Cleansing–Wrong Or Right?

Cleansing–Wrong Or Right?

(No. 3069)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1907.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
31, 1874.

"If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean; yet
shall You plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me."
Job 9:30,31.

[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon on the same text is #1908, Volume
32–WASHED TO GREATER FOULNESS.]

WE are all, by nature and by practice, unclean in the sight of God.
However excellent or virtuous we may seem before man, we have all
broken God's Law, for that Law requires perfection and we have been far
from it. The Law demands spotless holiness towards God and perfect
rectitude towards man and, in some point or other, we have all
transgressed that Law–and we have therefore become polluted before the
thrice-holy Jehovah. The great question which ought to arise in the
mind of every one of us is this–"How can I be cleansed before God?"

I. We are called upon to remember, first, that TO BE CLEAN IN THE SIGHT
OF GOD IS WORTH EVERY POSSIBLE EFFORT.

Job speaks of washing himself with snow water and trying to make
himself clean. And this he speaks of right earnestly. However far from
the hot plains in which he lived, Job might have to send for snowy
water–whatever quantity of soap (for in the Hebrew there is an
allusion to soap in the second clause)–however much nitre and soap he
might have to take in order to wash himself perfectly clean, it was
worth all the expense and trouble if only it could be accomplished.

And, dear Friends, we must be clean in the sight of God. We must desire
to be clean in the sight of God for, if not, we are the objects of His
continual displeasure. ' 'God is angry with the wicked every day." This
is a solemn Truth of God which is far too much forgotten in the present
day. Many have tried to put the thought of it right on one side and
held forth only the Doctrine of the Divine Benevolence. But while that
Doctrine is blessedly true, these solemn declarations are equally true,
"The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget
God." And, "He that believes not, is condemned already, because he has
not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." Now, if we
were right-hearted towards God, this would seem to us to be a very
dreadful thing. We little know how exceedingly hateful sin is to

God. [See Sermon #3068, Volume 53–UNTOLD DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS.] You

know that there are some things which you and I sometimes see which are
very disgusting and loathsome to us. I went into a railway station in
Italy once, where I saw a man who had lost his arm and who by way of
begging, exposed to us the stump of it and also a horrible ulcer from
which he was suffering. I turned away sick at the sight and dreaded to
go to that station again, for fear that I should be met inside the door
of the waiting room by that horrible spectacle! But, depend upon it, no
mutilation and no disease of man's body was ever so sickening to the
most delicate taste as sin is sickening to God! He loves purity and,
therefore, He must loathe impurity. He delights in those who are just
and true and upright–and He cannot endure those who are unjust, false,
or unrighteous. His holy soul abhors them as that strong expression of
His in the prophecy of Zechariah proves–"My soul loathed them and
their soul also abhorred Me." The sinner does not dislike God more than
God dislikes him as a sinner. The sinless God cannot look with
complacency upon him who is sinful–he is loathsome to the holy mind of
God. So, surely, if we are right-hearted, we shall feel that anything
and everything that we can do in order to get right with God and to
become clean in His sight, we ought to do at once!

Let us also remember that as long as we are unclean, we are in daily
danger of the fires of Hell. Do any of you know what Hell is? It is the
leper colony of the universe! Just as in the olden times when the
"black pest," or some other terrible epidemic ran through a town or
village, they would build a house some miles away from the place and
call it the pest house where they would put away all those who had the
pest or plague–such is Hell, only a million times worse than any
earthly pest house ever was! Hell is the pest house of the moral
universe. You know that in countries where leprosy prevails, they shut
up the lepers in a place by themselves, lest the terrible disease
should pollute the whole district. And Hell is God's leper colony where
sinners must be confined forever when they are incurable and past hope!
And what are the pains of Hell? They are the natural result of sin. Sin
is the mother of Hell. The pains and groans of lost spirits in Hell are
simply the fully-developed flowers of which their sins were the seed.
Bitter is the fruit, sour is the vintage of that vine of Sodom and
Gomorrah which some men set themselves so diligently to plant–and so
industriously to water. Sin bears its own sting within itself. The
torments that are to come are the stings of conscience and the
inevitable effects of remorse upon the soul and body of the man who
will continue to be unclean in the sight of God! Lest, therefore, any
of you should ever be shut up in that place of "everlasting destruction
from the Presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power," I do
beseech you to awaken yourselves and diligently seek to find out how
you may be made clean in God's sight–

"You sinners, seek His Grace, Whose wrath you cannot bear! Fly to the
shelter of His Cross, And find salvation there. So shall that curse
remove, By which the Savior bled And the last awful day shall pour His
blessings on your head."

