DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 5:1.
WONDERFUL is the power of faith. In the Epistle to the Hebrews our
Apostle tells us of the marvelous exploits which it has worked in
subduing kingdoms and obtaining promises, in quenching the violence of
fire and stopping the mouths of lions, in braving perils and doing
deeds of prowess. Still, to us personally, one of the most wonderful of
its effects is that it brings us justification and consequent peace.
"Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." If we know the
justifying power of faith and the way in which, like a hand, it puts
upon us the matchless garment of the Savior's righteousness, we shall
value that faith as our first parents did the gracious hand of God
which made coats of skins and covered their nakedness. The little faith
we have will make us crave for more! And every need we feel will make
us long to prove its virtue in our own souls to meet our own personal
case by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
Now, faith brings to the soul, according to the text, two blessings. It
is not the creator of these things, but the conveyance, the channel,
the conduit pipe through which these favors come to us. First, it
brings us a state of peace– "being justified by faith." And, secondly,
it bring us a sense of peace–"we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ."
I. Our first thoughts shall be about that most important of all
matters–A STATE OF PEACE WITH GOD. In our natural state we have no
peace. God is angry with us because we are sinful and we are at
variance with God because He is holy. God cannot agree with us–"Can
two walk together except they are agreed?" And we cannot agree with
God, for "the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject
to the Law of God, neither indeed can be." There is a breach between
the rebellious creature and the righteous Creator. Sad that it should
be so, but such is the case by nature with every man that is born of
woman. We are set against the Lord. We kick against His Providence, we
rebel against His commands, we resist His Holy Spirit, we reject His
love as manifested in the death of Christ and we would live and die in
this hostility if it were not for His almighty Grace.
Before we can enjoy peace within our hearts there must be a state of
peace established between us and God. We must submit ourselves to the
Lord and He must forgive the past and make with us a Covenant of peace,
or else there is no peace for us. "There is no peace, says my God, unto
the wicked." Let me briefly explain to you the way in which we come to
possess peace with God. We are condemned criminals, though we do not
consider ourselves to be in such a critical condition. We persist that
we are righteous! We decline to acknowledge the jurisdiction of God's
Law and we refuse to acknowledge the justice of its sentence.
Therefore, before we can have peace with God we must be brought into
court, hear the indictment against us and be put on our trial.
When thus arraigned we must put in our plea. Do you plead, "Not
guilty"? Then, Man, you challenge your Accuser to bring forward the
evidence which will soon spoil your conceit and crush you with its
weight! Before there can be peace between us and God we must, with all
our hearts, plead "guilty." We must confess the truth, for God will
never agree with liars, nor with those who indulge self-deception. He
is a God of Truth and dissemblers can have no communion with Him. Being
guilty, we must take the place of the guilty–it is our proper
position–and it is due to the Judge of all the earth that we take it.
To refuse to do so is contempt of court! There is mercy for a sinner,
but there is no mercy for the man who will not acknowledge himself a
sinner. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins." But if any man says that he has no sin he is a liar and the
truth is not in him. And there cannot be peace between him and God
while he is in that humor.
It seems a stern demand and very galling for our pride, to have to
stand in the dock and in answer to the question, "Guilty or not
guilty?" reply, "Guilty, Lord, guilty. Whatever the consequences may
be, guilty." But to some of us it no
longer seems to be difficult because we could not now plead otherwise!
We are so conscious of our guilt that we cannot escape from a sense of
it. "If I wash myself with snow water and make my hands ever so clean,
yet shall You plunge me in the ditch and my own clothes shall abhor
me." We cannot look upon a single day without being convicted of sin
and, in reviewing our past lives from our childhood, we are over and
over constrained to blush at the memory of our waywardness and our
willfulness, our perverseness and our provocation. The faults and the
follies that have tracked our course haunt us till our very looks would
tell the truth though our tongues were silent.
To plead guilty has now become a positive, though a painful, relief to
us. It is the ending of a vain show which we found it hard to keep up.
It is coming to the bottom of the matter and knowing the worst of our
case. Dear Hearer, before you can have peace with Heaven you must take
up your true position and plead guilty! I pray the Holy Spirit to lead
you to do so. It is His work to convict us of sin and if He shall
exercise His Divine office upon any of us, we shall no longer profess
like the Pharisee that we are not as other men, but like the publican
we shall heartily pray, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
Supposing that with confusion of face, contrition of heart and awakened
conscience we admit and acknowledge our inexcusable guilt, the next
thing requisite to our peace is that we should admit the justice of the
Divine sentence and revere, instead of reviling, the Judge of all the
earth, against whom we have so grossly revolted! There are men who will
say, "Yes, I am guilty and sinful, but still, the penalty is out of
proportion to my criminality. I cannot believe that God will deal so
severely with the offenses of His creatures." Now, however rational
such reflections may sound, they certainly are not acceptable with God.
