Dead, Yet Alive
(No. 2933)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1905.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 6, 1876.
"Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin, therefore,
reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts
thereof." Romans 6:11,12.
How remarkably interwoven and intertwisted are the duties of Believers
and their privileges! Indeed, it is often very difficult to say which
is a privilege and which is a duty, for that which is a duty under one
aspect is a privilege under another aspect–and that which is evidently
a privilege may involve sin if it is not enjoyed and, therefore, it has
something of duty about it. I think there should be no dividing asunder
the duties and privileges which God has manifestly joined together–and
that we should count it our highest privilege to do His will in every
duty which He has enjoined upon us.
Equally remarkable is it how closely the privileges and duties of the
Christian life are connected with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because we are one with Him, therefore are we beloved of the Father,
therefore are we redeemed from death and Hell, therefore are we
separated from the world, therefore are we dead to sin, therefore do we
live unto the Lord and therefore do we confidently expect a final
triumph over all our adversaries until the last enemy of all shall be
put under our feet! You get nothing, dear Brother or Sister in Christ,
except as you get it through Christ! Apart from Him you would be
miserable, poor, blind and naked–as you were until you came to Him.
But in union with Him you are rich to all the intents of bliss. All
things are yours because you are Christ's and while the Father views
you as one with Christ, He will bless you–and while you view yourself
as one with Christ, you will be conscious of the blessing and, at the
same time, will be led to devote yourself more completely to the
pursuit of holiness and the fear of God.
I have been specially praying for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in
handling a subject which belongs not so much to the worshippers in the
outer court, where we preach the Gospel to all, as to those in the
inner court where we speak only to those who are, we trust, already
saved. If I have the gracious guidance of the Spirit of God, my words
will drop as dew upon the hearts of those who are living unto God–and
they will be refreshed and encouraged. But I could not bear the thought
that my sermon should have no bearing whatever upon those who are, at
present, outside the visible fold of Christ. Therefore, at the very
outset of my discourse, I let you all know that I am preaching now
especially to the Lord's own people. Judge you yourselves, therefore,
as to whether you belong to that privileged company or not! And if you
have not believed in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, know that you
have no share in the privileges of the Covenant of Grace. And while I
am preaching to Believers, sit down and sigh from your inmost heart
over the sad fact that you are an alien from the commonwealth of
Israel! If the Lord, by His gracious Spirit, will lead you to do so, He
will hear that sorrowful sigh of yours and I trust that you will be
led, sighing and crying, to the Savior's feet to believe in Him to the
salvation of your never-dying soul! Then will you enter at once into
all the privileges which belong to the children of God–those
privileges about which I am now to speak.
The two verses which form my text seem to me to set before us, first, a
great Truth of God–a great fact which is to be the subject of our
reckoning–"Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto
sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." And, secondly,
a great lesson to be put into practice. "Let not sin therefore"–for
the argument is carried on from the former verse–"Let not sin
therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the
lusts thereof."
I. What is the meaning of the first verse? What is THE GREAT TRUTH
which is taught to us by the Holy Spirit? It is this–"Reckon you also
yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord."
It is quite certain that God never asks Believers to reckon anything to
be true which is not true, for to reckon a thing to be what it is not
would be to build upon a false basis and, in fact, to argue upon that
which is false. This would not be consistent with the Character of God,
Himself, nor with the nature of the Gospel, which is, essentially, a
proclamation of the Truths of God. There are no suppositions and
imaginations in the Gospel–it tells of positive sin, positive
punishment, positive substitution and positive forgiveness–for God
would not have His people reckon upon anything which is not absolutely
true. Therefore the text does not mean that you are to reckon that
there is no sin in you, but that you are "dead indeed unto sin." You
are not to reckon that which is lie–that which God the Holy Spirit
intends you to reckon is a matter of positive, undoubted fact. If you
read the context, you will see what that matter of fact is.
