Great Pardon for Great Sin
(No. 2988)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1906.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1862.
"For Your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great."
Psalm 25:11.
THIS striking prayer is hemmed in, as it were, between two promises. It
looks like a fossil embedded in a mass of stone! What is the meaning of
it being here? Why is it put in such a peculiar position? The Psalmist
is both praising and preaching–how is it that he turns to praying?
Beloved, I think it was to teach us that prayer is never out of place.
When the Apostle Paul was writing the most doctrinal of his Epistles,
he sometimes paused in the midst of them to offer a supplication, as
when he said, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ." When engaged in any holy duties, you may even
refrain from praise for a moment in order to present a prayer to God.
Nor would it be amiss for us, sometimes, to break the thread of a
sermon, that the people might pause and join with the preacher in
asking God's blessing upon the message of mercy and upon all who hear
it. Certainly, my dear Friends, you will never find any time
inopportune for prayer if your heart is true and your faith in full
force.
The Mohammedans have their fixed hours for prayer and when they hear
the signal from the minaret of the mosque, wherever they may be–in the
street or in the market place–they bow their heads to Allah and repeat
their form of prayer. Without their boastful showiness, you may "pray
everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting." We need
not be confined to special seasons when a summons is given, but, at all
times and in every place, we may "continue in prayer, and watch in the
same with thanksgiving." When your hands are measuring out your goods,
when they are pushing the plane, or driving the nail–when you are
driving the plow, or threshing the corn–if you are speeding along the
iron way, or walking among the cornfields, your heart may have
fellowship with Him–
"Who is within no walls confined, But habits the humble mind"– who
counts all places holy where men are holy, and all spots suitable
places for prayer when the heart is in a prayerful frame! My Soul, wait
upon God in your daily calling and think not that you can ever approach
Him at an unseasonable hour, or lift up your cry to Him when He is
otherwise engaged, so that He cannot attend to your petition!
Were it necessary to my present purpose to explain the connection of
this prayer with the scope of the Psalm, it would not be difficult. The
promise that the Psalmist had just recited is, "unto such as keep His
Covenant." It was the besetting sin of Israel to break the Covenant. Do
you not see that the condition here mentioned would shut the door of
hope to many? The greatness of the promise often stirs up our deepest
anxieties, lest any of us should seem to come short of it. Depend upon
it, Brothers and Sisters, that the prayer for pardon which is never
unfitting at any time, can never be more fitting than when our hearts
are lifted up with the loftiest apprehension of God's Covenant!
My principal aim tonight, however, is to bring my Hearers and myself,
all of us, to feel with David that our iniquity is great. When I have
done this, I shall very briefly try to show how the very greatness of
our iniquity may become a plea with God–"Pardon my iniquity, for it is
great." And I shall close with some earnest entreaties to those who
have never sought pardon for sin, to seek it now.
I. Well then, first, DAVID DECLARED THAT HIS INIQUITY WAS GREAT.
The word used in the original conveys the idea of quantity as well as
of quality. Not simply was his sin great in its atrocity, but there was
very much of it! Any one sin was great, but it was not merely one, but
ten thousand times ten thousand in multitude! His sin was as great in
its bulk as it was black in its heinousness. Now, I do not know,
although
David had one very terrible fall, that any humble-minded person here
would consider himself to be superior to David. He was a man after
God's own heart and, notwithstanding the great blot upon this sun, we
would not hesitate to say he is a sun for all that. For David presents
a character so admirable, so all but matchless in the harmony of the
different Graces that we think he certainly approaches very near to his
great Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly, if David felt his iniquity
to be great, it would be very foul presumption in any of us to think
ours to be little! At any rate, we must come out, one by one, and say,
"I reckon myself to be a better man than David was," or else we ought
to subscribe heartily with our hand to the Truth of God that if David's
was great, our iniquity must be great, too!
But leaving David out of the question–not comparing ourselves with
others–we will draw some few pictures by which the greatness of our
iniquity may be seen. Our sin is great when we consider against Whom it
is committed. In an army, if a soldier strikes his comrade, it is, of
course, a misdemeanor. But if he should strike some petty officer, it
is considered to be a more grievous offense. And if he should strike
the commander-in-chief, it would become so great a crime that I know
not what penalty short of death might be awarded to it! Now, in the
world of morals, as God sees it, there is much difference in sin when
we consider the difference in the person against whom it is committed.
