THE GREATEST MOTIVE TO REPENTANCE

by Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

“They shall look upon me whom they have pierced”—Zechariah 12:10

HE HOLY TENDERNESS THAT MAKES MEN MOURN FOR SIN ARISES OUT OF A DIVINE OPERATION. It is not in fallen man to renew his own heart. Can the adamant60 turn itself to wax or the granite soften itself to clay? Only He that stretcheth out the heav-ens and layeth the foundation of the earth can form and reform the spirit of man within him. The power to make the rock of our nature flow with rivers of repentance is not in the rock itself. The power lies in the omnipotent Spirit of God…When He deals with the human mind by His secret and mysterious operations, He fills it with new life, perception, and emotion. “God maketh my heart soft,” said Job (Job 23:16a); and in the best sense, this is true. The Holy Spirit makes us like wax, and we become impressible to His sacred seal…But now I come to the core and center of our subject—

TENDERNESS OF HEART AND MOURNING FOR SIN IS ACTUALLY WROUGHT BY A FAITH-LOOK AT THE PIERCED SON OF GOD. True sorrow for sin comes not without the Spirit of God. But even the Spirit of God Himself does not work it except by leading us to look to Jesus the crucified. There is no true mourning for sin until the eye has seen Christ…O soul, when thou comest to look where all eyes should look, even to Him Who was pierced, then thine eye begins to weep for that for which all eyes should weep—the sin that slew thy Savior! There is no saving repentance except within sight of the cross… Evangelical repentance is acceptable repentance and that only. The essence of evangelical repentance is that it looks to Him Whom it pierced by its sin…Mark you, wherever the Holy Spirit does really come, it always leads the soul to look to Christ. Never yet did a man receive the Spirit of God unto salvation, unless he received it to the bringing of him to look to Christ and mourn for sin.

Faith and repentance are born together, live together, and thrive together. Let no man put asunder what God hath joined together! No man can repent of sin without believing in Jesus nor believe in Jesus without repenting of sin. Look then lovingly to Him that bled upon the cross for thee, for in that look thou shalt find pardon and receive soft-ening. How wonderful that all our evils should be remedied by that one sole prescription, “Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isa 45:22). Yet none will look until the Spirit of God inclines them so to do. He works on none to their salvation unless they yield to His influences and turn their eyes to Jesus…

The look that blesses us so as to produce tenderness of heart is a look to Jesus as the pierced One. On this, I want to dwell for a season. It is not looking to Jesus as God only that affects the heart, but looking to this same Lord and God as crucified for us. We see the Lord pierced, and then the piercing of our own heart begins. When the Lord reveals Jesus to us, we begin to have our sins revealed…

Come, dear souls, let us go together to the cross for a little while and note who it was that there received the spear thrust of the Roman soldier. Look at His side, and mark that fearful gash that has broached His heart and set the double flood in motion. The centurion said, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Mat 27:54). He, Who by nature is God over all, “without [whom] was not any thing made that was made” (Joh 1:3), took upon Himself our nature and became a man like ourselves, save that He was without taint of sin. Being found in fashion as a man, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. It is He that died! He, Who only hath immortality, condescended to die! He was all glory and power, yet He died! He was all tenderness and grace, yet He died! Infinite goodness was hanged upon a tree! Boundless bounty was pierced with a spear! This tragedy exceeds all others! However dark man’s ingratitude may seem in other cases, it is blackest here! However horrible his spite against virtue, that spite is cruelest here! Here hell has outdone all its former villainies, crying, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him” (Mat 21:38).

God dwelt among us, and man would have none of Him. So far as man could pierce his God and slay his God, he went about to commit the hideous crime. Man slew the Lord Christ and pierced Him with a spear! [In this, he] showed what he would do with the Eternal Himself, if he could come at Him. Man is, at heart, a deicide. He would be glad if there were no God. He says in his heart, “No God” (Psa 14:1). If his hand could go as far as his heart, God would not exist another hour. This it is which invests the piercing of our Lord with such intensity of sin: it meant the piercing of God.

But why? Why and wherefore is the good God thus persecuted? By the lovingkindness of the Lord Jesus, by the glory of His person, and by the perfection of His character, I beseech you—be amazed and ashamed that He should be pierced! This is no common death! This murder is no ordinary crime. O man, He that was pierced with the spear was thy God! On the cross, behold thy Maker, thy Benefactor, thy best Friend!

Look steadily at the pierced One, and note the suffering that is covered by the word pierced. Our Lord suffered greatly and grievously. I cannot in one discourse rehearse the story of His sorrows—the griefs of His life of poverty and persecution; the griefs of Gethsemane and the bloody sweat; the griefs of His desertion, denial, and betrayal; the griefs of Pilate’s hall; the scourging, the spitting, and the mockery; the griefs of the cross with its dishonor and agony…Our Lord was made a curse for us. The penalty for sin, or that which was equivalent thereto, He endured: “His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1Pe 2:24). “The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa 53:5).

Brethren, the sufferings of Jesus ought to melt our hearts! I mourn this morning that I do not mourn as I should. I accuse myself of that hardness of heart that I condemn, since I can tell you this story without breaking down. My Lord’s griefs are untellable. Behold and see if there was ever sorrow like unto His sorrow! Here we lean over a dread abyss and look down into fathomless gulfs…If you will steadfastly consider Jesus pierced for our sins and all that is meant thereby, your hearts must relent. Sooner or later, the cross will bring out all the feeling of which you are capable and give you capacity for more. When the Holy Spirit puts the cross into the heart, the heart is dissolved in tenderness…The hardness of the heart dies when we see Jesus die in woe so great.

It behooves us further to note who it was that pierced Him: “They shall look on me whom they have pierced.” The “they,” in each case, relates to the same persons. We slew the Savior, even we, who look to Him and live…In the Savior’s case, sin was the cause of His death. Transgression pierced Him. But whose transgression? Whose? It was not His own, for He knew no sin, neither was guile found in His lips. Pilate said, “I find no fault in this man” (Luk 23:4). Brethren, the Messiah was cut off, but not for Himself. Our sins slew the Savior. He suffered because there was no other way of vindicating the justice of God and allowing us to escape. The sword, which else had smitten us, was awakened against the Lord’s Shepherd, against the Man that was Jehovah’s Fellow (Zec 13:7)…If this does not break and melt our hearts, let us note why He came into a position in which He could be pierced by our sins. It was love, mighty love, nothing else but love that led Him to the cross. No other charge can ever be laid at His door but this: He was “found guilty of excess of love.”64 He put Himself in the way of piercing because He was resolved to save us…Shall we hear of this, think of this, consider this, and remain unmoved? Are we worse than brutes? Has all that is human quitted our humanity? If God the Holy Ghost is now at work, a sight of Christ will surely melt our heart of stone…

Let me also say to you, beloved, that the more you look at Jesus crucified, the more you will mourn for sin. Growing thought will bring growing tenderness. I would have you look much at the pierced One, that you may hate sin much. Books that set forth the passion of our Lord and hymns that sing of His cross have ever been most dear to saintly minds because of their holy influence upon the heart and conscience. Live at Calvary, beloved, for there you will live at your best. Live at Calvary, and love at Calvary, until live and love become the same thing. I would say, look to the pierced One until your own heart is pierced. An old divine saith, “Look at the cross until all that is on the cross is in your heart.” He further says, “Look at Jesus until He looks at you.” Steadily view His suffering person until He seems to turn His head and look at you, as He did at Peter when he went out and wept bitterly. See Jesus until you see yourself: mourn for Him until you mourn for your sin…He suffered in the room, place, and stead of guilty men. This is the Gospel. Whatever others may preach, “We preach Christ crucified” (1Co 1:23). We will ever bear the cross in the forefront. The substitution of Christ for the sinner is the essence of the Gospel. We do not keep back the doctrine of the Second Advent; but, first and foremost, we preach the pierced One—this it is that shall lead to evangelical repentance, when the Spirit of grace is poured out.