Of this thing, my Friend, I guarantee you–if the Holy Spirit has ever
shown you sin in its natural hideousness and deformity–you will think
nothing too bad for it. You will cry from the depths of your soul, "Let
it be condemned, let it be punished."
I would not, if I could, lift a finger to prevent God from punishing
sin. Whatever a man sows, that must he reap– the result of sin must
follow its commission. The foundations of society would be undermined
and there would be no living in the world if there were no laws, or if
laws might be violated with impunity. There would, indeed, be no proof
that there was a great Judge of all the earth if He did not do right.
And if He does right, He must punish sin, for it ought to be punished.
Were I the judge of the quick and the dead, the first thing that I
would do would be to condemn myself, for I deserve condemnation and
punishment, Neither would it yield my heart the least comfort to be
told that God could wink at sin. I want not such a God, neither could I
endure to think that the Law of righteousness was thus relaxed.
My conscience would not be relieved of a sense of obligations I could
not deny, nor of impurities I could not cleanse, nor of wrongs I could
not rectify by a suspicion that the Majesty of Heaven had threatened a
damnation which did not exist! I pray the Spirit of God to bring you,
my Hearer, not only to be convinced of sin, but of righteousness and of
judgment to come. God is righteous in fixing a day in which He will
judge the world by the Man, Christ Jesus, according to our Gospel. This
appears to be a painful process, to be bound to confess your guilt and
then to bare your neck to the sword of vengeance and say, "You will be
justified when You judge, and will be clear when You condemn, for
against You, You only, have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight."
Yet, there cannot be any peace with God till we come to it–because
there can be no peace with the God of Truth where there is any
prevarication. Lasting peace must be founded upon everlasting Truth.
The fact is, we are guilty and we deserve the punishment which God
apportions to guilt–and we must agree with that Truth of God, grim as
it looks, or else we cannot be friends with God.
The next essential to our receiving justification is this–the prisoner
is guilty, sentence is pronounced and he admits the righteousness of
it–he is asked if he has anything to say why the sentence should not
be executed and he stands speechless! And now comes in the abounding
mercy of God, who, in order to our peace, finds a Substitute to bear
our penalty, and reveals to us this gracious fact. He puts His Son into
the sinner's place! Voluntarily does the Divine Savior take upon
Himself our nature and come under the Law–and by a Sovereign act,
Jehovah lays upon Him the iniquity of us all! That sin, having been
laid on Christ, He has borne it and carried it away. In His own body He
bore it on the tree. The transgressions of His people were made to meet
upon His devoted Person–those five wounds tell what He suffered! That
marred Countenance bears the tokens of His inward grief! And that cry,
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" indicates to us, as far as
we are able to understand it, what He endured when He stood in the
sinner's place the Sin-Bearer and the Sacrifice.
When the Lord enables the soul to perceive that Christ stood in its
place, then the work of appropriating the justification is going on.
Christ died, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God,"
for He, "made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him." He was, "made a curse for us: as
it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree." Christ has
once suffered for sin and this is the foundation of our peace. The
point wherein faith comes into contact with pardon is when faith
believes that the Son of God did come and stand in the sinner's place.
And when faith accepts that Substitution as a glorious gift of Grace
and rests in it, and says, "Now I see how God is just, and smites
Christ in my place. Seeing He condemned me before I had personally
sinned, because of Adam's sin, I see how He can absolve me, though I
have no righteousness, because of Christ's righteousness. In another
did I fall and in Another do I rise! By one Adam I was destroyed: by
another Adam am I restored! I see it! I leap for joy as I see it and I
accept it as from the Lord."
This is not quite all, for now here stands the guilty one who has
acknowledged the sentence and he has seen the sentence executed upon
Another. What then? He takes his place as no longer liable to that
sentence. The penalty cannot be exacted twice. It were neither in
accord with human or Divine righteousness that two individuals should
be punished for the same offense unless both were guilty. When God
devised the plan of Substitution, the full penalty demanded of the
guiltless Surety was clearly intended to bring exemption to the guilty
sinners. That Jesus should suffer vicariously and yet those for whom He
paid the penalty in drops of blood should obtain no acquittal could not
be! When God laid sin upon Christ, it must have been in the intent of
His heart that He would never lay it on those for whom Christ died.