In addition to the eternal loss which all who are cast into Hell must
sustain, also remember that none can enter Heaven until they are pure.
Those holy gates are so closely guarded by angelic watchers that no
contraband of sin shall ever cross the frontiers of Heaven. The angels
look up and down and through and through. The man who presents himself
there–if so much as a speck, or spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing is
found upon him–cannot be allowed to enter! Just think for a minute how
utterly impossible it must be for the impure to enter the courts of the
thrice-holy God. You sometimes see, in the streets of London, wretched
creatures in whom poverty, drunkenness and debauchery have so combined
that even in their outward appearance, they present a truly horrible
aspect. They are so foul, filthy and loathsome that I should not dare
to describe them more fully. None of us would like to come near
them–our flesh creeps at the very thought of them! Now, suppose that
these shoeless, ragged, filthy, diseased creatures should present
themselves at the gates of Buckingham Palace on some great occasion
when all the princes of the blood and the peers of the realm were
gathered there? Do even the most democratic of you think that the
soldiers would be too squeamish if they were to tell them that they
were unfit to enter such a place and to mingle with such company? "Why,
no," you say, "of course they must at least be clean, or they can never
enter the royal palace." Well then, it must assuredly be so in a still
more emphatic sense with regard to the palace of the King of kings!
Would it be possible for any to enter there defiled with sin, foul with
fornications, adulteries, thefts, murders, infidelities, blasphemies,
profanities and rebellions against God? It cannot be that the pure air
of Heaven should ever be breathed by them, for it is expressly declared
that "there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles,
neither whatever works abomination or makes a lie." All who are there
are absolutely perfect! And you and I, if we would be with them, must
be renewed in heart and converted unto God–and washed from every
stain, and spot and speck of sin. It is clearly impossible that the
thrice-holy God should have unrenewed, unclean sinners immediately
under His own eyes, in His own courts. It is bad enough for Him to have
them, for a time, in this little planet, floating in the vast sea of
space. But He could not endure to have them up there amid the splendors
of eternal Glory! That cannot, must not and will not be!

Once more, every man will feel that it is worth his while to endeavor
to be clean before God if he wants a quiet conscience, for a truly
quiet conscience is never possessed by any man until he has been washed
in the precious blood of Jesus and so made "whiter than snow." Does
anyone ask, "Can that be done?" I answer in God's own words. "Come now,
and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though

they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." This great miracle
of mercy can be worked and nobody's conscience will ever be perfectly
at peace till it is accomplished. There is a way of silencing
conscience without that miracle being worked, but it is like the way in
which cruel tyrants sometimes silenced the martyrs. "Hold your tongue,"
the tyrant has said, "I will not listen to your heresy." But the brave
man has still gone on speaking–he would not be silenced. And then the
tyrant has cut his tongue out. I think I have known men cut out the
tongue of their conscience, so that it could no longer speak. Perhaps
some here have done it–torn it right out by the roots by going to the
drink shop, by frequenting evil company, by taking up infidel ideas
when they knew better. They knew that they could not, with a clear
conscience, do what they wanted to do, so they resolved that they would
tear out its tongue, so that it could no longer rebuke them!

