A Challenge and a Shield
(No. 2240)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 24, 1892,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 24, 1890.
"Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died." Romans 8:34.
HERE are two very wonderful challenges thrown out by the Apostle Paul.
First, he boldly defies anyone to charge the chosen of God with
sin–"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" and then,
even if any charges should be brought against them, he defies all our
foes to secure an adverse verdict–"Who is he that condemns?" This
would be a very bold challenge even for a man who had been righteous
from his youth up! If there had been a man in the history of the world,
who, from his infancy, had known God and who had grown up serving Him,
devoting himself entirely to the cause of the Lord Christ, and if he
had kept the Commandments without fail, as far as man could judge, it
would be a very hazardous thing, even for him to say, "Who is he that
condemns?" For human righteousness is only human–being human, it is
finite and, being finite, it falls short somewhere or other. The best
of men are but men at the best! To be a man is to be a fallen creature
and, being fallen creatures, we cannot, of ourselves, perfectly please
the thrice-holy Jehovah. In many things we all offend.
The man who uttered this challenge, "Who is he that condemns?" and
uttered it under the Inspiration of God, did not, however, occupy the
position of a sinless man. His early years had been spent in opposition
to his Savior. He had been exceedingly vicious against the disciples of
Christ and had persecuted them even unto strange cities! In another
place he calls himself the very chief of sinners and yet it is this man
who dares to ask the question, "Who is he that condemns?" It is a bold,
brave challenge, but it never could have been uttered by Paul if it had
not been accompanied by the next sentence, "It is Christ that dies."
First, he flings down the gauntlet and challenges a battle, crying,
"Who is he that condemns?" And then he holds up a shield so broad that
he is completely concealed behind it–and every enemy is defeated in
the conflict–because, "It is Christ that died."
Happy shall you and I be if, though covered with sin, though guilty and
unclean, we nevertheless shall have faith to believe in the Christ that
died–a faith so strong and confident that we shall dare to stand, both
now, and at the Judgement Seat of Christ and say–"Who is he that
condemns?" May we have this faith on our dying bed, when the pulse is
faint and feeble, and heart and flesh begin to fail! May we still,
between the very jaws of death, have solid confidence in God and dare
to ask, before the presence of men and devils, too, "Who is he that
condemns?" being made bold to do so because we have believed in the
Christ that died!
Paul has, in this case, only one answer to the question, "Who is he
that condemns?" He meets it by the blessed fact that, "It is Christ
that died." I recommend that we should, each one of us, have but one
hope of salvation. As long as we have half-a-dozen, we have
half-a-dozen doubtful ones. But when it comes to only one–and that
such a sufficient one as the Truth of God that, "It is Christ that
died"–we have a well-founded hope in which we may rest with
confidence! Such a hope as this is "an anchor of the soul, both sure
and steadfast." And the man who has this anchor on board the boat of
his life can never suffer spiritual shipwreck!
When Emperor Charles the Fifth went to war with Francis the First, King
of Naples, he sent a herald to him, declaring war in the name of the
Emperor of Germany, King of Castille, King of Aragon, King of Naples,
King of Sicily. And he went on with many more titles, giving his
sovereign all the honors that were his due. When the herald of Francis
the First took up the gage of battle, he would not be outdone in the
list of honors, so he said, "I take up the challenge in the name of
Francis the First, King of France; Francis the First, King of France;
Francis the First, King of France; Francis
the First, King of France; Francis the First, King of France." He just
repeated his master's name and office as many times as the other
gentleman had titles. So it is a grand thing, whenever Satan comes and
begins to accuse you, just to say, "Christ has died; Christ has died."
If any confront you with other confidences, still keep to this almighty
plea, "Christ has died!"
If one says, "I was christened, and confirmed," answer him by saying,
"Christ has died." Should another say, "I was baptized an adult," let
your confidence remain the same–"Christ has died." When another says,
"I am a sound, orthodox Presbyterian," you stick to this solid
ground–"Christ has died." And if still another says, "I am a red-hot
Methodist," answer him in the same way–"Christ has died." Whatever may
be the confidences of others, and whatever may be your own, put them
all away and keep to this one declaration–"It is Christ that died!"
