“I Thought”

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 17, 1874,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"I thought." 2 Kings 5:11.

OUR great object in preaching today will be the conversion of sinners.
There is a great deal else to be done– Believers need building up,
comforting and quickening–but while myriads of men remain careless
until they are swept away into Perdition, it becomes us to lend our
strength to the most necessary work of winning souls for Jesus.
Therefore, again this morning, I shall leave the 99 in the wilderness
and go after that which has gone astray, pleading earnestly with God
that He will bless my pleading with men so that while I discourse with
them concerning their folly in rejecting the Savior, His Spirit may
discourse with them, also, and lead them to flee to Jesus for eternal
life!

At the outset, however, we will have a few words for Believers.
Preconceptions of what ought to be the Lord's mode of action are very
injurious, even to those who have true faith in God–and yet they are
very frequently indulged. We map out beforehand the path of Providence
and the method of mercy, forgetting that the Lord's way is in the sea,
His path in the great waters and His footsteps are not known. When the
Lord does not choose to act according to our notions we start back and
cry, half-indignantly, "I thought He would surely act otherwise." This
folly is seen in Believers, sometimes, in reference to their way to
Heaven.

They are like the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. There
is a straight road to Canaan–why are they not allowed to take it?
Instead of a direct march onward they are led round about with
ever-varying experiences. Their course is by turns progressive,
retrograde and standing still–to the right and to the left, forward
and retreat. Does not Providence often perplex you and run counter, not
only to your wishes, but to your deliberate judgment? That which for
many reasons seems to be the best does not happen to you, while that
which appears to be distressingly injurious overtakes you! Your
forecasts do not come true, your daydreams are not realized, your
schemes for life are not carried out. You cannot understand why!

Why is it that you are kept in poverty when you could have made such
good use of riches? How is it you are laid aside just when you could
have been most useful? Why have talents been denied to you when you
feel you would have used them with such diligence and fidelity? How is
it that others, who waste away life, are endowed with 10 talents, while
you who are industrious and zealous have scarcely one? You have
ventured to propose such inquiries, but you have not been able to
answer them. It is as well that you should not, for our business is not
the solution of problems, but the performance of precepts. Let us cease
from our own wisdom and leave all arrangements in the hand of our
heavenly Father. Our thoughts are vanity, His thoughts are precious.

The like fault will arise in connection with our prayers. We pray
believingly and an answer comes, for believing prayer never fails, but
the answer comes in an unexpected fashion and not at all as we thought!
We prayed God to bless our family, and, lo, our wife is taken away, or
our child sickens! We besought the Lord to make us more spiritual and
He has sent a severe affliction to grieve us–

"I asked the Lord that I might grow

In faith, and love and every Grace,

Might more of His salvation know,

And seek more earnestly His face.

I hoped that in some favored hour

At once He'd answer my request,

And by His love's constraining power

Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel

The hidden evils of my heart

And let the angry powers of Hell

Assault my soul in every part.

Yes, more, with His own hand He seemed

Intent to aggra vate my woe.

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

Blasted my gourds and laid me low.

'Lord, why is this?'I trembling cried.

'Will You pursue Your worm to death?'

''Tis in this way,' the Lord replied,

'I answer prayer for Grace and faith.'" "I thought," you say, "but oh,
how different from my thoughts!" Yes, but how much better than your
thoughts! You shall find that the Lord is doing for you exceeding
abundantly above all that you asked or even thought! God is enriching
you by your poverty. He is healing you by your sickness and drawing you
nearer to Himself by driving you further away from creature confidence.