O foolish Man, you could not have dome a worse thing for yourself than
that, for he who quiets his conscience after that fashion is like one
of whom I have heard who, one night, was unable to sleep because a
faithful dog kept on howling under his window. He called out to it and
bade it lie down, and went back to bed and tried to sleep, but still
the howling continued. And at last, when the creature would not be
quiet, he took his gun and shot it, in his anger. He ought to have
known that the dog wanted to tell him that there were burglars who were
trying to enter his house and that the faithful animal was doing its
best to preserve its master's life. After the dog was dead and the man
had gone to sleep again, the burglars entered his bedroom, stole
everything of value that they could find and ended by staining their
hands with the blood of the foolish man who had killed the poor
creature that warned him of his peril! The devil is trying to destroy
your soul and your conscience, like that faithful dog, gives the alarm,
but you cry to it, "Lie down!" It does not lie down, however, and
perhaps this very sermon is helping to wake it up, but you are
determined that it shall be quiet and you will even kill it if you can!
Well, if you do, you will then have sealed your own destiny by that
very deed. The only proper way of quieting conscience is the method
that a wise owner would have taken of quieting his dog. Supposing that
man had gone downstairs and patted his dog on the head and praised it
for being a good dog? Suppose that he had loosed its chain and taken it
round the yard with him? Suppose, too, that he had taken that gun, with
which he so foolishly killed his dog, and when, at last, he had
discovered the villains who had come to rob him, he had set his dog on
them, or even leveled his gun at them? That would have been far wiser
than killing his dog and losing his own life! In such a fashion as
that, go and lose your conscience and let your sins be
destroyed–otherwise they will assuredly destroy you! The quieting of
an awakened conscience can only be rightly done by getting rid of
sin–and there is but one way to get rid of sin–of which I will speak
before I have finished my discourse.

Thus much on the first point–to be clean in the sight of God is worth
any and every effort.

II. Now secondly, ALL EFFORTS OF OUR OWN, MADE IN OUR OWN WAY, WILL
CERTAINLY FAIL.

It is very curious what efforts people will make to get rid of their
sins. Some try to get clean by ceremonies. Ah, Mr. Priest, is that good
soap that you are bringing with your bowl of water? "Yes," he replies,
"the best Roman soap, or you can have a cake from Canterbury or Oxford
if you would prefer it. How beautifully white your hands will look if
you only use enough of this patent soap." So you say, but if you had
your eyes opened, you would see that after all your washing, they are
as black as night! The soapsuds get in your eyes, Sir, and therefore
you do not see the dirt that is still on the sinner's hands. That is
all that ever comes of mere ceremonies–they blind, but they do not
cleanse.

Another thinks that he can obtain cleansing by religious observances.
His form of washing with snow water is attendance at his usual place of
worship. He goes there regularly. He would never be away if he could
help it! When the proper time for service comes and having done that,
he asks, "Will not that take away my sin?" No, Sir, not a spot, nor
even half a spot! Some have given away large sums of money with the
hope of thereby cleansing themselves from sin. But all the gold in the
world can never form a golden ointment with which to cleanse iniquity.
There are many who have tried to get cleansing by their moralities and
their charities, but their efforts have all been in vain. Mr. Legality
and Mr. Civility are said to be great hands at washing Blackamoors
white, but I have very grave doubts as to whether the Blackamoors are
not blacker after the washing than they were before!

Men have had the strangest notions as to how they might be cleansed
from sin. Read John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of
Sinners–which is, as you know, a record of his own experience–and you
will see some very curious ideas of his concerning the way in which he
hoped to wash himself from sin. Yet, his ideas are not any more curious
than those of people who are now living. The other day I read a letter
from a young farm laborer, describing the way in which, at one time, he
hoped to get saved. He said that in the village where he lived, there
were some young men who went to the Patagonian Mission and there got
what he called, "massacreated." Of course, he meant to say that they
were massacred. And he further wrote, "I thought that if the Patagonian
Mission would have taken me and the natives would only have killed me,
I would have gone joyfully and gladly, for I heard that they were all
saints who died in that way and I would willingly have gone if I could
have got to Heaven by that method." Yes, and so would I, and so would
most of us when we were under the burden of sin. We would not have
minded being killed and eaten if we might in that way have entered into
eternal life, for a man who really feels the burden of sin is willing
to try all sorts of extraordinary methods of getting rid of it! Look at
the methods adopted by the heathen in order, as they hope, to get rid
of sin. Go to India and look at the great car of Juggernaut, and see by
what cruel means the people there hope to get rid of sin! And there are
many other equally useless methods which the spiritual quacks are
vainly puffing as unfailing ways of getting rid of sin!

