Salvation of the Lord
A Sermon
(No. 131)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 10, 1857, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
"Salvation is of the Lord."–Jonah 2:9.
JONAH learned this sentence of good theology in a strange college. He
learned it in the whale's belly, at the bottom of the mountains, with
the weeds wrapped about his head, when he supposed that the earth with
her bars was about him for ever. Most of the grand truths of God have
to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron
of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them. No man is
competent to judge in matters of the kingdom, until first he has been
tried; since there are many things to be learned in the depths which we
can never know in the heights. We discover many secrets in the caverns
of the ocean, which, though we had soared to heaven, we never could
have known. He shall best meet the wants of God's people as a preacher
who has had those wants himself; he shall best comfort God's Israel who
has needed comfort; and he shall best preach salvation who has felt his
own need of it. Jonah, when he was delivered from his great danger,
when, by the command of God the fish had obediently left its great
deeps and delivered its cargo upon dry land, was then capable of
judging; and this was the result of his experience under his
trouble–"Salvation is of the Lord."
By salvation here we do not merely understand the special salvation
which Jonah received from death; for according to Dr. Gill, there is
something so special in the original, in the word salvation having one
more letter than it usually has, when it only refers to some temporary
deliverance, that we can only understand it here as relating to the
great work of the salvation of the soul which endureth for ever. That
"salvation is of the Lord," I shall this morning try to show as best I
can. First, I shall endeavor to explain the doctrine; then I shall try
to show you how God has guarded us from making any mistakes, and has
hedged us up to make us believe the gospel; then I shall dwell upon the
influence of this truth upon men; and shall close up by showing you the
counterpart of the doctrine. Seeing every truth hath its obverse, so
hath this.
I. First, then, to begin by explanation, let us EXPOUND THIS
DOCTRINE–the doctrine that salvation is of the Lord, or of Jehovah. We
are to understand by this, that the whole of the work whereby men are
saved from their natural estate of sin and ruin, and are translated
into the kingdom of God and made heirs of eternal happiness, is of God,
and of him only. "Salvation is of the Lord."
To begin, then, at the beginning, the plan of salvation is entirely of
God. No human intellect and no created intelligence assisted God in the
planning of salvation; he contrived the way, even as he himself carried
it out. The plan of salvation was devised before the existence of
angels. Before the day-star flung its ray across the darkness, when as
yet the unnavigated ether had not been fanned by the wing of seraph,
and when the solemnity of silence had never been disturbed by the song
of angel, God had devised a way whereby he might save man, whom he
foresaw would fall. He did not create angels to consult with them; no,
of himself he did it. We might truly ask the question, "With whom took
he counsel? Who instructed him, when be planned the great architecture
of the temple of mercy? With whom took he counsel when he digged the
deeps of love, that out of them there might well up springs of
salvation? Who aided him?" None. He himself, alone, did it. In fact, if
angels had then been in existence, they could not have assisted God;
for I can well suppose that if a solemn conclave of those spirits had
been held, if God had put to them this question, "Man will rebel; I
declare I will punish; my justice, inflexible and severe, demands that
I should do so; but yet I intend to have mercy;" if he had put the
question to the celestial squadrons of mighty ones, "How can those
things be? How can justice have its demands fulfilled, and how can
mercy reign?" the angels would have sat in silence until now; they
could not have dictated the plan; it would have surpassed angelic
intellect to have conceived the way whereby righteousness and peace
should meet together, and judgment and mercy should kiss each other.
God devised it, because without God it could not have been devised. It
is a plan too splendid to have been the product of any mind except of
that mind which afterward carried it out. "Salvation" is older than
creation; it is "of the Lord."
And as it was of the Lord in planning so it was of the Lord in
execution. No one has helped to provide salvation; God has done it all
himself. The banquet of mercy is served up by one host; that host is he
to whom the cattle on a thousand hills belong. But none have
contributed any dainties to that royal banquet; he bath done it all
himself The royal bath of mercy, wherein black souls are washed, was
filled from the veins of Jesus; not a drop was contributed by any other
being. He died upon the cross, and as an expiator he died alone. No
blood of martyrs mingled with that stream; no blood of noble confessors
and of heroes of the cross entered into the river of atonement; that is
filled from the veins of Christ, and from nowhere else beside. He bath
done it wholly Atonement is the unaided work of Jesus. On yonder cross
I see the man who "trod the winepress alone;" in yonder garden I see
the solitary conqueror, who came to the fight single-handed, whose own
arm brought salvation, and whose omnipotence sustained him. "Salvation
is of the Lord," as to its provisions; Jehovah–Father, Son, and
Spirit–hath provided everything.