It is, first, that every Believer is truly dead to sin because Christ
has died to sin. The Lord Jesus Christ is our Covenant Head. And what
He did, He did in the place of His people–He did it all
representatively on their behalf so that what He did, they virtually
did through Him as their Representative. Always remember that the
federal principle has been adopted by God in His dealings with the
human race from the very beginning. We were all, representatively, in
Adam and, therefore, Adam's sin brought us all into transgression and
condemnation so that we have all become partakers in the result of
Adam's one sin. It was not actually ours, but it became ours by
imputation and it brought upon us all its terrible consequences because
Adam was our federal head. In the same way, the Lord Jesus Christ is
the Federal Head and Representative of His people–and what He has
done, He has done on their behalf and it is reckoned as though they had
done it themselves. Beloved, it was due from us that, having broken
God's Law, we should endure the punishment resulting from our
disobedience. That punishment was death, for, "the soul that sins, it
shall die." There must, therefore, be passed upon us, if we are ever to
be clear at God's Judgment Bar, a sentence that shall be an adequate
punishment for sin. That sentence is so overwhelming and so dreadful
that nothing can describe it but the term, death Can that ever happen
to us? It has happened to us! We who believe in Jesus Christ have been
confronted with our sins, accused of them, condemned for them and
punished for them! The full penalty, or that which was tantamount
thereunto, has them exacted from us. We have died the death that was
sin's due reward!
"But," someone asks, "how is that?" I answer that the Apostle tells us
in this Chapter that we have done it, representatively, in the Person
of Jesus Christ, our great Federal Head, Surety and Substitute. Can you
grasp the great Truth of God that whatever was due from us to God's
Justice has been fully paid by Christ? Whatever of suffering was
necessary as the result of sin from the penal side of the question has
been already endured by Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior! Therefore
Christ took our sin upon Him, though in Him was no sin of His own, and
He died unto sin, bearing the penalty of it. As the inevitable
consequence of His Sacrifice upon the Cross, He is clear from the sin
that was laid upon Him and so are all His people in whose place He
suffered! Toplady truly sang–
"Complete Atonement You have made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whatever Your people owed–
Nor can His wrath on me take place,
If sheltered in Your righteousness
And sprinkled with Your blood!
If You have my discharge procured
And freely in my place endured
The whole of wrath Divine–
Payment God cannot twice demand–
First at my bleeding Surety's hand
And then again at mine."
I may make this Truth of God plainer by a comparison which is
impossible in the case of men, but which may illustrate the point we
are now considering. Suppose that a man has been found guilty of a
crime which is a capital offense according to the law of his country?
The only way of dealing with him, in justice, is that he should endure
the penalty for his offense. Suppose the sentence to have been carried
out, the man has been put to death and has been buried? But after that,
he has risen again–can the law touch him now? Can any charge be laid
against him? Can he be brought,
a second time, before the tribunal? Assuredly not! The same justice
which brought him to the bar, before, and punished him, now stands up
and declares that he cannot be touched again, for how shall he be twice
charged, twice tried and twice put to death for the same offense? This
cannot happen, as I have said, among men–but it has happened in the
case of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! For all His people, He has
borne the death penalty and He has risen from the dead–and they have
borne the death penalty in Him and risen from the dead in Him.
Therefore let them rejoice who, in the Person of their Redeemer, they
are dead by sin and dead for sin–for such is the meaning of this
passage. I wish that all of you who believe in Jesus could get a firm
hold of this blessed Truth of God, for, if you do, it will makes your
heart dance for joy! We are emancipated because our ransom price has
been fully paid! We are set free from the Law, not by the Law waiving
the penalty due to our sin, for the penalty has been endured in the
Person of One who had the right to endure it, for He was His people's
Representative! And what He endured on their behalf is reckoned as
though they had personally endured it, so that each one of them can
say, with Toplady–
"Turn then, my soul, unto your rest!
The merits of your great High Priest
Have bought your liberty!
Trust in His efficacious blood,
Nor fear your banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee."