But on the authority of the Word of God, we confidently declare that
all human methods of seeking the cleansing of sin which men may
practice must end in failure, even as Job's did when he said, "If I
wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean; yet shall
You plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me." Yet, if
God really means to save you, He will never let you be satisfied with
any human plan of salvation, but He will, to use Job's expression,
plunge you in the ditch and make you feel even blacker than you did
before! How will He do that?

Sometimes the Lord does this by bringing to a man's memory his old
sins.' 'There," says the self-satisfied man, "I am getting on now–how
clean I am after that last wash!" And just then he recollects some sin
he committed as a boy, or some foul deed which he can never wipe
completely off the tablet of his memory. "Oh!" he cries, "that dreadful
past sin of mine has not gone as I vainly hoped that it had–it is
still there." So he is again plunged in the ditch and all his beautiful
washing counts for nothing!

At another time, the Lord permits the man to be greatly tempted. He
gets up in the morning and says to himself, "Now I really feel a great
deal better than I have felt for a long time. I have firmly resolved to
make a man of myself and I know that my resolutions are much stronger
than they used to be." So he starts out very confidently. But presently
there comes to him something that is stronger than his resolutions–and
over goes the boastful man, generally failing in the very thing in
which he fancied himself to be strongest! He soon discovers that he was
only powerful as long as he had not a powerful adversary to contend
with him. That is the way in which many a man has been plunged by God
in the ditch.

Sometimes God will do it in another way–by opening a boastful man's
eyes to see the imperfection of his work He thinks, "I did that piece
of work well. I am sure I did and I do not see how any Christian could
do it better." When any man begins to talk like that, the Lord often
makes him sit down and closely examine that work of which he is so
proud. And as he looks at it, he sees that it is full of flaws. It is a
beautiful vase, but just try to fill it with water. Ah, it leaks! The
man looks at it and says, "Well, I never thought it was as faulty as
this. It seemed to me to be perfect! Yet this beautiful vase that
appeared to be so fair, leaks like a sieve." The man says to himself,
"That good action of mine was done with a bad motive, so it is like a
leaky vessel. While I was doing it, I was as proud as Lucifer over it.
So it leaks–and after I had done it, I went away and boasted about it,
so the vase kept on leaking." In that way the man gets plunged into the
ditch and he sees himself to be blacker than he was before he had thus
washed his hands with snow water!

Very frequently men have been plunged into the ditch by being made to
see the spirituality of the Law. A man says, "I have not broken the
Law. I have kept all the Commandments from my youth up. I never killed
anybody. No one can say that I ever did." But where he finds it
written, "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer," he cries, "Ah then
I have been a murderer!" A man says very boldly, "I have never
committed adultery! Who dares to say that I have?" But when he reads
the words of Jesus, "I say unto you, that whoever looks on a woman to
lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart,"
then the man says, "I must admit that I am guilty, for I see that I
have broken these commandments by my thoughts and looks, although I
knew that I had not broken them by my actions. I did not know that the
Law concerned itself so closely with looks and thoughts as well as with
acts and words." But, indeed, that is the very thing with which the Law
is concerned–and for which it condemns men! And when the
self-satisfied man learns this solemn Truth of God, he says, "Then I am
plunged in the ditch, and my own clothes abhor me, although I had
washed myself quite clean."

Others are plunged in the ditch in this way–they are made to realize
the supreme holiness of God. It had been the habit of a certain man to
say, "I am as good as my neighbors, and better than most of them. Don't
talk to me about Christian men and women–there's many a professing
Christian not half as good as I am! Why, was I not kind to my neighbor
when he was in distress? Did I not give a guinea to such-and-such a
charity? Am I not ready at all times to stand up for the right?" So he
talks. But when he gets a view of God, then, like Job, he abhors
himself and repents in dust and ashes! And he says, "I thought I could
compare myself with man, but I cannot compare myself with God! And as
God and not man, is the standard of holiness, I am indeed plunged in
the ditch. Yet I thought I had washed myself perfectly clean–that snow
water and patent soap did seem to take the dirt off beautifully–but
now I find that in the sight of God I am just as filthy as I can be."
And when the Lord, the Holy Spirit, convinces a man of sin, the words
of Job are none too strong–"My own clothes shall abhor me." You may
sometimes have abhorred your clothes because they were so dirty that
you were ashamed to be seen in them. But you must be dirty, indeed,
when your very clothes seem ashamed to hang upon you! This is what the
convicted sinner feels–that he is so foul that his very clothes seem
to be ashamed of him, as if they would rather have been on anybody
else's back than on the back of such a filthy sinner as he is!

"Ah," says someone, "you are exaggerating now." No, I am not
exaggerating, at least as far as my own personal experience is
concerned. I can well remember–though I did not then know that John
Bunyan had used somewhat similar expressions–I can well remember when
I was under deep conviction of sin, wishing that I had been a frog or a
toad rather than have been a human being because I felt myself to be so
foul in the sight of God. I felt that I was such a great sinner that
the bread I ate might justly choke me and that the air I breathed might
have righteously refused to give life to the lungs of such a sinner as
I was. I felt, at that time, that if God spared me, it was only because
He was boundless in compassion–and if He cast me into the hottest
Hell, I could never murmur against the justice of His sentence, for I
felt that I deserved any punishment that He might award me. When the
Holy Spirit brings sinners to feel like this, it is a proof that He is
leading them on the way by which He brings them to Christ. Oh, that the
Lord would make every guilty sinner here long to be clean in His sight!
And also make each one feel what is certainly the truth–that all the
means in a man's own power of making himself clean will turn out to be
dead failures–for though he should take snow water and wash himself
ever so clean, yet would he again be plunged in the ditch and his own
clothes would abhor him!

III. The last point on which I have to speak is the best. It is
this–THERE IS A RIGHT WAY OF GETTING CLEAN IN GOD'S SIGHT.

First, it is an effective way. He that believes on the Lord Jesus
Christ shall be made clean. He shall be cleansed from all the foulness
of the past–God will wipe it right out. He shall be cleansed as to his
heart and his nature. To him God repeats that ancient promise, "A new
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you."
"How is this to be had?" By trusting to the Divine method of cleansing
the filthy, for the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all
sin everyone who believes in Him. There are millions upon the earth now
whom the blood of Jesus Christ has completely cleansed–and there are
millions more now hymning His praises in Glory who have had every spot
of sin taken out of them by the application of His precious blood! O
sinful Souls, if you could ever have made yourselves clean, Christ
would not have needed to pour out His life's blood that you might be
washed in it! If the cleansing bath could have been filled with human
tears, or could have been filled by means of the incantations of a
so-called priest, there would have been no need for Your wounds, O
Emmanuel, and no need of Your indwelling, O regenerating and
sanctifying Spirit! But because we could not be cleansed by any other
means, the water and the blood flowed freely from the pierced heart of
Jesus, the Divine Son of God! And now the ever-blessed Spirit waits to
be gracious and to change the heart and renew the nature and make us
fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light!

This effective way of getting cleansed is also an immediate way. We
have often sung–

"There is life for a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
moment for you"– and it is true, for there is instant cleansing for
anyone who looks to Jesus Christ. A sinner may have committed more sins
than he could count in a million years and yet, as soon as he gives one
believing look at Jesus Christ, all those sins are gone forever! You
know that when a bill is paid, the receipt is written at the bottom and
that puts an end to the whole debt. So, Sinner, the name of Jesus at
the bottom of the whole roll of your indebtedness to God puts an end to
it all! The man who thinks he has only a few sins may bring his little
bill–and you who know that you have many sins may bring your big
bill–but Christ's receipt avails for one as much as the other! Even if
the roll of your guilt should be many miles long, it makes no
difference to the efficacy of the blood of Jesus! If the list of your
sins should be long enough to go right around the world–and just one
drop of the blood of Jesus should be put upon it–all that is written
there would at once disappear and be gone forever! And the sinner would
be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation!