From a sermon delivered on Lord’s Day morning, September 18, 1887, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

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Salvation Is of the Lord

C.H. Spurgeon

...And if GOD does require the sinner—dead in sin—that he should take the first step, then he requireth just that which renders salvation as impossible under the gospel as ever it was under the law, seeing man is as unable to believe as he is to obey, and is just as much without power to come to Christ as he is without power to go to heaven without Christ. The power must be given to him of the Spirit. He lieth dead in sin; the Spirit must quicken him. He is bound hand and foot, fettered by transgression; the Spirit must cut his bonds, and then he will leap to liberty. GOD must come and dash the iron bars out of their sockets, and then he can escape afterwards, but unless the first thing be done for him, he must perish as surely under the gospel as he would have done under the law.

I would cease to preach, if I believed that God, in the matter of salvation, required anything whatever of man which He Himself had not also engaged to furnish...I am the messenger, I tell you the master’s message; if you do not like the message quarrel with the Bible, not with me; so long as I have Scripture on my side I will dare and defy you to do anything against me. “Salvation is of the Lord.” The Lord has to apply it, to make the unwilling willing, to make the ungodly godly, and bring the vile rebel to the feet of Jesus, or else salvation will never be accomplished. Leave that one thing undone, and you have broken the link of the chain, the very link which was just necessary to its integrity. Take away the fact that God begins the good work, and that He sends us what the old divines call preventing grace—take that away, and you have spoilt the whole of salvation; you have just taken the key-stone out of the arch, and down it tumbles. There is nothing left then.

...And if GOD does require the sinner—dead in sin—that he should take the first step, then he requireth just that which renders salvation as impossible under the gospel as ever it was under the law, seeing man is as unable to believe as he is to obey, and is just as much without power to come to Christ as he is without power to go to heaven without Christ. The power must be given to him of the Spirit. He lieth dead in sin; the Spirit must quicken him. He is bound hand and foot, fettered by transgression; the Spirit must cut his bonds, and then he will leap to liberty. GOD must come and dash the iron bars out of their sockets, and then he can escape afterwards, but unless the first thing be done for him, he must perish as surely under the gospel as he would have done under the law.

I would cease to preach, if I believed that God, in the matter of salvation, required anything whatever of man which He Himself had not also engaged to furnish...I am the messenger, I tell you the master’s message; if you do not like the message quarrel with the Bible, not with me; so long as I have Scripture on my side I will dare and defy you to do anything against me. “Salvation is of the Lord.” The Lord has to apply it, to make the unwilling willing, to make the ungodly godly, and bring the vile rebel to the feet of Jesus, or else salvation will never be accomplished. Leave that one thing undone, and you have broken the link of the chain, the very link which was just necessary to its integrity. Take away the fact that God begins the good work, and that He sends us what the old divines call preventing grace—take that away, and you have spoilt the whole of salvation; you have just taken the key-stone out of the arch, and down it tumbles. There is nothing left then.

...And if GOD does require the sinner—dead in sin—that he should take the first step, then he requireth just that which renders salvation as impossible under the gospel as ever it was under the law, seeing man is as unable to believe as he is to obey, and is just as much without power to come to Christ as he is without power to go to heaven without Christ. The power must be given to him of the Spirit. He lieth dead in sin; the Spirit must quicken him. He is bound hand and foot, fettered by transgression; the Spirit must cut his bonds, and then he will leap to liberty. GOD must come and dash the iron bars out of their sockets, and then he can escape afterwards, but unless the first thing be done for him, he must perish as surely under the gospel as he would have done under the law.

I would cease to preach, if I believed that God, in the matter of salvation, required anything whatever of man which He Himself had not also engaged to furnish...I am the messenger, I tell you the master’s message; if you do not like the message quarrel with the Bible, not with me; so long as I have Scripture on my side I will dare and defy you to do anything against me. “Salvation is of the Lord.” The Lord has to apply it, to make the unwilling willing, to make the ungodly godly, and bring the vile rebel to the feet of Jesus, or else salvation will never be accomplished. Leave that one thing undone, and you have broken the link of the chain, the very link which was just necessary to its integrity. Take away the fact that God begins the good work, and that He sends us what the old divines call preventing grace—take that away, and you have spoilt the whole of salvation; you have just taken the key-stone out of the arch, and down it tumbles. There is nothing left then.

For Whom Did Christ Die?
(From Dr. JOHN OWEN, Chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and Vice Chancellor of Oxford University.)

The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:

1. All the sins of all men.
2. All the sins of some men, or
3. Some of the sins of all men.

In which case it may be said:

a. That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so none are saved.
b. That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and this is the truth.
c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins?

You answer, Because of unbelief. I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died? If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!

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A JUST GOD

C.H. SPURGEON

WHEN I was under conviction of sin I had a deep and sharp sense of the justice of God. Sin, whatever it might be to other people, became to me an intolerable burden. It was not so much that I feared the wrath to come, but that I feared sin. I knew myself to be so horribly guilty that I remember feeling that if God did not punish me for sin, He ought to do so. I felt that the judge of all the earth ought to condemn such sin as mine. I sat on the judgment seat and I condemned myself to perish, for I confessed that, had I been God, I could have done no other than send such a guilty creature as I was down to the lowest hell. All the while, I had upon my mind a deep concern for the honor of God's name and the integrity of His moral government. I felt that it would not satisfy my conscience if it could be forgiven unjustly. The sin that I had committed must be punished. But then there was the question how God could be just and yet justify me who had been so guilty. I asked my heart, “How can He be just and yet the Justifier?” (Rom 3:26). I was worried and wearied with this question; neither could I see any answer to it. Certainly I could never have invented an answer which would have satisfied my conscience.

The doctrine of the atonement is to my mind one of the surest proofs of the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. Who would or could have thought of the just Ruler dying for the unjust rebel? This is no teaching of human mythology or dream of poetical imagination. This method of expiation is only known among men because it is a fact. Fiction could not have devised it. God Himself ordained it. It is not a matter which could have been imagined.

I had heard the plan of salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus from my youth up, but I did not know any more about it in my innermost soul than if I had been born a Hottentot. It came to me as a new revelation, as fresh as if I had never read the scriptures, that Jesus was declared to be “the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2), that God might be just.

When I was anxious about the possibility of a just God pardoning me, I understood and saw by faith that He who is the Son of God became man and, in His own blessed person, bore my sin in His own body on the tree. I saw the chastisement of my peace was laid upon Him, and with His stripes I was healed (Isa 53:5). Have you ever seen that? Have you ever understood how God can be just to the full, not remitting penalty nor blunting the edge of the sword, and yet can be infinitely merciful and can justify the ungodly who turn to Him? It was because the Son of God, supremely glorious in His matchless person, undertook to vindicate the law, by bearing the sentence due me, that therefore God is able to pass by my sin. The law of God was more vindicated by the death of Christ than it would have been had all transgressions been punished forever. For the Son of God to suffer for sin was a more glorious establishment of the government of God than for the whole race to suffer.

“Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf!” Behold the wonder! There He hangs upon the cross! This is the greatest sight you will ever see: Son of God and Son of man! There He hangs, bearing pains unutterable—the Just for the unjust—that He might bring us to God. Oh, the glory of that sight! The Innocent suffering! The Holy One condemned! The Ever-blessed made a curse! The Infinitely Glorious put to a shameful death! The more I look at the sufferings of the Son of God, the more sure I am that they must meet my case. Why did He suffer, if not to turn aside the penalty from us? If, then, He turned it aside by His death, it is turned aside, and those who believe in Him need not fear it. It must be so, that since expiation is made, God is able to forgive without shaking the basis of His throne or in the least degree blotting out the statute book. Conscience gets a full answer to her tremendous question. The wrath of God against iniquity, whatever that may be, must be beyond all conception terrible. Well did Moses say, “Who knoweth the power of thine anger!” (Psalm 90:11). Yet, when we hear the Lord of Glory cry, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1) and see Him yielding up the ghost, we feel that the justice of God has received abundant vindication by obedience so perfect and death so terrible, rendered by so divine a Person. If God Himself bows before His own law, what more can be done? There is more in the atonement by way of merit than there is in all human sin by way of demerit. The great gulf of Jesus' loving self sacrifice can swallow up the mountains of our sin, all of them. For the sake of the infinite good of this one representative Man, the Lord may well look with favor upon other men, however unworthy they may be in and of themselves. It was a miracle of miracles that the Lord Jesus Christ should stand in our stead and “bear, that we might never bear, His Fathers righteous Ire.” But He has done so. “It is finished” (John 19:30). God will save the sinner because He did not spare His Son. God can pass by your transgressions because He laid those transgressions upon His only begotten Son.

What is it to believe in Him? It is not merely to say, “He is God and the Saviour,” but to trust Him wholly and entirely, and take Him for all your salvation from this time forth and forever—your Lord, your Master, your All. If you will have the Lord Jesus, He has you already. If you believe on Him, I tell you, you cannot go to hell, for that were to make the perfect sacrifice of Christ to none effect. If the Lord Jesus Christ died in my stead, why should I die also? Every believer by faith has laid his hands on the Sacrifice, and made it his own, and therefore may rest assured that he can never perish. The Lord would not receive this offering on our behalf and then condemn us to die. The Lord cannot read our pardon written in the blood of His own Son and then smite us. That were impossible. Oh, that you may have grace given you at once to look away to Jesus, Who is the fountainhead of mercy to guilty man! Will you come into this lifeboat just as you are? Here is safety from the wreck. Accept the sure deliverance. Leap for it just as you are, and leap now!

I will tell you this thing about myself to encourage you. My sole hope for heaven lies in the full atonement made upon Calvary's cross for the ungodly. On that I firmly rely. I have not a shadow of hope anywhere else. You are in the same condition as I am, for we, neither of us, have anything of our own worth thinking of as a ground of trust. Let us join hands and stand together at the foot of the cross and trust our souls once for all to Him who shed His blood for the guilty. We will be saved by the one and the same Saviour. If you perish trusting Him, I must perish too. What can I do more to prove my own confidence in the Gospel which is set before you?
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BELOVED, YET AFFLICTED

C. H. SPURGEON

“Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.” —John 11:3.

THAT disciple whom Jesus loved is not at all backward to record that Jesus loved Lazarus too: there are no jealousies among those who are chosen by the Well-beloved. Jesus loved Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus: it is a happy thing where a whole family live in the love of Jesus. They were a favoured trio, and yet, as the serpent came into Paradise, so did sorrow enter their quiet household at Bethany. Lazarus was sick. They all felt that if Jesus were there disease would flee at his presence; what then should they do but let him know of their trial? Lazarus was near to death's door, and so his tender sisters at once reported the fact to Jesus, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.” Many a time since then has that same message been sent to our Lord, for in full many a case he has chosen his people in the furnace of affliction. Of the Master it is said, “himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses,” and it is, therefore, no extraordinary thing for the members to be in this matter conformed to their Head.

I. Notice, first, A FACT mentioned in the text: “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.” The sisters were somewhat astonished that it should be so, for the word “behold” implies a measure of surprise. “ We love him, and would make him well directly: thou lovest him, and yet he remains sick. Thou canst heal him with a word, why then is thy loved one sick”? Have not you, dear sick friend, often wondered how your painful or lingering disease could be consistent with your being chosen, and called, and made one with Christ? I dare say this has greatly perplexed you, and yet in very truth it is by no means strange, but a thing to be expected.

We need not be astonished that the man whom the Lord loves is sick, for he is only a man. The love of Jesus does not separate us from the common necessities and infirmities of human life. Men of God are still men. The covenant of grace is not a charter of exemption from consumption, or rheumatism, or asthma. The bodily ills, which come upon us because of our flesh, will attend us to the tomb, for Paul saith, “we that are in this body do groan.”

Those whom the Lord loves are the more likely to be sick, since they are under a peculiar discipline. It is written, “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” Affliction of some sort is one of the marks of the true-born child of God, and it frequently happens that the trial takes the form of illness. Shall we therefore wonder that we have to take our turn in the sick chamber? If Job, and David, and Hezekiah must each one smart, who are we that we should be amazed because we are in ill-health?

Nor is it remarkable that we are sick if we reflect upon the great benefit which often flows from it to ourselves. I do not know what peculiar improvement may have been wrought in Lazarus, but many a disciple of Jesus would have been of small use if he had not been afflicted. Strong men are apt to be harsh, imperious, and unsympathetic, and therefore they need to be put into the furnace, and melted down. I have known Christian women who would never have been so gentle, tender, wise, experienced, and holy if they had not been mellowed by physical pain. There are fruits in God's garden as well as in man's which never ripen till they are bruised. Young women who are apt to be volatile, conceited, or talkative, are often trained to be full of sweetness and light by sickness after sickness, by which they are taught to sit at Jesus' feet. Many have been able to say with the psalmist, “It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.” For this reason even such as are highly favoured and blessed among women may feel a sword piercing through their hearts.

Oftentimes this sickness of the Lord's loved ones is for the good of others. Lazarus was permitted to be sick and to die, that by his death and resurrection the apostles might be benefitted. His sickness was “for the glory of God.” Throughout these nineteen hundred years which have succeeded Lazarus' sickness all believers have been getting good out of it, and this afternoon we are all the better because he languished and died. The church and the world may derive immense advantage through the sorrows of good men: the careless may be awakened, the doubting may be convinced, the ungodly may be converted, the mourner may be comforted through our testimony in sickness; and if so, would we wish to avoid pain and weakness? Are we not quite willing that our friends should say of us also “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick”?

II. Our text, however, not only records a fact, but mentions A REPORT of that fact: the sisters sent and told Jesus. Let us keep up a constant correspondence with our Lord about everything.

“Sing a hymn to Jesus, when thy heart is faint; Tell it all to Jesus, comfort or complaint.”

Jesus knows all about us, but it is a great relief to pour out our hearts before him. When John the Baptist's brokenhearted disciples saw their leader beheaded, “they took up the body, and went and told Jesus.” They could not have done better. In all trouble send a message to Jesus, and do not keep your misery to yourself. In his case there is no need of reserve, there is no fear of his treating you with cold pride, or heartless indifference, or cruel treachery. He is a confident who never can betray us, a friend who never will refuse us.

There is this fair hope about telling Jesus, that he is sure to support us under it. If you go to Jesus, and ask, “Most gracious Lord, why am I sick? I thought I was useful while in health, and now I can do nothing; why is this”? He may be pleased to show you why, or, if not, he will make you willing to bear his will with patience without knowing why. He can bring his truth to your mind to cheer you, or strengthen your heart by his presence, or send you unexpected comforts, and give you to glory in your afflictions. “Ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us.” Not in vain did Mary and Martha send to tell Jesus, and not in vain do any seek his face.