So far we are all agreed: but now we shall have to separate a bit.
"Salvation is of the Lord" in the application of it. "No," says the
Arminian, "it is not; salvation is of the Lord, inasmuch as he does all
for man that he can do; but there is something that man must do, which
if he does not do, he must perish." That is the Arminian way of
salvation. Now last week I thought of this very theory of salvation,
when I stood by the side of that window of Carisbrooke castle, out of
which King Charles of unhappy and unrighteous memory, attempted to
escape. I read in the guide book that every thing was provided for his
escape; his followers had means at the bottom of the wall to enable him
to fly across the country, and on the coast they had their boats lying
ready to take him to another land; in fact every thing was ready for
his escape. But here was the important circumstance: his friends had
done all they could; he was to do the rest; but that doing the rest was
just the point and brunt of the battle. It was to get out of the
window, out of which he was not able to escape by any means, so that
all his friends did for him went for nothing, so far as he was
concerned. So with the sinner. If God had provided every means of
escape, and only required him to get out of his dungeon, he would have
remained there to all eternity. Why, is not the sinner by nature dead
in sin? And if God requires him to make himself alive, and then
afterward he will do the rest for him, then verily, my friends, we are
not so much obliged to God as we had thought for; for if he require so
much as that of us, and we can do it, we can do the rest without his
assistance. The Romanists have an extraordinary miracle of their own
about St. Dennis, of whom they tell the lying legend that after his
head was off be took it up in his hands and walked with it two thousand
miles; whereupon, said a wit, "So far as the two thousand miles go, it
is nothing at all; it is only the first step in which there is any
difficulty." So I believe, if that is taken, all the rest can be easily
accomplished. And if God does require of 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 and 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 from the window,
and make good his escape afterward; 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 any thing whatever of man which be
himself had not also engaged to furnish. For how many have I frequently
hanging upon my lips of the worst of characters–men whose lives have
become so horribly bad, that the lip of morality would refuse to give a
description of their character? When I enter my pulpit am I to believe
that these men are to do something before God's Spirit will operate
upon them? If so, I should go there with a faint heart, feeling that I
never could induce them to do the first part. But now I come to my
pulpit with a sure confidence–God the Holy Spirit will meet with these
men this morning. They are as bad as they can be; he will put a new
thought into their hearts; he will give them new wishes; he will give
them new wills, and those who hated Christ will desire to love him;
those who once loved sin will, by God's divine Spirit, be made to hate
it; and here is my confidence, that what they can not do, in that they
are weak through the flesh, God sending his Spirit into their hearts
will do for them, and in them, and so they shall be saved.
Well then, says one, that will make people sit still and fold their
arms. Sir, it shill not. But if men did so I could not help it; my
business, as I have often said in this place before, is not to prove to
you the reasonableness of any truth, nor to defend any truth from its
consequences; all I do here, and I mean to keep to it, is just to
assert the truth, because it is in the Bible; then, if you do not like
it, you must settle the quarrel with my Master, and if you think it
unreasonable, you must quarrel with the Bible. Let others defend
Scripture and prove it to be true; they can do their work better than I
could; mine is just the mere work of proclaiming. I am the messenger; I
tell 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 any thing 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 now on the next point we shall a little disagree again, "Salvation
is of the Lord," as to the sustaining of the work in any man's heart.
When a man is made a child of God he does not have a stock of grace
given to him with which to go on for ever, but be has grace for that
day; and he must have grace for the next day, and grace for the next,
and grace for the next, until days shall end, or else the beginning
shall be of no avail. As a man does not make himself spiritually alive,
so neither can he keep himself so. He can feed on spiritual food, and
so preserve his spiritual strength; he can walk in the commandments of
the Lord, and so enjoy rest and peace, but still the inner life is
dependent upon the Spirit as much for its after existence as for its
first begetting. I do verily believe that if it should ever be my lot
to put my foot upon the golden threshold of Paradise, and put this
thumb upon the pearly latch, I should never cross the threshold unless
I had grace given me to take that last step whereby I might enter
heaven. No man of himself, even when converted, hath any power, except
as that power is daily, constantly, and perpetually infused into him by
the Spirit. But Christians often set up for independent gentlemen; they
get a little stock of grace in hand, and they say, "My mountain
standeth firm, I shall never be moved." But ah! it is not long before
the manna begins to be putrid. It was only meant to be the manna for
the day, and we have kept it for the morrow, and therefore it fails us.
