Not Boasting, But Trusting
(No. 3408)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1914.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Not of works lest any man should boast" Ephesians 2:9.
THIS is very plain. There is no mistaking the sense. We are saved by
Grace and not by our own doings. A reason is assigned. If we were saved
by our own doings, it would be natural and certain that we would boast.
It is well that the Apostle is so very explicit here and elsewhere upon
this Doctrine, for men will fall against and blunt the edge of his
statement. Self-righteousness is the natural religion of every degraded
heart. Only the Spirit of God can make a man really receive and
acknowledge the Truth of God. The Apostle seems determined that if any
reject it, it shall not be for lack of clearness in his statement as a
teacher. He does not beat about the bush, or go round about, or mince
matters–he comes at once to the point, "By Grace are you saved"–and
then he gives the negative, the backstroke of the sword, "Not of works,
lest any man should boast." This is the old controversy of Christianity
from the very beginning. The first heavy fire of the Gospel ordinance
was directed against the Judaizers. They said salvation was by
ceremonies and the works of the Law of God. In all sorts of shapes and
ways, sometimes straightforwardly and sometimes cunningly, they tried
to get into the Christian Church the idea that the works of men could
have some merit in them and contribute in some degree to their
salvation! The Apostle was a very sturdy opponent of this subtle
innovation. His Epistle to the Romans, his Epistle to the Galatians,
his Epistle to the Ephesians and, indeed, all his writings seem like so
many cannons dragged to the front and discharging red-hot shot against
the very idea of salvation by the works of the Law. "By the works of
the Law there shall no flesh living be justified," he says, "for by the
Law is the knowledge of sin."
Further down in the history of the Christian Church this old conflict
was renewed very vehemently by Martin Luther and his brother Reformers
against the Church of Rome. You must not think that the great point of
difference between the Protestants and Romanists is whether we shall
obey that respectable old gentleman at Rome or not! Or whether we shall
have our ministers dressed in blue and scarlet and fine linen–or in
common broadcloth, like ourselves. Those trifles may become important
as ostensible signs of profession, but they are not the main point at
issue. They are merely the husk of the controversy! The real battle
between the Papists and the Protestants turns on this–are men saved by
works, or are they saved by Grace? All the Reformers that ever tried to
reform the Church of Rome by interfering with her mummeries and her
monasteries, her priests and their vestments, her holy days and
celebrations, and I do not know what besides, were all just fiddling
away with a wasted force at some of the external branches of that
horrible old upas tree! But when Luther came fresh from the cell with
that Light of God still beaming from his eyes, "We are justified by
faith," then it was that the axe was laid at the root of this tree!
There is nothing needed to bring down popery but the constant
promulgation of this one Truth of God–"It is not of him that wills,
nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy," for salvation is
not of man, neither by man–it is of the Lord and it is given to as
many as believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all their hearts! In
fact, this is the standing controversy, today, before which all other
controversies dwindle into insignificance. The outside world still has
it that they will be saved by their own doings. The host of God's
elect, stripped of their own righteousness and made to put on the
righteousness of Christ, stand, each man, with his sword upon his side
and his shield in his hand, defensive for this one Truth of God, this
vital Truth of God, the all-important Truth of the Gospel!
For this, Brothers and Sisters, we ought, every one of us, to be
prepared to shed our blood! To obliterate or to disguise this Truth
were to put out the lamp that illuminates this dark world! Take away
the only ointment that can healearth's wounds! To destroy the only
medicine that will ever cure the diseases of humanity–"Justified by
faith, saved by Grace, not of works, lest any man should boast."
At this time, let us briefly consider a great negative–"not of works."
A great reason–"lest any man should boast." And then throw in, one
after the other, with very little order, a few thoughts about this
great matter.
A GREAT NEGATIVE–"Not of works." Now, Brothers and Sisters, it must
not be of works because that way has been tried and has proved a
complete failure. Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden under
circumstances peculiarly conducive to his happiness. The Law of God
which was to test him was remarkably simple. It contained but one
command, "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not
eat." Adam was not, as we are, corrupt–his constitution had no
tendency to sin. He was pure and perfect with well balanced judgment
and without bias one way or the other. He had never sinned–he need not
ever to have sinned! It seems to me, he had nothing to gain by sin. His
paradise was as perfect as it could be! God had been pleased to give
him everything necessary to make him abundantly happy. But under these
circumstances–the most favorable in which humanity was ever
placed–the way of acceptance before God by works broke lamentably
down!