So then, there stands the man who was once guilty, but he is no more
condemned because Another has taken upon Him the condemnation to which
he was exposed. Still more, inasmuch as the Lord Jesus Christ came
voluntarily under the Law, obeyed the Law, fulfilled the Law and made
it honorable according to the Infinite purpose and will of God, the
righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer. While Christ stands
in the sinner's place, the believing sinner stands in Christ's place!
As the Lord looked upon Christ as though He had been a sinner, though
He was not a sinner, and dealt with Him as such, so now the Lord looks
upon the believing sinner as though he were righteous, though, indeed,
he has no righteousness of his own! And He loves him and delights in
his perfect comeliness, regarding him as covered with the mantle of his
Redeemer's righteousness and as having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any
such thing!
This is wonderful doctrine, and it is the doctrine of the Word of God.
It is the doctrine whereon faith can feed and rest! And when faith
receives it, she says to the soul, "Soul, you are free from sin, for
Christ has borne your sin in His own body on the tree. Soul, you are
righteous before God, for the righteousness of Christ is yours by
imputation." Without any works of your own, you are yet justified
according to the righteousness of faith, even as faithful Abraham, of
whom it is written, "He believed God and it was counted unto him for
righteousness." This is a wonderful exchange, the putting of Christ
where the sinner was and of the sinner where Christ was!
And, now, what does the court say? The court says, "Not guilty!
Absolved! Acquitted!" And what is the condition of the man towards God?
Why, he can say–
"Now freed from sin, I walk at large; My Sa vior's blood's my full
discharge. At His dear feet my soul I lay, A sinner saved I'll homage
pay.
NOW do I love the Lord and I know that the Lord loves me." By this
process we have come to the Truth before God and we have dealt with
each other on the line of Truth. There has been no fabrication or
falsehood. Justice has been vindicated, mercy has been magnified and we
are justly forgiven. Strange fusion of vehement Grace and vindictive
wrath! Behold how Judgment and Mercy have linked hands together in the
Person of the dying, bleeding, rising Son of God! This is the way by
which we obtain justification. The soul may well have a settled peace
when it has realized and received such a justification as this, seeing
it is a peace consistent with justice. The Lord has not winked at sin.
He has not treated sin as if it were a trifle. The Lord has punished
transgression and iniquity. The rod has been made to fall and the
blessed shoulders of our Lord have been made to smart under the
infliction.
If justice had never been satisfied, the human conscience would not
have been content. The proclamation of unconditional mercy would never
have satisfied a human mind. If we had to preach to you that God
forgave you irrespectively of an atonement, no awakened conscience
would welcome the tidings. We would still have to confront the
question, "Where is justice, then?" We should be unable to see how the
Law could be vindicated, or the moral
government of God maintained. We are quite at rest when we see that
there is as much justice as there is mercy in the forgiveness of a
believing soul and that God is as glorious in holiness when He passes
by sin as He would have been if He had cast the whole race into the
abyss of unfathomable woe!
Nor need there be any morbid apprehension as to whether all the
evidence that could be produced against us at our trial has been
brought forward. Nobody can come in and say "Though you have been
exonerated upon a partial trial, upon a more searching investigation
your guilt could have been proven." We can reply, "But it was proven!"
There was the best of evidence to prove it, for we confessed it! There
was no other evidence needed and nothing further could have been
brought since we pleaded guilty to every charge! If you bring any
further accusation, we can only say that we pleaded guilty without
reserve. It was all in the indictment–we did not attempt, for a
moment, to cloak or conceal any guilt we had incurred. We confessed it
all before the Lord and admitted to it–but since the Lord Jesus Christ
took it all, there is no cause for reopening the proceedings! There
cannot be a second trial through a writ of error–the case is
thoroughly disposed of–the prisoner has pleaded guilty to the capital
charge and has borne the utmost penalty of the Law by his Substitute,
which penalty God Himself has accepted. His acquittal is such as he can
rest upon with implicit reliance.
Moreover we know that, being justified, we are now at peace with God
because there cannot be any more demands made against us. All that was
against us, Christ took away! "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanses us from all sin." The death of our great Redeemer has
abounding merit in it, seeing that He was the Son of God. All the
transgressions and iniquities that could ever be raked up against us
were all laid to His charge and His Atonement, by one offering, has put
an end to them all. We are not afraid, therefore, that anything fresh
will be raised against us. Again, our acquittal is certified beyond all
question and the certificate is always producible. Somebody might say
to a prisoner, "How do you know that you were acquitted?" He cannot
produce any writing. On the record of the court it stands, and yet,
perhaps he has no means of access to the court record.
But, Beloved, you and I have a writ of acquittal which is always
visible. Faith can see it tonight. "What is that?" you ask. It is the
risen Christ, for Jesus Christ, "died for our sins and rose again for
our justification." You all know how that was. He was cast into the
prison of the grave until it had been certified that our liabilities
were fully discharged and–
"If Jesus never had paid the debt He never had been at freedom set." He
was our Hostage and His body was held in durance till it was certified
that there was no further claim against any one of His people. That
done, He rose again from the dead for our justification. He is at the
Father's right hand and He could not be there if any of our iniquity
remained on Him. He took our sins but He has our sins no longer, for on
the Cross He discharged and annihilated them all so that they ceased to
be–and He has gone into Glory as the Representative and the Substitute
of His people, cleared from their imputed liabilities–clean delivered
from anything that could be brought against Him on their account.
So long as we see the Lord Jesus sitting on the Throne of Glory, we may
boldly ask, "Who is he that condemns? Christ has died, yes rather, has
risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes
intercession for us." We know our justification to be forever complete
and beyond challenge, for Jesus keeps the place of acceptance for us!
And lastly, on this point, it was a justification from the very highest
court. You know how it is in law–a matter may be decided in your
favor, but there is an appeal to a higher court–and such are the
glorious uncertainties of law that a sentence which has been confirmed
in several courts may, after all, be reversed when it comes before the
highest authorities. But you and I pleaded guilty before God. There is
no higher authority than that of God Himself! When Jesus stood in our
place, we did not put Him there–nor did He put Himself there–it was
the act and deed of the Eternal Father! Is it not written–"The Lord
has laid on Him the iniquity of us all"?
It is not only true as a matter of personal faith that–
"I lay my sins on Jesus,"
but as a matter of fact of a far earlier date the Lord laid them on
Him! There is no higher authority than the Lord's and therefore do we
cry, "it is God that justifies, who is he that condemns?" We have been
taken into the highest court of all and there we have been cleared
through Jesus' blood–have we not cause to be fully at peace with
God–"being justified by faith"? Precious doctrine! Oh to rest in it
with a childlike confidence from now on and for evermore!
II. I now come to the second part of the subject, which is this. Faith
brings us into the state of peace which I have
explained and afterwards FAITH GIVES US THE SENSE OF PEACE. "Therefore
being justified by faith, we have
peace with God." Will you please notice that the sense of peace follows
upon the state of peace. We do not get peace before we are justified,
neither is peace a means of justification. No, Brethren, we are first
justified. "While we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died
for the ungodly." God justifies the ungodly. We have no peace till that
is done. There may seem to be peace, but it is a horrible peace–the
peace of death and of daring presumption.
It is the peace when a man says, "Peace, peace," when there is no
peace, and talks about rest when he has a conscience seared as with a
hot iron–and a mind drugged with presumption so that he sleeps that
awful sleep which is the presage of waking up in Hell! From such peace
may God deliver us! But real peace–the peace of God–and peace with
God must spring out of our being justified in the way which I have been
trying to describe. The man who is justified according to the text has,
at this moment, a sense of peace with God, but this is only true of
those who are justified by faith. Here I want you to observe–for every
word is instructive–that we have peace with God, "through Jesus Christ
our Lord."
Many children of God lose their peace, in a measure, and part of the
reason of it is because they begin to deal with God absolutely. None of
us will ever experience true peace with God except through Jesus
Christ. I like that strong expression of Luther, bald and bare as it
is, when, in commenting on the Epistle to the Galatians, he says, "I
will have nothing to do with an absolute God." If you have anything to
do with God absolutely, you will be destroyed! There cannot be any
point of contact between absolute Deity and fallen humanity except
through Jesus Christ, the appointed Mediator. That is God's door–all
else is a wall of fire! You can, by Christ, approach the Lord, but this
is the only bridge across the gulf.
Whenever you, dear Soul, begin to deal with God according to your own
experience, according to your own frames and feelings, or even
according to the exercises of your own faith–unless that faith keeps
its eye on Christ–you will lose your peace! Stand out of Christ and
what a wretched creature you are! Have you attempted to approach the
Eternal King without His chosen Ambassador? How presumptuous is your
attempt! The Throne of Divine Sovereignty is terrible, apart from the
redeeming blood! Peace with God must come to us by the way of the
Cross. Through our Lord Jesus Christ we gain it and through Him we keep
it.
There are some among you who, I trust, are really Believers in Christ
who are constantly prone to fret and say, "I have no lasting peace. I
am a Believer in Jesus and I have a measure of peace at times, but I do
not enjoy fullness of peace." Well, now, we must look at this a little
and the more closely we inspect it, the more convinced we shall be that
peace is the right of every Believer. What is there now between him and
God? Sin is forgiven! What is more, righteousness is imputed! He is the
object of eternal love! He is more than that–he is the object of
Divine complacency! God sees him in His Son and loves him. Why should
he not be at peace? "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in
God," said Jesus, "believe also in Me." Christian, there is no ground
of quarrel between you and your heavenly Father. God, for Christ's
sake, has forgiven you. To you the Lord virtually says, "Come now and
let us reason together, though your sins are as scarlet, I have made
them as wool. Though they are red like crimson, I have already made
them as snow."
When He says, "They shall be," He is speaking to the sinner, but to you
they are so. You are justified. Why have you not peace, then? You have
a claim to it and you ought to enjoy it. What is the reason why you do
not possess it? I will tell you. It is your unbelief. You are justified
by faith, remember. And it is by faith that you obtain peace with
God–when you are doubting and fearing instead of simply
believing–when you are questioning and grumbling–then it is that you
lose your peace! But in proportion as your faith stands, so will your
peace with God abide. I feel certain that the text tells us that every
justified man has peace with God–and if so, why is it that I hear poor
souls crying, "I believe, but I do not enjoy peace"? I think I can tell
you why it is. You make a mistake as to what this peace is. You say, "I
am so dreadfully tempted. Sometimes I am drawn this way and sometimes
the other, and the devil never lets me alone." Listen. Did you ever
read in the Bible that you were to have peace with the devil?
Look at the text–"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace
with God." That is a very different thing from having peace with Satan!
If the devil were to let you alone and never tempt you, I should begin
to think that you belonged to him for he is kind to his own in his own
way, for a while. He has a way of whispering soft things into their
ears and then with dulcet notes and siren songs he lures them to
eternal destruction. But he worries with a malicious joy those whom he
cannot destroy, for in their case he has great wrath, knowing that his
time is short. He expects to see you
soon in Heaven, out of gunshot of him and so he makes the best of his
opportunities to try, if he can, to distress and injure you while you
are here. You will soon be so far above him that you will not be able
to hear the Hell-dog bark and so he snaps at you now to see if he can
hurt you, as once he did your Master when he wounded His heel.
You never had a promise of being at peace with the Prince of Darkness,
but there is another promise which is far better! It is this–"The Lord
shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." A bruise it shall be when
we have him under our feet–we will triumph like our Master in the
breaking of his head. Till then, depend upon it, the enmity between the
seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman will continue and there
will be no truce to the war. Do I hear another tried one saying, "Alas,
it is not the devil, it is myself that I fear. I feel the flesh
revolting and rebelling. Lusts that I thought were slain have a
terrible resurrection. When I would do good, evil is present with me.
Sin assails me with all awful power by reason of the weakness of my
spirit and the strength of my flesh, and I cry, 'O wretched man that I
am!'"
Listen again. Did the Lord ever promise that you should have peace with
the flesh? Oh no, the moment you were converted there began a battle
between the flesh and the spirit–and that battle will last till that
flesh of yours shall lie low in the dust from where it came and your
spirit, delivered from its bondage, shall ascend to God! You must not
suppose that as long as you are in this body, the flesh will help you.
Ah no, you will cry with Paul, "O wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?" You are harassed and hampered
by the rising corruption of your nature and it will still rise. Your
Brethren will still say of you, "What will you see in the Shulamite? As
it were the company of two armies." The flesh is striving against the
spirit and the spirit against the flesh–and though the lion shall, one
day, lie down with the lamb, the flesh will never agree with the
spirit. As the Lord has war with Amalek forever and ever, so there is
war between the spirit and the flesh so long as the two are in the same
man. There is no promise of peace with the flesh, then, but we have
peace with God.
"Ah," says another, "I have little peace, for I am surrounded by those
that vex me. When I serve the Lord they malign and misrepresent me with
scoff and slander. They take up an evil report against me. Woe is me
that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! My soul
is among lions, even among them that are set on the fire of Hell. They
give me no rest." Yes, but I smile as I think of it. Did you ever dream
of having peace with the wicked? Peace with such as turn aside to their
crooked ways? Peace with the workers of iniquity? Vain thought! Peace
in this world where your Lord was crucified? Peace with those that hate
you for His sake? Why, did He not say to you at the first, "If the
world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you
were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are
not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hates you."
What? Do you expect to wear a crown of gold where Jesus wore a crown of
thorns? The confessors and martyrs of ancient times never reckoned upon
peace with the world. Nor did the Apostle Paul, for he said, "The world
is crucified to me, and I unto the world." You have no promise of the
world's love, but you have a promise of this sort, "These things have I
spoken unto you, that in Me you might have peace. In the world you
shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the
world." "And this is the victory which overcomes the world, even our
faith." I pray you, then, do not misconstrue the text! It does not say
that you shall either have peace with the devil, or peace with the
flesh, or peace with the world–but it does say that you have peace
with God, which is infinitely better!
"Still," says one, "I find that I sin every day and I hate myself for
sinning. I cannot get to my bed at night but I feel grieved in my soul
that I am not more like Christ and that I cannot grow in Grace as I
desire. I do not seem to make the advance in the Divine Life that I
hoped I would and I am full of sin. Whatever I do is stained with
defilement. Wherever I go, I seem to fall one way or another into
something that wounds my conscience and hurts me." Yes and the Lord
never said that you should have peace with sin. I am delighted to find
that sin stings you and that you hate it. The more hatred of sin the
better! A sin-hating soul is a God-loving soul. If sin never distresses
you, then God has never favored you. Unless you hate sin, you do not
love holiness, and if you hate sin, you cannot have any peace with it.
You will never be satisfied till you are perfect–and when will you be
perfect? Why, when you wake up in your Lord's likeness! That will be
the hour of your perfection, but till then sin will vex you. Then shall
you have no Canaanite to harass you and there shall be war with Amalek
no more, when the last enemy is slain, when sin is extirpated and you
shall be near and like your God! You have no promise of peace with sin,
nor need you wish for one, for you have peace with God!
To come back, again, to what is promised and, indeed, to what is not
only promised but really bestowed and communicated to us–"Being
justified by faith, we have peace with God." Most assuredly we do enjoy
peace with God in
this respect–that we know He loves us. He would not have given His Son
to die for us if He had not. He would not have devised this matchless
plan of Justification if He had not loved us. Moreover, we feel a
fervent love to Him in return. We do not love Him as we wish to do, nor
as we hope to do, but we do love Him for all that. We can say, "Lord,
You know all things; You know that I love You."–
"Yes, I love You and adore, Oh for Grace to love You more." Of the
excellence and virtue of this peace we have daily, hourly proof, for we
are now not afraid to go to our Covenant God for all necessary things
and to seek His face for help in time of trouble. Why, to some of us
this resorting to God has become so habitual that we speak with Him
every hour of the day!
Nothing happens but we fly to Him for counsel or for succor. We no
longer ask leave to do so, for He has given to us the private key and
the perpetual permit of access. We have not always such settled peace
with our fellow creatures, for at times we so much lack of confidence
in them that we could not divulge to them our troubles–but we have
peace with God! We have such an amity that we can always have recourse
to Him, assured of His sympathy and His readiness to come to our relief
in every time of need. Our habit of prayer proves that we have peace
with God–we would not think of praying to Him if we believed that He
was our adversary, or if we doubted His good-will. If we felt any
enmity in our hearts to Him we should not go to Him as we do, with a
childlike hope in time of distress.
This peace with God makes us delight in Him. I am sure that every soul
here that has been justified by faith delights in God. You do not
always feel Him equally near, but when He is near it is the joy of your
spirit. What are the best and happiest moments you ever know? Are they
not those in which you have communion with God? What days can you
reflect upon with the greatest satisfaction and ardently wish to have
repeated? Are they not those in which His majesty and mercy have been
so revealed to your spirit that with mingled awe and sweetness you have
realized intensely His power and His Presence? Oh, what a good God He
is! Bad as we are, how good He is! Now, take care that you indulge this
delight often. If you delight in anything else, you will be an
idolater. And remember, He has said, "Delight yourself in the Lord and
He will give you the desire of your heart."