Further, this effective and immediate way of cleansing is also an
attainable way of cleansing. To preach to sinners a salvation which
they cannot obtain would be to tantalize them. We do not so, but to
every person in this Tabernacle tonight and to everyone anywhere else
whom this message may reach, we have to say this, "If you will confess
your sin to God and then put your trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, you
shall be saved–even you, whoever you are, and whatever sin you may
have committed!" Your confession is to be made, not to your fellow
creature, but to Him against whom your sins were committed. Go to your
home, or seek some quiet spot where you can commune with your God. Tell
Him that you have sinned, and ask Him to have mercy upon you. Tell Him
that Jesus died in the place of sinners–plead the merit of His
precious blood and say, "Lord, I believe that You can save me and I
trust in You to save me, for Jesus' sake." If you will do this, you
shall be forgiven! You shall be renewed in heart, you shall be made
clean!

In closing my discourse, I remind you, as I have often done before,
that this cleansing is available now, at this very moment! I recollect
hearing of a somewhat stingy man who once needed to hire a horse and
chaise to go out for a drive. So he went to the man who let such things
and asked the price. He said that the sum asked was too high–and went
round to every other person in the little town who had such things to
let, but found that their prices were higher still. So, at last, he
went back to the first man and said to him, "I will take your horse and
chaise at the price you mentioned." "No," he said, "you won't, for you
have been around to everybody else to try to get them at a lower price,
and I shall not let you have mine now." I was not very much surprised
to hear that he was told that. Now, some of you have been to everybody
else for salvation except to the Lord Jesus Christ! You have been to
Rome and you have been to Oxford, and you have been to self and I
hardly know where you have not been! Yet, notwithstanding that, you may
come to Christ even now! He will not refuse you even now! Going to
Canterbury has not saved you, but going to Calvary can. You have found
no help in the city on the seven hills, but you may find immediate help
on the little hill outside Jerusalem's gate– the little mound called
Calvary, where the Savior shed His precious blood for all who will put
their trust in Him!

I have been talking to you in a very simple, homely way, for I have
been afraid lest anybody should by any possibility not know what the
Gospel really is. I always think that if my net has small meshes, the
big fish can get in and the little fish cannot get out, So I have put
small meshes to my net and talked in a homely style with simple
illustrations which all can understand. The Lord knows that I have done
this out of love to your souls. I would bring you all to Jesus if I
could–but I cannot do that. Oh, that the Spirit of God would do it!
Why do you need so much urging to come to Christ? You are filthy with
sin and here is a free bath in which you may be washed spotlessly
white! Come and bathe in Jesus' blood and that will make you fairer
than the lilies, and lovelier than all the glories of Solomon! If you
do but wash in this Fountain, you will scarcely know yourself when you
come up out of it! And if you happen to meet your old self, the next
day, you will say, "Ah, Self! I don't want to be on speaking terms with
you anymore. I never knew that you were so ugly! I never knew that you
were so filthy! I never knew that you were so abominable till I had
gotten rid of you by being made a new creature in Christ Jesus."

The Lord bless you and bring you to trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, and
He shall have all the praise and glory forever and forever! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW5:13-26.

Verse 13. You are the salt of the earth. The earth would go putrid if
there were no salt of Divine Grace to preserve it. So, dear Friends, if
God's Grace is in you, there is a pungent savor about you which tends
to preserve others from going as far into sin as otherwise they would
have done. "You are the salt of the earth."

13. But if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?If
the God-given Grace could be altogether taken from you. If you had no
sanctifying power about you at all, what could be done with you? You
would be like salt that has lost its savor.

13. It is therefore good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be
trodden under foot of men. Mark this, then– either the saints must
persevere to the end, or else the Grace of God has effectually done
nothing for them. If they do not continue to be saints and to exercise
a saintly influence, there is no hope for them! There cannot be two new
births for the same person. If the Divine work has failed once, it will
never be begun again. If they have really been saved, if they have been
made the children of God and if it is possible for them to lose the
Grace which they have received, they can never have it again. The Word
of God is very emphatic upon that point–"If they shall fall away, it
is impossible to renew them again unto repentance" Falling may be
retrieved, but falling away can never be. [See Sermon #75, Volume
2–final

PERSEVERANCE–Read/download the entire sermon, free of charge, at
http://www.spurgeongems.org.]