Further, the Apostle says that we are to reckon ourselves "dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." This is
the other side of the great Truth which is implied in our union to
Christ–that every Believer is truly alive unto God because Christ is
alive unto God! We know that Christ is alive unto God–"Knowing that
Christ being raised from the dead dies no more"–and we also know that
the new life of which the Apostle is here writing is a life that we
share with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because of our union to
Him. Christ died and was laid in the grave because He was our Surety
and Substitute. Our great debt of sin was laid to His account, but His
death discharged all our liabilities. What then? The receipt for our
debt–the token that our sin had been forever put away–was that Christ
should come out of the prison of the grave. As one of our rhymesters
says–
"If Jesus had not paid the debt,
He never had been at freedom set." He "died for our sins," but He also
"rose again for our justification." When the bright angel flew from
Heaven and rolled away the stone from the mouth of the sepulcher and
Jesus unwrapped the cerements of His tomb and came forth in the glory
of His Resurrection-Life, all for whom He died and rose again were
acknowledged as justified before God through His righteousness and
cleansed from all sin by His blood! And now, Beloved Brothers and
Sisters in Christ, this is our joy–that we are alive unto God through
Jesus Christ our Lord!
A little while ago we were dead unto God, for the sentence which He had
pronounced upon us made us virtually dead unto Him. We were under
condemnation, "the children of wrath, even as others," but now that
Jesus Christ has risen from the grave we are no longer dead unto God,
but we are alive unto Him–and He looks upon us as those who have been
delivered from the sentence of spiritual death and who cannot again
come under that penalty, since Christ, who stood and suffered in our
place, has forever put away from us, not only our guilt, but also all
its dread consequences–
"We were lost, but we are found,
Dead, but now alive are we!
We were sore in bondage bound,
But our Jesus sets us free!
Therefore will we sing His praise
Who His lost ones has restored,
Hearts and voices both shall raise
Hallelujahs to the Lord!"
Further than that, as the text says, "Likewise," the very word here
used bids us run the parallel as the Apostle has done. He says, "Christ
being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion
over Him." See, then, what this means in reference to us who have
believed in Him. Jesus Christ will not die twice. The sin of His people
that was laid upon Him, brought Him down to the grave. But there He
buried it and He rose again, no longer bearing the sin for
which He had paid the penalty. And that sin cannot be laid upon Him a
second time and, therefore, He shall never again need to be crucified.
Beloved, do you not see that if your sin was really laid upon Christ
and you died unto sin in Christ, you can never have that sin laid to
your charge again under any circumstances whatever, unless Christ can
die again? By one sufficient punishment our offense has been put away
even from the sight of God–can that offense, then, be brought against
us and laid to our charge a second time? No, verily, for if it could,
it would be necessary that our Great Substitute should bleed and die a
second time! But, as that cannot be, the sin of the Believer can never
again be imputed to him and can never again rise in judgment against
him! While Christ, the ever-blessed Savior, continues to live, His
people must also continue to live! What a glorious Truth this is! I,
then, if I am a Believer in Christ, have, through my union to Him,
borne the penalty of sin! I have died in Christ and the life that I now
live before the living God is a life that is uncondemned and
uncondemnable and which can never expire because sin can never be laid
to its charge again!
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, how I wish that you could get a
firm grip of this blessed Truth of God, so that you could enjoy it to
the fullest in your own soul! It is not always easy to realize your
union with Christ–to see how He takes your place and you take His–to
mark how He is bruised for your iniquities and how the chastisement of
your peace is laid upon Him–and that, in consequence–you take His
place as accepted and beloved by the Father, that you are raised from
the dead and honored even to share His Glory in the highest Heavens,
for He has gone up there as the Representative of all His people and
you are also raised up together with Him and made to sit with Him in
the Heavenly places! And as He is to come again, in all the Glory of
the Father, to subdue all things unto Himself, so are you to reign with
Him, for He has said, "Where I am, there shall also My servant be."
And, "to him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me on My Throne,
even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father on His Throne."
What a glorious Truth this is, that all Believers are dead, raised,
living, exalted and glorified in Christ Jesus!