You and I think the worst sin is the one that hurts usthe most!
We have heard, I daresay, the story of the lawyer who was waited upon
by a farmer, who asked him what would be the penalty for a man whose
horse was always going into his neighbor's field and eating his corn.
He had warned him several times and told him it was the result of his
broken fence which he ought to have mended. The lawyer said, "Of
course, there would be a considerable fine, no doubt." "Well, Sir," the
farmer said, "it is yourhorse that has done this." "Oh," said our
friend the solicitor, "that is quite a different question. I did not
know it was myhorse before I gave my opinion." So it is, generally,
with regard to anything that is done amiss–if it hurts you, or if it
hurts me–we feel very indignant about it. But if it only offends the
Majesty of Heaven, we make light of it! What fools we are! If it shall
offend such puny, insignificant creatures as we are, there is something
seriously wrong in it–but if the Divine Majesty is insulted, we pass
it by as though it were a mere trifle!
There really is a difference in the sin according to the person against
whom it is committed. I will put it thus. A man has just now been
striking another–striking him with an intent to do him harm. "That is
bad," you say. "Yes, but it was his own father that he struck." "Yes,"
now you say, "that is far worse for him to have injured the man whom he
ought to have loved and honored."
So, since God is our Creator, any attack that is made upon His
government, any willful violation of His Law is aggravated by the fact
that we owe Him such unfounded allegiance! "It is He that has made us,
and not we ourselves! We are His people and the sheep of His pasture."
Sinners, did you ever think of this? You have offended Him who made
you, in whose hands your breath is and under whose control are all your
ways. When you have used profane words, it has been against the High
and Lofty One, against Jehovah, who rides upon the sky and launches
abroad His thunderbolts and shakes Heaven and earth with His terrible
voice! Against Him, before whom the holy angels veil their faces, and
humbly bow themselves, unworthy to lick the dust of His feet–it is
against God that you have offended! Sinner, you think this is a little
matter, but I tell you that it is the fact that makes your iniquity
great!
Yet further, sin derives some degree of its sinfulness from the fact
that it is at once against a most just and equitable Law.We sometimes
read in the newspapers that persons are severely punished for offenses
against the game laws of our country. Well, I suppose it is a very
wicked thing to shoot another person's hares and pheasants and
partridges. Were I a preserver of game, I daresay I would consider the
offense of the tenant farmer who shot a bird that was feeding on his
corn, to be very aggravated. As I am not, I do not particularly see its
flagrant character. No doubt it is wrong, though it looks to me more
like a misdemeanor than a felony. When a law is proved to be harsh and
severe, there will always be some mitigation in our judgment of the
culpability of breaking it. If we consider such-and-such a law hard and
tyrannical, not suited to the times and out of keeping with the age,
then we say, when a person breaks it, "Well, he had better not have
done it–it is an offense against statute law and he ought not to have
committed it." Still, we do not think it to be so black as when the
offense is against a just, equitable, proper and righteous law which
harmonizes with strict, unvarying equity. Now, such is the Law of God.
What can be more fitting than the law of the Ten Commandments?
Infidelity itself has burned pale before those Ten Commandments. We
have heard of men who have attempted to improve the Law of God by a new
commandment and
have found themselves unable to do it, for they perceived it to be so
complete that it embraced all forms of criminality. Those who have
abhorred other parts of Scripture have said, as they read the ten
precepts, "These are just and righteous." They are, indeed, the
fundamental stones of natural morality! They are such as even Nature,
itself, would approve to be right and proper for the government of the
world. Well then, Sirs, if you have broken these good commandments. If
you have run your head against these holy, just, and righteous
precepts, your iniquity is great! If you could turn to any Law of God,
and say, "This is harsh, this is tyrannical," there might be some
excuse for you–but those commandments were made for your good! If you
keep them, they will bring you their own reward. If you break them,
they will bring their own penalty into your body, mind and heart. Why,
then, have you been so foolish as to violate them? Assuredly, in so
doing, your iniquity has become heavy as a millstone and if it is about
your neck when you come to die, it will sink you in the floods forever!
But, dear Friends, we ought, each of us, to remember that our sin is
all the greater because it has been committed by us,for sometimes an
offense is all the worse because of the person who has committed it.