There is enough in that one Truth to include all that is excellent in
the others and to answer all the accusations that may be brought
against you! "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died." I would
put the trumpet to my lips while I preach and sound out this one note,
praying that it may be a death-blast to all accusations that can be
brought against Believers in Christ.
I want you to notice that Paul does not even rest his confidence as to
the Believers' safety upon the fact that they are able to say, "We have
trusted in Christ; we have loved Christ; we have served Christ." He
allows nothing to mar the glory of this one blessed fact, "It is Christ
that died." If he adds anything at all, it is still something about
that same Christ–"yes, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the
right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."
This is a subject upon which I delight to speak, for here is all my
hope and confidence! In these words I see first, a challenge to all
comers– "Who is he that condemns?" Secondly, I see here, a remedy for
all sin. If any take up the gage of battle and say, "We condemn you,"
we shall have this for our complete answer to everyone–"It is Christ
that died." And lastly, I see here, an answer to every accusation
arising from sin. "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died."
I. Here is A CHALLENGE TO ALL COMERS. By the Grace of God the Apostle
stands defiantly in the midst of all the Believer's foes and flings
down the gauntlet before them all. The encounter to which he challenges
them is not to be a mere tilt in a tournament, but a battle for life or
death! Who enters the lists against the Believer? First comes Satan;
then the world; then conscience and, last of all, the Law of God. Over
them all the Believer triumphs! "It is Christ that died," becomes both
his sword and his shield! And when the dread conflict is over and even
while it is raging, he sings, "Thanks be to God, which gives us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
The first who takes up the Believer's challenge is Satan. Some do not
believe in the personality of the devil, but I am as sure of it as I am
of the personality of his children who deny their own father. Those of
us who have passed through any spiritual conflicts know that Satan is a
terribly real person. He attacks us on the right hand and on the left,
from beneath and from above. Very dexterously, with infernal malice, he
endeavors to condemn the child of God. It is his business to be the
accuser of the Brethren and he carries it on with very great vigor. He
knows enough of our conduct to be able, truthfully, to bring to our
memory much that might condemn us. When this fails, he never sticks at
an accusation because it does not happen to be true. Being the father
of lies, he will accuse us of things of which we are not guilty, or,
when it suits his purpose, he will exaggerate our guilt and make it
appear worse than it is, in order that he may drive us to despair.
There is only one way to successfully resist the onset of the
arch-enemy, but that one way ensures certain victory! Up with your
shield and say, "Yes, it is all true, or it might have been, for my
heart is so evil that it would have led me to any sin–but, 'It is
Christ that died.'" This will defeat your great adversary!
Suppose Satan should come to anyone who is seeking the Savior and say,
"You will never find the Lord. You have sinned beyond all limit. You
are too far gone for mercy to reach you–you must perish"? It will be
your highest wisdom to give him this one reply, "It is Christ that
died." That short sentence completely answers all his accusations!
There is no terror to him like the terror of the Cross. Once he gloated
over the Crucifixion, but he has been distressed and terrified by it
ever since! Tell him that you are a sinner and that if he should paint
your sin in its blackest colors, you would not even then, despair, for
it would still be true that Christ "is able also to save them to the
uttermost that come unto God by Him." Christ has died and there is more
than enough virtue in His death to atone for the blackest or most
crimson sins ever committed by men! Close beside the bottomless pit of
our iniquity stands the Cross whereon Christ has made recompense for
all our faults–and when we set Christ over against the gulf of our sin
we see that He far transcends it! Sin is great, but Christ is greater!
His precious blood takes away every stain of guilt. Take care that you
do not answer Satan with any other argument than this–"It is Christ
that died." Again and again let this blow, from the sword of the
Spirit,
descend upon him, "It is Christ that died," and you will soon be
acclaimed the victor over your greatest foe! In this way, "Resist the
devil and he will flee from you."