Often and often we fail to see God's gracious answers to prayer because
we make up our minds as to the way in which they will come. We refuse
letters from Heaven because they are sent in black-bordered envelopes.
We thought our Lord would send us bread and meat by angels, but
instead, He sent it by ravens. When we see the Lord's hand in
unexpected ways, we are apt to say, half in disappointment, "I thought
it would have been otherwise." Perhaps we have carried these
preconceptions of ours still further–for we have actually thought
beforehand that God would not bless us at all! He has been graciously
designing our good by affliction and we have written bitter things both
against Him and against ourselves, for we have thought that He had
utterly forsaken us. We have cried with Jacob, "Joseph is not, Simeon
is not, and you will take Benjamin away. All these things are against
me!"

When the good old Patriarch stood up in the chariot and felt Joseph's
warm kiss upon his cheek, he might have said, "I thought that all
things were against me, but now I see that I misjudged my God. He sent
my Joseph here to provide for me and for my household in the days of
famine. And He fetched my Simeon and my Benjamin away, that it might be
all the more easy for me to come down to the place where my sons had
been before me. The Lord has dealt well with His servant, but I thought
not so." Dear Brothers and Sisters, leave off these forecasts, for
blind unbelief is sure to err–the trade of a Prophet does not suit
many of God's servants. We look into the telescope, for we are curious
to peer into the future, and having breathed upon the glass with
anxious breath, we cry out in dismay, "I see nothing but clouds and
darkness before me!"

Yet our pictures of the dreadful future dissolve into the realities of
boundless goodness as we see goodness and mercy following us all the
days of our lives! We blush for our unbelief, for we had said in our
heart, "I shall one day perish by the enemy's hand." May God save us
from that cruel, "I thought," which torments us and belies our God! On
the other hand, we sometimes make flattering forecasts of the future
which are equally untrue. "In my prosperity I said, I shall never be
moved. Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain to stand strong."
That was David's thought. Everybody else might be tossed to and fro,
but he would be calm and confident. No doubt others might be in trouble
and in doubt, but his faith was so firm and his position so well
established that he feared no change or commotion. He was too strong to
tremble at the assaults from which others fled away discomfited.

Now listen to the sequel–"You did hide Your face, and I was troubled."
Like any other man, he feared and his firm mountain turned out to be
only a rolling cloud which fled before the blast. The man who was so
brave asked for the wings of a dove so he might take his flight.
Beloved, we must give up this prophesying of our own greatness–it is a
mere bag of wind! It is the very worst form of judging what is to be
and what ought to be. Things are in better hands than ours! We have
enough to do to obey the Lord's commands without setting up to be
managers of Providence. Let Him plan and let us trust! Walk as in His
sight, resigned to His will, and you shall rejoice all your days. But
if you begin to map out a course for yourselves, to be your own guides
and providers, your way will be both rough and dangerous–and your
heart will be wounded with many sorrows.

So far, then, I have spoken a lesson to Believers. I must now turn to
the unconverted, and in so doing, I ask every Christian's prayer that a
blessing may attend my words. Preconceived notions of the way of
salvation are great

hindrances to the very existence in the minds of the unconverted. It is
our business from Lord's Day to Lord's Day, yes, everyday, to tell the
sinner that, "he that believes and is baptized shall be saved." As
clearly as words can put it, we repeat it ten thousand times–that to
trust in Jesus is the only way of salvation, for Jesus has offered a
great and acceptable Atonement before God for the sins of men–and
whoever will come to Him and rest upon His Atonement has eternal life.
We are met, at once, with opposition and men turn upon their heels and
reject our message because it is not what they thought it would be.

To wash in Jordan and be clean is not according to their notion. Or
they expected some more difficult, mysterious, and showy way of
salvation. "Behold, I thought," they say, and they go their way, either
in a rage, or else in utter carelessness. Come, Friend, let me get you
by the buttonhole and talk with you upon this matter–and may the Lord
make both of us wise! First, how could you expect to find out the way
of salvation by your own thoughts? There are a great many things which
men can discover. The inventiveness of the human mind about earthly
things appears to have scarcely any limit. But, with regard to heavenly
things, the natural man has not the faculty of discerning and never did
make a discovery yet, and never will. Whatever is known of God is made
known by God.