Now, Beloved, having given you that meaning of the passage–and I am
persuaded that it is its true meaning and that no other will bear
examination–I want to warn you against the interpretation that some
have tried to put upon the Apostle's words. They say that they are dead
to sin and alive unto God. And they tell us, perhaps, not in so many
words–that now they do not sin–they live in a state of perpetual
sanctity and are no more affected by sin than a dead man would be
affected by that which goes on in the house wherein his corpse is
lying. These people say that their life now is one, if not of absolute
holiness, yet, in a certain sense, of perfect holiness! I conceive this
to be one of the most dangerous delusions of the present
age–apparently specious and supportable by Scripture, but, in reality,
without any solid foundation and full of a thousand dangers! There are
two ways by which a man can persuade himself that he does not sin. The
first is the Antinomian method by which he says that he is not under
the Lawand that, therefore, whatever he does is not sinful. If another
man were to do a certain thing, he would be very wrong–but if he does
it, he, being a specially chosen one, is in a condition in which it is
not reckoned to be sin or is not laid to his charge. Well, Beloved, I
can only say that when I have read certain caricatures of this
doctrine–and it is most natural that ungodly men should make fun of
it–I have thought that the caricature was richly deserved and that any
contempt that could be poured upon such atrocious lies was well
merited! Sin in a Christian is quite as much sin as it is in anybody
else! Indeed, it is a great deal more sinful, for never does a black
stain seem so black as when it falls on spotlessly white linen–and
never is sin as sinful as when it is committed by one who is greatly
loved by the Lord and is the subject of peculiar favor. May
Antinomianism never mislead either you or me, Beloved!
The other way of perverting this Truth of God is to say that you do not
sin at all–to stand up straight, like the Pharisee in the temple, and
say that you have attained such a condition that you do not now sin. If
any of you, my dear Friends, are in that condition, the sooner you get
out of it and humble yourselves before God for ever having dared to get
into it, the better will it be for you! Our Lord Jesus Christ and His
Apostle never meant that we were to reckon ourselves to be dead to sin
in such a sense that we never sinned at all, or that sin did not affect
us as it affected other people, because that is not the truth! I appeal
to every man who has a conscience and I trust that even the Believers
in this super-fine holiness have some trace of conscience left, so I
appeal to them whether they are or not conscious of sin! My dear
Brother or Sister, if you are not guilty of a single sin of
commission–if you never utter an unkind or angry word– if you never
speak unadvisedly with your lips–if you never break one of the Ten
Commandments in the letter by an overt act of sin–if there is never
about you any trace of pride, or covetousness, or wrath, or anything
else that is wrong–can
you say that you are free from sins of omissionl Have you done all you
should have done in as high and noble a spirit as you ought to have
displayed in it?
O my Brother, if this is your belief, you must be strangely different
from what I have ever been able to be, for when I have done my very
best before God, I have always felt that my best was imperfect and
marred by sin! I have had to mourn over many omissions even when I have
diligently labored to obey my Lord and Master perfectly. And in
reviewing any one day of my life, I have never dared to congratulate
myself upon it, but, with tears of repentance, I have had to confess
that if I have not erred by overt sin, yet I have somewhere or other
come short of the Glory of God. My dear Brother, do you really believe
that your motives and the spirit in which you have acted have been
perfect in God's sight? It is quite unaccountable to me. If you look
into your own heart and try to trace all your sacred motives, desires,
imagination and all the tendencies of your nature–can you say that you
do not sin against the Lord? Have you the same standard of holiness
that we have? Surely you cannot have if you think you have attained it!
If you have the same standard that we have, I am certain that you have
not attained it. The holiness that a Christian ought to aim at is to be
absolutely as just, righteous and pure as God Himself is. This is the
mark that He sets before us–"Be you holy, for I am holy." "Be you
perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." If you say
that you have reached that perfection, I believe that if you let your
conscience speak the truth, it will tell you that you are under a great
delusion and that you are utterly self-deceived upon that matter!
As to the notion that reckoning yourself to be perfect will help you to
be so, I tell you flatly that it will most effectually prevent you from
becoming perfect Reckon that you are sinful! Admit that sin far too
often prevails over you and then go humbly to God and confess that it
is so–and seek from Him Grace to keep you, day by day, from the power
of reigning sin and you will, in that way, make a real advance in
sanctification and true holiness! But if you reckon that you have
reached this blessed condition, you will never reach it. If you sit
down in carnal security, you will rest in contentment with yourself,
but you will never be what I trust you really desire to be. Your
experience will be like that of the artist who at last painted a
picture with which he was perfectly satisfied and he then said to his
wife, "I may as well break my pallet and throw away my brushes. I shall
never be a great painter, now, for I have realized my ideal–I am
perfectly satisfied with this picture that I have produced." Far better
is it for you to have a sacred dissatisfaction and hallowed discontent
with all that you are! That forgetting of the things which are behind
and reaching forth unto those that are before. That pressing forward
toward the mark for the prize of your high calling in Christ Jesus to
which the Apostle urges you–that seeking to fight from day to day with
the temptations that surround you, not reckoning that you have won the
victory yet, but believing that you will win it though the blood of the
Lamb–this is what we long to see in you–not to behold you sitting
down in calm content and saying, "It is all done. I am perfect." For,
believe me, my Brothers and Sisters–or, if you do not believe me, you
will find it to be true sooner or later–you are not perfect by a very
long way, as the devil knows and as God knows, and as many people
beside yourself know who see what your daily life is and mark your
conversation!
