Believing With The Heart

Believing With The Heart
A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 12, 1863, BY THE REV. C. H.
SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"For with the heart man believes unto righteousness. And with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation." Romans 10:10.
EVERY star in Heaven yields its ray of light to cheer the mariner upon
the watery waste. But there are leaders among that sparkling
host–stars of the first magnitude–whose golden lamps are so
dexterously hung, and trimmed with such excessive care that they offer
way-marks to the wanderer by which he may be able to steer his vessel
to the desired haven. So all the promises of Scripture are full of
comfort. In their sphere, they glow and glisten with the warmth and
light of love. But there are "bright particular stars," even among
these–promises, conspicuous as Orion, brilliant as the Pleiades, fixed
as Arcturus with his sons.
Brethren, you know those soul-saving texts to which I refer, which are
radiant with comfort, and have in them such a blessed combination of
simple words, and comforting sentences that they guide multitudes of
sinners to the port of peace in Jesus Christ. My text, I think, is one
of these. At least, the doctrine which it teaches–that of salvation by
faith–is the very polestar of the Gospel. And he who steers by it
shall find the heavenly shore. Be not at all displeased that such a
Truth of God should again be proclaimed in your hearing. The physician
who is about to go abroad and knows that he shall not be able to
procure more drugs, lays in a store of all the valued medicines in
pharmacy–but he buys the largest stock of remedies for the more common
diseases of the body.
And so, my Brothers and Sisters, we are bound in our ministry to preach
upon all sorts of subjects. We ought not to bring out things old and
old, but things new and old. Yet the preacher must dwell most upon that
doctrine which is the most required and is most likely to heal the
sin-sick soul. We believe that for every one converted under another
doctrine, there have been ten brought to Christ by the simple preaching
of salvation by faith. Although every Truth in Scripture is like a mesh
of the great Gospel net, the great Truth of justification by faith
makes up so many meshes that it constitutes the major part of the net
and holds within its influence great multitudes of fishes.
God help us to cast this net today on the right side of the ship. While
I let down the great dragnet, you take your share in the Gospel
fishery, and pray that God may send the fishes into it. And may His
name be praised this day both in Heaven and on earth. The text very
simply divides itself into two parts. Faith and confession. The two are
joined together, let no man put them asunder. "With the heart man
believes unto righteousness. And with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation."
Three things on each of these topics. First, upon faith. We have here
set before us, either in the text, or in the context, the Object of
faith, the nature of faith, and its result.
I. THE OBJECT OF FAITH is clearly mentioned in the context. The
preceding verse runs thus–"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." It is evident, then, that Jesus
Christ, dead and risen, is the foundation of faith.
The Object of faith is probably the most important subject of our
contemplation. I believe there are many who think too much of their
faith and too little of the object of it. For many a weary month they
are questioning whether they have the right sort of faith–whereas they
would do a great deal better if they looked to see whether their faith
rested upon a right foundation. For after all, while faith is
important, the foundation of that faith is all-important, and we must
look most to that.
Now, soul-saving faith rests, according to a thousand places in
Scripture, upon Christ–upon Christ in all His Characters, works, and
offices. Faith, first of all, rests upon Christ, as incarnate. What was
sung by angels becomes the song of the poor depressed spirit. Jesus,
the Son of God, was born in Bethlehem's manger–God was made flesh and
dwelt among us. Faith believes this great mystery of godliness–God
manifest in the flesh–believes that He, by whom the heavens were
framed, and without whom was not anything made that was made, did for
us men and for our salvation, come down from Heaven to tabernacle in
the virgin's womb.
Faith so believes this as to draw comfort from it. For, says Faith, "If
God thus became Man that He might come into nearness with our nature,
this deed of love attracts me, gives me confidence toward God, and bids
me approach the Lord with boldness, inasmuch as God comes to me."–
"Till God in human flesh I see,
My thoughts no comfort find.
The holy, just and sacred Three
Are terrors to my mind.
But if Immanuel's face appears,
My hope, my joy, begins–
His name forbids my slavish fear,
His Grace removes my sins."