When you have overcome Satan, the world will come forth to attack you
and to dispute your claim to be numbered among the people of God. As
long as you go with evil companions, they will applaud you. You will be
"a jolly good fellow" while you join them in their folly. But when you
give up their ways, their habits and their society, then they will say
that you are melancholy and no longer fit company for such, "hail
fellows, well met"–and they will turn away from you. If you follow
after Christ and find eternal life, when they hear of it, they will
sneer at you and bring up all your past life against you. They will
say, "What? You converted? You are as bad as any one of us! What? You a
saint? Well, certainly, you made no pretension to it six months
ago–you were about as evil as a man could be!" The world will begin to
throw in the Believer's teeth all his former iniquities when he sets
forth with the cry, "Who is he that condemns?" Tell the world, once and
for all, that it may condemn you, if it pleases, for it condemned the
Lord Jesus long ago–and say that, therefore, you think but little of
the condemnation of your fellow men.
Tell the men of the world that it is right that they condemn you for
all your past life, for doubtless you have been what they say you are,
you will not dispute that fact. But also tell them that what Paul wrote
to the Christians at Corinth is true of you, "You are washed, you are
sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of our God." Tell even them that Christ died! If they say that
Christ's death does not repair the injury you have done to your fellow
men, tell them that, as far as you can, you mean to make restitution to
them and, wherein you have done the world an evil turn, let them know
that your Master has done it more good than you ever did it harm! The
influence of His holy religion has made abundant atonement to the world
for any wrong that you ever did to it. He has rendered more of good to
men than you ever rendered of evil. In all your answers to the
accusations of the world, take care that you base your hopes concerning
forgiven sin upon the death of Christ.
The world will, before long, understand what you mean by saying that
Christ has made atonement for your sin and, perhaps, here and there, a
few of those who ridiculed you will be inclined to know more about this
matter–and in private may come and ask you how the death of Christ has
saved your soul. At any rate, meet the attack of the world as you met
the attack of Satan–with only this weapon–"It is Christ that
died"–and you will be "more than conquerors through Him that loved
us."
The third foe that will seek to condemn you–and one that you have
great cause to fear–is your own conscience. And the weapon which has
discomfited your other foes will also avail you against this one.
Still, this foe is fierce and terrible. Let me feel the worm that never
dies rather than the stings of an offended conscience if, indeed, this
is not, itself, "the worm that dies not." Fire such as martyrs felt at
the stake were but a plaything compared with the flames of a burning
conscience! We read that when David had cut off a piece Saul's cloak,
"It came to pass afterward that David's heart smote him." It is an ugly
knock that a man's heart gives when it smites him! There is no getting
away from yourself and when you condemn yourself, then you are
condemned, indeed! You go to your bed, but your conscience is there,
and it will not sleep. You go out to your pleasures, but your
conscience goes with you, and spoils your mirth. You would forget your
guilt in your daily business, but your conscience calls out at such a
rate that there is no hearing anything else! Thunderbolts and tornadoes
are nothing in force compared with the charges of a guilty conscience.
What is to be done when a man condemns himself? Can he still be valiant
and maintain his ground, calling out, "Who is he that condemns?" Yes,
blessed be God! Even this foe can be overcome by the weapon the
Believer wields in the power of God, for he can tell conscience, as he
told his former opponents, "It is Christ that died." It is a wonderful
story–this old, old story of Jesus and His love to guilty sinners! Let
me tell it once again. God so loved me that He willed to forgive me!
But for the sake of the world which He governs righteously, He could
not forgive me without an Atonement for my sin. It would not have been
consistent with His justice for Him to pass by my sin. What was to be
done? His own dear Son came and stood in my place, and took my sin upon
Him. Knowing that my sin deserved death, He willingly died, the Just
for the unjust, that He might bring me to God. God is well pleased with
the death of Christ as the vindication of His justice and, for Christ's
sake, He says to me, "I have blotted out as a thick cloud your
transgressions, and as a cloud your sins: return unto Me; for I have
redeemed you." Tell conscience that Christ has died for your sins,
according to the Scriptures, and it will be perfectly satisfied–it
will not go to sleep, but it will use its voice for other purposes–and
it will no longer seek to condemn you!
There is still another foe that answers your challenge, "Who is he that
condemns?" It steps forth into the arena and we behold the Law of God.
