The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
As soon as Jesus Christ, being born in the likeness of sinful flesh, has come to years of maturity, and has commenced his real life-work, he at once discloses his friendship for sinners by associating with them. You do not find him standing at a distance, issuing his mandates and his orders to sinners to make themselves better, but you find him coming among them like a good workman who stands over his work; he takes his place where the sin and the iniquity are, and he personally comes to deal with it. He does not write out a prescription and send by another hand his medicines with which to heal the sickness of sin, but he comes right into the lazar-house, touches the wounded, looks at the sick; and there is healing in the touch; there is life in the look. The great Physician took upon himself our sicknesses and bare our infirmities, and so proved himself to be really the sinner’s friend. Some people appear to like to have a philanthropic love towards the fallen, but yet they would not touch them with a pair of tongs. They would lift them up if they could, but it must be by some machinery—some sort of contrivance by which they would not degrade themselves or contaminate their own hands. Not so the Saviour. Up to the very elbow he seems to thrust that gracious arm of his into the mire, to pull up the lost one out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay.
A special providence brings the woman to the well. The conventionalities of society forbid him to talk with her. But he breaks through the narrow bigotry of caste. A Samaritan by birth, he cares not for that; but will that most holy being condescend to have familiar conversation with her—a dishonour to her sex? He will. His disciples may marvel when they come back and find him talking with her, but he will do it. He begins to open up the Word of life to her understanding, and that woman becomes the first Christian missionary we ever hear of, for she ran back to the city, leaving her water-pot, and crying, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” And they came and believed; and there was great joy in that city of Samaria.
As for the river of the Saviour’s love to sinners, I have only brought you to its banks. You have but stood on the bank and dipped your feet in the flood; but now prepare to swim. So fond was he of sinners that he made his grave with the wicked. He was numbered with the transgressors. God’s fiery sword was drawn to smite a world of sinners down to hell. It must fall on those sinners. But Christ loves them. His prayers stay the arm of God a little while, but still the sword must fall in due time. What is to be done? By what means can they be rescued? Swifter than the lightning’s flash I see that sword descending. But what is that in vision I behold? It falls—but where? Not on the neck of sinners; it is not their neck which is broken by its cruel edge; it is not their heart which bleeds beneath its awful force. No; the “friend of sinners” has put himself into the sinner’s place! and then, as if he had been the sinner, though in him was no sin, he suffers, bleeds, and dies—no common suffering—no ordinary bleeding—no death such as mortals know. It was a death in which the second death was comprehended; a bleeding in which the very veins of God were emptied. The God-man divinely suffered. I know not how else to express the suffering. It was a more than mortal agony, for the divine strengthened the human, and the man was made vast and mighty to endure through his being a God. Being God and man he endured more than ten thousand millions of men all put together could have suffered. He endured, indeed, the hells of all for whom he died, the torments, or the equivalent for the torments, which all of them ought to have suffered—the eternal wrath of God condensed and put into a cup, too bitter for mortal tongue to know, and then drained to its utmost dregs by the loving lips of Jesus. Beloved, this was love. “Herein is love, that while we were yet sinners, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” This Christ has done, and he is, therefore demonstrated to be the friend of sinners.
… he will never love you less—he cannot love you more.
If you will select me the grossest specimen of humanity, if he be but born of woman, I will have hope of him yet, because the gospel of Christ is come to sinners, and Jesus Christ is come to seek and to save sinners. Electing love has selected some of the worst to be made the best. Redeeming love has bought, specially bought, many of the worst to be the reward of the Saviour’s passion. Effectual grace calls out and compels to come in many of the vilest of the vile; and it is therefore that I have tried tonight to preach my Master’s love to sinners.
Spurgeon’s grandfather, an “example of how honorable it is to endure to the end… fell asleep in Christ but a few hours” before this sermon was delivered.
“…the one who endures to the end will be saved.”—Matthew 10:22.
Main Points: Perseverance is… 1. …the badge of saints – 16:57 2. …the target of our foes – 32:11 3. …the glory of Christ – 40:24 4. …the care of all believers – 44:27
The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
So have we seen, that earth’s sun may be eclipsed, earth’s stars may go out, and all human glory melt into shame. No true child of God perishes—hold that fast; this is the badge of a true child of God…
Let your prayer be not against death, but against sin.
“Seek with the apostle, to give up everything of your own righteousness, and all other objects and aims in life, and say, “This I seek after, that I may know him.”” ~ C.H.S.
“That I may know him.”—Philippians 3:10.
Main Points: 1. Knowledge from afar – 8:08 2. More knowledge of Christ – 20:11 3. What is this knowledge? – 31:57 4. Make this knowledge your own – 41:27
The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
Priest, altar, victim, everything Christ was. He gathers up all in himself, and when I see that he loved me, and gave himself for me, it is not enough to know this fact: I want to know him, the glorious person who does and is all this. I want to know the man who thus gave himself for me. I want to behold the Lamb once slain for me.
Seek with the apostle, to give up everything of your own righteousness, and all other objects and aims in life, and say, “This I seek after, that I may know him.”