Faith next sees Christ in His life. She perceives that He is perfect.
In obedience, sanctified wholly to His work, and although, "tempted in
all points like as we are, yet without sin." Faith delights to admire
and adore Him in His complete obedience to the Law of God. And she
perceives with rapture, that in every jot and tittle He has fulfilled
it, magnified it, and made it honorable. Faith, with holy boldness,
cries, "This righteousness shall be mine. Christ has kept the Law for
me. Evidently He was under no necessity to do this of Himself. But
being found in fashion as a Man for my salvation, He with the same end
and object kept that Law."
Faith looks to that righteousness of Christ and, like the Apostle, she
learns to say, "Yes doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may
win Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which
is of the Law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by faith." But, chiefly, Faith looks to
Christ as offering up Himself upon the tree. She stands at the foot of
the Cross, watching that mysterious, that matchless spectacle–God made
flesh–bleeding, dying.
The Son of God wasted with pangs, rent with agonies and throes
unutterable–obedient, even unto death. She watches Him with the
expectancy of hope and the emotion of gratitude, both of which bring
the tears streaming down her cheeks. She hears the expiring Sin-Bearer
cry with a loud voice, "It is finished!" She adds a glad Amen, "It is
finished!" My soul believes that there is enough in those wounds to
wash away my sins–enough to avert the thunders of an angry God–enough
in that righteousness to cover me from head to foot, and win for me the
smile of infinite justice. O blessed Jesus, You are the one pillar of
our consolation! Faith builds her all on this chief cornerstone.
But Beloved, Faith has never done with Jesus. Where He goes she follows
hard after Him. Her eye tracks the body of the Savior to the tomb of
Joseph of Arimathea. She beholds that Body, on the third day, instinct
with life, rolling away the stone and bursting its cerements. "Jesus
lives," says Faith–and inasmuch as Christ was put into the prison of
the tomb as a hostage and bail for His people, Faith knows that He
never could have come out again if God had not been completely
satisfied with His substitutionary work–
"If Jesus never had paid the debt, He never had been at freedom set."
Faith, therefore, perceives that if Christ is risen, the soul is
justified. God has accepted Christ on my behalf–His resurrection
proves it. And I stand accepted in the Beloved, because Jesus Christ
has risen.
If you believe this, sincerely, in your heart–that God raised Him from
the dead–you shall be saved. Borne aloft as on eagle's wings, Faith is
not afraid to pursue her Redeemer up to His Father's Throne. Her
illuminated eye beholds Him in His session at the right hand of God.
She sees Him pleading as the great High Priest before the mighty
Father's Throne. And expecting until His enemies are made His
footstool, Faith builds upon His intercession and dominion, as well as
upon His death and resurrection. He is able also to save them to the
uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make
intercession for them.
Mark, my dear Brothers and Sisters, the whole foundation upon which
Faith rests is Christ living in the flesh, Christ dying in that flesh,
Christ rising from the dead, Christ pleading in Glory on behalf of
sinners. Not so much as a hair's breadth of Faith's foundation is to be
found out of Christ Jesus. Faith does not build on its own experience.
It rests on no Graces, raptures, meltings, communings, fights, or
prayings. Its chief cornerstone is Christ Jesus. Faith never builds on
any knowledge which it has obtained by research–on no merit which it
fancies it has procured by long and ardent service. It looks altogether
beyond self, and out of self. Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus alone, is
the Object of its confidence.
Sinner, what do you say to this? There is nothing in you, but there
needs be nothing. Can you trust Jesus? Jesus, the Son of God, becomes
your Brother, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. Can you not
trust His love? Jesus, the Son of God, dies on the Cross. Can you not
trust that blood, that agony, that death? Look, Sinner! From head, and
hands, and feet, the blood is streaming. It is a Divine Being who thus
suffers! It is none other than God over all, blessed forever, who is
nailed to that tree! Can you not believe that there is merit enough in
agonies like these to stand in the place of your sufferings in Hell?