When the noble Caesar saw Brutus stab him, he said, "And you, Brutus!"
There was force in his dying words, for Brutus had been his dear
friend, one who owed no little to him and, surely, the Lord might say
to us, when we sin, "And you, too. And you! You whom I have fed day by
day. You who are clothed by My charity and nourished by My bounty! You,
living in this fair province of the universe which is called the world,
this beautiful fair round green earth! You–partakers of such
innumerable favors–you sin against Me?" Ah, Christians, you who are
Heaven's favorites, you who are allowed to enter into the Lord's
cabinet councils and to understand the secrets of His Covenant, you who
are Christ's own spouse, the bride of the Prince of Heaven–your sin is
all the blacker because of that light of His Countenance in which it
has been your privilege to walk!
But to hurry on, as I throw off these hints to be worked out in your
own minds rather than to be dwelt upon in my discourse, let me remind
you again that our sin is certainly very great because of the amount of
it. Innumerable times have we transgressed. It is not as though we had
done wrong onceand then washed our hands of it. Who can count his
errors? What man can tell the number of the small dust of his
transgressions? As for the drops of dew twinkling in the morning light,
as for the drops of the ocean making that vast flood, as for the stars
of Heaven and the sand of the seashore–the incalculable number of all
these sinks into insignificance when compared with the infinite host of
our transgressions against You, O God of Heaven and earth! This very
day, have there not been more sins than moments, more transgressions
than heartbeats, more offenses than pulses? God only knows the total of
the sins of man! Only His Infinite mind can reckon the iniquity that
crops forth from the polluted soil and wells up from the deep spring of
depravity that is hidden in the very core of our corrupt nature! Count
your sins if you can, O you children of God, and then fall on your
knees, bow your heads, cover your faces and say, "Our iniquity is
indeed great."
Nor is this all. We ought also to remember that we have sinned and
offended without any provocation. When a poor wretch, pinched with
hunger, snatches a loaf from a bake shop and eats it ravenously in the
street, what magistrate could forbear to treat him leniently? But when
a rascal does a wanton mischief without cause, or commits a willful
robbery without conscience, what defense can he set up? With such utter
defiance of law and order, we have patience and we say, "Let the full
punishment fall upon his guilty head." And that is what you and I have
done–we have sinned for sinning's sake. When we spent our money in
sin, it was for that which is not bread, and our labor of iniquity was
for that which did not profit us. You and I have not been gainers by
all that we have done amiss. There may have been times when you had the
excuse of getting something by sin, but not always. For instance, what
excuse is there for swearing? Lust may plead a pleasure, wine may ease
a pain, avarice has an eye to gain, but the cheap swearer, from his
open sluice, lets his soul run out in sorry curses, losing all the
patience he possesses for the mere sake of venting forth black and ugly
words that have no meaning. This is infamous! What if I say it is
infernal to sin for the mere sake of sinning? We heard of one, the
other day, who said, when reproved for cursing, that he would continue
to swear–yes, if he had an angel on each shoulder, he would still go
on cursing! There seem to be some of this sort who, for the mere sake
of dabbling in the mire, will do it and, in truth, we have all, in our
time, sinned in open defiance of the Almighty and, therefore, our
iniquity is heavy.
Sons of men, I put it to you, as one of yourselves and, therefore,
willing to be your advocate–but I must rather take up the cause of Him
against whom we have offended–what has He ever done to us that we
should hate Him? He has
made us, fed us, clothed us–for which of these good works do we forget
Him? He has sent His Son to redeem His people–is this a cause why we
should despise Him? He follows us day after day with invitations of
mercy, stirs up our consciences, hedges up the road to Hell as though
He would not let us perish–for which of these things do we requite Him
with evil? What has the Most High done to provoke you? Has He ever done
you a displeasure? In what respect has He thwarted you except for your
good? What pleasure that is a real pleasure has He denied you? Is His
yoke heavy? Is His burden intolerable? Are His Commandments like the
whips of Solomon, or His Laws like the scorpion of Rehoboam? Has He
made His little finger thicker than the wires of human law? Do you not
know that men, in superstition, will make laws ten times harder than
God's Laws ever were–and will keep them? It cannot, therefore, be that
God has thus offended you. O why then, sons of men, do we despise our
God? What can there be so good in sin that we will have it and God's
anger with it? What can there be so sweet in Hell that we choose it and
despise the glories of Heaven? Verily, in this arrant folly, this
flagrant malice, this frantic madness, our iniquity is indeed great!