II. Now, having thus spoken concerning this great Truth of God and
having shown you in what way we are dead unto sin and alive unto God
through our union to Christ, I want to point out to you THE GREAT
PRACTICAL LESSON WHICH THE TEXT SETS BEFORE US. "Let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts
thereof."
This is the great fact that you are always to remember–you are now an
altogether new man. In Christ Jesus you have died, been buried and have
risen again. Surely you will not now have anything to do with sin, will
you? You must hate it, for it has done you such serious mischief. It
was sin that slew you in the Person of your Substitute and Savior, but
now you have been born-again and you are a new man in Christ Jesus. You
are not going back to sin, are you? Oh, no, your whole soul abhors it
and you now endeavor, from this time forward, to be entirely free from
its dominion. You mourn that sin is still within you and that it still
has great power over you. That power it will try to use and it aims at
getting complete dominion over you. It seeks to make you again what you
formerly were–its subject and its slaves.
You are told, in the text, not to let sin reign in your mortal body and
this injunction implies that sin is already there and that sin will
seek to get dominion over you. Be not surprised, young converts, if you
find sin to be terribly fierce within you and if, sometimes, it seems
even to be stronger than Divine Grace! It is not really so, but it may
sometimes appear to you to be so. And rest assured of this–that sin in
you is so strong that unless God the Holy Spirit shall help you, it
will get the victory over you. It will fail to get the victory over you
because God will help you, but if He did not, the smallest soldier in
the army of sin would be too strong for you, however powerful you may
think yourself to be! Sin in a Believer can never reign over him
because he is dead to the reigning power of sin. O King Sin, I am no
subject of yours! I was once, but I died and now I have risen again in
Christ and I am no subject of yours. What, then, does sin do, if it
cannot reign over the Believer? It lurks inside the soul like an outlaw
whose banishment has not yet taken place. John Bunyan's description of
the Holy War is a matter of true experience. After the Diabolonians
were overthrown in Mansoul, many of them remained hidden away in dens
and corners of the city. And although diligent search was made to find
them, there were always some of them hiding away in the back lanes and
side streets where they could not easily be discovered. It is just so
with sin. As a reigning king, sin is dead to you, and you to it, but,
as a sneaking outlaw, sin is still lurking within your soul! It is
plotting and planning to get back its former dominion over you and not
merely plotting and planning, but it is also warring and fighting to
that end.
Oh, with what terrible force does sin sometimes assail a Believer! Just
when he least expected it to come, some old lust reappears. "Oh!" he
cries, "I thought that evil passion would never again assail me."
Perhaps when he is on his knees in prayer, a blasphemous thought is
suddenly injected into his mind–and when he is engaged in his
business, endeavoring to provide things honest in the sight of all
men–he finds a temptation to do something which is unjust, put in his
way, and though, at first, it seems as if he would consent to it, yet,
by the Grace of God, he is enabled to get the victory over it. The very
best man in the world, if he were left by Divine Grace only for five
minutes, might become and probably would become the worst man in the
world! Left to himself, impetuous Peter begins cursing and swearing and
thrice denies his Master. This vile outlaw, sin, that is always
fighting within us, will be king if it can. It will rally all the
forces of the world against us! It will call the devil himself to its
assistance and so seek to get the reigning power again–but it never
can, for we are not its subjects, we are not under its dominion and we
never will be! The almighty God who has redeemed us from going down
into the Pit will never suffer us to again be the slave of sin, yet we
are to constantly be on the watch against its attacks.