Upon the face of Nature the existence of God is written, but we look in
vain for any indication of a plan of salvation. Jesus, alone, is the
Savior–how can you imagine that His way of saving can be known to men
except as He has revealed it? I will ask you a question. Suppose you
were sick of a mysterious and fatal disorder, and a skillful physician
was recommended to you–would you expect to foresee that physician's
mode of action? Would you go to him and then hesitate to accept his
advice because it was contrary to what you had supposed it would be? If
so, I can only say that you must be very foolish to go to a physician
at all! Why not heal yourself?

Your case is complicated and here is a surgeon who, by long experience
and wonderful skill, has acquired power to deal with your disorder. Do
you insist upon it that he shall only operate as you approve? Is he to
use knife, lances, bands and splints at your dictation? If so, you had
better dispense with him and call in a nurse who has never studied the
art, but is quite able to do your bidding, for you are surgeon to
yourself! Unconverted Friend, your case is one in which you cannot help
yourself–none but Jesus can save you! How can you expect to invent for
yourself a plan of salvation? You are bid to become Christ's
disciple–do you expect to know more than your Master? Are you to teach
Him, or is He to teach you?

If you could discover the way to Heaven for yourself, why has the Lord
given you the Bible? That Inspired volume is a superfluity if your
thoughts are to appoint the way of salvation. And what need is there of
the Holy Spirit to reveal the Truth of God and lead us into it, if,
after all, our thoughts are to be the rule? Oh, Sirs, your
arrogance–for I dare not call it less–makes you claim to be equal to
the Physician of souls, to be beyond the need of Revelation and
superior to the assistance of the Holy Spirit! Retract, I pray you, and
leave a position which involves such blasphemies! I will ask every
awakened sinner here who has been settling in his thoughts what the
plan of salvation ought to be, what peace his thoughts have brought to
him? How far have your inventions brought you?

They have led you to physicians of no value! They have caused you to
spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that
which satisfies not. You have leaned upon reeds and trusted in shadows!
Kindling a fire with your own fuel, you have, for a moment, rejoiced in
the sparks, but before long you have had to lie down in sorrow. I have
passed through your state of mind. I tried full many an invention, but
upon them all was written, "Vanity of vanities." Self was at the bottom
of all–in some form or other I looked to self–and I looked in vain! I
was like a man in a bog, who, the more he struggles, the more he sinks.
Or like a prisoner upon the treadmill who rises no higher, but only
wearies himself by his climbing.

No good can result from efforts made apart from faith in Jesus. However
earnest and sincere we may be, we must fail in our search if we do not
seek God's way. Would it not be wise, after so many bitter
disappointments, to leave your own inventions? If they have done you no
good, depend upon it, they never will! You had better humble yourself
as a little child and learn from God what the plan of salvation is, and
then obediently accept it. Come, poor Soul, in humble obedience read
the sacred roll of Inspiration and say, "O Lord, show me what You would
have me to do." Then will light break in upon you and peace shall
follow! Faith in Jesus is God's way–it will be the height of folly to
set up a method of your own in competition with Him!

Let me now ask you a second question, or a series of questions. Should
the plan of salvation be arranged according to your will and judgment?
You are a sinner and need pardon. Your nature is depraved and needs
renewing. Should the plan of forgiving and regenerating you be shaped
to please your tastes and whims? Should the great Lord of mercy wait
upon you and consult you as to how He shall work out your salvation? As
a reasonable man I beg you to tell me–has not the Lord an absolute
right to dispense His favors as He pleases? Shall He not do as He wills
with His own? You yourself, perhaps, are a man of generous spirit, and
you relieve the poor. But suppose a poor man should dictate to you how
he should be helped and in what shape you should bestow your
charity–would you listen to him for a moment? "No," you would say, "I
am not bound to give you anything. If I give, I give freely, but I am
not going to be bound by rules which you may choose to make."