What shall we say to that? The Law of God says, "You shall," and we
have not done what it commands. The Law of God says, "You shall not,"
and we have done exactly what we were forbidden to do! Only too true is
that confession, "We have left undone those things which we ought to
have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have
done, and there is no health in us." The Law of God condemned us in
former days and would again overthrow us if we ventured to meet it
unarmed. It must condemn sin, for, "the Law is holy, and the
Commandment holy, and just and good." But when it has attacked us and
done its worst, there comes in the majesty of Divine Sovereignty! God
is King over all and able to govern the world according to His own
mind, which mind is always infinitely just. He decrees that Christ
Jesus, the Well-Beloved, even His own other Self, who is One with Him,
should come into the world and bear the sin of man, make amends to the
injured honor of God and magnify the Law before the eyes of the whole
universe!
If the guilty sinner dies, the Law is honored. But if God shall assume
human flesh and die for that sinner, the Law of God is even more
honored. When Christ Jesus took away our guilt and "His own Self bore
our sins in His own body on the tree," justice was more terribly
displayed than when guilty sinners sink to Hell! We are only creatures,
after all, and when we are condemned, we sink down into destruction and
suffer for our sin. But He is the eternal God and when He takes our
nature and cries, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" and
bleeds His life away in agony, then is the Law of God abundantly
honored! Therefore we say to that Law, "Law, you have nothing to do
with me! I am 'not under Law, but under Grace.' My Substitute has kept
the Law on my behalf. He has borne the penalty which I ought to have
borne and I am clear. I am now dead to the Law. I have died in Christ
and my life is now that of a child of God, for I have been lifted to
that high estate by my redeeming Lord."
There is, now, nobody left that I know of, that can condemn us, except
the Judge. But if we have escaped our opponents–Satan, the world,
conscience, and the Law–we need not fear to stand even at God's
judgment seat! The Judge is now on our side and none of us need fear
anybody's condemnation if the Judge does not condemn us! You come into
court with your case and the counsel on the other side condemns you.
When he sits down, he has done his worst and his witnesses also condemn
you. But if the verdict is in your favor and the judge says that you
may leave the court with a stainless character, you do not care about
the condemnation of others! Now, there is but one Judge–the Man,
Christ Jesus. It is He that died for us. He cannot bring us in debt to
Divine Justice, for in His own hands and feet are the nail-prints which
are the receipts of Justice in full settlement of all claims against
us! He has paid all we owed and He will vindicate His own death and
claim, for the travail of His soul, its due reward which is the
forgiveness and the salvation of all guilty men who have come and put
their trust in Him!
Why, since it is only our Judge who can condemn us. And since He is the
very Person who has paid our debt for us and put our sin away, we dare
to repeat, again, with additional emphasis, our ringing challenge to
all the universe, "Who is he that condemns?"–
"Who now accuses them, For whom their Ransom died? Who now shall those
condemn Whom God has justified? Captivity is captive led– For Jesus
lives, who was dead!" II. In the second place, I see in our text A
REMEDY FOR ALL SIN. On this I shall speak very briefly. We stand boldly
in front of all our foes because we know that we are free from the evil
which once condemned us–it is all gone! Our confidence is, therefore,
strong, and it is so because Christ's dying has removed all sin from
all Believers.
"Look," says one, "there is sin. It is true that you are a Believer,
but you have sinned often, for years, in all sorts of ways!" Yes, as we
look, we must confess that it is true, there is the sin. But yonder is
the Savior–and He is called Jesus, "For He shall save His people from
their sins." He has come on purpose to put away our sin–and when He
died, He made an end of it. The answer, therefore, to the statement,
"There is sin," is this–"Christ has died."
Another says, "Yes, but then you have been especially guilty, there is
great sin against a great God. You have continued in it and persisted
in it." True, we do confess that accusation–but there is a great
Sacrifice, for He that came to save us, laid down His life for us–and
greater sacrifice than this could never be! "Christ has redeemed us
from the curse of the
Law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone
that hangs on a tree." This is the grandest message of the Gospel, that
"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." The Apostle
Paul puts this, "first of all," and every true preacher of the good
tidings of salvation will follow his example. We have, indeed, in the
death of Christ, a great Atonement–an Atonement so great that none can
measure its height and depth, its length and breadth! The Glory of the
Person who died, the anguish and the suffering He endured, the love
that moved Him to give Himself up to death for us–all make us see how
great the Atonement is! There is great sin–that we know only too
well–but we also rejoice in the knowledge that there is a great
Atonement to cover all our sin, "For it is Christ that died."