Whether after a short or long term of probation, we will not say–it is
folly to speak where Scripture is silent–it is certain that when
tempted, he lapsed, for the woman took the fruit and the man also
partook of it. Then acceptance by works became like a potter's vessel
smashed with a rod of iron! Man had tried the way of merit and bitter,
indeed was the award. Despair, you sons of Adam–where your father
failed, though up to then untainted–you, with perverted will, with
imagination apt to picture pleasantry in sin, with judgment warped and
strained by innate depravity, by the infection of example and by the
force of surrounding circumstances–think not that you can stand
upright where perfect Adam fell! Hope not to find a way back through
the gates of Paradise, for there still stands the cherub with his
flaming sword–and no flesh living shall henceforth be saved by his
works! The way of salvation by works is utterly unsuitable for us! It
is not only fruitless, proved to be so, but it is inconsistent.
Anything which involves an impossibility is vain to propose. Propose to
a man without feet that he should walk, or to a man without eyes that
he should distinguish colors–you see the folly–but is it not equally
absurd to recommend a convict to seek a peerage? It is impossible for
any one of us to obtain merits before God!
We have all confessedly sinned already. Our present status debars us
from entering the list for future honors. By what means are we to put
away this old sin? There it stands. Suppose we obey God from this time
forth till we die without a single fault–we shall then only have done
what it was our duty to perform and God had a right to expect of us!
There will be no balance left, nothing to put per contra against our
sins, nothing to our credit as a reduction of our liabili-ties–we
would only have paid the current account, supposing that to be
possible. The debt will still remain! The old score–who is to pay
that? "Oh," says one, "we apply to Christ for that." No, no, Sir! If it
is to be by works, you must keep to works, for the Apostle lays it down
in the 11th of Romans that, "if it is of Grace, it is not of works, and
if it is of works it is not of Grace." Two principles, these, which
will not mingle–have which you like. They are like oil and water, or,
rather, like fire and water–they are opposed to each other! If Christ
is to save you, He must do it altogether. He will never be a
make-weight for you, depend upon it! He did not come into this world to
make up a few deficiencies–not at all so! He will not have you
boasting! He will not have you sharing the honor of your salvation with
Him!
God demands of every man a perfect life–having all sinned, we cannot
bring Him a perfect life. You have cracked that vase. And, if you do
not break it again, it is already cracked. "Oh," but you tell me, "it
is only in a little place." Yes, but if there is only one link in the
chain broken which drags up the miner from the deeps of the earth, it
is quite enough for his destruction that one link is broken! There is
no need to have a dozen links fretted through with rust, the one flaw
is sufficient. If you will be saved by works, you must be absolutely
perfect, for it is inconsistent with the Justice of God that He should
accept any but perfect obedience from the creatures that come under His
sway. Can you render this?
If you know yourselves, you will say, "we cannot." You will look on the
flames that Moses saw when Sinai was on a blaze–you will tremble and
despair of ever saving yourselves!
But, again, while the way has been proven to be fruitless and is
certainly unsuitable, it is a way which, with all his talking, no man
ever does fairly try. I have often noticed that those who prate loudest
of good works are those that have the fewest good deeds to make mention
of. Like little traders in the streets with their little stock of
commodities, they had need cry and advertise their wares because they
have so little to sell! Whereas a diamond merchant or dealer in bullion
sits still and never makes a noise at all because he has precious
treasure by him. Your hard talkers about good works generally come from
some disreputable haunt. They will even boast that their sentiments are
better than their habits. Well, they need be! I have seen them put
their black and smutty fingers upon the bright Gospel of Christ and
say, "This leads to licentiousness." Pity, then, Sir, you should ever
approach it, since you can find licentiousness fast enough without it!
Pure minds see God in the Gospel. They veil their faces and bow before
its majesty. Ah, well might I preach up morality, but not as the way of
salvation, or what would be the result of it? What said Chalmers during
the early part of his life? He said, "I preached up sobriety till
nearly all my followers became great drinkers. I preached up honesty
till I manufactured thieves. The more I preached of the right which man
ought to do, the more I found men doing wrong." These are not his
words, but they are the sense of his own solemn confession when he came
to read the pure Gospel and began to preach it with all his heart!
So is it with every man and I suppose it always will be. Dry essays
about duty run off and slide like oil down a slab of marble–while the
proclamation of the Gospel of the Grace of God in pardoning the chief
of sinners attracts men to Jesus, breaks their hearts, causes them to
hate sin, sets them upon reformation, makes them holy and helps them to
persevere even to the end! "Not of works," says the text–and we come
back to it. If salvation were by works and could be so worked
out–listen–then Calvary would be a superfluity! The Cross of Christ,
with all its wonders, would be a work of supererogation on God's part!
The work of Redemption would be a subject of derision for us! Is there
no salvation, or is there salvation somehow else? Must God come down
and take the form of man and in that form must the Christ of God suffer
even unto death–and all for nothing–for it comes to that! If man can
save himself, what is there need of you angels? Hush your Christmas
carols! What need for those gazing eyes and that absorbing wonder as
you watch the manifestation of the Lord of Glory, Incarnate among men?
What needs it that the Prophets talk of the Lamb of God and point us to
the Infinite Sacrifice? What need is there that Jesus wears the crown
of thorns and bows His head to die for us? There are men who say we can
work our own passage to the stars and by our merits enshrine ourselves
among the blessed. Sirs, which shall I believe–that God has worked a
work that need not have been, or that you are under the spell of a
fatal delusion? "Let God be true and every man a liar." You can find no
way to Heaven but by the Cross!–
"Could your zeal no respite know, Could your tears forever flow– All
for sin could not atone– Christ must save, and Christ alone!"
Those persons who prate most of salvation by works, whether they
acknowledge it or not, do really lower the standard of holiness and
abate the dignity of the Law of God. You come to probe them and the old
story which Whitefield and John Vaudois fought against so valiantly of
Saxon obedience is the petition of the self-righteous man's creed.
"Well," he says, "I can't keep all the Law of God–I admit that. As to
thoughts, deeds and words, I can't be quite clean, but I will do my
best." Now, what is this but to altogether lower the Law of God because
you cannot come up to God's Law? Is the Almighty God to come down to
your terms? Do you think to barter with Him? Can your miserable three
farthings in the pound satisfy a Divine Law? This will never be!
"Heaven and earth shall pass away," says Christ, "but not one jot or
one tittle of the Law shall fail." This is the Word of God spoken from
Sinai, "Cursed is every man that continues not in all things that are
written in the Book of the Law to do them."
God will not take part payment! Holiness, let me tell you, Sirs, is a
very different thing from that morality which some men boast of! Why, I
almost hold my breath when I encounter some men's morality that they
talk so much of! Those loose tongues that chatter so glibly against the
Gospel as fomenting licentiousness–if they did but once cry, "God be
merciful to us sinners," would come much nearer to playing their right
part. Men that are sinning daily in open violation of common virtue
will talk as though they were pure in all their tastes, holy in all
their thoughts and above suspicion in all their lives? Oh, no! God's
holiness is something more grand, more sublime than you and I have
guessed at! And we shall not reach to that by our works, at any rate,
for they are blotted, blurred, marred and spoiled upon the wheel like
the figures of an ill-taught potter–and we cannot presume to exhibit
them before the living God.
II. A GREAT REASON IS GIVEN–a few words on it–"Not of works lest any
man should boast." If any man could get to Heaven by his own works,
what a boaster he would naturally be! I am sure he would be so on
earth. This is the part he would play. He would hear that God, in His
mercy, had been forgiving some great sinner and that there wasjoy in
Heaven over him. And he would say, "I cannot take my share in such
pleasures as that. I have never transgressed His Commandments. I find
myself very tightly bound and I do not get much joy out of it. Here is
that renegade who has been given to sin and he is to be saved! I do not
like it." You know where to read the story in Luke's Gospel, "He was
angry and would not go in, therefore his father came and entreated him.