…if I know him I shall have a very vivid sense of his personality. “That I may know him.” He will not be to me a myth, a vision, a spirit, but a person, a real solid person, as much real as I am myself, or as my dearest friend can be to me. My soul, never be satisfied with a shadowy Christ. My heart, be thou never content until he hath embraced thy soul, and proved to thee that he is the lover of his people.
…the more I know of Christ, the more I shall want to know. The deeper I plunge the greater the deeps which will be revealed. The higher I climb the loftier will be the summits which invite my eager footsteps. I shall want the more as I get the more. My spiritual thirst will increase, though in another sense it will be entirely quenched.
I wish I had time to urge and press you, believers, onward to seek to know him. Paul, you see, gave up everything for this—you will be seeking what is worth having. There can be no mistake about this. If Paul will renounce all, there must be a reward which is worthy of the sacrifice.
You complain that you do not feel the guilt of sin; that you cannot humble yourself enough. The sight of Christ is the very best means of setting sin in its true colours. There is no repenting like that which comes from a look of Christ’s eye: the Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and he went out and wept bitterly. So it is not a sight of the law, it is the sight of Christ looking upon us which will break our hearts.
A sight of Christ, brethren, will keep you from despondency, and doubts, and despair. A sight of Christ! How shall I stir you to it? It will fire you to duty; it will deliver you from temptation; it will, in fact, make you like him. A man is known by his company; and if you have become acquainted with Christ, and know him, you will be sure to reflect his light. It is because the moon hath converse with the sun, that she hath any light for this dark world’s night; and if you talk with Christ, the Sun, he will shine on you so gloriously, that you, like the moon, shall reflect his light, and the dark night of this world shall be enlightened by your radiance. The Lord help us to know him.
“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
The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
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.
“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
The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
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.
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.
The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
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!
“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
The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
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.
The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
“He hath said” is food for every grace as well as death for every sin. Here you have nourishment for that which is good, and poison for that which is evil. Search ye, then, the Scriptures, for so shall ye grow healthy, strong, and vigorous in the divine life.
I cannot think why some people are so fond of free-will. I believe free-will is the delight of sinners, but that God’s will is the glory of saints. There is nothing I desire more to get rid of than my own will, and to be absorbed into the will and purpose of my Lord. To do according to the will of Him who is most good, most true, most wise, most mighty, seems to me to be heaven. Let others choose the dignity of independence, I crave the glory of being wholly dead in Christ, and only alive in him.
Beloved friends, there is no reason why he should cast us off. Can you adduce any reason why he should cast you away? Is it your poverty, your nakedness, your peril, the danger of your life? In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that hath loved us. Do you say it is your sins? Then I answer sin can never be a cause why God should cast away his people, for they were full of sin when he at first embraced their persons, and espoused their cause. That would have been a cause why he never should have loved them, but having loved them when they were dead in trespasses and sins, their sin can never be a reason for leaving them.
May God deliver us from the infamous bondage of the doctrine which makes men fear that God may be unfaithful, that Christ may divorce his own spouse, may let the members of his own body perish; that he may die for them and yet not save them. If there be any truth taught us in Scripture, it is that the children of God cannot perish.
“…if any among you delight in God, I conclude, without hesitation, that you are a saved soul. But if any of you, on the other hand, never have any delight in God of any kind, I question whether you ever knew God at all…” – C.H.S.
“Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” —Psalm 37:4.
Main Points: 1. A precept written upon sparkling jewels – 13:05 2. A promise priceless beyond rubies – 36:20
The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
The thought of delight in religion is so strange to most men, that no two words in their language stand farther apart than “holiness” and “delight.” Ah, but believers who know Christ, understand that delight and faith are so blessedly married, that the gates of hell cannot prevail to divorce them. They who love God with all their hearts, find that his ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace. Such joy, such brimful delights, such overflowing bliss, do the saints discover in their Lord, that so far from serving him from custom, they would follow him should all the world cast out his name as evil. We fear not God because of any compulsion, our faith is no fetter, our profession is no prison; we are not dragged to holiness, nor driven to duty. No, sirs, our religion is our recreation, our hope is our happiness, our duty is our delight.
Now, it is true that religion is self-denial; it is equally true that it is not self-denial. Christian men have two selves; there is the old self, and therein they do deny the flesh with its affections and lusts; but there is a new self; there is a new-born spirit, the new man in Christ Jesus; and, brethren, our religion does not consist in any self-denial of that. No, let it have the full swing of its wishes and desires; for all that it can wish for, all that it can pant after, all that it can long to enjoy, it may most safely obtain.
It is hard to delight in God when everything goes well with us. “Oh,” I hear you say, “I cannot understand that; that is the time when I do delight in God most.” Brother, I am afraid it is the time when you delight in God least. “Well, but when my comforts are round about me, when providence smiles upon me, then I can delight in God.” Stop! are you sure of that? Is it not likely that often you are delighting in his mercies rather than in Him? delighting in the creature rather than in the Creator? I fear, brethren, it is our sunshiny days that are the greatest times of temptation.
…it is the daily, constant, hourly duty and business of the true believer to delight himself in the Lord his God.