Remember, too, that Jesus may give healing. It would not be wise to live by a supposed faith, and cast off the physician and his medicines, any more than to discharge the butcher, and the tailor, and expect to be fed and clothed by faith; but this would be far better than forgetting the Lord altogether, and trusting to man only. Healing for both body and soul must be sought from God. We make use of medicines, but these can do nothing apart from the Lord, “who healeth all our diseases.” We may tell Jesus about our aches and pains, and gradual declining, and hacking coughs. Some persons are afraid to go to God about their health: they pray for the pardon of sin, but dare not ask the Lord to remove a headache: and, yet, surely, if the hairs outside our head are all numbered by God it is not much more of a condescension for him to relieve throbs and pressures inside the head. Our big things must be very little to the great God, and our little things cannot be much less. It is a proof of the greatness of the mind of God that while ruling the heavens and the earth, he is not so absorbed by these great concerns as to be forgetful of the least pain or want of any one of his poor children. We may go to him about our failing breath, for he first gave us lungs and life. We may tell him about the eye which grows dim, and the ear which loses hearing, for he made them both. We may mention the swollen knee, and the gathering finger, the stiff neck, and the sprained foot, for he made all these our members, redeemed them all, and will raise them all from the grave. Go at once, and say, “Lord, behold he whom thou lovest is sick.”

III. Thirdly, let us notice in the case of Lazarus A RESULT which we should not have expected. No doubt when Mary and Martha sent to tell Jesus they looked to see Lazarus recover as soon as the messenger reached the Master; but they were not gratified. For two days the Lord remained in the same place, and not till he knew that Lazarus was dead did he speak of going to Judea. This teaches us that Jesus may be informed of our trouble, and yet may act as if he were indifferent to it. We must not expect in every case that prayer for recovery will be answered, for if so, nobody would die who had chick or child, friend or acquaintance to pray for him. In our prayers for the lives of beloved children of God we must not forget that there is one prayer which may be crossing ours, for Jesus prays, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.” We pray that they may remain with us, but when we recognize that Jesus wants them above, what can we do but admit his larger claim and say, “Not as I will, but as thou wilt”? In our own case, we may pray the Lord to raise us up, and yet though he loves us he may permit us to grow worse and worse, and at last to die. Hezekiah had fifteen years added to his life, but we may not gain the reprieve of a single day. Never set such store by the life of any one dear to you, or even by your own life, as to be rebellious against the Lord. If you hold the life of any dear one with too tight a hand, you are making a rod for your own back; and if you love your own earthly life too well, you are making a thorny pillow for your dying bed. Children are often idols, and in such cases their too ardent lovers are idolaters. We might as well make a god of clay, and worship it, as the Hindus are said to do, as worship our fellow-creatures, for what are they but clay? Shall dust be so dear to us that we quarrel with our God about it? If our Lord leaves us to suffer, let us not repine. He must do that for us which is kindest and best, for he loves us better than we love ourselves.

Did I hear you say, “Yes, Jesus allowed Lazarus to die, but he raised him up again” ? I answer, he is the resurrection and the life to us also. Be comforted concerning the departed, “Thy brother shall rise again,” and all of us whose hope is in Jesus shall partake in our Lord's resurrection. Not only shall our souls live, but our bodies, too, shall be raised incorruptible. The grave will serve as a refining pot, and this vile body shall come forth vile no longer. Some Christians are greatly cheered by the thought of living till the Lord comes, and so escaping death. I confess that I think this no great gain, for so far from having any preference over them that are asleep, those who are alive and remain at his coming will miss one point of fellowship, in not dying and rising like their Lord. Beloved, all things are yours, and death is expressly mentioned in the list, therefore do not dread it, but rather “long for evening to undress, that you may rest with God.”

IV. I will close with A QUESTION—“Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus”—does Jesus in a special sense love you? Alas, many sick ones have no evidence of any special love of Jesus towards them, for they have never sought his face, nor trusted in him. Jesus might say to them “I never knew you,” for they have turned their backs upon his blood and his cross. Answer, dear friend, to your own heart this question, “Do you love Jesus”? If so, you love him because he first loved you. Are you trusting him? If so, that faith of yours is the proof that he has loved you from before the foundation of the world, for faith is the token by which he plights his troth to his beloved.

If Jesus loves you, and you are sick, let all the world see how you glorify God in your sickness. Let friends and nurses see how the beloved of the Lord are cheered and comforted by him. Let your holy resignation astonish them, and set them admiring your Beloved, who is so gracious to you that he makes you happy in pain, and joyful at the gates of the grave. If your religion is worth anything it ought to support you now, and it will compel unbelievers to see that he whom the Lord loveth is in better case when he is sick than the ungodly when full of health and vigour.

If you do not know that Jesus loves you, you lack the brightest star that can cheer the night of sickness. I hope you will not die as you now are, and pass into another world without enjoying the love of Jesus: that would be a terrible calamity indeed. Seek his face at once, and it may be that your present sickness is a part of the way of love by which Jesus would bring you to himself. Lord, heal all these sick ones in soul and in body. Amen.

Taken from: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 26, No. 1518- This message was preached before an audience of invalid ladies at Mentone, France. It is taken directly from the METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE PULPIT sermon series, Vol. 26, #1518, unedited and unabridged. It is listed there under the heading: NOTES OF A SERMON, Beloved, and Yet Afflicted. Unedited and Unabridged Delivered in 1880 at the MENTONE, FRANCE

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The Ground of the Sinners Faith

by C.H. Spurgeon

On what ground does the sinner dare to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?

My dear friends, it is true that no man will believe in Jesus, unless he feels his need of him. But you have often heard me say, and I repeat it again, that I do not come to Christ pleading that I feel my need of him; my reason for believing in Christ, is not that I feel my need of him, but that I have a need of him. The ground on which a man comes to Jesus, is not as a sensible sinner, but as a sinner, and nothing but a sinner. He will not come unless he is awakened; but when he comes, he does not say, “Lord, I come to thee because I am an awakened sinner, save me.” But he says, “Lord, I am a sinner, save me.” Not his awakening, but his sinnership is the method and plan upon which he dares to come. You will, perhaps, perceive what I mean, for I cannot exactly explain myself just now. If I refer to the preaching of a great many Calvinistic divines, they say to a sinner, “Now, if you feel your need of Christ, if you have repented so much, if you have been harrowed by the law to such-and-such a degree, then you may come to Christ on the ground that you are an awakened sinner.” I say that is false. No man may come to Christ on the ground of his being an awakened sinner; he must come to him as a sinner. When I come to Jesus, I know I am not come unless I am awakened, but still, I do not come as an awakened sinner. I do not stand at the foot of his cross to be washed because I have repented; I bring nothing when I come but sin. A sense of need is a good feeling, but when I stand at the foot of the cross, I do not believe in Christ because I have got good feelings, but I believe in him whether I have good feelings or not.

“Just as I am without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me, And that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God I come.”