Yet further, what if I should say that we have gone on in sin after we
have, some of us, known and felt the evil of it? I speak advisedly when
I appeal to almost all of you now present and ask–must not your
iniquity be great because it was not done in ignorance? Many here were
nursed in the lap of godliness. Your sins, therefore, are 10 times
heavier than other men's! The lamp of the sanctuary lit some of us to
our cradles. The hush of lullaby had the name of Jesus mingled with it.
Perhaps the first song we learned to sing was concerning the children's
best Friend. The first book that we began to read contained His sweet
name and many were the times when we were pressed by godly ones to
think of Jesus and to give our young hearts to Him. But we put bitter
for sweet and sweet for bitter, darkness for light and light for
darkness–and knowing the good from the evil, we did willfully choose
to do that which is wrong. Ah, for this thing, when we have sinned
against light and knowledge, does not our transgression become greater
than that of the people of Tyre and Sidon who perished in their sin?
And then, when we had learned by experience, as well as by education,
that sin was bitter, we still went on in it. There is a young man
yonder who went astray once and smarted for it–and he thought he would
never be such a fool again. But it has happened to him according to the
true proverb, "The dog is turned to his own vomit again and the sow
that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." Some men seem only to
get out of one ditch to roll into another! There are plenty of persons
who, when they put their fingers in the fire and burn them, run and get
them bound up and healed, only to go to the next fire and thrust in,
not their finger, this time, but their arms up to their elbows! Take
care that one of these days, Man, you do not have your body and soul
consumed in that fire which can never be quenched! How foolish some are
who have been in the spendthrift line! After they have emptied their
pockets and found themselves beggars, they have gone to their friends
who used to take a glass with them–such jolly companions, such dear
friends as they used to be–but they do not know them now. "Oh, no!"
they say, and give them the cold shoulder, now that their clothes begin
to look a little out at elbows. I have seen these people get employment
again and throw themselves out of it by their ill character. I have
seen them get a respectable situation perhaps two or three times and
then go and ruin themselves all over again–and still expect their
friends to set them up once more–set them up on purpose that they may
have the pleasure of tumbling down! When men do this so many times,
certainly their iniquity becomes heavy.
I have put the case strongly concerning one or two delinquents. They
are, however, only representatives of us all, for when we have smarted
for an offense, we have committed it again. Burnt children are afraid
of the fire, but burnt sinners are not–they will go to the fire again,
like the moth which gets to the candle, singes her wings and flies off
a little–but she must go again and if you lift her out of the melted
grease around the light, she will fly back again the first opportunity
she gets, as if she thought it her ambition and her life's best glory
to be consumed in the fire! Iniquity is indeed great when it is
committed against experience! Men deliberately run upon the pikes of
damnation–they destroy their own souls by a sort of spiritual suicide!
At times, men's offenses to their fellow men lose some of their
guiltiness by an apology. Why, sometimes, when we have been aggrieved
by some little offense and a proper apology has been promptly made, we
could have wished we had never taken notice of it, for we did not like
to see the good man so sorry about it. We freely forgave him, and felt
as if we did not need him even to feel that he had done wrong because
he took it too much to heart, so we passed over the offense because of
the repentance. But how great is the guilt of that man who, having
sinned, refuses to repent? And is not this exactly the case of many
here present–sinning from your cradles, but never repenting?
Repentance is hidden from your
eyes–you go on from bad to worse, from dark to deeper stains. The
Ethiopian has not changed his skin, nor the leopard his spots. You have
sought no physician for your healing. You have let the deadly gangrene
grow yet more putrid, until the whole head is sick and the whole heart
faint. Careless Sinner, I would that I could play the part of Mr. John
Bunyan's Captain Boanerges and his ensign, Mr. Thunder, and run up the
black colors before your eyes, bearing as the escutcheon the flaming
thunderbolts of God's Justice! You who will not repent must incur the
fierce wrath of God. Lo, He has bent His bow and made it ready! He has
fitted His arrow to the string–He takes aim at you tonight! The arrow
shall soon fly and reach your heart! Oh, that you had Grace given you
to repent! O Spirit of God, break the man's heart! Take hold of Your
great hammer with which You do cleave mountains and dash that heart in
pieces, that the sinner may cry out, "Pardon my iniquity, for it is
great."