You have seen sometimes a man with a dog of a breed that does not like the water, and he throws it in; how quickly it gets out again. But there are some of a different breed, that will swim by the hour, and delight in it. So, now, there are some professors who are known to be hypocrites by the fact that their religion is against their will. You have put them into it, and they soon get out again. But the true Christian takes to his religion by grace with ardour and delight. He loves it, he delights therein. This is one of the best tests to discern between a hypocrite and a true Christian. Job says of the hypocrite, “Will he delight himself in God?” No; the hypocrite will pull a long face; the hypocrite will look wretched; the hypocrite will make himself as miserable as ever man can be when the time has come for it; but he never did, and he never can, and he never will delight himself in God as a rule. He may have some joy in the outward means, for even Herod heard John gladly. But that is only a spasm. Only the true believer can have a constant and an abiding satisfaction and delight in the service and love of God. This is an evidence so sure and infallible, that if any among you delight in God, I conclude, without hesitation, that you are a saved soul. But if any of you, on the other hand, never have any delight in God of any kind, I question whether you ever knew God at all, for if you have known him you must in your degree have found delight in him.
If I had my desire of my God this morning, it is not much for me to say I have no earthly thing that I would desire, “for I have all things and abound.” But if the Apostle Paul were here, who had nothing, who was often naked and poor and miserable, I am persuaded if he had his wish, he would say, “I have nothing to wish for, nothing upon earth, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.” But if I must have a wish, brethren, I know what I would wish for. I would wish to be perfect, to be free from every sin, from every imperfection, from all self, from all temptation, from all love of the world, from all care for everything or anything that is contrary to God’s Word. Is not that your wish, you that delight in God?
But I hear another say, “If I might have my desire it would be that I might live nearer to Christ; that I might have constant communion with him till I knew him, and the power of his resurrection, being made conformable unto his death.” Brother, I join you in that desire. I am sure if you had ten kingdoms offered in the one hand and this fellowship with Christ in the other, do not I speak the desire of your heart when I say you would choose to have communion with Christ rather than these kingdoms.
The following are select quotes from this sermon. Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
There never were men so self-sacrificing, so daring, so zealous, so enthusiastic in the cause of Christ, as the men who know that their names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and therefore out of gratitude serve their God.
David knew where to obtain full assurance. He goes at once to God in prayer. He knows that knee-work is that by which faith is increased; and there, in his closet, he crieth out to the Most High, “Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.” O my brethren, we must be much alone with God, if we would have a clear sense of his love!
How can God say to us, “I am thy salvation?” You do not expect to hear it as you walk along the streets; you do not imagine that you will see it written on the skies? No, God speaketh to his people thus: by his Word, by his ministers, and by his Holy Spirit silently and mysteriously imprinting upon the heart the fact, that that heart is washed in the Redeemer’s blood.
Oh, I wish my whole congregation, without exception, consisted of men and women who had heard the Spirit say, “I am thy salvation.” What happy hymns! What happy prayers! You might go home to some poor single room; you might go to a scantily furnished house, and to a table that has barely bread upon it; but happy men! happy men! Better would be your dinner of herbs, than a stalled ox without confidence in Christ; better your rich poverty, than the poverty of the rich who have no faith in Jesus; better all the griefs you have to endure, when sanctified by assurance, than all the joys the worldling has, when unblessed by faith, and unhallowed by love to God.
But there are many of you who never knew that you were saved, because you never cared to know. It has been a matter of concern with you to find out your pedigree; but you never asked, “Is God my Father?” You have made quite sure of the title deeds of your estate; but you never took the trouble to ask whether heaven was yours or no. And possibly, some of you have imbibed a notion that it is a very easy thing to be saved—that there is no need to trouble your heads about it much—that so long as you do your duty, attend your church or frequent your chapel, it is well and good, and there is no use making this fuss about being born again, and having a new heart, and a right spirit. I may never have your ear again, but mark this at the day of judgment, I will be quit or your blood, if you perish in your delusion.
This is the curse and plague of England, that we have so much profession and so little possession—such multitudes of you who are content to sit under a sleepy ministry where ministers will not tell you the truth for fear of hurting your feelings; where they will preach the truth generally, as if a man should waive a sword; but do not come home personally, as if a man should drive it through your very heart What we want is more home dealing, more plain speaking, more thrusting of the hand inside your soul, to make you tremble, and ask yourselves the question whether you be right before God or no.
If some of you should say “I do not know whether I have a cancer or no,” I should say, seek the physician, and enquire if there be a fear; but to say, “I do not know whether I am in the bonds of iniquity and the gall of bitterness or no,” is awful indeed. Why, you make your estates as tight as law can tie them; all the skill of legal language is employed to make the deed secure; and yet you are content to have heaven as a thing of if, and but, and perhaps. Oh! fools indeed! How can ye be so mad? Sure to die. and yet not sure whether you are saved! Sure to appear before the bar of God, and yet not know whether you shall be acquitted or condemned! Oh! if there be wisdom left within you, if your brain be not turned to perfect madness, I conjure you by the living God to make sure work of it, and never be content till you know that you are saved.
O sirs! be not happy till you have made your happiness sure. Oh! have no peace, till your peace is everlasting, substantial peace.