We must have fresh grace.
"For day by day the manna fell;
O to learn that lesson well."
So look day by day for fresh grace. Frequently too the Christian wants
to have grace enough for a month vouchsafed to him in one moment. "O!"
he says, "what a host of troubles I have coming–how shall I meet them
all? O! that I had grace enough to bear me through them all! "My dear
friends, you will have grace enough for your troubles, as they come one
by one. "As thy days, so shall thy strength be;" but thy strength shall
never be as thy months, or as thy weeks. Thou shalt have thy strength
as thou hast thy bread. "Give us this day our daily bread." Give us
this day our daily grace. But why is it you will be troubling yourself
about the things of to-morrow? The common people say, "Cross a bridge
when you come to it." That is good advice. Do the same. When a trouble
comes, attack it, and down with it, and master it ; but do not begin
now to forestall your woes. "Ah! but I have so many," says one.
Therefore I say, do not look further before thee than thou needest.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Do as the brave Grecian
did, who, when he defended his country from Persia, did not go into the
plains to fight, but stood in the narrow pass of Thermopylae; there,
when the myriads came to him, they had to come one by one, and he
felled them to the earth. Had he ventured into the plain he would have
been soon devoured, and his handfull would have been melted like a drop
of dew in the sea. Stand in the narrow pass of to-day, and fight thy
troubles one by one; but do not rush into the plains of tomorrow, for
there thou wilt be routed and killed. As the evil is sufficient so will
the grace be. "Salvation is of the Lord."
But, lastly, upon this point. The ultimate perfection of salvation is
of the Lord. Soon, soon, the saints of earth shall be saints in light;
their hairs of snowy age shall be crowned with perpetual joy and
everlasting youth; their eyes suffused with tears shall be made bright
as stars, never to be clouded again by sorrow; their hearts that
tremble now are to be made joyous and fast, and set for ever like
pillars in the temple of God. Their follies, their burdens, their
griefs, their woes, are soon to be over; sin is to be slain, corruption
is to be removed, and a heaven of spotless purity and of unmingled
peace is to be theirs for ever. But it must still be by grace. As was
the foundation such must the top-stone be; that which laid on earth the
first beginning must lay in heaven the top-most stone. As they were
redeemed from their filthy conversation by grace, so they must be
redeemed from death and the grave by grace too, and they must enter
heaven singing
"Salvation of the Lord alone;
Grace is a shoreless sea."
There may be Arminians here, but they will not be Arminians there; they
may here say, "It is of the will of the flesh," but in heaven they
shall not think so. Here they may ascribe some little to the creature;
but there they shall cast their crowns at the Redeemer's feet, and
acknowledge that he did it all. Here they may sometimes look a little
at themselves, and boast somewhat of their own strength; but there,
"Not unto us, not unto us," shall be sung with deeper sincerity and
with more profound emphasis than they have even sung it here below. In
heaven, when grace shall have done its work, this truth shall stand out
in blazing letters of gold, "Salvation is of the Lord."
II. Thus I have tried to expound the gospel. Now shall I show you How
GOD HAS HEDGED THIS GOSPEL ABOUT.
Some have said salvation in some cases is the result of natural
temperament. Well, Sir, well; God has effectually answered your
argument. You say that some people are saved because they are naturally
religious and inclined to be good; unfortunately I have never met with
any of that class of persons yet; but I will suppose for a moment that
there are such people. God has unanswerably met your objection; for,
strange to say, the great number of these who are saved are just the
most unlikely people in the world to have been saved, while a great
number of those who perish were once just the very people whom, if
natural disposition had any thing to do with it, we should have
expected to see in heaven. Why, there is one here who in his youth was
a child of many follies. Often did his mother weep over him, and cry
and groan over her son's wanderings; for what with a fierce high spirit
that could brook neither bit nor bridle, what with perpetual rebellions
and ebullitions of hot anger, she said, "My son, my son, what wilt thou
be in thy riper years? Surely thou wilt dash in pieces law and order,
and be a disgrace to thy father's name." He grew up; in youth he was
wild and wanton, but, wonder of wonders, on a sudden he became a new
man, changed, altogether changed; no more like what he was before than
angels are like lost spirits. He sat at her feet, he cheered her heart,
and the lost, fiery one became gentle, mild, humble as a little child,
and obedient to God's commandments. You say, wonder of wonders! But
there is another here. He was a fair youth: when but a child be talked
of Jesus; often when his mother had him on her knee he asked her
questions about heaven; be was a prodigy, a wonder of piety in his
youth. As he grew up, the tear rolled down his cheek under any sermon;
he could scarcely bear to hear of death without a sigh; sometimes his
mother caught him, as she thought, in prayer alone. And what is he now?