With some men, their iniquity becomes all the greater because they have
sinned against promises which they have made, vows which have been
registeredin Heaven and covenants which they have signed with the Most
High. You know who I mean. You were ill with the fever some few years
ago–you were given up! You turned your face to the wall and you
remember how, in the bitterness of your soul, you cried, "O God, if you
will but spare me, mine shall be another and a better life for the
future!" You were spared, but your life has been worse, rather than
better. You remember, too, when the cholera was abroad and there were
many falling on the right hand and on the left–you were terrified and
alarmed– and you sought God after a sort and told Him that if He would
but spare your life, that life would be spent in His service. What have
you been doing since then? It is true that you sometimes go to the
House of God, but it is only in the evening when you have made your
money in the morning! You do not mind giving God the tail end of
Sunday! The first two or three weeks after you got better, the shutters
were up, there was no rioting, no swearing, no loose conversation. Your
neighbors said, "What has come over the fellow? He is quite a different
man." Yes, you had another heart for the time, but not a newheart–and
now you are as reckless as ever. Do you think God has forgotten your
promises? Do you think that registered covenant of yours has been
blotted out? No, Sinner, no! It stands fast against you to make your
guilt more infamous and your transgressions more heavy. Take heed! Take
heed! Take heed! When God shall hold it up against you, at the last
tremendous day, you will read your doom in that broken promise–in that
lie which has been uttered against the God of Grace and goodness!
Most of us, at some time or other, have sinned thus against resolutions
and promises and, consequently, our iniquities are heavy. O dear
Friends, I have a task too hard for me in such a subject as this! When
I talk of the glories of the love of Christ, I feel at home. When I
speak of the matchless Grace of the Everlasting Covenant, my heart is
well at ease. But to prove man's sin heavy is a task too hard for me!
Not that it is hard in itself. The evidence is clear, but to procure a
conviction is the difficulty. The jury is not impartial. Your
conscience is like an unjust judge. Oh, how hard it is to make any man
believe himself to be so bad as the Word of God says he is! None but
the Spirit of God can make a man call himself a sinner and mean it.
Nothing but the Irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit can ever
bring a man as low as the Word of God would have him lie. If you can
feel, in your soul, tonight, that your iniquity is great, that it
deserves God's wrath, displeasure and punishment–if you can pray from
your very heart, "O Lord, pardon You my iniquity, for it is great"–I
shall have hope of you that the first sparks of the Divine Light have
fallen into your soul, never to be quenched, but to blaze out in the
brightness of salvation forever!
II. I shall now turn, very briefly, to the second part of my
subject–to show how THERE IS A PLEA IN THE VERY GREATNESS OF OUR SIN.
Is not this a very strange text? Look at it again. One needs to read it
over 20 times. Is it really so written, "Pardon my iniquity, for it is
great!" Can you believe your own eyes? Imagine a prisoner at the Old
Bailey pleading with the judge that he would kindly let him off because
he was such a great offender! We would think that it would be a very
legitimate reason why he should not be pardoned. The pith, however, of
the whole text lies in those words which we sometimes forget to quote,
"For Your name's sake." That alters it. It is now an argument–it was
not before. "For Your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it
is great."
Let me show you that there is a plea here. If salvation were by merit,
then, supposing all men to have fallen and none of them to have any
merit, yet it would be a rule that the man who was the least offender
should have the first turn at being saved. If the choice of God
depended in any way upon man's condition, we would naturally expect
that the man who had the least sin would be forgiven first, for,
putting all on an equal basis in all other respects, the choice, if
made at all, with reference to the man, would naturally be the choice
of the man who had committed the least iniquity. But, dear Friends,
please remember that in the Covenant of Christ and the way of
salvation, the choice is made upon reverse principles–not according to
man's merit, but according to God's Glory. The aim, end, and objective
of God in salvation is to glorify His own Character! Therefore, if His
choice may be said to be guided by any principles which we can at all
understand, that choice would be guided to select those who would the
most magnify His Grace and glorify His own name. Well now, if God would
do that great work of pardoning sin in such a way as to glorify His own
name, the most fitting persons to be saved are the biggest sinners!
Let me put it thus. Here is a number of persons and they are all sick.