Beggars must not be choosers. Now, you, O unsaved one, are a beggar
needing alms from God. Do you intend to dictate to the Host on high how
and in what manner He shall give His salvation to you? Act not so
foolishly! As a reasonable man, renounce such an idea! I claim for God
not only that He has a Sovereign right to make His own plan of
salvation, but that He is infinitely wiser than you are! Had He left it
to you to devise a scheme of mercy, it would have been most unfortunate
for you. God knows more about man than man knows about himself. And the
great designs of God are much more far-reaching than the expectations
or desires of man, even when he is most desirous to be blessed. I do
not hesitate to say that the most intelligent Christian would have been
content with far less than God is accustomed to give, and that if the
arrangements of Divine Grace had been left to us, they would have borne
but very stunted proportions compared with the present dimensions of
the plan of Divine Grace.

Surely it is best to leave it with God who will surpass all that we
could desire or devise. Why should you be thinking of ways to be saved,
when the mind of God, which is infinite as well in love as in wisdom,
has already arranged a scheme so much superior? Furthermore, do you not
think that if the plan of mercy were left to your choosing, you would
become very self-conceited? If you had the sketching of the system of
salvation and it were well done and fully accomplished, you would say,
"My methods were admirable! Am I not wise? Did I not arrange it well?"
You would be proud as Lucifer and when you got to Heaven, saved on your
own system, you would have ground for glorying and many a note upon
those golden harps would be dedicated to the glory of your own
skill–and very few enough be consecrated to your Redeemer.

Now, an arrangement which would increase our self-conceit would be
fatal to salvation, for self-conceit is a part of the sin from which we
need to be saved! Salvation is the destruction of sin–a system which
would foster self-conceit and self-confidence is evidently unadapted to
the end in view. Therefore, since your own plan could not save you, bow
your hearts to the method of Divine Grace and live! Moreover, consider,
O man, you who desire to sketch for yourself the road to Heaven, do you
not see how you derogate from the Glory of God? Did the Lord ask your
judgment when He made the heavens? When He dug the channels of the
deep? When He poured out the water floods? When He balanced the clouds?
When He set the stars in their places? With whom did He take counsel?
Who instructed Him?

Who was with Him to stretch the line or hold the plummet? He, Himself,
in the old creation, made all things by His infinite wisdom. Do you
think that He needs your aid in the new? In the work of redemption did
He ask your help or take your counsel when He made the Covenant of
Grace and fixed it by firm decree? Did you stand in the winepress, side
by side with the Redeemer, in the day when His garments were red with
blood? Have you contributed to the ransom price which He redeemed His
people from going down into the Pit? Creation and redemption have been,
up to now, works of God, alone–and has the Lord, now, a need of you?
Has He called you into His counsels, that you may guide Him as to the
application of redemption? Dare you pluck Jehovah by the sleeve and
tell Him what He ought to do in order to save a guilty worm like you?
Must He need ask you how He shall deal with you?

O man, it will not do! The supposition cannot be endured! You must
leave the Lord to save you as He wills–and as His plan is that of
simple faith–it is wickedness to set up another! Renounce your proud
conceit! If you would be saved, renounce it and humbly come and say,
"Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears." Here is His message of life to
your souls– "Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul
shall live; and I will make an Everlasting Covenant with you, even the
sure mercies of David." Now, if you have determined what the plan of
salvation ought to be, I ask you, next, by what rule are you able to
preconceive that plan? You refuse to be told what that plan really is
because you think you know beforehand.