"But," interrupts another, "God must punish sin. It is not optional
with Him–it is an inevitable law of the universe. Transgress the law
and punishment will follow." It is even so, but listen, God must punish
sin, and God haspunished sin. He took the great mass of the sins of
Believers and piled the whole on Christ–and when He hung upon the
Cross as His people's Substitute, even His Father hid His face from
Him. He died–the Prince of Glory died the ignominious felon's
death–in the place of guilty men! God has punished sin! And when men
say, "God must punish sin," we answer, "Sin has been punished, for
Christ has died."
Not only is our sin punished, but the sin is gone. If my friend over
yonder has paid my debt, it is gone. I owe no man anything after the
debt has been paid, whether by myself, or by somebody else. And if
Christ took our sin upon Himself and suffered for it, the sins for
which He suffered are gone–plunged as in a shoreless sea–drowned in
the Redeemer's blood. They are gone, and gone forever!–
"He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoners free! His
blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me!"
And that my sins are gone is further clear, for He rose again from the
dead! "It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again." If He
had not paid the debt, He would have remained in the prison of the
grave–but He rose again! He has discharged the debt and we have
another assurance that it is all gone, for the Apostle goes on to speak
of Christ "who is even at the right hand of God." He would not be there
if He were a debtor! If Christ owed anything to the justice of God by
reason of His suretyship engagements, He would not be at God's right
hand–but He owes nothing whatever! Both the sinner and the Surety are
now free! The debt is paid and Christ is at the right hand of God. And
as to our weaknesses and infirmities, He is there to plead for His
people–"Who also makes intercession for us." He always lives to secure
effectually the eternal salvation of every soul for whom He died, even
for everyone who puts His trust in Him.
Are you among the number? Oh, if you, my dear Hearers, knew the joy and
peace that would come to you if you but trusted in the doctrine of
Substitution, you would not rest until you were able to say, "Christ
was in my place, that I might stand in His place–my sins were laid on
Him, that His righteousness might be girded on me!" If you understood
how delightful it is to get out of yourself into Christ and to live
because Jesus died, you would not linger and doubt, and fear, but you
would say, "If it is so, I will come to Christ and I will trust Him,
that with you I may say, 'The chastisement of our peace was upon Him
and with His stripes we are healed.'" This, then is God's great remedy
for sin–"It is Christ
that died."
III. Now I want your attention while I try to show that this blessed
sentence, "It is Christ that died," is AN ANSWER TO EVERY ACCUSATION
which, under any circumstances, may arise from sin. We have seen that
Christ's death enables us to conquer our foes and frees us from our
sins. It also delivers us from every fear and doubt. The death of
Christ gives us a full salvation. I cannot mention all the accusations
which sin makes, but I will mention a great many of them very quickly,
and show how the man who believes in Christ, the dying Christ, the
risen Christ, the reigning Christ, is able to meet and overcome them.
Sometimes the accusing whisper comes to your ear, "You have sinned
against a great God. It will be a terrible thing to have to answer to
the great and mighty God for having so sinned." I will make no answer
to that accusation but this–"It is Christ that died." Christ, Himself,
the great and mighty God, is the "Interpreter, one among a thousand,"
able to stand between me and God! It is true that God is great, but He
cannot ask for more than Divine righteousness– and in Christ I present
that! No, His Law never asked for more than human righteousness. The
Law of God has, therefore, more than it asked for, and I am thus not
afraid of the anger of the great God! It is the mighty God, Himself,
who came here to be a Man and to die in our place, for is it not
written that God has bought His people with His own blood?
We read of "the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own
blood." It is a strong expression, but as it is Scriptural, we cannot
alter it–and we have no wish to do so. Oh, Beloved, if we have a God
for our Redeemer, though our sins against God are very many, and though
they are very black and foul, yet Christ's infinite Sacrifice meets
them
all–
"Love of God, so pure and changeless, Blood of God, so rich and free,
Grace of God, so strong and boundless, Magnify them all in me, Even
me."