The text also implies that the point of assault of sin upon you will be
your body–"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body." It is
generally through our body that sin tries to bring our soul into
captivity. There are natural needs of the body which must be attended
to, but every one of these needs may become a sinful craving and we may
so excessively minister to the need that, by-and-by, it becomes sinful
lusting! That a man should eat to appease his hunger is right, but,
alas, gluttony often follows. That a man should drink to quench his
thirst is right, but there are divers drinks which lead to drunkenness
and so, even through two such perfectly justifiable natural needs as
eating and drinking, sin may come in. There are a great many other
needs, emotions and passions of the body which are, in themselves,
properly considered not sinful–but every one of them may readily be
made into a door through which sin can enter! No, it is not only the
needs of the body, but also the pleasures of the body which may lead to
sin. There are bodily enjoyments which are perfectly innocent–but it
is very easy to pass beyond that line and to indulge the flesh with
that which is evil. Even the pains of the body may become the means of
attack upon the soul, for great pain will often bring depression of
spirit and despondency–and through despondency comes doubt. Yes, and
pain sometimes causes murmuring, and murmuring is really rebellion
against God! This poor flesh seems to be the battlefield in which the
fight with sin is continually to be carried on. Sin makes frequent
incursions into the region of mind and spirit, but it generally begins
with the body. How strenuously, therefore, must we see to it that we
obey the Apostolic injunction, "Let not sin therefore reign in your
mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof," but rather
let us yield these, our members, to be the instruments of righteousness
and purity! Watch and pray, Beloved. Do not imagine that the stern
battle is over, it is only just begun. As long as you are in this
mortal state, you are to put on the whole armor of God and to strive,
agonize and wrestle against sin in the power of the blood of Jesus
Christ who will help you by His ever-blessed Spirit. But to suppose
that the battle for purity is over is to suppose a lie which will
seriously endanger the sanctity of your lives.
The Apostle uses one word which is very comforting to my mind–"Let not
sin therefore reign in your mortal body." I am very glad to read that
word, "mortal." If this body were immortal with its present tendencies,
then might it continue to be a field of battle for the Believer
forever! But it is mortal and when it dies, then shall its tendencies,
which now incline us to sin, also die. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the Kingdom of God," for flesh and blood always will have a tendency
towards that which is evil. But, Brothers and Sisters, we are going to
have this flesh and blood behind us
when we die. We shall be re-united to our body after it has been
refined, for the grave is the refining pot for it, but, until we die,
this body will be the nest of sin–and within our flesh, as Paul truly
says–"there dwells no good thing." Through being cumbered with this
flesh, many a true child of God will, perhaps, have to cry even upon
his dying bed, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?" Thank God, then, that it is a mortal body in which
this warfare is waged, so that when it dies, the fight is over and the
emancipated spirit shall then rejoice in the fullness of the Glory of
God, but not till then. Neither need you expect it for if you do you
will be grievously disappointed when you find that you have been buoyed
up with a false hope based upon self-conceit–and not upon the work of
the Spirit of God at all.
The pith of the matter lies here, Brethren. Reckon yourselves to be
dead unto sin because, in Christ Jesus, you died unto sin and let that
Truth of God strengthen you to fight sin. As long as you have any
question about whether God counts you among the guilty, you will never
have courage to contend with sin. Evangelical Doctrine is the
battle-axe and the other weapons of war with which the Believer is to
fight against sin. That I am saved–that I am fully absolved from
guilt–that I am accounted just in the sight of God–that I am saved to
all eternity–this is a firm foundation for me to stand upon! And now,
relying upon the power of God's Grace, I may confidently say, "Sin
shall not have dominion over me because of this amazing mercy which I
have received. Because of this high calling to which God's Infinite
Love has called me, I will cast down every sin that dares to lift
itself up. I will take by the throat everything that is hostile to God
and I will labor to perfect holiness in the fear of God." Tell the
sinner that he must do this and that and he is conscious of his lack of
power and, therefore, he does nothing. But go to him, God-sent in the
power of the Holy Spirit and say to him, "Your sin was laid on Jesus,
so you are free from it, for Jesus bore its penalty. You are saved, for
in Him you have virtually died and the Law cannot now touch you–you
are a dead man as far as it is concerned. Sin cannot accuse you, for
you are dead to it"–and what does the man say? Why, with great
surprise in his soul, he is yet enabled to believe it and he sees, as
it were, the mountains cast down, the valleys filled up, a pathway made
in the desert for God to come to his soul and for him to come to his
God! And in the joy of pardon freely given through his Savior's
precious blood, in the bliss of salvation graciously bestowed without
money and without price, he shakes himself from the dust, arises from
his former love of sin and says, "Now, Sin, I am dead to you and I will
never permit you to be king over me! I am no longer under your dominion
and I will drive you out of my being altogether. You will not reign
over me. I will, by the power and Grace of Him who has bought me with
His blood, live to the praise and glory of God alone."