Do you not believe that Justice gets an ampler recompense from the
wounds of Christ than it ever could find in all your wounds, even if
you had been beaten from the soles of your feet to the crown of your
head, until you had been nothing but wounds and putrefying sores?
Methinks you will reply, "I believe that upon Calvary, God received a
greater glorification of His Law than in all the agonies of all the
damned in Hell, though they suffer eternally the infinite anger of
God." I ask you, Sinner, can you not believe that Christ's perfect
righteousness is enough for you? Can you see a flaw in it? Is it not
fair white linen? Is there a spot? Is it not made of such precious
material, the Divine work of a Divine Savior, that nothing can match
it?
If you had it, Sinner, do you not think you would stand before God
without so much as a spot or wrinkle? And I ask you, Sinner, do you not
believe that if Jesus pleads for you, you will be saved? Can He stretch
out His hands and say, "Father, save that sinner," and will God refuse
to hear His prayer? If you give Him your cause to plead, do you think
He will be an unsuccessful Advocate? Why, Man, with all the unbelief
that is in your heart, I hope you will believe that if Jesus, who was
the very heart of God, shall espouse your cause, He cannot plead in
vain!
I think I hear you answer, "Oh, yes, we believe all this. We believe
that this is ground for the fullest confidence to saints, but may we
rest upon it? Are we to understand that if we trust in Jesus Christ,
because He was a Man, and because He lived, and died, and rose again,
and pleads, we are saved?" Soul, this is just what I would have you
understand. If you have no good thoughts or feelings. If up to now you
have been the most damnable of rebels against God. If up to this moment
your hard and impenitent heart has been at enmity against God and
against Christ. Yet if now, this very day, you will believe Christ
incarnate, Christ died, Christ risen, Christ pleading can save you–and
if you will rest your soul upon that fact–you shall be saved.
God, the infinitely loving Father, is willing to receive you just as
you are. He asks nothing of you. O Prodigal, you may come back in your
rags and filthiness, notwithstanding that you have spent your living
with harlots. Notwithstanding that the swine have been your companions
and you would gladly have filled your belly with their husks. You may
come back without upbraiding, or so much as a word of anger, because
your Father's only begotten Son has stood in your place. And in your
place has suffered all that your many sins deserved.
If you will now trust in Jesus, the Lord, who loved you with
unspeakable love, you shall be this very day received into joy and
peace with a Father's arms about your neck, accepted and beloved. With
your rags stripped from off you, clothed in the best robe–with the
ring upon your finger, and the shoes upon your feet, listening to music
and danc-ing–because your soul, which was lost is found, your heart
which was dead has been made alive. This, then, is the Object of
faith–our one and only Savior, doing all, for all who trust Him.
II. Next, we have in the text, the NATURE OF FAITH. This is obvious. We
are told that, "with the heart man believes unto righteousness." This
is not introduced by way of making a subtle distinction. Sometimes
ministers make so many distinctions about faith that true seekers are
much perplexed. I am very jealous of myself this morning, lest I should
do the same. I have read sermons upon natural faith, and upon spiritual
faith. And I have been persuaded that what the preacher called natural
faith, was as much spiritual as that which he distinguished as the
faith of God's elect.
The less distinction we try to make here, I think, the better, when
Jesus Christ has broadly put it, "He that believes and is baptized
shall be saved." Where He makes few distinctions, but openly puts it,
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved," we ought
not to be making and multiplying theological points of differences.
Still, dear Brothers and Sisters, the text does say, "With the heart
man believes." And this is somewhat strange, because we generally at-
tribute the act of faith to the mind, to the understanding. The
understanding believes certain facts, which appear to it to be worthy
of credence. But our text puts saving faith upon the heart, and makes
it to be a work of the affections rather than of the understanding.
I take it this is done for this reason–first, in order merely to state
that faith–saving faith–must be sincere. We must not merely say, "I
see the thing is so," but we must heartily believe it. It must not be a
notional faith which a man professes, because his mother was of the
same persuasion, or because living in a Christian land he would be
somewhat singular if he were to set up to be an infidel. Our faith must
be a hearty, honest, sincere persuasion of the Truths of God which we
profess to believe. If I say to myself, "Well, I have no doubt the
Christian religion is true. I dare say it is"–but if I do not in my
heart feel and know it to be true, then my faith will not save me.