Mr. Roger, Mr. Sheppard, Mr. Flavel, and several excellent divines, in the Puritanic age, and especially Richard Baxter, used to give descriptions of what a man must feel before he may dare to come to Christ. Now, I say in the language of good Mr. Fenner, another of those divines, who said he was but a babe in grace when compared with them—“I dare to say it, that all this is not Scriptural. Sinners do feel these things before they come, but they do not come on the ground of having felt it; they come on the ground of being sinners, and on no other ground whatever.” The gate of Mercy is opened, and over the door it is written, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. “ Between that word “save” and the next word “sinners,” there is no adjective. It does not say, “penitent sinners,” “awakened sinners,” “sensible sinners,” “grieving sinners,” or “alarmed sinners.” No, it only says “sinners,” and I know this, that when I come, I come to Christ to-day, for I feel it is as much a necessity of my life to come to the cross of Christ to-day as it was to come ten years ago,—when I come to him I dare not come as a conscious sinner or an awakened sinner, but I have to come still as a sinner with nothing in my hands. I saw an aged man this week in the vestry of a chapel in Yorkshire. I had been saying something to this effect: the old man had been a Christian for years, and he said, “I never saw it put exactly so, but still I know that is just the way I come; I say, `Lord,

`Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling; Naked, look to thee for dress; Helpless, come to thee for grace; Black'— [“Black enough,” said the old man] `I to the fountain fly, Wash me, Saviour, or I die.'“

Faith is getting right out of yourself and getting into Christ. I know that many hundreds of poor souls have been troubled because the minister has said, “if you feel your need, you may come to Christ.” “But,” say they, “I do not feel my need enough; I am sure I do not.” Many a score letters have I received from poor troubled consciences who have said, “I would venture to believe in Christ to save me if I had a tender conscience; if I had a soft heart—but oh my heart is like a rock of ice which will not melt. I cannot feel as I would like to feel, and therefore I must not believe in Jesus.” Oh! down with it, down with it! It is a wicked anti-Christ; it is flat Popery! It is not your soft heart that entitles you to believe. You are to believe in Christ to renew your hard heart, and come to him with nothing about you but sin. The ground on which a sinner comes to Christ is that he is black; that he is dead, and not that he knows he is dead; that he is lost, and not that he knows he is lost. I know he will not come unless he does know it, but that is not the ground on which he comes. It is the secret reason why, but it is not the public positive ground which he understands. Here was I, year after year, afraid to come to Christ because I thought I did not feel enough; and I used to read that hymn of Cowper's about being insensible as steel—

“If aught is felt 'tis only pain To find I cannot feel.”

When I believed in Christ, I thought I did not feel at all. Now when I look back I find that I had been feeling all the while most acutely and intensely, and most of all because I thought I did not feel. Generally the people who repent the most, think they are impenitent, and people feel most their need when they think they do not feel at all, for we are no judges of our feelings, and hence the gospel invitation is not put upon the ground of anything of which we can be a judge; it is put on the ground of our being sinners and nothing but sinners. “Well,” says one, “but it says, `Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest'—then we must be weary and heavy-laden.” Just so; so it is in the text, but then there is another. “Whosoever will let him come”; and that does not say anything about “weary and heavy-laden.” Besides, while the invitation is given to the weary and heavy-laden, you will perceive that the promise is not made to them as weary and heavy-laden, but it is made to them as coming to Christ. They did not know that they were weary and heavy-laden when they came; they thought they were not. They really were, but part of their weariness was that they could not be as weary as they would like to be, and part of their load was that they did not feel their load enough. They came to Christ just as they were, and he saved them, not because there was any merit in their weariness, or any efficacy in their being heavy-laden, but he saved them as sinners and nothing but sinners, and so they were washed in his blood and made clean. My dear hearer, do let me put this truth home to thee. If thou wilt come to Christ this morning, as nothing but a sinner, he will not cast thee out.

Old Tobias Crisp says in one of his sermons upon this very point, “I dare to say it, but if thou dost come to Christ, whosoever thou mayest be, if he does not receive thee, then he is not true to his word, for he says, `Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.'“ If thou comest, never mind qualification or preparation. He needeth no qualification of duties or of feelings either. Thou art to come just as thou art, and if thou art the biggest sinner out of hell, thou art as fit to come to Christ as if thou wert the most moral and most excellent of men. There is a bath: who is fit to be washed? A man's blackness is no reason why he should not be washed, but the clearer reason why he should be. When our City magistrates were giving relief to the poor, nobody said, “I am so poor, therefore I am not fit to have relief.” Your poverty is your preparation, the black is the white here. Strange contradiction! The only thing you can bring to Christ is your sin and your wickedness. All he asks is, that you will come empty. If you have anything of your own, you must leave all before you come. If there be anything good in you, you cannot trust Christ, you must come with nothing in your hand. Take him as all in all, and that is the only ground upon which a poor soul can be saved—as a sinner, and nothing but a sinner.

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A JUST GOD

By C.H. SPURGEON

WHEN I was under conviction of sin I had a deep and sharp sense of the justice of God. Sin, whatever it might be to other people, became to me an intolerable burden. It was not so much that I feared the wrath to come, but that I feared sin. I knew myself to be so horribly guilty that I remember feeling that if God did not punish me for sin, He ought to do so. I felt that the judge of all the earth ought to condemn such sin as mine. I sat on the judgment seat and I condemned myself to perish, for I confessed that, had I been God, I could have done no other than send such a guilty creature as I was down to the lowest hell. All the while, I had upon my mind a deep concern for the honor of God's name and the integrity of His moral government. I felt that it would not satisfy my conscience if it could be forgiven unjustly. The sin that I had committed must be punished. But then there was the question how God could be just and yet justify me who had been so guilty. I asked my heart, “How can He be just and yet the Justifier?” (Rom 3:26). I was worried and wearied with this question; neither could I see any answer to it. Certainly I could never have invented an answer which would have satisfied my conscience.

The doctrine of the atonement is to my mind one of the surest proofs of the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. Who would or could have thought of the just Ruler dying for the unjust rebel? This is no teaching of human mythology or dream of poetical imagination. This method of expiation is only known among men because it is a fact. Fiction could not have devised it. God Himself ordained it. It is not a matter which could have been imagined.

I had heard the plan of salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus from my youth up, but I did not know any more about it in my innermost soul than if I had been born a Hottentot. It came to me as a new revelation, as fresh as if I had never read the scriptures, that Jesus was declared to be “the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2), that God might be just.

When I was anxious about the possibility of a just God pardoning me, I understood and saw by faith that He who is the Son of God became man and, in His own blessed person, bore my sin in His own body on the tree. I saw the chastisement of my peace was laid upon Him, and with His stripes I was healed (Isa 53:5). Have you ever seen that? Have you ever understood how God can be just to the full, not remitting penalty nor blunting the edge of the sword, and yet can be infinitely merciful and can justify the ungodly who turn to Him? It was because the Son of God, supremely glorious in His matchless person, undertook to vindicate the law, by bearing the sentence due me, that therefore God is able to pass by my sin. The law of God was more vindicated by the death of Christ than it would have been had all transgressions been punished forever. For the Son of God to suffer for sin was a more glorious establishment of the government of God than for the whole race to suffer.

“Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf!” Behold the wonder! There He hangs upon the cross! This is the greatest sight you will ever see: Son of God and Son of man! There He hangs, bearing pains unutterable—the Just for the unjust—that He might bring us to God. Oh, the glory of that sight! The Innocent suffering! The Holy One condemned! The Ever-blessed made a curse! The Infinitely Glorious put to a shameful death! The more I look at the sufferings of the Son of God, the more sure I am that they must meet my case. Why did He suffer, if not to turn aside the penalty from us? If, then, He turned it aside by His death, it is turned aside, and those who believe in Him need not fear it. It must be so, that since expiation is made, God is able to forgive without shaking the basis of His throne or in the least degree blotting out the statute book. Conscience gets a full answer to her tremendous question. The wrath of God against iniquity, whatever that may be, must be beyond all conception terrible. Well did Moses say, “Who knoweth the power of thine anger!” (Psalm 90:11). Yet, when we hear the Lord of Glory cry, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1) and see Him yielding up the ghost, we feel that the justice of God has received abundant vindication by obedience so perfect and death so terrible, rendered by so divine a Person. If God Himself bows before His own law, what more can be done? There is more in the atonement by way of merit than there is in all human sin by way of demerit. The great gulf of Jesus' loving self sacrifice can swallow up the mountains of our sin, all of them. For the sake of the infinite good of this one representative Man, the Lord may well look with favor upon other men, however unworthy they may be in and of themselves. It was a miracle of miracles that the Lord Jesus Christ should stand in our stead and “bear, that we might never bear, His Fathers righteous Ire.” But He has done so. “It is finished” (John 19:30). God will save the sinner because He did not spare His Son. God can pass by your transgressions because He laid those transgressions upon His only begotten Son.

What is it to believe in Him? It is not merely to say, “He is God and the Saviour,” but to trust Him wholly and entirely, and take Him for all your salvation from this time forth and forever—your Lord, your Master, your All. If you will have the Lord Jesus, He has you already. If you believe on Him, I tell you, you cannot go to hell, for that were to make the perfect sacrifice of Christ to none effect. If the Lord Jesus Christ died in my stead, why should I die also? Every believer by faith has laid his hands on the Sacrifice, and made it his own, and therefore may rest assured that he can never perish. The Lord would not receive this offering on our behalf and then condemn us to die. The Lord cannot read our pardon written in the blood of His own Son and then smite us. That were impossible. Oh, that you may have grace given you at once to look away to Jesus, Who is the fountainhead of mercy to guilty man! Will you come into this lifeboat just as you are? Here is safety from the wreck. Accept the sure deliverance. Leap for it just as you are, and leap now!

I will tell you this thing about myself to encourage you. My sole hope for heaven lies in the full atonement made upon Calvary's cross for the ungodly. On that I firmly rely. I have not a shadow of hope anywhere else. You are in the same condition as I am, for we, neither of us, have anything of our own worth thinking of as a ground of trust. Let us join hands and stand together at the foot of the cross and trust our souls once for all to Him who shed His blood for the guilty. We will be saved by the one and the same Saviour. If you perish trusting Him, I must perish too. What can I do more to prove my own confidence in the Gospel which is set before you?

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GOOD CHEER FROM GRACE

BY C. H. SPURGEON

“And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: for she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.” — Matthew 9:20-22.

THE words of good cheer which our Savior spoke to this woman were not given to her while she was coming to him, for that would have been premature. She had not avowed her desire to be healed, she had uttered no prayer, she had actually as yet sought nothing at the Savior’s hands; and, hence, she had not reached the stage at which comfort is fitting. She does not appear to have required comfort in taking her first step; she was resolved upon that, and she took it without fail. It is one of the unwisest things under heaven to comfort people who do not require it. When we are dealing with enquirers, our love may bring them loss if we offer them words of cheer when they need admonition or rebuke. Any comfort which keeps a soul short of Christ is dangerous. A sinner’s main business is to get to Jesus himself, to exercise personal faith in the personal Savior; and we have no right to a gleam of comfort until we have heartily and honestly trusted in Christ. If encouragements to believe are used as a sort of halfway house to rest in before actually believing, they are mischievously used, and may ruin our souls.

This afflicted woman did not require to be cheered so soon, for she had such confidence in Christ, and such a resolve to put her confidence to the test, that difficulties could not hinder her, nor crowds keep her back. The Savior was in the press, she joined the throng, and with a holy boldness mixed with a sacred modesty she came behind him, only wishing to touch his garment, or even the fringe of it, feeling persuaded that, if she did but come into contact with the Lord, no matter how, she would be healed. According to her faith so was it done to her, and it was after she had been healed that our Lord spoke comfortingly to her. He brought not forth the cup of cordial till the need for it had fully come. After she had touched him, and her faith had made her whole, a trial awaited her, and her spirit was ready to faint, and then the tender One cheered her by saying, “Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.”

It happens to many and many a heart that, after it has obtained the blessing of salvation, and has been healed of the disease of sin, a time of fear occurs. After it has made its confession of faith, a season of trembling follows; occurring, perhaps, as a reaction from the joy of salvation, a rebound of the spirit from excessive delight. We eat the heavenly provision eagerly, and it is sweet to our taste; and yet, afterwards, our long hunger having weakened us, we do not digest the food with ease, and pains ensue for which medicine is required. We fear and tremble because of the greatness of the mercy received, and then this word is wanted: “Be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole.”
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The Unchanging God

by C. H. Spurgeon (Taken from the Sermon "The Immutability of God", Delivered on January 7, 1855)

“I am the Lord, I charge not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”- Malachi. 3:6.

Yet again, God is unchanging in his promises. Ah! we love to speak about the sweet promises of God; but if we could ever suppose that one of them could be changed, we would not talk anything more about them. If I thought that the notes of the bank of England could not be cashed next week, I should decline to take them, and if I thought that God’s promises would never be fulfilled it I thought that God would see it right to alter some word in his promises-farewell Scriptures! I want immutable things: and I find that I have immutable promises when I turn to the Bible: for, “by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie,” he hath signed, confirmed, and sealed every promise of his. The gospel is not “yea and nay,” it is not promising to-day, and denying to-morrow, but the gospel is “yea, yea,” to the glory of God. Believer! there was a delightful promise which you had yesterday- and this morning when you turned to the Bible the promise was not sweet. Do you know why? Do you think the promise had changed? Ah, no! You changed; that is where the matter lies. You had been eating some of the grapes of Sodom, and your mouth was thereby put out of taste, and you could not detect the sweetness. But there was the same honey there, depend upon it, the same preciousness “Oh!” says one child of God “I had built my house firmly once upon some stable promises; there came a wind and I said, O Lord, I am cast down and I shall be lost. Oh! the promises were not cast down; the foundations were not removed; it was your little “wood, hay, stubble” hut, that you had been building. It was that which fell down. You have been shaken on the rock, not the rock under you. But let me tell you what is the best way of living in the world. I have heard that a gentleman said to a negro, “I can’t think how it is you are always so happy in the Lord, and I am often downcast.” “Why massa” said he, “I throw myself flat down on the promise-there I lie; you stand on the promise-you have a little to do with it, and down you go when the wind comes, and then you cry, ‘Oh! am down’ whereas I go flat on the promise at once and that is why I fear no fall.” Then let us always say, “Lord there is the promise; it is thy business to fulfill it.” Down I go on the promise flat! No standing up for me. That is where you should go-prostrate on the promise; and remember, every promise is a rock, an unchanging thing. Therefore, at his feet cast yourself, and rest there forever.