And here is a physician who intends to get a name for himself. He is
full of benevolence and kindness, but, at the same time, one part of
his objective is to get a name. Now, you will perceive that in the
selection of his patients, he will not pick out a man who has a sore
finger, for it will never tell very much to his credit that he healed a
man who had a sore finger. But there will be, perhaps, a few cases
among the sick of a very extraordinary sort. Some of them will have an
affliction, a disease quite unknown to the faculty. Medicines have been
tried, but their cases have been so stubborn that the best doctors have
given them up as hopeless. Now, the physician says, "These are the
cases that I will select." Granting that he is able to cure whomever he
wills, you can see that if the objective is his own glory, he would
rather take those in which there is the most room for the display of
the healing art than those who have the least sickness and might be the
most readily cured.
Yet again. Suppose a man means to have a character for generosity.
There are a number of debtors assembled and he is determined to
discharge their liabilities. There is a man who owes sixpence and
another who owes a pound. Well now, if he pays their debts, he will
never have much credit for liberality there! But another man comes in
who is head over heels in debt. What is the sum he owes? Fifty thousand
pounds? Let us say a hundred thousand pounds! Let us say half a
million! Well, now, here is the opportunity for the liberal man to
display his liberality because here there is room for it! So is it in
Divine Grace. You, proud Pharisee, come to God and say, "Lord, I thank
You that I am not as other men." And He replies, "Then there is no room
in you for My Grace to work." But yonder poor publican dares not lift
so much as his eyes towards Heaven, but smites upon his breast and
cries, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!" "There is a case for Me,"
says Sovereign Mercy–and the pardon comes to the poor sinful publican!
Mark, when I speak of sinners, I do not mean merely those who have been
great sinners, or those who have been, in comparison with others,
little sinners, but I mean those who feel themselvesto be great
sinners. I say the more we feel our guilt, the more fit we are for
mercy. The more broken down we are with hopelessness on account of our
own lost estate, the more room there is for the triumphs of Christ's
Grace. Now, there is many a moral man here tonight who never offended
against the laws of his land, or the laws of outward propriety, yet he
feels himself to be as black as Hell. Well then, there is room in him
for Grace to glorify itself! We have noticed that men of the worst
character are often the most self-righteous. There is many a Pharisee
whose morals would not pass muster though he vaunts his piety as a
harlot flaunts her broidery and many a scamp who would be a disgrace to
the meanest society if his character were known, brazens it out as
though he never had offended against a single Law of God. Again, I say
you who feel that you are the very chief of sinners! You who groan and
mourn on account of sin, be not silenced at the Mercy Seat because of
the greatness of your guilt! But rather, with the inimitable skill of
the Syrophenician woman, turn the very desperateness of your case into
a reason why the Lord should save you!
Now tonight, upon your knees, wrestle with the God of Mercy, and say,
"Pardon me, for my transgression is great. And my Hell will be great.
But if You will save me, Your honor will be great! If You will redeem
me, the power of Your blood will be great! If You will give me a new
heart, the transforming power of Your Spirit will be great! O God, save
me! God be merciful to me, a sinner!" This is, as Luther says, to cut
off the devil's head with his own sword. When the devil says to you,
"You are a sinner," say to him, "I am, and Christ died to save
sinners." And when he says, "But you are a big sinner, you are a
Jerusalem sinner, a bigger sinner than any other," say to him, "Yes,
that is true, but Jesus said 'that repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem.'"
I have tried, and I am trying, to preach a wide Gospel. I do not like
to have a net with such big meshes that the fish get through. I think I
may catch you all if the Lord wills. If the vilest are not shut out,
then you are not shut out, Friends. And if you believe in Christ with
all your heart, you shall be saved! But oh, what if you should say, "I
care not for forgiveness. I do not want pardon, I will not seek it! I
will not have it–I love my sins–I love myself"? O Sinner,
then, by that deathbed of yours where you shall see your dreadful sins
in another light. By that resurrection of yours where you shall see
eternity to be no trifle. By that doom of yours. By the last dread
thunders. By the awful sentence, "Depart, you cursed," of the Judge, I
beseech you, do me but this one favor! Acknowledge that you had an
invitation tonight and that it was affectionately pressed upon you. I
have told you, in God's name, that your sin is not a trifle with
God–that it is not a matter to be laughed at or to be whistled over. I
have told you that the greatness of your sin need not shut you out.