And he answering, said to his father, Lo, these many years have I
served you, neither transgressed I at any time your commandments and
yet you never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends.
But as soon as this, your son was come, which has devoured your living
with harlots, you have killed for him the fatted calf." Pretty specimen
of a son, but the picture of what any man would be who felt, "I owe God
nothing. I am all right–I am saved by my own works."
What a churl he would be in the Church! I am sure I would be very sorry
to admit such a man to our assemblies. I would feel that he was quite
out of place with poor sinners saved by Grace like ourselves, who have
nothing to boast of. It would make the whole Church wretched to have
such people in Church fellowship! Why, if we did not idolize them, we
would hate them! I do not know which of the two it would be–certainly
they would be much out of place in our assemblies with their boasting.
And what would they do in Heaven? Why, the very reverse of what all the
spirits are doing who are there–these all sing, "We have washed our
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb"–they would have to
say, "We kept our raiment white ourselves." When the ransomed spirits
cast their crowns at His feet, the self-righteous souls would hold high
their crests and wear their tiaras, saying, "We have won them ourselves
and we have a right to them!" It would spoil Heaven! Heaven would not
be the perfection of harmony. Such beings would occasion discord in the
Glory Land–a greater discord than seen in the universe since the Fall!
No, no! It is "Not of works, lest any man should boast"!
Do I hear somebody say, "We do not maintain that men are to be saved by
works altogether, but partly by God's Grace and partly by their own
works." Well, I will suppose for a moment that this strange monster can
be manufac-tured–a saint compounded part of Grace and part of works!
Well now, in what proportion are these two opposite qualities to be
brought together? How much Grace and how much works? Half works? Yes.
Then how about those poor fellows who come very near half? Well, one
quarter works? Yes. And then three-quarters Grace? Well, perhaps some
more, and some less. Some three-quarters works, some half works and
some only one-eighth works and so on. You will have to arrange them
very orderly, you know–and depend upon it that as soon as they find
out the proportion of their salvation that was by works–in that
proportion they will begin to boast! I would and I do not think I would
be to blame if I did. I would say, "Now, here I am, saved half by my
works. Here is a lot of these poor believers in Christ who were saved
altogether by Grace, but I have contributed of my own means a full half
to my salvation. I do not mind just lifting my crown a little–just
admit I had help in getting it on my head, but I am not going to cast
it down at His feet–every man has a right to what is his due!"
I thought Napoleon did a good thing when, on the day of his coronation,
he took his crown and put it on his own head. Why should he not take
the symbol that was his due? And if you get to Heaven one half by Grace
and one half by works, you will say, "Atonement profited me a little,
but integrity profited me much more!" Do I seem to you to talk
sarcastically? Be it admitted I do! Were it possible for me to kick
this idea of human merit like a football round the world, Sirs–were it
possible to set it in the pillory of scorn and pelt it with I know not
what of filth, I would feel that I had the Apostle Paul standing by my
side and saying, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for
Christ. Yes, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." And I would hear
him say of his own righteousness, "I count it as dung, that I may win
Christ, and be found in Him." He could not have taken a coarser figure,
nor one which expressed more thoroughly his hearty contempt of
everything like self-righteousness–"I count it as dung that I may win
Christ, and be found in Him." "Lest any man should boast"–this is a
good and sufficient reason why salvation should not be of works! Now–
III. A FEW THOUGHTS WITHOUT ORDER, but I hope they may catch your
attention and stick in your memory. Some say–I know it is a common
observation–this talking about sinners coming to Christ just as they
are and trusting in Him alone for their salvation is very dangerous.