But now comes one jarring note to spoil the theme. To some of you God is unchanging in his threatenings. If every promise stands fast, and every oath of the covenant is fulfilled, hark thee, sinner!-mark the word hear the death-knell of thy carnal hopes; see the funeral of the fleshy trustings. Every threatening of God, as well as every promise shall be fulfilled. Talk of decrees! I will tell you of a decree : “He that believeth not shall be damned.” That is a decree, and a statute that can never change. Be as good as you please, be as moral as you can, be as honest as you will, walk as uprightly as you may,-there stands the unchangeable threatening: “He that believeth not shall be damned.” What sayest thou to that, moralist? Oh, thou wishest thou couldst alter it, and say, “He that does not live a holy life shall be damned.” That will be true; but it does not say so. It says, “He that believeth not.” Here is the stone of stumbling, and the rock of offense; but you cannot alter it. You believe or be damned, saith the Bible; and mark, that threat of God is as unchangeable as God himself. And when a thousand years of hell’s torments shall have passed away, you shall look on high, and see written in burning letters of fire, “He that believeth not shall be damned.” “But, Lord, I am damned.” Nevertheless it says “shall be” still. And when a million acres have rolled away, and you are exhausted by your pains and agonies you shall turn up your eye and still read “SHALL BE DAMNED,” unchanged, unaltered. And when you shall have thought that eternity must have spun out its last thread-that every particle of that which we call eternity must have run out, you shall still see it written up there, “SHALL BE DAMNED.” O terrific thought! How dare I utter it? But I must. Ye must be warned, sirs, “lest ye also come into this place of torment.” Ye must be told rough things for if God’s gospel is not a rough thing; the law is a rough thing; Mount Sinai is a rough thing. Woe unto the watchman that warns not the ungodly! God is unchanging in his threatenings. Beware, O sinner, for ‘it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.'

True Saving Faith

by Charles H. Spurgeon

"In my first pastorate, I had often to battle with Antinomians—that is people who held that because they believed themselves to be elect, they might live as they liked . . . I knew one man, who stood on the table of a public-house, and held a glass of gin in his hand, declaring all the while that he is one of the Lord's chosen people. They kicked him out of the public house, and when I heard of it, I felt that It served him right. Even those ungodly men said that they did not want any such 'elect' people there. There is no one who can live in sin—drinking, swearing, lying, and so on—who can truly declare that he is one of the Lord's chosen people"

From my very soul, I detest everything that in the least savors of the Antinomianism which leads people to prate about being secure in Christ while they are living in sin. We cannot be saved by or for our good works, neither can we be saved without good works. Christ never will save any of His people in their sins; He saves His people from their sins. If a man is not desiring to live a holy life in the sight of God, with the help of the Holy Spirit, he is still "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." But the idea of "saving faith" apart from good works, is ridiculous. The saved man is not a perfect man; but his heart's desire is to become perfect, he is always panting after perfection, and the day will come when he will be perfected, after the image of his once crucified and now glorified Savior, in knowledge and true holiness.

While I was minister at Waterbeach, I used to have a man sitting in front of the gallery, who would always nod his head when I was preaching what he considered sound doctrine, although he was about as bad an old hypocrite as ever lived. When I talked about justification, down went his head; when I preached about imputed righteousness, down it went again. I was a dear good man in his estimation, without doubt. So I thought I would cure him of nodding, or at least make his head keep still for once; so I remarked, "There is a great deal of difference between God electing you, and your electing yourself; a vast deal of difference between God justifying you by His Spirit, and your justifying yourself by a false belief, or presumption; this is the difference," said I,—and the old man at once put me down as a rank Arminian,—"you who have elected yourselves, and justified yourselves, have no marks of the Spirit of God; you have no evidence of genuine piety, you are not holy men and women, you can live in sin, you can walk as sinners walk, you have the image of the devil upon you, and yet you call yourselves the children of God. One of the first evidences that anyone is a child of God is that he hates sin with a perfect hatred, and seeks to live a holy, Christ like life." The old Antinomian did not approve of that doctrine; but I knew that I was preaching what was revealed in the Word of God.

Communion with God

“I in them.” - John 17:23

C. H. Spurgeon

If such be the union which subsists between our souls and the person of our Lord, how deep and broad is the channel of our communion! This is no narrow pipe through which a thread-like stream may wind its way, it is a channel of amazing depth and breadth, along whose glorious length a ponderous volume of living water may roll its floods. Behold he hath set before us an open door, let us not be slow to enter. This city of communion hath many pearly gates, every several gate is of one pearl, and each gate is thrown open to the uttermost that we may enter, assured of welcome. If there were but one small loophole through which to talk with Jesus, it would be a high privilege to thrust a word of fellowship through the narrow door; how much we are blessed in having so large an entrance! Had the Lord Jesus been far away from us, with many a stormy sea between, we should have longed to send a messenger to him to carry him our loves, and bring us tidings from his Father’s house; but see his kindness, he has built his house next door to ours, nay, more, he takes lodging with us, and tabernacles in poor humble hearts, that so he may have perpetual intercourse with us. O how foolish must we be, if we do not live in habitual communion with him. When the road is long, and dangerous, and difficult, we need not wonder that friends seldom meet each other, but when they live together, shall Jonathan forget his David? A wife may when her husband is upon a journey, abide many days without holding converse with him, but she could never endure to be separated from him if she knew him to be in one of the chambers of her own house. Why, believer, dost not thou sit at his banquet of wine? Seek thy Lord, for he is near; embrace him, for he is thy Brother. Hold Him fast, for he is thine Husband; and press him to thine heart, for he is of thine own flesh.

How is your communion with God? Is your heart continually warmed by the fire of communion with the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost? We are living in the last days and it is imperative that we daily seek the communion that will sustain us during these difficult times. Are we continually taking up the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we faithful to spend time alone with our God in prayer and the study of His word? Are we seeking every opportunity to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus our Lord? May the Lord Jesus Christ give us strength as we have daily communion with Him!

2 Corinthians 13:14 - The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.

Bro. Pat

I said unto thee, Live!

“When I passed by thee, I said unto thee, Live.”
- Ezekiel 16:6
- By C. H. Spurgeon

Saved one, consider gratefully this mandate of mercy. Note that this fiat of God is majestic. In our text, we perceive a sinner with nothing in him but sin, expecting nothing but wrath; but the eternal Lord passes by in his glory; he looks, he pauses, and he pronounces the solitary but royal word, “Live.” There speaks a God. Who but he could venture thus to deal with life and dispense it with a single syllable? Again, this fiat is manifold. When he saith “Live,” it includes many things. Here is judicial life. The sinner is ready to be condemned, but the mighty One saith, “Live,” and he rises pardoned and absolved. It is spiritual life. We knew not Jesus-our eyes could not see Christ, our ears could not hear his voice-Jehovah said “Live,” and we were quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Moreover, it includes glory-life, which is the perfection of spiritual life. “I said unto thee, Live:” and that word rolls on through all the years of time till death comes, and in the midst of the shadows of death, the Lord’s voice is still heard, “Live!” In the morning of the resurrection it is that self-same voice which is echoed by the arch-angel, “Live,” and as holy spirits rise to heaven to be blest for ever in the glory of their God, it is in the power of this same word, “Live.” Note again, that it is an irresistible mandate. Saul of Tarsus is on the road to Damascus to arrest the saints of the living God. A voice is heard from heaven and a light is seen above the brightness of the sun, and Saul is crying out, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” This mandate is a mandate of free grace. When sinners are saved, it is only and solely because God will do it to magnify his free, unpurchased, unsought grace. Christians, see your position, debtors to grace; show your gratitude by earnest, Christlike lives, and as God has bidden you live, see to it that you live in earnest. - C. H. Spurgeon

• Praise God for one day passing by the elect of God and saying unto them live!! Titus 3:3-7 - 3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. 4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; 7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
  
• Praise God for the irresistible grace that His elect cannot refuse!
  Eph. 2:4-11 - 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
  
• Praise God for the work of the Holy Ghost which causes his saints to persevere to the end!
  Rom. 8:28-34 - 28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. 31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. 34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Bro. Pat

"For it is God which worketh in you"

"The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me."
- Psalm 138:8
- by Charles Spurgeon

