Out of Nothing Comes Nothing
(No. 2734)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JULY 7, 1901.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
21, 1880.
"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one." Job 14:4.
JOB considered himself to be unclean in the sight of God. Yet, if we
speak the plain truth about him, we must say that he was as clean as
any man who lived in that age, or, indeed, in any other! We have the
witness of the Holy Spirit, in this very Book, that Job, "was perfect
and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." We have also
the practical confirmation by the devil of the same fact, for, when the
Lord said to him, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is
none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that
fears God, and eschews evil?" he could not deny it, but could only
insinuate that there was an evil motive at the back of the Patriarch's
uprightness–"Does Job fear God for nothing?" Sometimes the unwilling
acknowledgment of an enemy is a stronger proof than the hearty
declaration of a friend–and it was so in Job's case.
He was one of the best, truest, sincerest, cleanest men to be found
throughout the whole world, yet he called himself unclean and he
probably did so because, just in proportion as a man becomes really
pure, he discovers his own impurity. The impure man has a very low
standard of what true holiness is, and possibly he thinks that he comes
nearly up to it or, if not, he tries to lower the standard down to his
own level. But the man who is really pure in heart has a very high
ideal of what the Truth of God is, and uprightness is, and holiness is
and, because his ideal is so high, he feels that he has not yet
attained to it and he thinks more of the distance between his present
condition and his idea of perfection than he does of all that he has as
yet attained. Such a man says, with the Apostle Paul, "Forgetting those
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are
before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of
God in Christ Jesus."
It is always a bad sign when a man begins to think exceedingly well of
himself. I had rather, a great deal, hear a man complain and cry out
before God, under a deep sense of humiliation, than hear him utter a
single word that reveals a spirit of complacency with his own
condition. What we are in Christ is a thing to be perfectly satisfied
with and rejoiced over, for, in Christ, Believers are justified and
accepted. But as for what we are in our own personal character, the
very best of us must still feel that there is much over which we have
to mourn. However nearly we may have approached to the example of
Christ, that very nearness will make us the more regret the points in
which we have fallen short of a complete imitation of Him and we shall
still cry out, "O wretched man that I am"–blessed to have come so far
on the way of holiness, but wretched that I have not gone still
further–"who shall deliver me from the present thralldom of the body
of this death? Who shall perfectly emancipate me from its control, that
I may live wholly unto God and be holy even as God
is holy?"
Then, as Job considered himself an unclean thing, we need not wonder
that he should have despaired of ever, by his own power, bringing out
of himself anything that should be perfectly clean in God's sight. And
we need not be surprised at his question, "Who can bring a clean thing
out of an unclean?" As I have already reminded you, what he brought out
of himself in his daily life was clean in the eyes of men. He
vindicated his character against false accusations with great
earnestness and sincerity, and with considerable warmth of temper, for
he felt that it was clean before men–yet he was conscious that it was
not clean before God.
There are two kinds of perfection–there is a measure of cleanness in
which a man may wash his hands in innocence, and say to his fellow men,
"I am free from any transgression," as the Prophet Samuel fearlessly
challenged all Israel to produce anyone whom he had defrauded or
oppressed. "And they said, You have not defrauded us, nor oppressed us,
neither have you taken anything of any man's hand. And he said unto
them, The Lord is witness against you, and His anointed is witness this
day, that you have not found anything in my hand. And they answered, He
is witness." That ought to be the character of every Christian–he
should be white as the driven snow, aiming to always be honest and
upright in all his dealings with his fellow creatures. But, Beloved,
God's judgment, and yours, and mine concerning cleanness, differ very
greatly. Our weights and scales are rough and coarse, though they
suffice for the common purposes of the life we live here on earth. But
God's scales will turn if a single hair falls upon them–the small dust
of the balance will move them!
No, the metaphor is not a perfect one all round. I use it, but I make a
reservation concerning it. God does not regard any sin of ours as the
small dust of the balance and His judgment is right judgment. He does
not find much evil where there is but little, for the great evil is
there all the while! And because God is perfectly holy, He discovers
what our impure eyes cannot perceive. In contrast with His absolutely
perfect holiness, none of us are clean. Job's friend Bildad said, "The
stars are not pure in His sight. How much less man, who is a worm?" And
Eliphaz said, "Behold, He puts no trust in His servants; and His angels
He charged with folly: how much less in them that dwell in houses of
clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the
moths." The purity of God is incorruptible–and when we look at
ourselves, we despair of ever attaining to such perfection as His
without His help!
I. Now, coming to our text, I want first to speak of SOME MATTERS OF
IMPOSSIBILITY IN NATURE–the bringing of clean things out of unclean
ones.
And the first matter of impossibility I will mention is that there
should be born into this world a pure child, perfectly holy in nature,
from impure parents. ' 'Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
Not one." Whatever the newfangled teaching may say about the
old-fashioned doctrine that we are shaped in iniquity, and conceived in
sin, that doctrine is true! It matters not who may deny its truth, it
still stands fast, for it is founded upon the rock of the Inspired Word
of God. Men will never be able to gather grapes from thorns, or figs
from thistles. An unfallen Adam and Eve would have had an unfallen
progeny–but fallenmen and women, such as we are, will certainly have
for our children those whose tendencies are towards evil. Though there
is, in every child, much that is very beautiful, which a mother's eye
is quick to detect, yet who that has carefully watched his own
offspring can fail to have seen that temper which, sometimes early in
life, becomes more terrible than it does in grown-up people?
I have seen little children turn black in the face through passion,
yet, when reason comes to them, they will learn to control themselves
somewhat. The tendency to evil is there all the while and, according to
the disposition of the child, it displays itself sooner or later. David
said, "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon
as they are born, speaking lies." Certainly, a child who has never
heard a lie, will often lie very terribly–and various forms of
deception will be practiced by those who have had the best possible
example set before them. If any of you think that you have a perfect
child, you will find yourselves grievously mistaken–the time will come
when you will discover that evil is lurking there as it is in you, the
father, or in you, the mother–and it will only need a suitable
opportunity to display itself! It will scarcely need fostering by ill
companions–but even in a godly household where the atmosphere of piety
abounds–sin will grow up in the child as naturally as weeds grow in a
garden that is left to itself.
If you leave a plot of ground to itself, you do not find that there
will come out of it vegetables fit for your table. And you will not
find that a child, left to himself, will produce virtues and
excellences acceptable to God. No, evil is inherent in the heart of man
and, being there, in due time it comes out of him. From our very birth,
we "were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." It was an
Apostle who said that, but it was Christ Himself who said to Nicodemus,
"You must be born again." The children of God are "born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
"Except a man is born again, (from above), he cannot see the Kingdom of
God," for his nature is evil. "That which is born of the flesh is
flesh" and only "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
That, then, is one matter of impossibility–the birth of innocent
children from fallen parents.
The next is the bringing of a pure nature out of the depraved mature of
any individual. Here are we, possessed of an impure nature, but cannot
we, by some means, educate impurity into purity? Our whole system is
depraved, but cannot
we, somehow or other, out of depravity develop excellence, love to God,
consecration to His service? No, never! You may, if you like, watch a
skeleton till your eyes ache, but you will never see a trace of life
springing up within those ribs of death. You may look at a foul stream
as it comes rolling along and you may stir it to its depths, or you may
alter its channel–but as long as the source, from which the stream
flows, is impure, the water that comes from it will also be impure and
it will not be able to purify itself. So, human nature may pass through
as many processes as you please, but as long as it remains merely human
nature, and God the Holy Spirit has not transformed it and made it like
the Nature of God, it will still be an impure thing–and no clean thing
can come out of it.
"But," says someone, "can we not change human nature by reading the
Bible to it?" Ah, you may read the Bible to the devil as long as you
like, but it will not make an angel of him! And you cannot change a
sinner into a saint simply by reading Scripture to him. "Can we not
preach him into a right state of heart?" asks another. You might as
well hope to preach a lion into a lamb as to change the unholy into the
holy without the power of God. "Oh, but," say others, "we can surely do
a great deal with him by example, by repression and by encouragement."
Of course you can affect him morally, but, with regard to the great
spiritual matter of being clean in the sight of God–all that you can
do will avail about as much as when they sought to wash the Blackamoor
white! The tubs were full of hot water, soap in abundance was used, the
brushes were worn out with the efforts of the scrubbers, but the black
man came out as black as he went in! The Ethiopian cannot change his
skin, or the leopard his spots–and out of an unclean thing, cleanness
cannot come! God must work the miracle by His Grace, for of itself evil
will produce only evil, and not good.
Another impossibility also follows on the heels of this one. That is,
pure acts cannot come out of an impure heart A man who is what he is by
nature, unrenewed by Grace, may do a great deal that is very excellent.
Some of the most beautiful of the virtues towards man will grow in
unrenewed hearts. It has sometimes been asserted that only true
religion can produce a beautiful character towards man, but I think it
must be admitted, by all who know the facts of the case, that such a
statement as that is not true. Generosity, honesty, heroism and other
virtues and excellences have been displayed by men who have been
unbelievers–and even by those who have disregarded God altogether! And
there has often been much that we have been bound to admire in men to
whom skepticism was all the religion that they had. We must say as much
as that in fairness to those from whom we greatly differ–but it is
quite another matter when we begin to talk about their conduct towards
God–that cleanness of heart which God has a right to demand from all
His creatures!
These men may be able to pay off their pence creditors, the people who
are round about them, but it is a different thing when we bring them
face to face with the great Creditor, their Maker to whom their
enormous debt is due. As long as a man is not right in the sight of
God. As long as his nature is unrenewed by Grace, nothing that he does
can be pleasing to God–there is nothing in it that God can accept. He
may even have an outward religiousness of a certain kind, but he
presents his religion to God with such filthy hands that there are
dirty marks all over it! He may even bring to God a sacrifice out of
his flock, but you can see that the motive of doing it, the way of
doing it, and the pride in having done it, spoil it all. He comes
before God with a reverent appearance, but with a wandering heart. He
sings lustily with his mouth, but his soul is not really praising and
magnifying the Lord. He bows his head when others pray and he seems to
be praying, too–but there is no confession of sin, there is nothing
that can be acceptable with God–nor can there be until God has changed
the nature of the man. That which comes out of an impure heart, however
pure it may seem, is impure–it is tainted with the smell of the evil
place from which it arose!
There is another impossibility over which some of us have often to
groan–that is, perfect actions cannot beperformed by imperfect men. I
think that you who love the Lord must know what it is to grieve over
things over which you have at first rejoiced. For instance, I have
preached a sermon. I have been earnest in delivering the Truth of God,
I have had liberty in proclaiming it and I have felt hopeful that God
would bless it. But I know what it is to get home and to lie upon my
bed and think over what I omitted to say, and how I ought to have said
it in a better way–the way in which I think I would say it if I could
get up right then and call you all together and repeat it–and so I cry
out, "Lord, I thought I had brought forth a clean thing, but I find
that I have not! And I have learned that it is not possible to bring a
perfectly clean thing out of that which is unclean."
However cleansed the human heart may be, by Divine Grace, yet there
remains still so much of impurity about it that "we are all as an
unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." There
is about all that comes from us imperfection, infirmity, fault, flaw,
much to weep over, much to deplore–and the wonder is that God accepts
it at all! Yet
it is no wonder when we remember that we and our service are "accepted
in the Beloved," and there is enough Grace and virtue in Him to make
even such poor creatures as we are, and such poor works as we present,
to be fully acceptable for His dear sake.
One more phase of this difficulty and impossibility is this– "Who can
bring a clean thing out of an unclean, "in another person? If you
believe in human ability, I wish you would addict yourself to the
effort to convert souls. If you think that you have the power to
convert a soul, choose even a little child and set to work upon it! I
could pick you out some men whom I know, and some women, too, upon whom
I should like you to try your wonderful sword. If they do not laugh you
to scorn and turn the edge of your weapon, I am greatly mistaken! God
knows how to thrust at them so that every stroke shall tell, for He has
said, "I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal: neither is there
any that can deliver out of My hand." But, apart from that Divine
Power, who among us can convert a single soul? Who can dart faith into
the unbelieving heart? Who can fetch a penitential tear out of that
stolid impenitent soul? Who can beget love to Christ in that chill,
indifferent heart? Ah, often have God's servants had to cry with the
Reformer, "Old Adam is too strong for young Melanchthon," and they have
had to go home and confess that no human being can bring a clean thing
out of an unclean!
These are all matters of impossibility in nature which the text sets
before us.
II. Now, in the second place, let us notice CERTAIN SUBJECTS FOR
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATION FOR ALL OF US that arise out of a right
contemplation of this subject. First, we see here that we are unclean
by nature. Do we all know that it is so with us? Have we made this
great discovery? Has the Spirit of God taught us this humbling Truth of
God? Are we in the track of the footsteps of the flock? If so, we shall
say, with Isaiah, "All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have
turned, everyone, to his own way." And, with David, we shall confess
that we were "shapen in iniquity," and conceived in sin. It is well for
us to deal with our birth sin, our original depravity, and the natural
tendencies of our spirit–we do not get to the truth about ourselves
till we get there. Well, now, do we all know ourselves to be naturally
unclean? It is well to know that, sad as the truth is.
Then the next consideration is that we must be clean if we are to be
accepted by God. We never can have fellowship with God while we remain
unclean. We may have a measure of fellowship with God when He has
cleansed us by the precious blood of Christ, but that fellowship will
never be perfect till the last trace of sin has been removed from us.
Absolutely perfect fellowship with the thrice-holy Jehovah will only
come to us, above, because then we shall be absolutely clean and shall
be with Him, and near Him, and like He is–and only then shall we have
become akin to Him in holiness. We must be cleansed if we are ever to
be in His Presence in Glory. There is no possibility of getting to
Heaven foul and stained with sin! There is no possibility of sitting
among the white-robed hosts above in these rags of ours. This
filthiness of ours must be put away somehow, but how can it be put
away?
The fact that we cannot work this great change ourselves will not
relieve us of our responsibility. When a man becomes so much a liar
that he cannot speak the truth, or so dishonest that he cannot keep his
hands from picking and steal-ing–when the very nature is defiled–it
does not excuse the acts which the guilty one commits. Although we
cannot cleanse our heart, the Word of God contains the plain command.
"Wash you, make you clean," so that the responsibility still rests upon
us, although we are totally unable to obey the injunction.
It is quite clear that we cannot, in our own strength, do this
necessary work of cleansing. If any man asserts that he can purify
himself, I would answer, "Yes, you may cleanse yourself from many
faults, from evil speaking, lying, and slandering, from dishonesty,
from drunkenness, from unchastity–all of which you ought to do–but it
is not possible for you to cleanse yourself so as to be perfectly pure
in God's sight." Only think a minute and you will agree with me that it
must be so. When you have done all that you can with yourself, will you
believe that you are fit to be in God's company, and to speak with Him?
God is present with us at this moment, but none of you can conceive
that, in our present condition, we are fit to have communion with Him.
If you are in Christ, you are able to commune with the Most High,
through Jesus the Mediator, but I am supposing that you are not in
Christ, and if that is the case, you must shrink from the Presence of
the perfectly holy God! And can you ever hope to make yourself fit to
stand among the glorified spirits above, to walk yon golden streets and
to have fellowship with those who have never sinned, or with those who,
having sinned, have washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb? I think that every reasonable man with
any sort of conscience would start back, and say, "I cannot hope to
enter there as I am, nor do I think that I can ever make myself fit to
go there."
Do you not think that our wisdom lies in being driven to despair as to
ourselves?I thought I heard somebody say, "This doctrine would drive
men to despair." That is exactly what we wish to do, for self-despair
is the doorstep of confidence in God! When you know you are helpless,
you will then begin to look away from yourself, to find help somewhere
else–but as long as you can do a stitch of patching and mending, you
will not put down the needle and look to God alone to cover you with
the robe of righteousness which the Savior has worked. When you realize
that you can do nothing, but that an almighty power must be exerted on
your behalf–making you look away from yourself and bringing you to
think of the great God in Heaven as your only Helper–that is half the
battle! So I say that to drive you to despair of yourself is the very
thing we are aiming at! Therefore, would it not be wise for you to now
begin to look to the Strong for strength, to the Righteous One for
righteousness, to the Creating Spirit for new creation? You cannot
bring a clean thing out of an unclean, so do not attempt the impossible
task, but go to Him who sits upon the Throne of God and who says,
"Behold, I make all things new."
III. The last point I am going to deal with is THE PROVISION THAT IS
MADE TO MEET THIS HUMAN IMPOSSIBILITY.
Let everyone who desires to be made pure in heart, and clean in the
sight of God, remember, first, that we have to deal with an Omnipotent
God. When you come to Him, trusting and resting in Christ, and ask Him
to renew a right spirit within you, you are practically expressing your
conviction that what you cannot do for yourself, He can do for you.
There is not any lust within you which He cannot subdue! There is not
any lack or deficiency of virtue which He cannot supply!
This work is rightly called a creation–"If any man is in Christ, he is
a new creation." It is beautiful to think that as the Lord made the
first creation, fashioning everything out of nothing, and then bringing
order out of chaos, so will He come again and find nothing of good in
you, and out of the chaos He will make a new order of things
altogether. As when "darkness was upon the face of the deep," He came
and said, "Light be," and light was, so He can come and say to you in
all your darkness, "Light be," and immediately there shall be light! He
finds nothing in you that can help Him, as He found nothing that could
help Him to make the world, and when He had made it out of nothing, it
was all chaotic, and could not help itself. He had to breathe life and
light into it–it all came from Himself. So it is with you–you are
just a lump of helpless matter, a wretched, wicked, condemned one–yet
the Lord can come and put away your sin and He can form and fashion you
after His own pattern! He can give you repentance and give you faith,
and give you every Grace–and He can go on to nurture and water all
those Graces till they come to perfection!
He can perfect you in likeness to Christ so that you shall be "without
spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." If you believe in a God almighty
to bless and save, you cannot doubt that He is able to do all that I
have said. Look not to your own weakness, but by faith look to the
Divine strength. Consider not so much, poor Soul, what you are as what
God is, and think of the great new Creator, and commit your soul into
His keeping, "as unto a faithful Creator," as the Apostle Peter says.
That is a blessed word–a faithful Creator who will begin to do His
creating work anew in such a soul as yours.
Notice, next, that there is a second provision to meet this human
impossibility, namely, the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is not possible for your uncleanness to be put away by anything that
you can do. You must say, with Toplady–
"Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfill Your Law's demands!
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone–
You must save, and You alone." It was God Himself that did hang on
Calvary's Cross! He had taken upon Himself human Nature, with all its
infirmities and all its guilt, though He Himself was pure and
spotless–and there He did hang in that Nature to bleed and die! No
one–at least, no human tongue–can tell how great was the Atonement
that Christ there made for the sin of His guilty creatures! None of us
can calculate the price He paid for the redemption of His people, but
we know that however
great is the sin that is to be put away in order to make you clean, it
can all be removed by "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot." I am not able to imagine any sin
that the blood of Christ could not wash away. See how red is your
guilt. Mark the scarlet stain. If you were to wash your soul in the
Atlantic Ocean, you might use every wave that washes all its shores and
yet the crimson spots of your transgression would still remain. But
plunge into the–
"Fountain filled with blood, Drawn from ImmnanueVs veins"–
and in an instant you are whiter than snow! Every speck, and spot, and
stain of sin has gone, and gone forever–and God is thereby glorified.
What a blessing it is that, to meet our inability to put away our sin,
there is provided a Redemption, an Atonement amply sufficient to remove
it all forever! Think, then, not only of your sin, but of your Savior!
Think not so much of your guilt as of His sufferings by which that
guilt is put away! Oh, how earnestly would I press this advice upon any
who are now troubled about their sin! I would almost say–Do not look
at your sin except you can see the Savior, too. Remember that the sin
itself shall never condemn you if you trust in Jesus Christ, for He has
taken it off all who believe in Him, and has cast it into the depths of
the sea, to be remembered against them no more forever. You are saved,
however guilty you may have been, as soon as you rely upon the infinite
merit of Christ's atoning Sacrifice–
"Not all the blood of beasts
On Jewish altars slain,
Could give the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away the stain!
But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
Takes all our sins away–
A sacrifice of nobler name,
And richer blood than they." Then you shall be able to sing with Dr.
Watts–
"'Twas He adorned my naked soul,
And made salvation nine!
Upon a poor polluted worm
He makes His Graces shine.
And lest the shadow of a spot
Should on my soul be found,
He took the robe the Savior worked,
And cast it all around."
There is a third provision made to meet this great emergency. We have
spoken of the Father and the Son, but we must not omit to mention the
renewing work of the Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit, so often forgotten
and slighted, is the great Worker in the cleansing and renewing of
man's nature. That blessed Spirit has the whole power of the Godhead
and wherever He works effectually, He convinces of sin, making men see
the guilt and evil of it. But He also convinces them of righteousness,
so that they see that there is a righteousness to be had and they learn
how they may righteously obtain it. The Holy Spirit spreads Christ
near, reveals Him to the heart and then He enables the sinner to see
the suitability of Christ to him. The Spirit also enables the man to
see that he may trust Christ. No, He goes further and enablesthe poor
guilty soul to actually trust Him who came to save Him! One of the
first proofs of His working in the heart is the production of faith
there–then, when He has worked that Grace in the soul, He helps the
man to pray, to overcome temptation and to engage in holy service. The
Spirit helps us all the way through. He creates all that is good within
us. He works in us "both to will and to do of His good pleasure." And
wherever the Holy Spirit comes, He acts like the fire that consumes the
dross and purifies the metal.
So, what do you think, poor unclean soul, if God the Holy Spirit were
to take you in hand, could not He make you clean? Oh, if He were to
come now, in all that wondrous power of His, could He not burn up the
wood, and hay, and stubble of sin that is within you? There have been
men who seemed to be lost to every noble thought who, nevertheless,
have been lifted up to heroic effort by the power of the Spirit of God!
There have been others who were sunken in vice, in ignorance, in
drunkenness and every kind of crime, yet, they have been washed,
cleansed, sanctified, made saints of God
on earth and perfect spirits above by the power of the Holy Spirit when
He has come upon them, and applied the blood of Christ to their heart
and conscience! What He has done for others, He can do for you, and I
do pray you not so much to look at your power to will as at the power
of the Spirit of God to work in you to will! Not so much at your power
to do, which is nothing, but at the power of the Spirit of God to work
in you what He would have you do!
Remember what I have often told you, that the confidence of a man in
himself can never be of any good to him–it is like the anchor while it
is on board the ship. What is the good of it there? It only increases
the weight of the vessel as long as it is lying on the deck, or hanging
over the side of the ship. You may throw it where you like–throw it
down the hold, but it won't hold the vessel. Throw it into the
captain's cabin, hang it on the mast–what good is it? As long as it is
in the ship, it is of no service. The thing to be done with the anchor
is heave it overboard. Splash! Down it goes! Listen to the clatter of
the chain! Now, when the anchor gets a good grip somewhere out of
sight, then it holds the ship. So, throw your hope out of yourself–get
it away from yourself, do not let it rest in yourself, it will help to
sink you if you do–let it go down into the unseen, let it grasp
Christ, let it get a firm hold of Him and of His finished work, and of
God the Omnipotent, and of the ever-blessed Spirit of God. Now your
vessel will outride the storm and all will be well!
Some people who ought to be better informed, are quite ignorant of the
work of the Holy Spirit. I knew a man who attended a certain church and
on one occasion he heard a good Gospel sermon. I do not know who was
the author of it, but the parson who preached it certainly was not.
This Gospel sermon had so cut into the hearer's conscience that, when
he went home, he could not rest. The next morning he went off to the
clergyman and he said to him, "Sir, I am greatly troubled by what you
said yesterday." "My dear fellow," replied the parson, "I never meant
to say anything to give you a moment's uneasiness, I am sure. And if I
did so, I am truly sorry for it." "Oh, Sir!" said the man, "but your
sermon gave me dreadful uneasiness. You preached about our being born
again. Tell me, Sir, what it is to be born again." "Well," said the
minister, "I was educated at Cambridge, but I do not know what it is to
be born again, and I do not think there is any need for you to trouble
yourself at all about the matter. I wish I had never bought that
sermon, or read it, for it has proved to be a troublesome sermon to two
or three others beside yourself. But I will never preach it again, I
will promise you that."
Ah, but our poor awakened friend could not be quieted in that fashion,
for that sermon had dragged off every coverlet from him, and the bed
was too short for him to stretch himself–and he did not rest until he
had found a true minister of Christ who was able to point out to him
the way to obtain peace with God through believing in Jesus! Then how
glad he was to think that the clergyman had, even unintentionally, made
him uncomfortable! How glad he was that he, though in ignorance, had
taken away his first false peace, that God might come in and establish
the second–the peace that does not lie in ourselves, but in
Christ–the peace that is not founded upon an assumption of our own
personal righteousness, but upon the perfect righteousness of Jesus
Christ our Lord and Savior!
All that I have been saying shows the fitness of this Gospel for
sinners. This Gospel encourages the man who had given up all hope,
wakes him up to a wondrous consciousness of the possibilities of his
purified manhood, and sets before him the glorious prospect of making
something of his immortality! When he gets to Heaven, he will not throw
up his cap, and cry, "Glory be to myself! Have I not done it well?" No,
no! That is how Pharisees might act if they could get to Heaven by
their own works, but when God is going to save a sinner, He first puts
him down in the lowest class and reads him a very humbling lesson. He
makes him feel that he is nothing but sin, and that he can do nothing
but sin–and then He says to him, "Look unto Me. I will work the change
that needs to be worked in you." Then Christ comes in and says, "I am
Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last;
rest in Me." and the Spirit of God says, "I will work in you a new
creation, and make all things new in you." And, all along, as the work
of Grace is really worked in the man, he continues to bless and to
magnify the name of the Lord. Thus, that spirit of gratitude and
adoration, which is the very essence of virtue, becomes the underlying
rock that supports a noble character–and all things that are of good
report are created and nurtured by this glorious Gospel of the blessed
God!
If there is anybody who prefers any other sort of Gospel, I am sure I
do not want to rob him of it! If he can get any comfort out of it, let
him keep it. But as for me, I am so weak, so sinful, so undone that I
commit my soul to the God of Grace, and nothing but "Free Grace and
dying love" will suffice for me! Many of us stand together upon this
matter, as we have done for many a year, and I believe we shall
continue to do so more and more as our age increases, and our hair gets
gray, for we did not know so much about Grace when we were lads as we
know now, and we keep on learning more
and more of it every day that we live. What we need is Grace, Grace,
GRACE, and may God grant it to every one of us! May there be in us
nothing of self, but all of Grace, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake!
Amen.