Now by what rule have you judged? I will tell you in one word. The most
of sinners conceive the plan of salvation to be what they wish it to
be. They thought–but their wish is father to their thought. Naaman
with his chariots and his horses wanted the obsequious homage of the
Prophet and therefore he thought, "Surely he will come out to me." Men
love to be flattered. They need a plan of salvation which will gratify
their self-esteem and enable them to show what dignity there is in
human nature! They think that man should be treated like an emperor in
disguise–and mercy should be bestowed on him as if it were a reward
for merit! As they wish it to be, so they believe it is. Gentlemen of
the modern school of thought think out what God ought to be, like the
German who evolved a camel out of his own consciousness and was very
disgusted when he found that it had a hump.

They make a god as they imagine he ought to be and deify the creature
of their addled brains. And then they turn to the Bible for passages
which may be twisted to support their ideas–instead of coming to the
Book to learn what is in it–and accepting its every teaching as the
Truth of God. They bring their notions to the Bible and try to mold it
to their views. In this spirit men believe the road to Heaven to be
what they wish it to be, but it is not so. But you assure me that you
have conceived the way of salvation according to your understanding.
Well, then, you have conceived it wrongly for certain–for what is your
understanding compared with the understanding of God?

A little child has asked a favor of his father. His father knows it to
be difficult to grant it, but he has, at great expense and skill,
arranged it. And, now, is the way in which it is to be accomplished to
be according to the child's understanding? No, I say it must be
according to the father's understanding, for that is more able to lead
the way. And besides, the father is the benefactor. In your case, is
your understanding to be the guide, or God's? I will suppose you to be
a person of considerable education, far above the common level. But yet
I would have you remember that, "as high as the heavens are above the
earth, so high are God's thoughts above your thoughts, and His ways
above your ways." Why, then, should you wish to measure the dealings of
the Most High by so short a line as your own?

Have done with this folly! "Well," you say, "but I have received my
ideas from my parents." Well, then, who were your parents? That is a
very great point in such a case. Who were they and were they saved?
Suppose your parents were lost, is that a reason why you should be?
Nobody here who has a blind father would consider it his duty to put
his eyes out by way of honoring his parents! If a man were born of a
crippled parent and God blessed him with all his limbs and faculties,
he would not consider himself obliged to limp, or use a crutch, or
twist his foot. We have an old proverb that if a man were born in a
stable he need not be a horse–nor should a man be of a false religion
because of his family connections. If our parents were mistaken, that
is no reason why we should be. We regret it for their sakes, but with
the Word of God in our hands we do not intend to follow them any
further than they were led by God.

A certain heathen warrior was about to profess to be a Christian.
Standing with one leg in the waters of baptism, he turned to the
missionary and inquired, "Where are my sires? Where are the chiefs of
my line who worshipped Woden and Thor? Where have they gone? Are they
in Heaven?" "No," said the missionary, "we fear not." "Ah, then," he
said, "I will not leave the house of my fathers," and so he drew back
his foot from the font. Many are of his mind, if I may call it mind at
all! It is a certain animal instinct of the same nature as that which
makes sheep follow each other when they go astray. God save us from
this evil fashion! A man cannot inherit religion. It is not a thing to
be bequeathed like old clothes or family china. Search the Scriptures
for yourselves! Go to God the Holy Spirit for enlightenment and follow
where that enlightenment leads–even to Jesus the Savior!

Never dream of keeping to a false religion because it is that of your
family or your nation–for by that rule we ought, at this moment, to be
worshipping with the Druids in the oak groves. If we are bound to
follow the religion of our forefathers, missionaries are great
criminals and there must be dozens of true religions instead of only
one. On this principle Naaman ought never to have gone to wash in
Jordan–he ought to have stuck to Abana and to Pharpar, as his fathers
had done before him–and have remained a leper all his days. "Well,"
you say, "my idea of how I ought to be saved is gathered from what I
have read and observed. I cannot submit to be saved by simple trust in
Jesus, for I have been reading the biography of a good man and I want
to feel just as he felt. Moreover, I noticed how my cousin was troubled
in mind and I observed that she had a very remarkable dream. And,
besides, she obtained very extraordinary joys–and unless I have some
of these I shall never believe."

