The Way

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 24, 1870,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Jesus said unto him, I am the way." John 14:6.

THE most precious things lie in the smallest compass. Diamonds have
much value in little space. Those Scriptural sayings which are fullest
of meaning are many of them couched in the fewest words. Who shall
measure the depth of that sentence, "God is love"? Or that other, "God
is light"? Who shall know the lengths and breadths of this declaration,
"Christ is all"? How clearly is the whole Gospel condensed into that
line, "By Grace are you saved"! There are many more Divine Words of a
like character, all short, and as sweet as they are short, precious
beyond comparison, and as brief as precious. Our text, with its four
words, and those all monosyllables, and none of more than three
letters, is among the chief of these Bibles in miniature. "I am the
way."

It were difficult, and it were as wicked as difficult, to be otherwise
than simple in preaching such a text as this. May God grant that some
of you may be reached by my simple testimony, and led in the way to
Heaven. May those who are already in the way be strengthened,
comforted, and quickened in it. And may God be glorified and sinners
converted– then our hearts shall be exceedingly glad.

I. We shall go at once to the text, and consider, in the first place,
HOW JESUS CHRIST IS THE WAY, AND HOW HE COMES TO BE SO. How is He the
way? A way supposes two points–from which and to which. Christ is the
way from man's ruin to the Father. Our Lord was speaking of man's
coming to the Father, so we know where the way leads, and we know very
well that the way were of no service unless it came to where we are by
nature, and that is in the place of ruin and of wrath. Christ is the
way that leads from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City–from
the ruin of our father Adam right up to the glory of our Father who is
in Heaven.

Christ is the way, then, first, from the guilt of sin to the Father.
The great difficulty was–How is sin to be put away? Many attempts have
been made to remove it, but there is no way of our escaping from the
guilt of sin except by Jesus Christ. Some have hoped for pardon by
future good conduct, but as we all know, the payment of a future debt
can by no means discharge a past debt. So even the perfect future
obedience of man, could he achieve it, could not touch his past sins.
Self-righteousness, therefore, even if it could reach perfection, would
not be "the way."

Some hope much from the mercy of God, but the Law knows nothing of
clearing the sinner of guilt by a Sovereign act of mercy–that cannot
be done. For then God's Justice would be impugned, His Law would be
virtually annulled. He will by no means clear the guilty. Every
transgression must have its just recompense of reward so that the
absolute mercy of God as such is not the way out of the guilt of sin.
That mercy is blocked up by avenging Justice, and over the face of that
star of hope called absolute mercy there passes an eclipsing shadow
because God is righteous as well as gracious.

There is no way by which a sinner can escape from the guilt of sin but
that which is revealed in Jesus Christ. God has sent forth His Son, His
only Son. The Word was made flesh and came under the Law–upon that
mysterious Being who combined both Godhead and manhood in one Person,
the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all. By imputation the
transgressions of His elect have been laid upon their Covenant Head, so
that He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of
many. He voluntarily undertook to be the Substitute and Covenant Surety
of His chosen.

And in this way, by the transferring of sin from the sinner to Christ,
the sinner ceases to be regarded as a sinner, and his guilt is removed.
Here is the way for that sinner to approach the Father. His sin is laid
upon Christ, who became the Substitute for all sinners that ever have
believed or ever shall believe on Him. The whole mountain mass of the
sins of Believers lies not on them any longer, but on Christ. He has
taken their transgressions, He has borne their iniquities, their sins
are moved from them and laid on Him.

Now listen! The only way in which sin can be taken from any one of us
is by this method. It is not imputed unto us, it is imputed unto HIM.
But think not that the sin which was laid upon Christ of old lies upon
Christ now. It does not, for the day came when the punishment for all
that sin was demanded. The sword of vengeance awoke against human sin,
and it would have destroyed all the flock, but the Shepherd came into
the place of the flock, and He bore the strokes of the sword. And there
upon yonder once accursed, but now forever blessed, tree, the Savior
endured the fullness of Divine wrath on account of sin.

Now, where is the sin of His people? He has cast it into the depths of
the sea. By bearing its punishment He has caused it no more to exist.
It is as though it had never been. It is annihilated, it is gone! If it
is searched for, it cannot be found. Jesus Christ, by His taking the
sin and then discharging all the liability that was due to God from
that sin, has forever finished transgression–mark the word–made an
end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness for His people.