He has just this very morning come from sin; he has become the
debauched desperate villain, has gone far into all manner of wicked
ness and lust, and sin, and has become more damnably corrupt than other
men could have made him only his own evil spirit, once confined, has
now developed itself; he has learned to play the lion in his manhood,
as once he played the fox in his youth. I do not know whether you have
ever met with such a case; but it very frequently is so. I know I can
say that in my congregation some abandoned wicked fellow has had his
heart broken, and been led to weep, and has cried to God for mercy, and
renounced his vile sin; whilst some fair maiden by his side hath heard
the same sermon, and if there was a tear she brushed it away; she still
continues just what she was, "without God and without hope in the
world." God has taken the base things of the world, and has just picked
his people out of the very roughest of men, in order that he may prove
that it is not natural disposition, but that "salvation is of the Lord"
alone.
Well, but some say, it is the minister they hear who converts men. Ah!
that is a grand idea, full sure. No man but a fool would entertain it.
I met with a man some time ago who assured me that he knew a minister
who bad a very large amount of converting power in him. Speaking of a
great evangelist in America, he said, "That man, sir, has got the
greatest quantity of converting power I ever knew a man to have; and
Mr.. So-and-so in a neighboring town I think is second to him." At that
time this converting power was being exhibited; two hundred persons
were converted by the converting power of this second best, and joined
to the church in a few months. I went to the place some time
afterwards–it was in England–and I said, "How do your converts get
on?" "Well," said he, "I can not say much about them." "How many out of
those two hundred whom you received in a year ago stand fast?" "Well,"
he said, "I am afraid not many of them; we have turned seventy of them
out for drunkenness already." "Yes," I said, "I thought so: that is the
end of the grand experiment of converting power." If I could convert
you all, any one else might unconvert you; what any man can do another
man can undo; it is only what God does that is abiding.
No, my brethren; God has taken good care it shall never be said
conversion is of man, for usually he blesses those who seem to be the
most unlikely to be useful. I do not expect to see so many conversions
in this place as I had a year ago, when I had far fewer hearers. Do you
ask why? Why, a year ago I was abused by every body; to mention my name
was to mention the name of the most abominable buffoon that lived. The
mere utterance of it brought forth oaths and cursing; with many men it
was a name of contempt, kicked about the street as a football; but then
God gave me souls by hundreds, who were added to my church, and in one
year it was my happiness to see not less than a thousand personally who
had then been converted. I do not expect that now. My name is somewhat
esteemed now, and the great ones of the earth think it no dishonor to
sit at my feet; but this makes me fear lest my God should forsake me
now that the world esteems me. I would rather be despised and slandered
than aught else. This assembly that you think so grand and fine, I
would readily part with, if by such a loss I could gain a greater
blessing. "God has chosen the base things of the world;" and,
therefore, I reckon that the more esteemed I may be, the worse is my
position, so much the less expectation shall I have that God will bless
me. He hath but his treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of
the power may be of God, and not of man." A poor minister began to
preach once, and all the world spoke ill of him; but God blessed him.
By-and-bye they turned round and petted him. He was the man–a wonder!
God left him! It has often been the same. It is for us to recollect, in
all times of popularity, that "Crucify him; crucify him" follows fast
upon the heels of "Hosanna," and that the crowd to-day, if dealt
faithfully with, may turn into the handful of to-morrow; for men love
not plain speaking. We should learn to be despised, learn to be
contemned, learn to be slandered, and then we shall learn to be made
useful by God. Down on my knees I have often fallen, with the hot sweat
rising from my brow, under some fresh slander poured upon me; in an
agony of grief my heart has been well-nigh broken; till at last I
learned the art of bearing all and caring for none. And how my grief
runneth in another line. It is just the opposite. I fear lest God
should forsake me, to prove that he is the author of salvation, that it
is not in the preacher, that it is not in the crowd, that it is not in
the attention I can attract, but in God, and in God alone. And this
thing I hope I can say from my heart: if to be made as the mire of the
streets again, if to be the laughingstock of fools and the song of the
drunkard once more will make me more serviceable to my Master, and more
useful to his cause, I will prefer it to all this multitude, or to all
the applause that man could give. Pray for me, dear friends, pray for
me, that God would still make me the means of the salvation of souls;
for I fear he may say, "I will not help that man, lest the world should
say he has done it," for "salvation is of the Lord," and so it must be,
even to the world's end.