Doubtless, the word, "heart," is put in here to make a distinction
between doctrinal faith and the faith which accepts Christ. Why, I have
the misfortune to know scores who are well read in divinity. They can
get on excellently in all the scholastic parts of theology. They are
orthodox–yes, orthodox to the last turn of the scale–and they fight
like lions and tigers for but one hair of the head of a creed. And yet,
they will never be saved by their faith, because their belief is merely
a belief of certain abstract propositions which never affected their
nature. A faith, which, to speak honestly, they do not believe, after
all.
Those dogmas which they accept as truths have no relationship to them.
Their unregenerate hearts cannot perceive the true bearing of those
doctrines upon themselves, consequently they receive them as lies. If
you put a truth out of its proper place, you make it either marvelously
like a lie, or else really a lie. And if I hold certain doctrines
merely as having respect to some particular persons, but not as having
any reference to me–and if I hold them so that they do not in any
degree influence my character and touch my heart–then I hold them
falsely. I turn the Truth of God into a lie, and my faith can never
save my soul. True religion is more than notion–something must be
known and felt. And faith is something more than acceptance of a sound
creed–it is believing with the heart.
But now, I hope I shall not darken counsel by words without knowledge.
Let me try, if I can, to explain what I think believing with the heart
is. Beloved, you know very well that the first work of God, the Holy
Spirit, in man, is not to teach him doctrines, but to make him feel a
great hungering and thirsting–a great emptiness within himself. He is
vexed with an uneasiness, a perpetual pining and longing and groaning
after a something, he scarcely knows what. Now, that is his heart set
in motion by the Spirit. His heart, like the needle, touched with the
magnet, cannot rest, because it has not found its pole. It has been
touched mysteriously. It does not know how or why.
But this it knows–it has a restlessness in it–and trembles after a
settled and abiding peace. It is the heart, you know, which is thus
sorely troubled. Now, when the Lord Jesus Christ is set forth in our
hearing as being a perfect and complete Savior, able at this very
moment to pardon all sins, and to give a perfect righteousness–to give
us this day a salvation which is complete–and which will be complete
when time shall be no more, then the heart says, "Why, that is just
what I have been wanting." Just as the flowers which have been shut up
all night, as soon as ever the sun is up, open their cups as if they
felt–"There! That is what we were wanting! Hail, glorious sun!"
So the breaking, yearning, longing, thirsting heart, says, "Ah, that is
what I need. You, O Christ, are all I want– more than all in You I
find." Then, that heart says, "Come to me, Jesus, come to me. Be mine,
I would entertain You. If You would but come under my roof, I should
have my poor humble heart made happy as the gates of Heaven." The heart
stretches out its arms to Christ, and Christ comes into that heart. And
the heart presses Him close to itself. That is believing with the
heart. It is the heart's own conviction that Jesus Christ is just what
it wants.
Many of you have a true faith in Christ and yet you have never read
"Paley's Evidences," nor "Butler's Analogy." It would not hurt you if
you did. But you never did study such books, and perhaps you never
will. You hardly know upon what ground the Bible is accepted as true,
and therefore, cunning infidels give you a good shaking when they get
hold of you upon that point. But there is one thing upon which you can
never be shaken–you feel the Gospel must be true, because it just
suits the wants of your heart. If any man should say to you when you
are thirsty, "Water is not good," you would say, "Give me more of it. I
have a thirst in here that makes me desire it."