You cannot be too delighted with your God! Is He not Perfection itself?
Are we not, in all respects, rejoiced to have such a God? We would not
have one attribute changed nor one appointment of His sovereign will in
the least degree moved from its order. Let Him be as He is and do as He
pleases and our souls shall delight in Him. "Yes, though He slay me,
yet will I trust in Him." Now, when you can delight in God, though you
cannot delight in yourself, it shows that you have peace with Him and
are justified!
Then, Brothers and Sisters, this peace also shows itself in our
acquiescing in all that He does in His rough Providences. You know that
a hypocrite is like a strange dog that will follow a man as long as he
casts him a bone or a bit of meat. But a true Believer is like a man's
own dog that will follow him when he gives him nothing, and even when
he deals him a cuff or a blow. A true Believer says, "Shall I receive
good from the hand of the Lord, and shall I not also receive evil? If
He chastens me, I would sooner be chastened by my Father than I would
be caressed by Satan." It were better to smart till one were black and
blue under the rod of God, than to be set upon a high throne by the
world or the devil. When he offers you the kingdoms of this world, be
sure that you say to the foul fiend, "Get you behind me!" But when the
Lord hands you the bitter cup, be sure to say, "Your will be done," and
take it cheerfully at His hands. If we feel an agreement with our
Lord's will, it shows that we are at peace with Him.
One more evidence of being at peace with God is when you can, with
confidence, look forward to the time of your departure out of this
world and say, "I can die, if You, O Lord, are with me." When you can
fall in with the words of the hymn we were singing just now–
"Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who anything to my charge shall lay?
While through Your blood absolved I am,
From sin's tremendous curse and shame?" We are not afraid of the day of
judgment because we have peace with God and, therefore, we are not
afraid to die. There is concord and harmony between the righteous God
and His redeemed people and fear is banished. He has given us His
Spirit to dwell in our hearts and now we desire that each rising wish
may be prompted by His will. Our mind is agreed with the mind of God.
He wishes us to be holy and we wish to be holy. He would kill sin in us
and we long to have it
killed. He wishes us to obey and we desire to obey. He would have us
seek His Glory and we desire that He should be glorified in us, in our
whole spirit, soul and body. The lines of our life run parallel with
the life of God, though upon a lower level–we can never be as He is in
the Glory of His Nature, but we desire to be holy as He is holy.
The life within us is Divine, for we have been begotten again by
Himself and, from now on we are in Christ and Christ in us–and so we
are at peace with God. Go your way, my Brothers and Sisters, and swim
in this peace! Bathe your weary souls in seas of heavenly rest until
you come to the place where not a wave of trouble shall ever roll
across your peaceful breasts and may the very God of Peace sanctify you
wholly and preserve you blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Faithful is He that calls you, who also will do it. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Romans 5. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
HYMN BOOK"–775, 397, 708.
LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:
DEAR FRIENDS–The sermon is so long that only a line or so is left for
me. I will say the less of myself. The warm sunny days which I have
spent in this retreat are, by God's blessing, bringing back to me
health and strength. I shall be happy, indeed, if my mental and
spiritual vigor should also be renewed by the removal of the daily care
which pressed upon me. If it is so, my hearers shall be the gainers,
for all my strength has been and always shall be laid out in my
ministry.
I am right glad to hear that special services are commencing at the
Tabernacle and I entreat all the Brothers and Sisters there to throw
all their energies into them. Pray that the Holy Spirit may work
mightily and glorify the Lord Jesus in the midst of the congregations!
And then set to work to fetch in the people from the outside. Gather
them! Gather them from hedges and highways and crowd the Gospel feast!
The preachers are among you whom God has widely blest, but how can they
benefit the people if they do not come to hear them? Make the services
known and press those to come who do not usually attend public worship.
We long to see souls saved–do we not? My heart cannot be content while
men are being lost! I cannot be among the crowds to preach, but my
inmost soul prays for those who are indulged with that privilege and
for you, also, who have the joy of helping in the work of the Lord. I
am bound to thank those generous friends who continue to send aid to
the various works under my care–the Lord reward them.
To each and all my hearers and readers I send my hearty Christian
salutations, C H. SPURGEON MENTONE
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Seekers Directed and Encouraged