III. And now WHAT IS, WHAT SHOULD BE, THE INFLUENCE OF THIS DOCTRINE
UPON MEN?
Why, first, with sinners, this doctrine is a great battering ram
against their pride. I will give you a figure The sinner in his natural
estate reminds me of a man who has a strong and well-nigh impenetrable
castle into which he has fled. There is the outer moat; there is a
second moat; there are the high walls; and then afterward there is the
dungeon and keep, into which the sinner will retire. Now, the first
moat that goes round the sinner's trusting place is his good works.
"Ah!" he says, "I am as good as my neighbor; twenty shillings in the
pound down, ready money, I have always paid; I am no sinner; I tithe
mint and cummin;' a good respectable gentleman I am indeed." Well, when
God comes to work with him, to save him, he sends his army across the
first moat; and as they go through it, they cry, "Salvation is of the
Lord;" and the moat is dried up, for if it be of the Lord, how can it
be of good works? But when that is done, he has a second
intrenchment–ceremonies. "Well," he says, "I will not trust in my good
works, but I have been baptized, I have been confirmed; do not I take
the sacrament? That shall be my trust." "Over the moat! Over the moat!"
And the soldiers go over again, shouting, "Salvation is of the Lord."
The second moat is dried up; it is all over with that. Now they come to
the next strong wall; the sinner, looking over it, says, "I can repent,
I can believe, whenever I like; I will save myself by repenting and
believing." Up come the soldiers of God, his great army of conviction,
and they batter this wall to the ground, crying, "Salvation is of the
Lord.' Your faith and your repentance must all be given you, or else
you will neither believe nor repent of sin." And now the castle is
taken; the man's hopes are all cut off; he feels that it is not of
self; the castle of self is overcome, and the great banner upon which
is written "Salvation is of the Lord" is displayed upon the
battlements. But is the battle over? O no; the sinner has retired to
the keep, in the center of the castle; and now he changes his tactics.
"I can not save myself," says he, "therefore I will despair; there is
no salvation for me." Now this second castle is as hard to take as the
first, for the sinner sits down and says, "I can't be saved, I must
perish." But God commands the soldiers to take this castle too,
shouting, "Salvation is of the Lord;" though it is not of man, it is of
God; "he is able to save, even to the uttermost," though you can not
save yourself. This sword, you see, cuts two ways; it cut pride down,
and then it cleaves the skull of despair. If any man say he can save
himself, it halveth his pride at once; and if another man say he can
not be saved, it dasheth his despair to the earth; for it affirms that
he can be saved, seeing, "Salvation is of the Lord." That is the effect
this doctrine has upon the sinner, may it have that effect on you!
But what influence has it upon the saint? Why, it is the keystone of
all divinity. I will defy you to be heterodox if you believe this
truth. You must be sound in the faith if you have learned to spell this
sentence– "Salvation is of the Lord;" and if you feel it in your soul
you will not be proud; you can not be; you will cast every thing at his
feet, confessing that you have done nothing, save what he has helped
you to do and therefore the glory must be where the salvation is. If
you believe this you will not be distrustful. You will say, "My
salvation does not depend on my faith, but on the Lord; my keeping does
not depend on myself, but on God who keepeth me; my being brought to
heaven rests not now in my own hands, but in the hands of God;" you
will, when doubts and fears prevail, fold your arms, look upward and
say,
"And now my eye of faith is dim,
I trust in Jesus, sink or swim."
If you can keep this in your mind you may always be joyful. He can have
no cause for trouble who knows and feels that his salvation is of God.
Come on, legions of bell; come on demons of the pit!
"He that has helped me bears me through,
And makes me more than conqueror too."
Salvation resteth not on this poor arm, else should I despair, but on
the arm of yon Omnipotent–that arm on which the pillars of the heavens
do lean. "Whom should I fear ? The Lord is my strength and my life; of
whom shall I be afraid?"