By an irresistible process stronger than logic, you can prove to
yourself that water is good because it quenches your thirst. Just so
with bread–when you are hungry, if you come to the table and a
philosopher should say to you, "You do not understand the ground upon
which bread nourishes the human frame. You do not know anything about
the process of digestion, and the method of assimilation, and how the
bones are nourished by the phosphorus, and by the lime, and by the
silica contained in the flour!" You would say, "I do not know. I do not
particularly care to know. But one thing I know, I am sure bread is
good to eat if I am hungry and I will show you." And you seize the loaf
and begin to cut and eat. So it is with the believing heart. The heart
is hungry, therefore the heart feeds upon Jesus. The heart is thirsty,
therefore the heart drinks the Living Water. And so the heart believes
unto righteousness.
Again, there is another explanation. Is it not, dear Friends, man's
heart renewed by Divine Grace which is led to perceive the difficulty
of reconciling the apparently discordant attributes of God? Do you not
remember well that day when your heart said, "God is just. It is right
He should be"? And your heart seemed as if it would kiss the hilt of
the sharp sword Justice. You said, "Lord, though it is my own
damnation, yet I would adore You, because You are holy, holy, holy."
Your heart said, "Lord, I know You are merciful, for You have told me
so. I see in the lovely works of Your hands, in the bountiful
cornfields laden with the yellow grain, in this fair sunshine ripening
all the fruits–I see proof that You are a good and gracious God.
"But, Lord, I cannot understand how You can be gracious, and yet be
just. For if You are just, You are sworn to punish. And if You are
gracious, then you will forgive! How can You do both? How can you
punish and yet forgive? How can You smite and yet receive with tokens
of affection?" You came up to the sanctuary one day when your heart was
just in that state–in a quandary. Your heart was like the city of
Shushan, it was perplexed. But you heard the preacher show clearly that
Christ became the Substitute for man and paid to the last drachma all
that mighty debt which man owed to God. You saw the wounds of Jesus,
and you understood how an angry God had all His justice satisfied in
the agonies of His beloved Son.
And your heart said, "There, that is the very answer I have been
wanting. I perplexed myself, vexed myself. I had a jealousy for the
justice of God–my conscience made me jealous for it. I had a longing
toward the mercy of God, my heart made me long for it. Now, I see how
righteousness and peace have kissed each other, how Justice and Mercy
fall about each other's neck, and are reconciled forever." And your
heart says, "This is the thing! Here is the master key which unlocks
all the doors of doubt. The Divine finger which draws back the bolts."
Oh, the joy and gladness with which your heart laid hold upon a
crucified Redeemer, saying, "It is enough. I am satisfied, I am
content. My trouble is removed." So you see it is not difficult to
understand how the belief can be a belief of the heart.
But I want you to notice yet further, that believing with the heart
implies a love to the plan of salvation. I will suppose that one of
you, today, troubled with thoughts of sin, shall go home and you shall
reach your chamber and sit down and think over the great plan of
salvation. You see God choosing His people from before the foundation
of the world, and choosing them though He knew that they would be lost
in the Fall of Adam. You see the Son entering upon a Covenant
relationship towards them and engaging to be their Surety to redeem
them from wrath. You see Jesus Christ in the fullness of time coming
forth as that Surety and fulfilling all His engagements.
You see the Spirit of God working to teach man his need, influencing
him to accept the plan of salvation. You see the sinner washed and
cleansed. You mark him kept and preserved, and sanctified and
perfected–and at last brought home to Glory. While you are thinking
over this work of the Lord, you say to yourself, "Well, I do not know
that I have any interest in it. But what a blessed plan it is! How
sublime! How condescending! How admirably suited to the wants of man!
And how excellently adapted to bring out and glorify every attribute of
God!" As you are thinking it over, there is a tear in your eye, and
something whispers, "Why, such a plan as that must be true."
Then, the sweet promise flashes across your mind, "Whosoever believes
on Him shall not be ashamed." And your heart says, "Then, I will
believe on Him. That plan is worthy of my credence. That system, so
magnificent in its liberality, is worthy of my loving acceptance." You
go down upon your knees and say, "Lord, by Your Grace I have seen the
beauty of Your great work of Grace, and my soul is in love with it. I
have no quarrel against it. I submit myself to it. Let me be a partaker
in it. Jesus, let the virtue of Your precious blood stream on me. Let
the power of the cleansing water, which flowed with the blood, come and
kill the power of sin within me. 'Lord, I believe! Help You my
unbelief!' " That is believing with the heart. It is believing because
the heart is led to see that this must be true. And therefore, by a
process of logic that is more subtle and more mighty in its magic
influence than the logic of the brain, the soul, the whole mind, the
whole powers of the man are compelled, blessedly compelled by the Grace
of God, to yield obedience to it.