But, my dear Friend, do you think that God is tied down to give to each
penitent the same line of experience? Is a master artist bound to paint
always the same picture? May there be no variations in form and tint?
In man's work there is

always a degree of monotony–even the most versatile genius has its own
peculiar line of things. But God is never monotonous! There is a
wonderful variety in all that He does and this is very conspicuous in
conversions, for these are masterpieces of His Spirit. Do not,
therefore, settle how you ought to be brought to Christ, as if that
were a stereotyped affair, for the Lord does as He wills. "Yes," says
one, "but I judge by the general current of society and the opinions
that I meet in everyday life. I am a man of the world and I form my
opinion from men of the world." Then, for certain, you form a wrong
opinion, for the mind of the world never was the mind of God and never
will be!

"You are of God, little children," says John, "and the whole world lies
in the Wicked One." To form your opinion of what light is by sojourning
in darkness is ridiculous. To fashion a notion of liberty from the
prison, or to describe life by observations made in a morgue would be
absurd! Your every method of salvation by preconceived thought is
wrong, therefore cease from such thoughts, I pray you. I have another
question. How would it be, supposing your thoughts were the fact? Let
us examine the matter. You have thought, perhaps, that you ought to be
saved by undergoing a ceremony. You have believed that the sprinkling
of water on your face, or the eating of a wafer and the drinking of a
little wine would procure the forgiveness of your sins. Suppose it were
so?

It would be a calamity, for it would give pardon without penitence,
forgiveness without a change of heart. Can any moral result be produced
by an ecclesiastical performance? Has the world ever seen persons
rendered more honest or more spiritually-minded by the contact of
priestly hands? External operations do not affect the moral nature!
That is a fact which we can prove by innumerable instances and there is
not one instance of an opposite character. If they will bring a man who
is really improved by priestly operations, whether aqueous, alimentary,
unctuous, or saline, we will listen to them–but no such fact is
forthcoming. It would be a very unfortunate thing for you, my dear
Friends, if, by external operation, guilt could be removed–because it
is clear that your evil heart would remain and, therefore, you would
still have no communion with God and no fitness for Heaven.

You must be born again! You must believe in Jesus! These are the
necessities of your nature if you are to be happy. Heaven would not be
Heaven to you if you were baptized, confirmed and took all the
sacraments which Rome could give you, for they would not change your
nature–and that change is a prime necessity which cannot be dispensed
with. True faith in Jesus works by love and purifies the soul–that is
the Lord's way–accept it and forsake your own thoughts! You wish,
perhaps, to be saved by good works–self-righteousness is your thought.
Alas, if this were the way it would be an impossible way for you, for
you cannot perform good works! If you can, why have you sinned at all?
What would be your motive if you attempted good works? Why, to save
yourself, would it not? With selfishness as their motive, your works
would be defiled at the fountainhead!

Besides, all that you can do is already due to God and, therefore, it
cannot make up for the past. You must be saved by the Grace of God and
then good works will come from you, but never will you have any to
spare. When you have done all, you will still be an unprofitable
servant and a debtor to Sovereign Grace. Perhaps you think that God
might as well pardon you at once and have done with it–that is your
plan. Suppose He did so. Suppose that He, at once, blotted your sin
from His book and that was the end of it? What peace would that give
you? What security for the future? A God who could pardon without
justice might, one of these days, condemn without reason! He who could
set aside His Law so as not to execute His threats, might one day set
aside His Gospel so as not to fulfill His promise. It is a grand ground
of peace for us that God is never unjust in order to be gracious. He
saves sinners, but not till He has laid their sin upon Christ and is
both just, and yet the Justifier of Him that believes. Your plan of
pardon without an expiation would not work. It would not give
confidence to you and it would certainly dishonor the Character of the
Most High.