And this, may by grace, nerve you to work for God. If you had to save
your neighbors you might sit down and do nothing; but since "salvation
is of the Lord," go on and prosper. Go and preach the gospel; go and
tell the gospel everywhere. Tell it in your house, tell it in the
street, tell it in every land and every nation; for it is not of
yourself, it is "of the Lord." Why do not our friends go to Ireland to
preach the gospel? Ireland is a disgrace to the Protestant church. Why
do not they go and preach there? A year or so ago a number of our brave
ministers went over there to preach; they did right bravely; they went
there, and they came back again, and that is about the sum total of the
glorious expedition against Popery. But why come back again? Because
they were stoned, good easy men! Do they not think that the gospel ever
will spread without a few stones? But they would have been killed!
Brave martyrs they! Let them be enrolled in the red chronicle. Did the
martyrs of old, did the apostles shrink from going to any country
because they would have been killed? No, they were ready to die: and if
half a dozen ministers had been killed in Ireland, it would have been
the finest thing in the world for liberty in future; for after that the
people dare not have touched us; the strong arm of the law would have
put them down; we might have gone through every village of Ireland
afterwards, and been at peace; the constabulary. would soon have put an
end to such infamous murder; it would have awakened the Protestantism
of England to claim the liberty which is our right there as we give it
elsewhere. We shall never see any great change till we have some men in
our ranks who are willing to be martyrs. That deep ditch can never be
crossed till the bodies of a few of us shall fill it up; and after that
it will be easy work to preach the gospel there. Our brethren should go
there once more. They can leave their white cravats at home, and the
white feather too, and go forth with a brave heart and a bold spirit;
and if the people mock and scoff, let them mock and scoff on. George
Whitefield said, when he preached on Kennington Common, where they
threw dead cats and rotten eggs at him, "This is only the manure of
Methodism, the best thing in the world to make it grow; throw away as
fast as you please." And when a stone cut him on the forehead, he
seemed to preach the better for a little blood-letting. O! for such a
man to dare the mob, and then the mob would not need to be dared. Let
us go there, recollecting that "salvation is of the Lord," and let us
in every place and at every time preach God's Word, believing that
God's Word is more than a match for man's sin, and God will yet be
master over all the earth.
My voice fails me again, and my thoughts too, I was weary this morning,
when I came into this pulpit, and I am weary now. Sometimes I am joyous
and glad, and feel in the pulpit as if I could preach for ever; at
other times I feel glad to close; but yet with such a text I would that
I could have finished up with all the might that mortal lip could
summon. O! to let men know this, that their salvation is of God!
Swearer, swear not against him in whose hand thy breath is! Despiser,
despise not him who can save you or destroy you. And thou hypocrite,
seek not to deceive him from whom salvation comes, and who therefore
knows right well whether thy salvation come from him.
IV. And now in concluding, let me just tell you WHAT IS THE OBSERVE OF
THIS TRUTH. Salvation is of God: then damnation is of man. If any of
you are damned, you will have no one to blame but yourselves; if any of
you perish, the blame will not lie at God's door; if you are lost and
cast away, you will have to bear all the blame and all the tortures of
conscience yourself; you will lie for ever in perdition, and reflect,
"I have destroyed myself; I have made a suicide of my soul; I have been
my own destroyer; I can lay no blame to God." Remember, if saved, you
must be saved by God alone, though if lost you have lost yourselves.
"Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel." With my last
faltering sentence I bid you stop and think. Ah! my hearers, my
hearers! it is an awful thing to preach to such a mass as this. But the
other Sunday, as I came down stairs, I was struck with a memorable
sentence, uttered by one who stood there. He said, "There are 9000
people this morning without excuse in the day of judgment." I should
like to preach so that this always might be said; and if I can not, O
may God have mercy on me, for his name's sake! But now remember! Ye
have souls; those souls will be damned, or saved. Which will it be ?
Damned they must be for ever, unless God shall save you; unless Christ
shall have mercy upon you, there is no hope for you. Down on your knees
I Cry to God for mercy. Now lift up your heart in prayer to God. May
now be the very time when you shall be saved. Or ever the next drop of
blood shall run through your veins, may you find peace! Remember, that
peace is to be had now. If you feel now your need of it, it is to be
had now. And how? For the mere asking for it. ' Ask, and it shall be
given you; seek, and ye shall find."
"But if your ears refuse
The language of his grace,
Your hearts grow hard, like stubborn Jews,
That unbelieving race,
The Lord with vengeance drest,
Shall lift his hand and swear,
You that despised my promised rest
Shall have no portion there."
O! that ye may not be despisers, lest ye "wonder and perish!" May ye
now fly to Christ, and be accepted in the beloved. It is my last best
prayer. May the Lord hear it. Amen.