Now, Sinner, if you would get away from your sin, Christ is the way.
This is the way by which you can escape from it. I have already told
you that your future reformation cannot remove your past sins. Neither
can the mercy of God, considered as an attribute by itself, clear you
from your sin. But this wonderful deed of love and wisdom, this
marvelous transaction that makes Heaven and earth ring with grateful
songs when glorified spirits see further into it, and when angelic
intellects are able to grasp it–this wondrous transaction can clear
you from sin as it has cleared many of us. For we are this day before
God justified, so that none can lay anything to our charge.

Sinners we are in ourselves, but not sinners before God's Judgment
Seat, for Jesus has made us clean. We are whiter than snow, our sins
being removed from us far as the east is from the west by our great
atoning Substitute. Here is a way consistent with Divine Justice, a way
exactly meeting what you need. Oh, I pray God that while the words are
used, "I am the way," your spirit may say, "Blessed be His name, Jesus
shall be my way. I will this day believe on Him and thus escape from my
guilt."

The text refers to the guilt of sin, but then, "I am the way" is as
true concerning the wrath of God on account of sin. You will see at
once, and, therefore, I need not use many words about it, that the way
to escape from wrath is to escape from the sin which causes the wrath.
Remove the cause, you remove the effect. Now, when the sin of God's
people was moved from them to Christ, the wrath of God went where the
sin went, and it fell upon Christ, until He said, "My God, My God, why
have You forsaken Me?"

When that bitter cup of wrath had been drained to its dregs, it was
emptied forever, and not one drop was left for a believing soul to
taste. The wrath of God towards the Believer has ceased to be, and at
this moment there is no angry thought in God's heart towards a
justified person. Whosoever has believed in Christ, his sins were laid
on Christ, and punished in Christ, and God is not, and cannot be angry
with the man for whom Jesus was a Substitute–for he has no sins for
God to be angry with.

"Oh," you say, "but does he not sin?" He does, but it is not imputed to
him, according to the saying of the Psalmist in the thirty-second
Psalm–"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity."
He commits sin, but it is not imputed to him, and so the wrath never
comes on him. He is free from guilt and wrath. God has love to him,
unbounded love, and though He may chasten him, yet this is not in
anger, but with purposes of love to him for his spiritual and
everlasting good. So you see, Christ is the way out of Divine wrath as
well as out of our sin.

And listen. There comes upon us in consequence of sin, when the Lord
deals with us and makes us see sin, a deep and terrible depression of
spirit. It is in some more and in some less, but in every case, "when
the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Sin, as soon as it is
really felt in the soul to be sin, kills us, blasts our former hopes,
crushes our pride, lays us like bruised and mangled things before the
burning Throne of Justice. Oftentimes souls have been heard to cry,
"There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger! Neither is
there any rest in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities are
gone over my head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My
wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness."

Many such expressions, it may be, you, my awakened Hearer, have been
made to utter, but, oh, if you come to see that all this sin of yours
is not yours, that in Christ Jesus God has put away your sins by your
Savior's bearing them and enduring their punishment, I say, if you see
this, you will speedily rejoice! In a moment those waves of wrath will
pass

away from you, and your spirit will sing, "Hope in God: for I shall yet
praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." I know a
truly awakened conscience never will believe in the pardon of sin
without Atonement first made.

But when you hear that Atonement has been made, that Christ suffered
instead of you, that His death has glorified the Justice of God more
than your lying in Hell could have glorified Him–that His Atonement is
to God's injured Law a better vindication than even your eternal
destruction–do you not see it, do you not lay hold on it, and does not
your heart leap at the sound of this glorious Gospel of the blessed
God? Christ is the way, then, out of the guilt of your sin, out of the
wrath of God for your sin, and out of your sense of that wrath.

But more, Christ is the way to escape from the power of sin. The great
object of a penitent soul is to get away from the tyranny and slavery
of evil habits and of corrupt desires. A man may break off some of his
sins by his own unaided efforts. For instance, no man need be a
drunkard, common determination may have done with those intoxicating
cups. No man need be a swearer. Let him understand what a wantonness of
iniquity there is in that sin, and he may surely give it up. Still, sin
dwells in fallen creatures, and the imagination of the thoughts of
their hearts is evil, and that continually. Who can bring a clean thing
out of an unclean?