But you have thought that if you are to be saved, you must of necessity
experience great horrors, as many have done. You have read of John
Bunyan and others passing through the Slough of Despond and you have
set it down as a fact that you ought to wallow there, also. But why,
Beloved? How does this tend to salvation? Is doubting the mercy of God
a good and useful thing? Truly, some who are brought to Jesus are long
in coming, but if He pleases to lead you by a long way, why complain?
Is not the Gospel way the best way? Believe and live–is not that
enough? Why, if the terrors did come upon you, they could not help you,
or if they did, you would trust in your despair and this would be a
false way.

"Then," you say, "I stipulate for raptures and excitements. If I have
these, I will believe." Joy will come after believing–it is a gift of
God with which He rewards faith. If the Lord required joy and rapture
of you, you could no more render them than if the way of works were
still in vogue. "Jesus only" is your hope, why demand more? Now I come

to the point. I have looked at what you would like salvation to be–and
I have told you what it is. I will ask you this question–What in it do
you object? Do you object to being saved simply by faith? Because it
appears to you to be too mysterious? Mysterious? It is the essence of
simplicity! You make it mysterious by refusing to understand it and not
believing it to be so plain. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you
shall be saved." To believe is to trust–and whoever trusts in the
atoning blood is saved. Where is the mystery?

Then men turn round and say, "Then it seems like nothing at all." But
Jesus says, "This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He
has sent." It is the work which God works, the grandest of all works,
to believe in Jesus Christ! Do you count it as nothing, when God has
elected it to be the grand means of renewing the heart by the Holy
Spirit? Faith is the spring which moves all our nature. He who believes
learns to love and, learning to love, he is changed from sin to
holiness. "Yes, but this believing makes a man into a mere child." Is
that an objection? Then I give you no reply but the words of the Lord
Himself–"Except you be converted and become as little children, you
shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of Heaven."

"Oh," says another, "it throws the whole thing so open, if whoever
believes in Jesus is saved." And do you want it closed? Do you crave a
monopoly for yourself and your little coterie? Oh, Sir, God thinks not
as you do! And when your heart is enlarged you will be ashamed of
having made such a remark! "Well, but I do not like salvation by Grace
alone, for it implies so much against me. I feel as Naaman did when the
Prophet said, 'Wash and be clean.' What do I need washing for? Am I
dirty? Do you insinuate that this leprosy of mine comes because I have
not bathed often enough? I am insulted by you." Men regard the Gospel
as insulting their dignity and therefore they turn away from it. They
talk in this fashion–"What? Believe and live! Is that all? That way of
salvation would suit a harlot or a drunk, but I am just, upright,
honorable. Simply look to Christ as the dying thief did on the tree?
Such a religion suits a thief, but it does not suit me."

So you would like to have one way to Heaven for yourself and people of
quality, and a back gate to let in the guilty? There is no such
arrangement, Sir, and I trust you will not be so foolish as to be lost
because your pride cannot be gratified. "Ah," says another, "it does
not give a man anything that he can be proud of. It does not make him
do anything, or be anything that he can talk about to his neighbors.
'Only believe, and you shall be saved.' Why, the most common boy in the
street might understand that, and practice it, too. I have graduated at
a university. I am a man of natural endowments and great
attainments–am I to be put on the same level as a shoe-black?" Well,
if that is your line of argument, my answer is–"not many great men,
not many mighty are chosen," and when you reject the Gospel, you
neither disappoint Christ nor His people–we knew you would do so.

I sometimes feel inclined to answer people in the manner in which I
replied to a caviler not long ago. He did not understand this, nor
understand that, nor understand the other and at last I said to him,
"Sir, I do not suppose you ever will understand it." "Why not?" he
asked. "Because," I said, "God reveals these things to His own elect
and not to the wise and prudent." This view of the case he did not
like, but I believed it would do him more good than entering into
further controversy with him. Men profess to be puzzled with this and
that when the truth is that their hearts are alienated from God. When
the heart is set right and they are sincere inquirers, they will feel
that the plan of salvation by Divine Grace is most suitable, most wise
and most acceptable.