Respectable persons and people who think themselves qualified to be
critics, generally make some such observation as this–"it is very
dangerous." Now my dear Friends, if you will condescend to listen for a
minute, I would remind you that neither you nor I have anything to do
with making the Gospel We may think the Gospel ought to be
such-and-such, but that does not make it so. And if I should choose to
think, or if youshould, that such-and-such a Doctrine is very
dangerous, that neither makes it true nor makes it false, for, after
all, the great solemn appeal about all matters of religion is not to
you, nor yet to me! We stand on an equal footing there–you may think
one thing and I may think another. But the Judge–the Judge that ends
the strife where wit and reason fail, must decide. The great question
is, "What say the Scriptures? What does the Old Book say?" If it does
not teach that the salvation of a sinner is altogether by Grace and not
of works, it does not teach anything at all–and there are no words in
any language that mean anything! I must be made to believe that black
is white and that God has purposely and willfully written a Book to
deceive us, before I can believe salvation to be by works! For the
expressions about this matter are not a few. They are not casual–they
are not dark and mysterious, they are not metaphorical–they are plain,
simple and obvious. I challenge any man–I will not say any
theologian–but any man of common-sense that can read the
Bi-ble–whether he uses our version, or prefers the original–if he
will but read it honestly, he can come to no other conclusion in
reading the Epistles of Paul than this–that salvation is by Grace
through faith in the merits of Christ–and not at all by the works of
the Law.
Now, that is a thing that ought to decide and end the matter. I ask you
not to heed anything I say–do not take my word for it–my ipse dixit
is nothing! It is in God's Book and on your heads it must be if you
deny it! "Oh," said one to another, "I didn't like your preaching the
other night." "What didn't you like in it?" "I didn't like your
preaching up salvation to sinners." "Oh, that is nothing to me, the
quarrel is not between you and me, but between you and my Master. You
must settle that with Him. I have nothing to do with manufacturing
Doctrines–my business is to preach them as I find them in the
Scripture. If you do not like them, you must leave them, but it is at
your own peril." Let me say to all of you, I beseech you cast not away
your own soul!
Everyone of us ought to remember that a great deal of that commodity in
this world known by the name of good works is not good works at all
What is a good work? I would venture to say that anything that has in
it the element of selfishness is not good. You may question that, but I
think it is the highest virtue to be unselfish. If a man is found to be
virtuous, as we say, with the design of benefiting himself, has he not
spoiled his virtue? The very design of seeking merit by what he does,
spoils the possibility of merit! A man is not a servant of God while he
is only serving himself. It is only when he gets rid of self that he
becomes truly good. To pray may be good or not, according to whether it
is real prayer. To attend the House of God, or give alms to the poor
may be good or not good, according to the heart. But external duties
are not good works! No, though a man should be faultless in his
external life, yet if the motive were sinister and the desires unclean,
his works would all taste of the fountain from where they came and not
be good in the sight of God. Did it ever strike you that in our works
the heart must always be the great matter?
Cowper, in his Task, has very wonderfully worked out this subject in
the best blank verse. He pictures two footmen employed by you–one of
them is a very polite, quick, nimble, handy fellow–but, as he says, he
serves you for your house, your housemaid, and your pay. Let either of
these be gone and he is gone, too. But the true servant is Charles,
that stands behind the chair, that is troubled if your appetite seems
to fail, that has been with you from a boy, that if you were poor and
hadn't any pay to give him, would cling to the posts of your
doors–that would live for you and die for you– that is the man whom
you love as a servant! So it is with virtue. The best and highest of
good works are those that spring from love, real love to God! Now,
where do you find this? In the man who rejects Christ? No–his works
are those of a slavish fear! He does not serve God out of love, but
because he trembles at the thought of Hell. But when a soul is brought
to trust in Jesus, then the heart loves God, the service of God becomes
a great delight and the man who says, "I am not saved by works," works
ten times harder than he ever would have done if he had hoped to be
saved by his own doings! And his works are better works because he has
devoted love which infuses into them a sacred excellency which
otherwise had not been there.