Man, your sinfulness is such that you can not cease from sin. But Man,
there is a power above and beyond you which can deliver you from the
power of sin and make you holy. It is found in Christ Jesus, in Christ
Jesus as I have preached Him to you this day. Let me tell you my own
experience. Whenever I feel that I have sinned and desire to overcome
that sin for the future, the devil at the same time comes to me and
whispers, "How can you be a pardoned person and accepted with God while
you sin in this way?" If I listen to this I drop into despondency, and
if I continued in that state I should fall into despair, and should
commit sin more frequently than before.

But God's Grace comes in and says to my soul, "You have sinned–but did
not Jesus come to save sinners? You are not saved because you are
righteous. For Christ died for the ungodly." And my faith says, "Though
I have sinned, I have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous, and though I am guilty, yet by Grace I am saved, and I am a
child of God, still." And what then? Why, then the tears begin to flow,
and I say, "How could I ever sin against my God who is so good to me?
Now I will overcome that sin," and, by His Grace, I get strong to fight
with sin through the conviction that I am God's child.

Doubts and fears, and the thought that God is angry only drive you
further into sin. But the faith, which in the teeth of sin still
believes in God's love, and still believes in the perfect pardon Christ
has given, which God Himself can never take back again–that holy faith
which still clings to the Cross with, "If I perish I perish, but to
this atoning Sacrifice I cling." That faith, I say, makes you strong
against sin. The saints in Glory overcame through the blood of the
Lamb, and there is no other way of overcoming.

The precious blood of Atonement, wherever sprinkled, kills sin, and he
that lives in the full belief of it will be purified from sinful
habits, as says that precious text–"If we walk in the light, as He is
in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of
Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." It is walking under a
sense of Divine love as manifest in Christ. It is walking with the full
conviction of pardon through the blood that brings to us freedom from
the reigning power of sin. So, Soul, Jesus Christ is "the way" to
escape from sin, its guilt, its wrath, its fear, its power.

Now we must have a word or two upon the other end of the way. I said it
was from sin, to what? To the Father. Now the way to the Father is
alone by Jesus Christ. We have for this the express saying of
Christ–"No man comes unto the Father, but by Me." We hear talk of
getting to God the Father by Nature, but it is a ladder too short to
reach the Infinite. God is somewhat seen in His works, but I believe
those who have seen the grandest works of God, and have also seen God
in Christ, will tell you that God is no more mirrored in His works than
is the whole universe in a dewdrop.

Earth is not broad enough to reflect the image of God. He does not
mirror Himself in the sea–it is a glass too small to show the Deity.
He cannot reveal His whole Glory in the materialism of this poor world
of ours–its axles would groan and crack beneath the weight of Deity.
It is in Christ that Jehovah reveals Himself more fully than in all
Nature, though you summon sun, moon, and stars, and read all their
hieroglyphs. God is revealed in Christ in a way in which He cannot be
in anything of time or of space.

Learn, then, that we get our best apprehensions of the Father through
the Son. "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." It is only by
Christ that we realize the Fatherhood of God. I do not believe any man
has any idea of what the Fatherhood of God is till he knows Jesus
Christ as the First-Born among many Brethren, and knows the power of
His

Atonement to bring us near to God. The common Fatherhood doctrine that
God is the Father of us all because He made us all, is not true in the
most real and tender sense of Fatherhood. A potter makes ten thousand
vessels, but he is not the father of one of them.

It is not everything that a man makes that he is the father of, or if
he is so called, it is only in a modified sense. We are God's children
when we are created anew in Christ Jesus–when regeneration has made us
partakers of the Divine Nature. Sonship is no ordinary privilege common
to all mankind–it is the high prerogative of the chosen. For what says
the Scripture–"Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world
knows us not, because it knew Him not." When we are adopted into the
Divine family, then, and not till then, do we know God as the Father.

As for unbelievers, they have not known the Father, for our Lord says,
"O righteous Father, the world has not known You." He that has seen
Christ has seen the Father, and only he. But the very Essence of Christ
is seen in His expiatory death, and therefore we can never grasp the
Fatherhood of God till we have believed in the Atonement of His Son.
"Whosoever denies the Son, the same has not the Father, but He that
acknowledges the Son has the Father, also." May we, then, realize the
Father through knowing in very deed the Lord, for to a knowledge of the
Father He is the only way.

Again, Jesus is the way to conscious acceptance with the Father. I
know, my dear troubled Friend, you feel this morning that you would
give anything and everything if you could know that God had accepted
you, and loved you, and that you were His dear child. Now, you can
never know this until first you come to the Cross and see Jesus Christ
dying there as a Substitute for you and for all who trust Him. You
trust Him–your sins are on Him–you are clear.