When God the Holy Spirit once makes a man feel himself to be a lost,
undone, ill-deserving, Hell-deserving sinner, he seizes upon the Gospel
of Free Grace as a hungry man grasps a loaf of bread! May God bring men
to feel themselves sinners and they will quibble at the Gospel no more.
In conclusion. You thought that the Gospel ought to be such-and-such
and now you are annoyed because you are told that the whole plan lies
in believing. Let me ask you, then, Do you mean to be damned for the
sake of a whim? Come, I will not mince the matter. Do you mean to lose
Heaven and be cast into Hell forever for the sake of your proud
fancies? For, oh, Sir, I assure you, in God's name, His plan will not
alter for you! If the Lord should alter His Gospel for you, then He
must alter it for another, and another–and it would be as shifting as
quicksand. There it is! Take it of leave it, but alter it, you cannot.
"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved" is always true. And
the other side of the question is true, too–"He that believes not
shall be damned."

Remember, also, that however much you may dislike it today, it will be
quite as unpleasant tomorrow. If there is at present some sharp,
stripping and humbling work about it, it always will strip and always
humble you if ever you receive it. To be saved by Grace alone will be
as hard to your pride in 10 years' time as it is now–perhaps harder,
because your

heart will have grown harder and your stomach even more haughty against
the Lord God of Hosts. Surely, Sir, if you are lost because you will
not have salvation in God's way, you will get small comfort from your
meditations when you lie in Hell. When you are shut in the eternal
prison, you will reflect that you are there because you thought God
ought to save you in another way. Then you will say to yourself, "I
would not take His mercy freely. I would not fall down at Jesus' feet
and simply trust Him. I wanted to feel, or do, or be something. I would
not give up self and its foolish confidences–and here I am."

Surely you will gnaw your tongue in anguish that you have been cast
away for such an unreasonable reason! If others ask you how you came
there, it will be a strange answer that you will have to give them.
"I," says one, "I am here because I loved drink." Another says, "I am
here, for I was lustful and debauched." "Ah," you say, "I was neither
the one nor the other. I was kept from such sins, but I am lost simply
because when I heard the plan of salvation, I had made up my mind what
it ought to be and I stuck to my prejudices. I would not go to the
Bible to search. I thought I knew as well as the Book and as well as
the Holy Spirit, and I am lost." My dear Hearers, I do not ask you to
believe anything I say because I say it. Fling it to the winds if it
has no better authority than mine! But if it is God's Word, I charge
you, on your soul's peril, do not reject it!

We shall face each other at the last tremendous day and if I have told
you honestly the plan of salvation, I am clear of your blood. But if,
having heard it, you reject it because it does not suit your
preconceived ideas, then, Sirs, your doom will lie at your own door.
Provoke it not! Yield to the Master's bidding! May His Holy Spirit
sweetly incline you and He shall have praise. There it is. Jesus died
instead of sinners. He suffered God's wrath in the place of the guilty
and, "Whoever believes in Him has everlasting life." Other foundation
can no man lay. There is not another name under Heaven among men
whereby you can be saved! The worst of all is, you will say, "We do not
reject it, but we mean to think of it tomorrow."

That has been the cry of some of you for 50 years! The bell will toll
for your funerals before your tomorrow comes! Do not run this frightful
risk. If to believe and to be saved would incapacitate you from your
daily calling, or rob you of a single honorable joy, I might see sense
in your procrastination. But since to be saved will make you fit for
this life and fill your cup to the brim with joy, in addition to
preparing you for the life to come, I charge you, by the living God,
"kiss the Son lest He is angry and you perish from the way, while His
wrath is kindled but a little." The Lord bless you for Jesus' sake.
Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–2 Kings 5. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
HYMN BOOK"–34 (VS. I), 560, 583.
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