Now, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, most earnestly do I desire that
you may so live that you will never doubt your eternal union with
Christ and your consequent perfect acceptance with God. I pray that you
may exercise an unstaggering faith in the finished work of Christ
culminated on Calvary's Cross and then I say to you, "Think what manner
of persons you ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness."
Never tolerate any sin in yourselves! Never wink at it, or imagine that
it is less in you than it would be in others. Grieve over every
shortcoming, every failure, everything that is not according to the
perfect rule of righteousness and watch every day, and every hour of
the day, calling on the aid of Divine strength that you may be enabled
to watch and believe, at the same time, that that strength will be
given to you, for the promise to you is, "Sin shall not have dominion
over you: for you are not under the Law, but under Grace." This will
make sure work for holiness! You will not be puffed up, but you will be
built up. You will not go bragging about how holy you are, your own
mouth condemning you all the while, but, in silence before the Lord,
you will sit down to admire the Grace which has looked in love upon
such a poor unworthy worm as you are.
While you will seek to do that which is right and will hate every false
way, you will, at the same time, take your place with the publican in
the Temple and cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Seek to be as
holy as the angels, yet be, all the while, as humble as the publican!
Remember that it is Divine Grace which has made you what you are and
that it is Grace which must keep you faithful to the end. If Grace did
not keep you, you would be a castaway! But you shall not be a castaway,
for, "Beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that
accompany salvation, though we thus speak." I pray that every member of
this Church and of Christ's Church at large, may be very careful in his
living, very watchful, very devout, very earnest. O professing
Christians, you are not what you should be! A great many of you seem to
forget altogether the sacred obligations of the love which has been
from eternity fixed upon you. Confess this sin, mourn over it and seek
the power of Christ to help you against it–and henceforth may your
course be as "the shining light, which shines more and more unto the
perfect day."
I fancy that I hear somebody in the congregation say, "These godly
people seem to have a hard fight of it." They do. It is not easy work
to get to Heaven, even by Grace, for, though we are saved, yet it is a
pilgrimage to Heaven and a stern fight all the way.
What we have to say to unconverted people is this, "If the righteous
scarcely"–or, with difficulty–"are saved, where shall the ungodly and
the sinner appear?" If he who zealously desires to follow after
holiness has such a stern fight for it, what must be the end of the man
or woman who never denies himself but indulges his sinful passions and
casts the reins upon the neck of his lusts? O Christian, yours is the
lot of a soldier and you have to "endure hardness as a good soldier of
Jesus Christ"–but you are comforted because, by faith, you can see the
crown of life which fades not away, and which is reserved in Heaven for
you and, therefore, you keep on contending! But as for you who never
fight against sin and who feel no agony within, it is very evident why
you have no inward struggle–it is because your whole nature goes one
way! Dead fish float with the stream–it is the live fish that swim
against it–and if you never feel any inward contention and
striving–if you never have to cry, "To will is present with me, but
how to perform that which is good I find not"–if you never groan under
a sense of sin, I close my sermon by saying that I pray God that you
may do so, soon, and that your groans may be uttered at the foot of His
Cross, who will look down upon you as you lie there in utter weakness
and misery, and who will say to you, "I have blotted out, as a thick
cloud, your transgressions and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto Me,
for I have redeemed them."
May we all learn that Christ is everything and that we are nothing!
That He is holiness and that we are unholiness! And may the Lord give
us the Grace to be found in Him, not having our own righteousness,
which is of the Law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith!
Amen.
–Adapted from The C. H. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0, Ages
Software, 1.800.297.4307
PRAY THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL USE THIS SERMON TO BRING MANY TO A SAVING
KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST.