and godly, and walk scripturally, and in the light,” and so on, but “If any man sin we have an advocate.” Oh! my soul, there is the music of God’s heart in those words; music such as the prodigal heard at the festival which welcomed his return. “If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Every day I find it most healthy to my own soul to try and walk as a saint, but in order to do so I must continually come to Christ as a sinner. I would seek to be perfect; I would strain after every virtue, and forsake every false way; but still, as to my standing before God, I find it happiest to sit where I sat when first I looked to Jesus, on the rock of his works, having nothing to do with my own righteousness, but only with his. Depend on it, dear friends, the happiest way of living is to live as a poor sinner and as nothing at all, having Jesus Christ as all in all.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

510. Peace by Believing — Romans 5:1

“To have peace with God, beloved, I cannot tell you what innumerable streams of good shall flow to you from this ocean of pleasure, and these rivers of delight.” – C.H.S.

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”—Romans 5:1.

Main Points:
1. The peace which the believer enjoys – 3:04
2. Words for those who do not have this peace – 37:55 

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God is against thee, O sinful man! God is against thee, O thou who hast never submitted thyself unto his word! God is against thee; and woe unto thee when he shall rend thee in pieces, for none can deliver thee out of his hand! Happy! happy beyond all description is the man who can say with our apostle, “We have peace with God;” but wretched! wretched, again, beyond all description wretched must that man be who is at war with his own Maker, and sees heaven itself in arms against him!

Where then does lie the Christian’s conviction of his peace with God! Well it lies in this—that he is justified by faith. The process is plain. It is as clear, I say, as a proposition in Euclid. Christ stood in my stead before God. I was a sinner doomed to die; Christ took my place; he died for me. Well, then, how can I perish? How can I be punished for offences which have been punished already in the person of my substitute? God demands of me perfectly to keep his law. I cannot do it. Christ has done it for me—kept the law, magnified it, made it honourable. What more can God demand of me? I, a sinner, am washed in Jesu’s blood. I, guilty, am clothed in Jesu’s righteousness. You say “How? I cannot see it is so.” True, it is so by faith. God says that he who believes in Christ shall be saved—I believe in Christ; therefore I am saved. He says, “He that believeth on him is not condemned.” I believe on him; therefore I am not condemned.

Stand to this, that Christ has finished your salvation for you, that he has done everything that omnipotent justice can ask; he has endured all the penalty, drained the cup of wrath, obeyed the law completely, given to divine equity all it can demand, and therefore, believing in his name, standing in his righteousness, accepted in his suretyship, you must have peace with God. This is the basis of the Christian’s peace—one on which he may sleep or wake, live or die, and live eternally, without condemnation or separation from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord.

What fear is there to the man that is of peace with God? Life?—God provides for it. Death?—Christ hath destroyed it. The Grave?—Christ hath rolled away the stone and broken the seal. Affliction, tribulation, famine, peril, or the sword? “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that hath loved us.” To have peace with God, beloved, I cannot tell you what innumerable streams of good shall flow to you from this ocean of pleasure, and these rivers of delight.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon


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503. Death and Life in Christ — Romans 6:8–11

We are free, for Christ was bound; we live, for Jesus died.
~ C.H.S. ~

“Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”—Romans 6:8–11.

Main Points:
1. Gospel facts – 4:02
2. Gospel experience – 25:39
3. Gospel hope – 42:07

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Newton has very properly said that the two pillars of our religion are, the work of Christ for us, and his work in us by the Holy Spirit. If you want to find the apostles, you will surely discover them standing between these two pillars; they are either discoursing upon the effect of the passion in our justification, or its equally delightful consequence in our death to the world and our newness of life. What a rebuke this should be to those in modern times who are ever straining after novelties.

Yes, the blessed Substitute has died. I say if there were a question about this, then we might have to die, but inasmuch as he died for us, the believer shall not die. The debt is discharged to the utmost farthing; the account is cleared; the balance is struck; the scales of justice turn in our favour; God’s sword is sheathed for ever, and the blood of Christ has sealed it in its scabbard. We are free, for Christ was bound; we live, for Jesus died.

…when Jesus died a living way was opened. Sing, O heavens, and rejoice O earth! There is now no wall of partition, for Christ has dashed it down! Christ has taken away the gates of death, posts and bars, and all, and like another Samson carried them upon his shoulders far away.

This body shall rise again. ‘Can these dry bones live?” is the question of the unbeliever. “They must live,” is the answer of faith. Oh! let us expect our end with joy, and our resurrection with transport. Jesus was not detained a prisoner, and therefore no worm can keep us back, no grave, no tomb can destroy our hope. Having risen he lives, and we shall rise to live for ever. Anticipate, my brethren, that happy day. No sin, no sorrow, no care, no decay, no approaching dissolution! He lives for ever in God: so shall you and I; close to the Eternal; swallowed up in his brightness, glorified in his glory, overflowing with his love!

Charles Haddon Spurgeon


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501. Grace abounding — Hosea 14:4

“I will love them freely.”—Hosea 14:4.

Main Points:
1. Nothing in man can attract the love of God – 11:33
2. Nothing in man can be a bar to God’s love – 32:41

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Here we have spontaneous love flowing forth to those who neither deserved it, purchased it, nor sought after it.

when God says, “I will love them freely,” he means that no prayers, no tears, no good works, no almsgivings are an inducement to him to love men; nay, that not only nothing in themselves, but nothing anywhere else was the cause of his love to them; not even the blood of Christ; not even the groans and tears of his beloved Son. These are the fruits of his love, not the cause of it. He does not love because Christ died, but Christ died because the Father loved.

If you were the most unworthy of all created beings, if you had aggravated your sin till you had become the foulest and most vile of all sinners, yet “I will love them freely,” puts the worst on an equality with the best, sets you that are the devil’s cast-aways, on a par with the most hopeful. There is no reason for God’s love in any man; if there is none in you, you are not worse off than the best of men, for there is none in them; the grace and love of God can come as freely to you as they can to those that have long been seeking them

Paul says he was the chief of sinners, and he meant it; he spoke by inspiration, and there is no doubt he was. Now if the biggest of sinners has passed through the strait gate, there must be room for the next biggest; if the greatest sinner in the world has been saved, then there is a possibility for you and for me, for we cannot be such great sinners as the very chief of sinners. But I will dare to say that even if we were, even if we could exceed Paul, yet even that could be no barrier; for man’s sin, to say the most of it, is but the act of a finite creature, but God’s grace is the act of infinite goodness.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon


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497. The Procession of Sorrow — John 19:16

“And they took Jesus, and led him away.”—John 19:16.

Beloved, can you say he carried your sin? As you look at the cross upon his shoulders does it represent your sin? Oh! raise the question, and be not satisfied unless you can answer it most positively in the affirmative. – C.H.S.

Main Points:
1. Christ as led forth – 5:29
2. Christ carrying his Cross – 20:14
3. Christ and his mourners – 31:16
4. Christ’s fellow-sufferers – 37:37
5. Christ’s warning question – 40:01


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Oh! I pray you, lend your ears to such faint words as I can utter on a subject all too high for me, the march of the world’s Maker along the way of his great sorrow; your Redeemer traversing the rugged path of suffering, along which he went with heaving heart and heavy footsteps, that he might pave a royal road of mercy for his enemies.

What learn we here as we see Christ led forth? Do we not see here the truth of that which was set forth in shadow by the scape-goat? Did not the high-priest bring the scape-goat, and put both his hands upon its head, confessing the sins of the people, that thus those sins might be laid upon the goat? Then the goat was led away by a fit man into the wilderness, and it carried away the sins of the people, so that if they were sought for, they could not be found. Now we see Jesus brought before the priests and rulers, who pronounce him guilty; God himself imputes our sins to him; he was made sin for us; and, as the substitute for our guilt, bearing our sin upon his shoulders—for that cross was a sort of representation in wood of our guilt and doom—we see the great Scape-goat led away by the appointed officers of justice. Bearing upon his back the sin of all his people, the offering goes without the camp. Beloved, can you say he carried your sin? As you look at the cross upon his shoulders does it represent your sin? Oh! raise the question, and be not satisfied unless you can answer it most positively in the affirmative. There is one way by which you can tell whether he carried your sin or not. Hast thou laid thy hand upon his head, confessed thy sin, and trusted in him? Then thy sin lies not on thee; not one single ounce or drachma of it lies on thee; it has all been transferred by blessed imputation to Christ, and he bears it on his shoulder in the form of yonder heavy cross. What joy, what satisfaction this will give if we can sing—
“My soul looks back to see
The burden thou didst bear,
When hastening to the accursed tree,
And knows her guilt was there!”
Do not let the picture vanish till you have satisfied yourselves once for all that Christ was here the substitute for you.

Christ did but transfer to Simon the outward frame, the mere tree; but the curse of the tree, which was our sin and its punishment, rested on Jesus’ shoulders still. Dear friend, if you think that you suffer all that a Christian can suffer; if all God’s billows roll over you, yet, remember, there is not one drop of wrath in all your sea of sorrow. Jesus took the wrath; Jesus carried the sin; and now all that you endure is but for his sake, that you may be conformed unto his image, and may aid in gathering his people into his family.

…when we look at the sufferings of Christ, we ought to sorrow deeply for the souls of all unregenerate men and women. Remember, dear friends, that what Christ suffered for us, these unregenerate ones must suffer for themselves, except they put their trust in Christ. The woes which broke the Saviour’s heart must crush theirs. Either Christ must die for me, or else I must die for myself the second death; if he did not carry the curse for me, then on me must it rest for ever and ever.

No sufferings of ours have anything to do with the atonement of sin. No blood but that which He has spilt, no groans but those which came from His heart, no suffering but that which was endured by Him, can ever make a recompense for sin. Shake off the thought, any of you who suppose that God will have pity on you because you have endured affliction. You must consider Jesus, and not yourself; turn your eye to Christ, the great substitute for sinners, but never dream of trusting in yourselves.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon


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