"You have robbed God of His Glory," another voice seems to say. "You
know how you used to blaspheme His name." Or, perhaps, you were more
polite–you did not curse and swear, but the accusation comes–"You
argued against God and His Son, and against His blessed Gospel. You
have robbed Him of His Glory." To that I give the same answer, "It is
Christ that died." I know that I have robbed God of His Glory, but
Christ has brought all the Glory back. I see "the Glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ." A dying Savior brings more Glory to the love of
God, yes, and to the justice of God, than any mortal sinner could have
done–more than any perfect man, though he lived throughout eternity,
could have done! Thus, that doubt is answered by the same all-powerful
argument–"It is Christ that died."
"But you have sinned willfully,''" says the upbraiding accuser! "You
went after evil with all your heart–you know what you did! As a young
man, you were a ringleader in evil. You were not stirred up and led by
others–you led other people! You drank down sin as a greedy ox drinks
water." True, true, I sinned willfully, but then my Lord Jesus came
willingly to stand in my place. He willing died for me, the willful
sinner! He had power to lay down His life and He had power to take it
up again–of His own free will He went to prison and death for His
people's sake. So the evil worked by my free will is met and covered by
the Sovereign obedience of His free will–"It is Christ that died."
"Ah," says the accuser, "but you sinned against light and knowledge.
You cannot deny it. When you sinned, you were not like the common
people of the street who know no better! You had a godly father. You
had a Christian mother. You were trained in the fear of God. You read
your Bible in early youth and you went astray with a vengeance, for
when you sinned, you knew that you were sinning and yet you
transgressed!" Yes, I know that it was so. And Christ, to meet my sin
against knowledge, brings a Sacrifice offered with His own full
knowledge of all that it involved–
"This was compassion like a God, That when the Savior knew The price of
pardon was His blood, His pity never withdrew."
"Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands,"
poured out water and began to wash His disciples' feet, and then went,
with full knowledge of all that was before Him, to pour out His blood
to wash their souls from guilt! In the midst of His agony on the tree,
He still had full understanding concerning His sacrifice–"Knowing that
all things were now accomplished"–He bowed His head and died. Thus my
ill knowledge is met by the great and heavenly knowledge with which He
went about the work of offering a complete Atonement in my place. "It
is Christ that died."
"Yes, yes!" says yet another accuser, "but you have sinned with
delight! You took a pleasure in it! You were not as some who were mere
drudges to sin–you drank it down like sweet wine and you could not
have too much of it!" Ah, It is so, but then my Lord Christ delighted
to come to be my Savior. In the volume of the Book it is written of
Him–"I delight to do Your will, O my God! Yes, Your Law is within my
heart." I took pleasure in sin but, "He, for the joy that was set
before Him, endured the Cross, despising the shame." Therefore, over
against my delight in sin, I set His delight in presenting to the
Father His perfect righteousness and His all-sufficient substitutionary
Sacrifice–"It is Christ that
died."
I do not seem to want to preach. I want to sit down and suck all the
sweetness out of this blessed Truth of God–"It is Christ that died."
Ah, but another bitter taunt comes to me, "You have sinned in spirit.
You not only sinned with your body, with your eyes, your lips, your
hands–but you have sinned very horribly in imagination and desires."
Ah, Brothers and Sisters! Here we must bow our heads. All manner of
evil things we commit in our thoughts–sin runs riot in our spirit.
Well, we confess that, too, but then Christ suffered in His spirit. The
sufferings of His soul were the very soul of His sufferings! He not
only groaned in body, when beaten by the Roman soldiers, and pierced
with nails and thorns, but
in soul He was overwhelmed by exceeding heaviness and by the desertion
of His God. To atone for the sin of my soul there is the sorrow of His
soul–if I poured out my soul in sin, He poured out His soul unto death
and He was numbered with the transgressors. "It is Christ that died."
If the black thought then comes up, "Ah, but you have before refused
Christ. Many times you put Him away. You quenched conscience. You went
to the House of God, not to pray, but to laugh. Yes, and when Christ
would have pulled you away, you held hard onto your sin! You long
rejected Christ." Yes. But I set over against that the fact that He
always would have me. He loved me to death and, albeit that He foresaw
and foreknew that I should reject Him, yet He would not take, "No," for
answer from me–but He resolved that His true Grace should truly
conquer me and make me willing in the day of His power!
Still the accuser continues reminding us of our past life–"You have
trusted in others and turned away from Christ. You went everywhere
before you came to Him." Did you ever need to hire a horse in a market
town? You went to some place and asked the price–and thought it too
high. Then you went away to half-a-dozen other stable keepers and could
not do any better, so you came back to the first. But he, displeased
with you, very possibly said, "I do not need your business. You have
been to everybody else–you may go to them now." I have known a surly
man act in that way, but Christ never turns us away because we only
come to Him when others fail us! Many have gone round the world to look
for a savior other than the Lord Jesus Christ–and they have only come
to Him when all others have failed them! It is astonishing where men
will go to seek salvation. Some go to Rome and some to Oxford. Some go,
I know not where. They seek in vain, for there is no Savior to be found
except at Calvary! And after you have made the circuit of the globe and
compassed Heaven and Hell to find another way of salvation, you will
have to come back to Christ! Blessed be His name, He will not refuse
you even then, if you will but believe Him! The proof of love to the
uttermost is, "It is Christ
that died."
But I feel a darkness coming down over my spirit and in the darkness
there is a fiendish voice that says, "But you have committed unknown
sins, sins that nobody else knows, and there have been sins which you,
yourself, did not know. Hidden in your heart there is a damning spot
which your eyes have not discovered." Here comes in this blessed word
taken out of the Greek litany, "By Your unknown sufferings." It is
almost as good as Scripture, for Scripture leads us to think of the
sufferings of Christ as an unfathomable deep. Who can tell us what
Christ's suffering really was? It goes into the region of unknown
things –it goes beyond the knowable–for flesh and blood will never be
able to comprehend what Jesus suffered when the great flood of human
sin came rushing down upon Him and filled His spirit to the brim! "It
is Christ that died." My unknown sins are buried in the unknown deeps
of His almighty Sacrifice!
Ah, but another thought comes up, "You know that He died, but then, you
have slain your Lord. You had a share in His death! You know that every
sinner is guilty of the murder of Christ." I know it. I know it to my
shame and confusion. Yet do I live by Him I slew! I am saved by Him I
murdered! And, by His Grace, I glory in the Grace that makes such a
miracle of mercy possible!"–
"With pleasing grief and mournful joy My spirit now is filled, That I
should such a Life destroy Yet live by Him I killed."
Whether it was by mine or by any other wicked hands, yet it was by "the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," that Jesus died in the
place of all who believe in Him! I believe in Him, therefore He has
died for me! He died for His murderers, for those that mocked and
insulted Him, for He commanded His disciples to begin preaching the
Gospel at Jerusalem, where they crucified Him–to preach it even to
those who had hounded Him to His doom! O dear Friends, what comfort
lies in this word, "It is Christ that died!"
"Ah," says the accuser, but you are still sinful. What if Christ died
for all your past sins? What about your present sinfulness?" Well,
about that, I have this to say, "It is Christ that died, yes rather,
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also
makes intercession for us." I believe that when Christ died, He took
all the sins of all His people–past, present and to come–and when the
whole mass was condensed into one bitter cup, He drank it all up–
"At one tremendous draught of love," leaving not so much as a single
drop of wormwood or gall for any to drink who put their trust in Him!
Come, my Hearer, if what I say to you is true (and I will answer for
its truth at God's great Judgement Seat), then I pray you believe in
the
Lord Jesus Christ, for, "He that believes in Him shall not be ashamed,
nor confounded, world without end." I am in this boat myself. If it
sinks, I am lost–but it will not sink, for the Pilot of the Galilean
Lake is on board!
Come in with me! Let us sail together to Glory. I will not say, "Let us
sink or swim together," for there is no sinking to a soul that rests in
Christ! This is a good seaworthy vessel–"It is Christ that died." God
has accepted Christ in the place of His people–and you, accepting
Christ to stand in your place–shall find that your sin is put away,
that His righteousness is yours and that you are "accepted in the
Beloved!"
I have once more preached the Gospel to you as plainly and as simply as
I can. Whether you will receive it, or not, must rest with yourselves.
May God the Holy Spirit lead you to trust in "Christ that died!" God
bless you! Amen.
Portion of Scripture Read before Sermon–Romans8:26-39.