Be it forever known and understood that when we preach salvation by
Grace, we do not undervalue morality. No, Brothers and Sisters, we
exalt it! I will give you proof. There is a hospital. It is free to all
the sick, but there is a notion about town that nobody may enter there
except those who do something to heal themselves. Now, I will suppose
that I am sent as a missionary to go among the sick and tell them that
their own health is not worth a farthing, that they are to come to the
hospital gates just as they are, that at the hospital they look at
disease as a qualification and not at health. Somebody might say, "Here
is this man undervaluing health." My dear Brother, I am doing no such
thing! Do you think I would be trying to get these sick people into the
hospital if I undervalued health? It is not health I undervalue–it is
the quackery that mimics health! It is this empiricism which films over
men's diseases, which had need be dealt with otherwise. Why, if
thousands in London were dying because they had the notion that they
could not be received at the hospital unless they healed themselves,
surely it were the kindest and best work a man could do–and the
quickest means to promote the popular health–to go and dissuade men of
this absurd notion! If, my Brothers and Sisters, when we bade you come
to Christ, we told you that after coming to Him, you might live in sin
as you did before, we would be worthy to be hanged! But when we tell
you that Christ is a Physician and His Church a hospital–and that He
can heal you if living in sin, we do not by any means decry your
morality, but only tell you that it is but a piece of quackery until
you come to Christ!–
"Speak they of morals, oh, You bleeding Lamb! The best morality is love
to You!"
The best holiness is to love Christ and to serve Him actuated by the
motive of gratitude! And if you try merit before you come to Him, it
will only plunge you into deeper sin! You cannot blot out your
iniquities. Still I know the scandal will be repeated, but if any
choose to repeat it, the lives of those who have preached up salvation
by Grace furnish the best answer. In the days of Charles the First and
Charles the Second, you would have found the party headed by Laud in
the Church of England crying up ritual, crying up good works. You would
have found on the other hand, the Puritan party rigidly preaching up
Justification by Faith and Salvation by Grace. Now, Sirs, where did you
find the country parson that preached in the morning upon good works,
in the afternoon? Why, with a girl on either side dancing round the
Maypole, according to the Book of Sports! And if you needed him a
little later in the evening, you would have to send some trusty parish
beadle to bring him in from the village alehouse!
But where is the man who preached salvation by Grace while at the
conventicle? "Oh" says one, "he is at home singing Psalms with his
family." Doesn't he go round the Maypole? "No, the old bigot, he never
breaks the Sabbath. He says it is against the Law of God." Well, but
isn't he in the alehouse? "No, I dare say the old superstitious
creature is on his knees somewhere, praying." Everybody knows this was
the fact! The Puritan theology bred Puritan living–the Doctrine of
Justification by Faith made men holy! But the other party that preached
this wonderful doctrine of salvation by works went pretty far to prove,
at any rate, that theycould not be saved by their works! The
long-haired cavaliers, with their scented locks and their abominations
not fit to be uttered by pure tongue, or heard by the ear of
decency–these were your work mongers, your upholders of salvation by
your own doings! But the man that ordered his household well in the
fear of God, the man that could bend to God but not to a tyrant, the
man that loved his country and would sooner die on Edge Hill or Naseby
than he would lay down the faith he held dear to him–that is the man
who preached that we are justified by faith and not at all by the works
of the Law! You shall find holiness grows out of the one Doctrine which
is despised–and wickedness springs from the other which is advertised
as a panacea for all ills!
If there are any here that think they can be saved by their own works,
I have no Gospel to preach to them whatever. I will not interfere with
them. My Master has said that there is no need of a physician to them
that are not sick. Good people, virtuous people, excellent people–you
that are going to Heaven all on your own account–don't quarrel with us
poor sinners because we choose to have what you despise! If you do not
want the medicine, let us drink it and be not bitter against us if we
choose another way than yours. If your road is broad enough and there
are enough companions in it, let us alone if we choose the narrow path!