The very next feeling of your soul will be, "I am not only pardoned in
Christ, but I am accepted before God in Christ Jesus. For Christ's
sake, and as one with Christ I am now dear to God. And what is very
marvelous, I am as dear to God as Jesus Christ Himself is! I am brought
as near as Christ is! I am what Christ is, for He who was once my
Representative in my sin, and bore the wrath for me, is now my
Representative in His Glory, and has obtained favor and innumerable
blessings for me."

This is a blessed thing. "The Father Himself loves you." "Made near by
the blood of Christ." "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does
not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall
appear, we shall be like He. For we shall see Him as He is." The gift
of Christ to us is a full proof of Divine love, and wherever it is
received it is the proof of God's love to the receiver.

So, too, the way to have communion with the Father is the same. "Oh how
I long to talk with God," says one. "He seems to be a long way off, and
the thick darkness shuts Him out from me. O that I could speak with
Him, even though the only word I said were that of the returning
prodigal: "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before You."
Beloved, when you see Jesus Christ who bore your sins in His own body
on the tree. When you see Him ascending up to Heaven you have access
with boldness unto God, because Christ has entered within the veil and
stands in the Presence of God for you.

You talk with God when you draw near in Jesus Christ. Your conviction
that all your sin is put away through Him, that you are accepted
through Him, that you live in Him as the member lives in the body, that
He is your Covenant Head, and that His honors and glories are all
reflected upon you–this assured belief brings you so near to God that
as a man speaks with his friend, even so do you commune with Him.
"Truly, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus
Christ."

Again, we, by Jesus, come to resemble the Father. There is no way to
get the likeness of the Father except by learning God's love in the
Person of His dear Son. Here, too, Christ is the way. You imitate
Christ, and so become like the Father. You commune with Jesus Christ,
and as you talk with Him, His Character sacredly operates upon
yourself, and you are changed from glory to glory, as by the image of
the Lord. I do believe, dear Brethren, that the moment we forget
Christ, and then seek after personal sanctification, we are trying to
get to our journey's end by declining to tread the road to it.

It is, at least I find it so, impossible to grow in Grace except by
abiding evermore at the foot of the Cross. When I know by faith–not by
any other evidence than by faith–that Jesus loved me, and gave Himself
for me. When I see Grace, magnified in sin, laid on Him rather than on
me. And when I see Justice magnified, in that sin being put away by
Him–and when I see Grace and Justice together–clasping hands in
solemn covenant to secure my soul against all fear of risk, then I feel
that I am master over sin! Then I feel my soul loves God, yearns after
God, mounts up to God–and

then it is she becomes more like God than she was before. So Christ is
the way from sin, with all we can say of it, to the Father, with all
the blessed things that flow from His Throne.

II. WHAT SORT OF WAY IS CHRIST, AND FOR WHAT SORT OF PEOPLE? First, let
me say He is the King's highway, which means that He is the
Divinely-appointed way from sin to the Father. If we came to you, dear
Friends, who are seeking salvation, and told you of a way of mercy, you
would naturally enquire, "Who said it was the way? Who appointed it?"
And if we replied that it was appointed by the last council at Rome, I
should not wonder if you felt serious doubts about the matter, and
questioned whether a council of men could infallibly determine the way
of Grace.

But I have to tell you this day that Jesus Christ is "the way" of God's
appointment. Thus says the word–"Being justified freely by His Grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth
to be a Propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the
forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness:
that He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believes in
Jesus." God the Father devised this plan of salvation by the
transference of sin to Christ, and by the punishment of Christ the
Substitute, instead of us.

It is clear to me that if God is satisfied with the way, I ought to be.
If He, the aggrieved party, feels that Christ has finished the work and
that He can now justly forgive us, why need we raise questions? O God,
if You can look at Jesus and be well-pleased in Him, surely I can. If
You are perfectly content with the sufferings and death of Your dear
Son, surely I may be. Now, then, because it is the King's highway, (I
recommend you, my Hearers, to be very clear here), if you are trusting
in Christ who is the way of Divine appointment, if He were to fail you,
which He cannot do, the blame would not lie with you, but with Him who
appointed Him. I speak reverently. But He has appointed a way which
cannot fail, for He is Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Power.

Then, as the King's highway it is an open way, I can come to it and
need ask no man's leave. If I am treading the King's highway I cannot
be a trespasser there. Poor Sinner, Christ is the way from your sin to
God, and you need ask nobody's leave to come to God through Jesus
Christ. "He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by
Him." "Him that comes to Me," He said, "I will in no wise cast out."
Come and welcome! God appoints the way, and when He appoints the way,
He puts it thus in 1 John 2:21, "And He is the propitiation for our
sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole
world"–in order that any sinner in the whole world who wills to come
to the Father by Christ may pluck up courage and perceive that his sins
have been laid on Jesus.

Again, it is a perfect way. "I am the way." The way from sin to the
Father by Christ is complete. It would not be complete unless it came
down where you are, but it does. Where are you? Up to your throat in
drunkenness? Where are you? Defiled by evil living? Soul, there is a
road from where you are right up to the immaculate perfection of the
Blessed Savior at God's right hand, and that road is CHRIST.

You have not to make a road to get to Christ–Christ comes to you where
you are. The good Samaritan did not ask the wounded man to come to him
and promise that then he would pour in the oil and wine. No, he came
where he was and poured it in. Christ will come where you are. Saul of
Tarsus did not go far to meet Christ. He was riding to the devil as
fast as he could, but he was suddenly struck down, then and there where
he was–and as he was–and Jesus spoke life to him.

He can do just the same with you. You think you have some preparations
to make, some feelings to pass through, something or other to perform
before you may believe that Christ has taken your sins. But all you can
do to make yourself fit for Christ is to make yourself unfit. All your
preparations are but foul lumber–put them all away. You must come as
you are, as a sinner, for Jesus came not to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance–"the whole have no need of a physician, but they
that are sick."

And if, as you are, you will come and take God's way, and trust Jesus
with all your heart to save you, you will find He will prove to be the
very Savior you need, for He is so perfect a road that there is nothing
needed at the beginning. And nothing will be needed at the end. Some
have supposed that faith in the atoning sacrifice may carry us a
certain way, and after that we must stand on another footing. God
forbid I should say a single word against good works. Did I not the
other Sunday morning address you from these words, "Without holiness no
man shall see the Lord"?

But good works are not the way to Heaven, in whole or in part. They are
fruits of salvation. They are the sure products of those who are saved,
but they do not save a man. A faith that produces no works will never
save anybody. But that

which saves men is not the work which comes from the faith, but the
faith itself, the faith in Jesus Christ. The top and bottom, the
beginning and end of salvation, lies in the Redeemer, and not in us. "I
am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending," says the Lord.

If you think that you are to patch up Christ's robe of righteousness,
or that Jesus is to begin and you are to complete, you know nothing of
Christ, and need to be taught something of yourself. It must be all
Christ or no Christ, all mercy or no mercy. Grace must lay the
foundation, and Grace must put on the topstone, or else there can be no
salvation. "I am the way," then, means that Christ is the way from
where the sinner now is right up to where God is, and he that gets
Christ shall come to the Father.

Christ is a free way. There is not a toll-bar at the entrance, nor
anywhere along the road. Many are afraid to come into this road to
Heaven because they cannot pay the charges–but there are no charges
whatever! Whoever wills to have Christ may have Him for the taking. He
that will pay for Christ cannot have Him at all. You may have Him for
the asking. He is freely given. The way in which to have Christ is the
way in which you have water, that is, by drinking. Receive Christ, for
"unto as many has received Him, to them gave He power to become the
sons of God, even to as many as believed on His name."

There are no legal conditions of salvation laid down anywhere. I know
it is sometimes said that repentance and faith are conditions–from one
point of view, and in one aspect, I might tolerate the term–but truly
and really there is no bargain made between God and a sinner. It is
never you do this and I will do that. It is always, "I will do this for
you, and then you shall believe and repent as the result." If faith,
is, in one respect a condition, it is in another respect a gift of God,
and though we are commanded to repent, yet Jesus is exalted on High to
give repentance.

So you poor sinners who have no repentance, or anything of your own, I
bid you come to Jesus Christ for everything. He is the way, and the
whole way. This is a free way–nothing to pay, nothing to do, nothing
to be, nothing to bring, no merits–no deserving, no preparations. It
is all of Grace. All the gift of God to the very vilest of the vile.
Oh, it does sometimes seem too good to be true, that all for nothing I,
a great sinner, shall be saved! But when I think of what the Savior
is–that He is God–that He came from Heaven. That He became a Man for
my sake. That He, the God-Man, Immanuel, was born and died, and bore
the wrath of God–by His Grace I can believe it.