What is true, dear Friends, of us when we commence our spiritual
career, is true all our lives long. Soul-saving faith is always the
belief of the heart, as well in the full grown Christian, as in the
new-born babe. Let me appeal to some of you who have been years in
Christ. What, my dear Brothers and Sisters, is your testimony today to
the truth as it is in Jesus? Does your heart believe it? I think I see
some gray-headed man rise up, and leaning upon his staff, he says, "In
my young days I gave my heart to Christ, and I had a peace and joy such
as I had never known before, though I had tried the pomp and vanities,
the pleasures and allurements of sin. My heart can bear its witness to
the peace and pleasantness which I found in religion's ways.
"Since that time, this brow has been furrowed with many cares, and as
you see, this head has become bleached with many winter's snows. But
the Lord has been my heart's stay and confidence. I have rested on
Christ and He has never failed me. When trouble has come in upon me, I
have never been bowed down under it. By God's Grace, I have been able
to sustain it. I have had bereavements." And he points to the many
graves he has left behind him in the wilderness. "But I have been
helped to bury wife and children, and faith has enabled me to say with
bursting heart, 'the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be
the name of the Lord.' I have had many conflicts, but I have always
overcome through the blood of the Lamb.
"I have been slandered, as all men must be, but I have taken that with
all my other crosses upon my shoulders–and I have found it light when
I have carried it by faith. I can say that such is the hallowed
serenity and calm which the religion of Jesus gives to my heart at all
times and all seasons, that I do believe it, not as a matter of head,
but as a matter of heart. My heart is itself experimentally convicted
that this cannot but be the religion of God, seeing that it works such
wonders for me."
Remember, dearly Beloved, this is the right way to believe in Jesus,
because this is the way in which you can believe in Him when you come
to die. You have heard of the renowned bishop, a true servant of our
Lord and Master. On his dying bed, memory reeled. He had grown old and
forgotten everything. His friends said to him, "Do you not know us?"
There was a shake of the head. He had taken sweet counsel with them,
walked to the House of God in their company, but he had forgotten them
all. Next, the children clustered round the hoary father, and they
begged him to remember them. But he shakes his head, he had forgotten
them all.
Last came his wife, and she thought, was it possible that she should be
forgotten? Yes, he had forgotten her, and shook his head again. At
last, one said in his ear, "Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?" The
response was instantaneous. That charming name, Lord, brought back
consciousness from its innermost retreat to the more outward temple of
the mind. "Know Him?" said he, "yes, He is all my salvation and all my
desire." You see it was the heart that knew Jesus. And though the heart
may know the wife and the child, yet never can the heart know the
dearest earthly object as it knows Christ. The letters of earthly names
may be larger than the name of Christ, but the name of Christ is cut
deeper.
All other names may be cut deep through many skins of the soul, if I
may use so strange a metaphor, but that name is cut into the core,
right into the core of the soul! He that believes with his heart, has
Christ in him, not on him. Christ in him, the hope of Glory. My dear
Hearers, you who have not believed in Jesus, I have tried not to puzzle
you with refinements, but to talk in simple style. I do think it is a
very blessed thing that the text says, "With the heart man believes,"
because some of you might say, "I have not head enough to be a
Christian." If you had not any head at all, if you had a loving heart
you could believe in Jesus. You may say, "Why, I never had any very
great natural parts." No great natural parts are wanted. You may say,
"I never had any education," and by the way, I do like to see smock
frocks here, I would to God that more would come–"I never had any
education. I went to a national school and they taught me many things.
But I do not remember them."