But yet I cannot coolly dismiss you so. If you are naked, poor and
miserable–I will not insult you. I counsel you by my Master–get gold
tried in the fire that you may be rich and white raiment that you may
be clothed–and if you know not how you can buy it, I will tell you. It
is without money and without price! It is freely given and shall be
given to you if you will take it. Shake your hand of that venomous
serpent of your own self-confidence! Shake it into the fire, I pray
you–it is the best place for it! You may come with empty hands to
Christ and He will give you all your soul can want. When you come to
die, you will find that good-works theory unable to bear you up. The
best of men have looked upon their lives from that closing scene in
another manner than they ever did before. One said he was gathering up
all his works–his good works and his bad works, too–and flinging them
all overboard that he might just simply trust in a Crucified Savior. At
any rate, Friend, if you are prepared to risk your soul on your works,
I am not prepared to risk mine on anything that I have done! No, I am
not afraid to meet the trial hour. I am not afraid to look you in the
face to-night and say, "I will meet you on that tremendous day and we
will see whose confidence is the better. You shall take yourworks if
you will, and I will take my Lord! And you shall rest in what you do,
but I will not rest in anything I do." Oh, rest well upon Him and I
will tell you what will happen when the whirlpools of Almighty Wrath
shall be round about you! Your good works shall go like those deceitful
life-buoys we heard of the other day–and you shall sink! But never did
a soul sink that could cling to Christ! It is an unheard of thing that
Christ has ever let a sinner perish, for He has said, "Him that comes
to Me, I will in no wise cast out."
Now, whether you have been righteous or wicked, whether you can cry
yourselves up, or whether you bewail yourselves that you are deep in
the mire of sin–go, stretch out your hand and take Christ! Turn your
eyes to Jesus, dying upon Calvary's Cross and look to Him–
"There is life in a look of the Crucified One!" There is life at this
moment for you! I wish that everyone in this dense mass would look to
my Master. There is Grace enough in Christ for everyone of you! No
sinner was ever lost because there was any stint in Christ! No, but
because they would not come and thought themselves too good for Him.
Come as you are–just as you are and trust Christ. And then mark you,
you will be saved! You will be saved from the love of sin! You will be
saved from the power of it! You will begin a new and holy life. You
will henceforth be full of good works which shall abound to the Glory
of God–and with these good works upon you, you shall be like a tree
that is covered with rich fruit, acceptable to God! Still your root
shall not be your fruit, but your root shall be a simple faith in a
precious Christ whom this night I have declared unto you. So God bless
you. Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS5:1-9.
Verse 1. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ We have it tonight. We enjoy it. We
delight in it, "through our Lord Jesus Christ."
2. By whom also we have access by faith into this Grace wherein we
stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only have we peace,
but we get into the favor of God and we stand in it! This is the Grace
or favor which comes of being justified. We now feel a freedom to come
into our Father's Presence because He has forgiven us for Christ's
sake. We now feel at home with Him though once we were prodigal sons
and had wandered far away. And we rejoice in hope of the Glory of God.
We have something yet in reserve–present peace, but future perfection!
We have present rest, but there still remains a rest for the people of
God. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God!
3-5. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations, also, knowing that
tribulation works patience. And patience, experience, and experience,
hope. And hope makes us not ashamed because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. So that
even what might seem to be the disadvantages of this present life are
made to work into advantages! And what at one time might threaten our
prosperity, really conduces to it. Patience, which we never could have
if we never had a trouble, is given to us. And experience, which we
never could have if we did not patiently endure the trouble we obtain!
We get pearls out of these deep seas. We get treasures out of these
blazing furnaces which seem to smelt our blessings, that they may come
to us rich and pure. And, above all, there rises a glorious hope, never
to be drowned–never to be made ashamed–because we feel the love of
God shed abroad in our hearts like a sweet perfume making every part of
our nature fragrant because the Holy Spirit is there!
6. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for
the ungodly. That was our character. There was no good point about us.
We were ungodly and we had no strength to mend ourselves or to be other
than ungodly. The strength for reformation had all gone. The strength
for regeneration we never had. We were without strength and then Christ
died for us–died for the ungodly!
7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet perhaps for a
good man. A benevolent, loving-spirited man.
7, 8. Some would even dare to die. But God commends His love toward us
in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.And that is the
glory of His Love! While we were rebels against His government, He
redeemed us. While we were far off from Him by wicked works, He sent
His Son to die and bring us near. Free Grace, indeed, was this–not
caused by anything in us but springing freely from the great heart of
God!
9. Much more, then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him. You see the force of the argument? If He loved
us when we were still dead in sin, much more will He keep us and
preserve us now that He has justified us! Were His enemies redeemed?
Shall not His friends be kept? Did He love those who were still far
off? Will He not love those who are brought near–and love us even to
the end?