There are countries where there is found salt from which the pungency
has completely gone. It is an altogether useless article and if there
are men who ever did possess the Grace of God, and who were truly God's
people, if the Divine life could go out of them, they would be in an
utterly hopeless case. Perhaps there are no powers of evil in the world
greater than apostate churches–who can calculate the influence for
evil that the Church of Rome exercises in the world today?

14. You the are light of the world. The Bible is not the light of the
world, it is the light of the Church! But the world does not read the
Bible, the world reads Christians! "You are the light of the world."

14. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. You Christians are
like a city built upon a hilltop–you must be seen. As you will be
seen, mind that you are worth seeing.

15. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a
candlestick and it gives light unto all that are in the house. God's
intent is, first, to light you. And, secondly, to put you in a
conspicuous position where men can see you.

16. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.Let the light of your
purity and your good works be as bright as possible, yet let not the
light be to your own praise and glory, but let it be clearly seen that
your good works are the result of Sovereign Grace for which all the
glory must be given to "your Father which is in Heaven."

17. 18. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I
am not come to destroy, but to fulfill For verilyIsay unto you,
TillHeaven and earthpass away, onejot or one tittle shallin no wisepass
from the Law, tillallare fulfilled. See how the great Lord of the New
Testament confirms the Old Testament? He has not come to set up a
destructive criticism that will tear in pieces the Book of Deuteronomy,
or cut out the very heart of the Psalms, or grind Ezekiel to powder
between His own wheels. But Christ has come to establish yet more
firmly than before all that was written aforetime and to make it stand
fast as the everlasting hills.

19. Whoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and
shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of
Heaven: but whoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called
great in the Kingdom of Heaven. A true man may make mistakes and so he
may teach men to violate someone or other of the Divine Commandments.
If he does so, he shall not perish, for he was honest in his blunder.
But he shall be among the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But he who
earnestly, perseveringly and conscientiously teaches all that he knows
of the Divine Will, "the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven."

20. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ does not teach a lower kind of
morality than the Pharisees taught. They were very particular about
little things–jots and tittles–but we must go further than they went!
We must have more righteousness of life than they had, although they
seemed to their fellow men to be excessively precise. Christ aims at
perfect purity in His people and we must aim at it too. And we must
really attain to more holiness than the best outward morals can
produce.

21. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not
kill; and whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment God had
said, "You shall not kill." But the remainder of the verse was the
gloss of the Rabbis–a true one, yet one that very much diminishes the
force of the Divine Command.

22. But I say unto you, That whoever is angry with his brother without
a cause shall be in danger of the judgment And a far higher judgment
than that of men.

22. And whoever shall say to his brother, Raca. A word of very
uncertain meaning, a kind of snubbing word, a word of contempt which
men used to say to one another, meaning that there was nothing in them.
"Whoever shall say to his brother, Raca."

22. Shall be in danger of the council: but whoever shall say, You fool,
shall be in danger of Hell fire. Christ will not have us treat men with
anger, or with contempt, which is a very evil form of hate, akin to
murder, because we as good as say, "That man is nobody." That is, we
make nothing of him, which is morally to kill him. We must not treat
our fellow men with contempt and derision, nor indulge any angry temper
against them, for anger is of the devil, but "love is of God."

23, 24. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there
remember that your brother has anything against you; leave there your
gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your gift. Note that this injunction
is addressed to the man who has offended his brother Why is this?
Because he is the least likely to try to make up the quarrel. It is the
man who has been offended who usually exhibits the nobler spirit–the
offender is almost always the last to seek a reconciliation and
therefore, the Savior says to him, "If your brother has anything
against you, it is but right that you should be the first to seek
reconciliation with him. Leave your gift, go away from the Prayer
Meeting, turn back from the Lord's Table and go and first be reconciled
to your brother."

25. Agree with your adversary quickly.Always be ready to make
peace–not peace at any price–but, still, peace at any price except
the sacrifice of righteousness.

25, 26. While you are on the way with him, lest at any time the
adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the
officer, and you be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you, You shall
by no means come out from there till you have paid the uttermost
farthing. And there are some debts of which we cannot pay the uttermost
farthing! And there is a prison out of which no man shall come, for the
uttermost farthing demanded there shall never be paid. God grant that
we may, none of us, ever know what it is to be shut up in that dreadful
dungeon!