Well, suppose you do not remember them. You have a heart, and some of
you have bigger hearts than many who have let their brains swell while
their hearts have shriveled. You can believe with your heart. Your
heart can see that Christ is such a Christ as you want–that pardon and
mercy are just what you require. And your heart can say, and may God
the Holy Spirit make it say, "I accept Christ. I trust in Christ. I
take Christ to be my All in All." This precious word, "With the heart
man believes," sets the gate of Heaven wide open to those who are of
the least capacity, who seem to be on the very verge of idiocy, if
there should be such persons here. Even those who write themselves down
as being the biggest fools that ever lived, such fools as these may
still believe. "The wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err
therein."
III. Now I must conclude, intending to take the second half of the text
next Sunday morning, if God spares our lives. I take the most necessary
first. You may go to Heaven without confessing–you cannot go to Heaven
without believing. So we have the believing first, and the other can
come next. I have to close by noticing THE RESULT of faith. "With the
heart man believes UNTO RIGHTEOUSNESS."
The text means that the man who believes in Christ is righteous–he is
righteous at once, in a moment. He is righteous in the germ. When God
makes up the account, He has two books. The one is the black book in
which He writes down the name of the ungodly, the unrighteous. You may
look all through that and though that man has been a thief, a
whoremonger and adulterer. Though he has been the biggest sinner that
ever defiled society and polluted God's air, you may look that book
through, if that man has been led to believe with his heart–his name
is not there among the unrighteous. You cannot find it there, it is not
in that book.
You must get the other. You look into the Book of Life, and there is
the name of Noah, Daniel and Ezekiel, John the Baptist and so on. You
say, "You do not expect to find that man's name there, do you?" I do.
If that man believed in Jesus Christ with his heart, he has believed
unto righteousness, and his name is there among the righteous men. For
he is righteous, first of all, in the germ. God has put into him an
unquenchable spark of righteousness. He has dropped into that man's
heart a vitalizing force which never, by any possibility, can die. It
has made him righteous in part, already, and which will go on until it
has sanctified him, spirit, soul, and body–and made him completely
righteous–in the real sense of the term righteous–righteous in the
sense of holiness through the sanctification of the Spirit.
But there is another sense. The moment the man believes in Jesus
Christ, he is in the righteousness of Christ– perfectly righteous. He
has put upon him the Savior's garments. You heard Mr. Weaver say on
this platform–I thought it was a good illustration–that one day he
met with a very poor man who was in rags. This man, being a Christian,
he wished to befriend him. He told him if he would go home with him, he
would give him a suit of clothes. "So," said Richard, "I went upstairs
and took off my second best, and put on my Sunday best, for I did not
want to give him my best. I sent the man upstairs and told him he would
find a suit which he could put on, it was my second best.
"So after he had put on the clothes and left his rags behind, he came
down and said, 'Well, Mr. Weaver, what do you think of me?' 'Well,' I
said, 'I think you look very respectable.' 'Oh, yes, but, Mr. Weaver,
it is not me. I am not respectable, it is your clothes that are
respectable.' And so," added Mr. Weaver, "so is it with the Lord Jesus
Christ. He meets us covered with the rags and filth of sin, and He
tells us to go and put on not His second best, but the best robe of His
perfect righteousness. And when we come down with that on, we say,
'Lord, what do You think of me?' And He says, 'Why, you are all fair,
My love. There is no spot in you.' We answer, 'No, it is not I, it is
Your righteousness. I am comely because You are comely. I am beautiful
because You are beautiful.' "
So we may conclude by saying with Watts–
"Strangely, my soul, are you arrayed By the great sa ved Three! In
sweetest harmony of praise Let all your powers agree."
All this is by believing–nothing but believing. After believing will
come the confessing and the doing. But the saving– the
righteousness–rests in the believing and in nothing else–
"Nothing, sinner, do,
Nothing great or small;
Jesus did it all,
Long, long ago."
Come to Him as He is! Take Him as your complete righteousness, and you
will have believed with your heart unto righteousness. God add His own
blessing, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
[Next Sunday, Mr. SPURGEON hopes to take up the second sentence of the
text.]