Most manifestly the confidence which the Psalmist here expressed was a divine confidence. He did not say, "I have grace enough to perfect that which concerneth me-my faith is so steady that it will not stagger-my love is so warm that it will never grow cold-my resolution is so firm that nothing can move it; no, his dependence was on the Lord alone. If we indulge in any confidence which is not grounded on the Rock of ages, our confidence is worse than a dream, it will fall upon us, and cover us with its ruins, to our sorrow and confusion. All that Nature spins time will unravel, to the eternal confusion of all who are clothed therein. The Psalmist was wise, he rested upon nothing short of the Lord’s work. It is the Lord who has begun the good work within us; it is he who has carried it on; and if he does not finish it, it never will be complete. If there be one stitch in the celestial garment of our righteousness which we are to insert ourselves, then we are lost; but this is our confidence, the Lord who began will perfect. He has done it all, must do it all, and will do it all. Our confidence must not be in what we have done, nor in what we have resolved to do, but entirely in what the Lord will do. Unbelief insinuates- "You will never be able to stand. Look at the evil of your heart, you can never conquer sin; remember the sinful pleasures and temptations of the world that beset you, you will be certainly allured by them and led astray." Ah! yes, we should indeed perish if left to our own strength. If we had alone to navigate our frail vessels over so rough a sea, we might well give up the voyage in despair; but, thanks be to God, he will perfect that which concerneth us, and bring us to the desired haven. We can never be too confident when we confide in him alone, and never too much concerned to have such a trust.

Praise God! Praise, "him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." Our perseverance is complete in Him and in Him alone. This is the humility the Holy Spirit works out in us, and causes us to say, "We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." May we continue to anticipate his divine work in us, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son."

Bro. Pat

Hope in the day of evil.

"Thou art my hope in the day of evil." - Jeremiah 17:17
--C. H. Spurgeon


The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons of darkness and of storm. True, it is written in God’s Word, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;" and it is a great truth, that religion is calculated to give a man happiness below as well as bliss above; but experience tells us that if the course of the just be "As the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day," yet sometimes that light is eclipsed. At certain periods clouds cover the believer’s sun, and he walks in darkness and sees no light. There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career; they have walked along the "green pastures" by the side of the "still waters," but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, "Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen." Oh! say not so, thou who art walking in darkness. The best of God’s saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of his children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God’s full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.

James 1:3 - Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

Praise God! He is conforming us to the image of His Son. He uses the circumstances of life to try our faith (the faith that He has given us) so that it can work patience in us. May the trials and tribulations of this life, put more of a yearning in our spirits, to "go home" and be with our Lord Jesus Christ for all of eternity.

Bro. Pat

Our Hope in Heaven

"The hope which is laid up for you in heaven."
— Colossians 1:5

by C. H. Spurgeon

Our hope in Christ for the future is the mainspring and the mainstay of our joy here. It will animate our hearts to think often of heaven, for all that we can desire is promised there. Here we are weary and toilworn, but yonder is the land of rest where the sweat of labour shall no more bedew the worker’s brow, and fatigue shall be for ever banished. To those who are weary and spent, the word "rest" is full of heaven. We are always in the field of battle; we are so tempted within, and so molested by foes without, that we have little or no peace; but in heaven we shall enjoy the victory, when the banner shall be waved aloft in triumph, and the sword shall be sheathed, and we shall hear our Captain say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." We have suffered bereavement after bereavement, but we are going to the land of the immortal where graves are unknown things. Here sin is a constant grief to us, but there we shall be perfectly holy, for there shall by no means enter into that kingdom anything which defileth. Hemlock springs not up in the furrows of celestial fields. Oh! is it not joy, that you are not to be in banishment for ever, that you are not to dwell eternally in this wilderness, but shall soon inherit Canaan? Nevertheless let it never be said of us, that we are dreaming about the future and forgetting the present, let the future sanctify the present to highest uses. Through the Spirit of God the hope of heaven is the most potent force for the product of virtue; it is a fountain of joyous effort, it is the corner stone of cheerful holiness. The man who has this hope in him goes about his work with vigour, for the joy of the Lord is his strength. He fights against temptation with ardour, for the hope of the next world repels the fiery darts of the adversary. He can labour without present reward, for he looks for a reward in the world to come.

Praise God for the hope of Heaven! May we press on to victory! May our hope of Heaven continue to sanctify us!

1 Cor. 15:55-58 - 55O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Bro. Pat

Grieve not the Spirit

“Grieve not the Holy Spirit.”
- Ephesians 4:30

All that the believer has must come from Christ, but it comes solely through the channel of the Spirit of grace. Moreover, as all blessings thus flow to you through the Holy Spirit, so also no good thing can come out of you in holy thought, devout worship, or gracious act, apart from the sanctifying operation of the same Spirit. Even if the good seed be sown in you, yet it lies dormant except he worketh in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure. Do you desire to speak for Jesus-how can you unless the Holy Ghost touch your tongue? Do you desire to pray? Alas! what dull work it is unless the Spirit maketh intercession for you! Do you desire to subdue sin? Would you be holy? Would you imitate your Master? Do you desire to rise to superlative heights of spirituality? Are you wanting to be made like the angels of God, full of zeal and ardour for the Master’s cause? You cannot without the Spirit-”Without me ye can do nothing.” O branch of the vine, thou canst have no fruit without the sap! O child of God, thou hast no life within thee apart from the life which God gives thee through his Spirit! Then let us not grieve him or provoke him to anger by our sin. Let us not quench him in one of his faintest motions in our soul; let us foster every suggestion, and be ready to obey every prompting. If the Holy Spirit be indeed so mighty, let us attempt nothing without him; let us begin no project, and carry on no enterprise, and conclude no transaction, without imploring his blessing. Let us do him the due homage of feeling our entire weakness apart from him, and then depending alone upon him, having this for our prayer, “Open thou my heart and my whole being to thine incoming, and uphold me with thy free Spirit when I shall have received that Spirit in my inward parts.”

C H Spurgeon - Morning and Evening

Praise God for this timely message. What could we be doing to quench or grieve the Holy Spirit of God? Does your life bear out the fact that you can do nothing without the work of the Holy Ghost? Do our neighbours, families and the world around us see that the Spirit of God is in complete control of our lives? If not then we must ask the question, Do you have the Holy Ghost? As Paul said, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Romans 8:9.

We live in a day when many confess that they have the Holy Spirit, but by their works they deny Him. Let us be obedient to allow the Holy Spirit to do His good work, through us, the first time he demands it! He will do wonderful, mighty and miraculous works through His yielded, true and submitted saints.

Bro. Pat

Divine Sovereignty

Thanks to Bro. Randy Wilmot, for submitting this devotional to us, for posting.

This is the kind of preaching we need in our day, men! We should not be apologizing for God, we should be proclaiming the Word of God boldly! Let us remember we have not moved from our biblical position. The men who continue to teach things outside of biblical truth are the ones that have moved. We have nothing to be ashamed of. Let us remember Paul’s words: Rom. 1:16 - For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Bro. Pat


Divine Sovereignty by Charles Spurgeon


Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? — Matthew 20:15 THE householder says, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” and even so does the God of heaven and earth ask this question of you this morning, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” There is no attribute of God more comforting to his children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend than the dominion of their Master over all creation — the kingship of God over all the works of his own hands — the throne of God, and his right to sit upon that throne. On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a foot-ball, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on his throne. They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and to make stars. They will allow him to be in his almonry to dispense his alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends his throne, his creatures then gnash their teeth; and when we proclaim an enthroned God, and his right to do as he wills with his own, to dispose of his creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them in the matter, then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on his throne is not the God they love. They love him anywhere better than they do when he sits with his scepter in his hand and his crown upon his head. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon his throne whom we trust.