What is needed is that the Spirit of God should teach you these things
in your heart. But do remember, if your ears refuse these Truths of
God, and if you reject them, we are a sweet savor unto Christ as well
in them that perish as in them that are saved! But woe unto you–woe
unto you, who, with the Gospel ringing in your ears, go down to Hell!"
Verily, verily, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom
and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment, than for you! May God save you,
for Jesus' sake! Amen!
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 10:1-15.
Verse 1. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israelis
that they might be saved. Let this be our "heart's desire and prayer to
God for Israel." Sorrows upon sorrows have come to the Lord's ancient
people even down to this day–and they have been scattered and peeled,
and rent and torn in almost every land. Who does not pity their griefs
and woes? Let it be our heart's desire and daily prayer for Israel that
they may be saved through faith in the Messiah whom they have so long
rejected.
2. For I bear them record that they have a zeal for God but not
according to knowledge. In Paul's day, they were most diligent in the
observance of every form of outward devotion–and many of them
sincerely desired to be right with God. But they did not know how to
attain the desired end.
3. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. Perhaps I am addressing some who are very
anxious to be right with God. They are by no means hypocrites, but are
really awakened to a sense of their danger, yet they cannot get peace
of mind. And the reason is that, like the Israelites, they are "going
about to establish their own righteousness." "Going about"–that is to
say, struggling, striving, searching, worrying themselves to get a
righteousness of their own which they will never obtain–and being
ignorant of "the righteousness of God" which is completed in Christ and
which is freely bestowed upon all who believe in Him. Alas, they "have
not submitted themselves unto this righteousness of God" and there is a
kind of hidden meaning in the Apostle's expression. They are so proud
that they will not submit to be saved by the righteousness of another,
even though that other is the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself. Yet this is
the main point–the submission of our proud will to the righteousness
of God.
4. For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that
believes. Christ is the ultimatum of the Law of God and when we go to
the Law, accepted and protected by Him, we present to the Law all that
it can possibly demand of us. Christ has fulfilled the Law on behalf of
all who believe in Him, so that its curse is abolished for all of us
who approach it through Christ.
5-9. For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the Law, that
the man which does those things shall live by them. But the
righteousness which is of faith speaks on this wise, Say not in your
heart, Who shall ascendinto Heaven; (that is, to bring Christ down from
above) or, Who shall descend into the deep (that is, to bring up Christ
again from the dead). But what does it say? The word is near you, even
in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith, which we
preach; that if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and
shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you
shall be saved. "The righteousness which is of faith" is quite another
thing from the righteousness which is of the Law of God. It is not a
thing of doing, and living by doing, but of trusting, and living
forever by trusting. What are you doing–you who would gladly clamber
up to the stars, or you who would plunge into the abyss? There is
nothing for you to do! There is nothing for you to feel! There is
nothing for you to be in order that God may accept you! But, just as
you are, if you will receive Christ into your heart and confess Him
with your mouth, you shall be saved! Oh, this glorious way of the
salvation of sinners–so simple, yet so safe–so plain, yet so
sublime–
for me to lay aside my own righteousness and just take the
righteousness of Christ and be covered with it from head to foot! I may
well be willing to lay aside myown righteousness, for it is a mass of
filthy rags, fit only to be burned!
10-14. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says,
whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed. For there is no
difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all is
rich unto all that call upon Him. For whoever shall call upon the name
of the Lord shall be saved. How, then, shall they call on Him in whom
they have not believed?How can there be true prayer where there is no
faith? How shall I truly pray to God if I do not really believe in Him?
"For he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."
14. And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? We
must know what it is that we are to believe–and knowing it we shall be
helped by the Holy Spirit to believe it.
14. And how shall they hear without a preacher? If the Word of the Lord
does not get to a man either by the living voice, or by the printing
press, which often takes the preacher's place, how is he to believe it?
You see here what I have often called "the whole machinery of
salvation." First comes the preacher proclaiming the Gospel. Then comes
the sinner listening to it. Then comes the hearer believingit and, in
consequence, calling upon the name of the Lord as one who is saved with
His everlasting salvation!
15. And how shall they preach, except they are sent Here is the great
engine at the back of all the machinery–God sending the preacher–God
blessing the Word–God working faith in the heart of them that hear it!
15. As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach
the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!