And, O my Lord, I dare no more add any of my driveling merits to the
worth of Your dear Son than of stitching some foul, infected rags from
a dunghill to a garment made of worked gold! How could I put any
nothingness of mine, that only my folly calls anything, side by side
with the ever-precious merits of Your dear Son?

Again, let me add, it is a permanent way. Jesus says, "I am the
way–not a way for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, only, but for you. Not
for the Apostles, and martyrs, and early saints, only, but for YOU–

"His precious blood shall never lose its power, Till all the ransomed
Church of God Are sa ved to sin no more."

It is a way that never has been broken up, and never will be. All the
floods of all His people's sins have never made a swamp or bog-hole in
this blessed way.

All the earthquakes and upheavals of our rebellious natures have never
made a gap or chasm in this glorious way. Straight from the very gates
of Hell, where the sinner is by nature, right up to the hilltops of
Heaven, this glorious causeway runs in one unbroken line, and will,
forever and forever, till every elect one shall be gathered safe into
the eternal Home!

Let me add it is a joyful way. You noted in the chapter we read that
the redeemed are to return with songs, and everlasting joy is to be
upon their heads. All Believers in Christ as such are a happy and
rejoicing people. "But," says one, "I have seen Believers mourn!" That
is because they wander from the way. If they continued simply trusting
in the Substitution of Christ, if they kept their eye on Him, and on
Him only, they would know no sorrow. Where there is no sin there is no
sorrow. And when the Believer knows that he has no sin–that it is put
away in Christ–then he also has no sorrow. Then his peace is like a
river, because his righteousness is as the waves of the sea. Dear
Heart, if you would be happy, come unto Christ, and abide with Him!

Lastly, on this point, He is the only way. So is He the only way that
you cannot be saved if you trust anywhere else. This way which God has
planned of laying sin upon the Substitute, is such that it is the only
possible way, and therefore

God will not have you insult His wisdom and His Grace by trying to
patch up another. Do not try to find a way by your own feelings or your
own works. There is no such way. All these supposed ways will end in
disappointment and in ruin. Jesus Christ is the one foundation, build
on Him. God help you to say, "I will now cast myself flat upon Christ,
having no confidence in myself. I will make Him my confidence, He shall
be my All in All." If you have done that, you are a saved soul! Go your
way and rejoice with joy unspeakable.

Thus we see what kind of way it is, but for what sort of people is it
made? Hurriedly in these two or three words, I reply, for all sorts of
people. Christ is the way to Heaven for anybody and everybody who is
led to walk there. Christ is the way to Heaven for you, poor Wanderer,
though you have sought the theater and music hall, and worse places, to
drive away your melancholy. Come to Jesus, for He is the way to peace,
the very way for a wanderer like you. Christ is the way for exiles, for
banished ones, for those who have not seen the face of God for many a
day, though once they rejoiced in Him. Backslider, if you would get
back to your God, Christ is the way.

Christ is the way for captives. You, who bear your chains clanking
about you today, who feel as if you never would be free–take heart,
take heart–there is a way of escape yet, and Christ is that way! Make
a desperate push for it, and say, "I will throw myself into His arms.
If He reject me I shall be the first one. But I will go and rest on the
bloody sacrifice of that dear Son of God who sweat great drops of blood
because of my heavy sins, my heavy, heavy sins.

Christ is the way, let me add, for the poorest of the poor. Our Master,
when He makes a feast, sends us out to bring in men from the highways
and hedges, highwaymen and hedge birds–those who have not a house or a
friend of their own. You who are lowest of the low and vilest of the
vile! You who are all but in Hell, and are condemned already, you who
lie at Hell's dark door bound in affliction and iron, shut out from
mercy, as you think–Christ is the way for you!

For all who long to escape from sin. For all who would come to God. For
all who have a desire after mercy or eternal life. The great trumpet is
blown, and may they come that are ready to perish, may the most needy
and abject, and lost, and self-condemned, say, "I will come now and
trust in Jesus who died the Just for the unjust to bring us to God."

III. The last point is, HOW WE MAKE CHRIST OUR WAY, AND WHETHER HE IS
OUR WAY NOW. How do

we make Christ our way? Why, as we make any other way our way. We hear
a man say, "This is my way." How does he make that his way? Has he got
the title-deeds of it? Has he a charter from his Majesty? No, nothing
of the sort. The way in which I shall make the Clapham Road my way
after I have done preaching is by getting into it.

And the way in which Christ becomes a sinner's way is simply by going
to Christ. That is all. You have no legal rights, no forms or
ceremonies to go through–you have but to come to the King's highway by
trusting Christ, and Christ is yours. "But may I," says one, "without
any warrant, come and trust Christ?" What warrant do you want? The only
warrant is God's permission, and you have a great deal more than
that–you have God's command–which is more than permission. He has
said, "Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he that
believes not shall be damned."

In believing you do what that Gospel warrants by its command. "Believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved," is God's Word! You
certainly have a right to do what God commands you to do, so that your
right to trust Christ lies in God's command. He says He will save you
through what Christ has done. Will you believe Him? Will you believe
Him so as to trust today in what Christ has done? If you do not, you
make God a liar. If you do, you glorify God by believing His testimony,
and you glorify His Son by trusting in His work–and you are saved.

Now, in order to keep the way your own, all you do is to continue in
it. How do you keep any other way as your own? By any charter, by any
fresh right that you had not at first? No, not at all. "This is my
way," say I, as long as I still keep to that way. If I turn the other
way I cannot say that it is my way, at least nobody would believe a way
to be my way if I went in a contrary direction. If I leap over the
hedge and go off in another direction and say, "This is my way," I lie.
Man alive–that is your way which you go–your possession of the way
lies in your keeping the way.

So now, Christian, Christ continues yours by the same way in which He
became yours. That is by your still trusting Him, not by anything you
do, or are by yourself, or in yourself. Because Jesus lives, you live
also, not because of anything you do. "The just shall live by faith,"
not by any other means. You are not to begin in the Spirit and then be
made perfect in the flesh. You are not to begin to walk by confidence
in Christ and afterwards go on to walk by confidence in your own
evidences and graces. Your evidences and graces will always shine best
when you think the least of them, and always will be brightest with God
when you look most at His dear Son, and not at them.

If you ever take your best virtues and sanctifications and make them a
ground of hope, you are building on that which will crumble beneath you
in the time of trial. But as long as you keep to this, "Still a sinner,
but still washed in the blood. Still in myself guilty, but no guilt of
mine imputed to me, all laid on my Substitute. Still my best prayers,
my best hymns, my almsgivings, my preaching, my all–all defiled–but
yet I am clean through Him that washes my feet and makes me clean in
His most precious blood."

This is the way to live, the way to live evermore, not only as a
beginner, but when you are advanced in Divine Grace–the way to live
when you are becoming a mature matron or veteran soldier, and the way
when you come to die. It is especially, then, in those last moments,
that we fling everything away but just what Christ has done. We might
have been troubling ourselves a great deal before about marks,
evidences, and so on, But when it comes to the last, we are like the
good man who, on his dying bed, tried to pick out what was good and
what was bad of his own doings. He said he was a long while judging
them, but they were so much of a burden that he at last tied them all
up in one bundle and flung them over, and rested on Christ alone. That
is the very best thing for us all to do even now–

"None but Jesus, none but Jesus, Can do helpless sinners good." This
will not make you unholy but holy. If you believe this, you will seek
to honor and glorify God with all your might, and when you have done
all, you will feel that you are unprofitable servants. And into His
dear arms you will cast yourselves, and pray that the hands that were
pierced may still embrace you and keep you safe in death and in
eternity.

Now, the question to finish with is this, "Is Christ my way today?" Oh,
I know many of you could rise up and say, "Yes, He is, He is all my
salvation and all my desire–

"Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to the Cross I cling."

"My God, You know all things. You know my soul's only reliance is on
Your dying, Your risen, Your ever-living Son, who is my hope, my All."

But, perhaps there are some here who are not in this way, because they
do not even know it. I believe there is no doctrine so little known in
England as the Gospel. While a great many doctrines are preached, and
very properly so, and the precepts are preached, yet there are hearers
who have heard for years, and yet do not know this fundamental,
essential doctrine of the Gospel–that God laid sin on Christ that He
might take sin off from us, and punished Him that He might be Just and
yet the justifier of the ungodly. If you have never heard it before you
have heard it now. You will not perish, therefore, with that excuse. If
you put aside that way of salvation, it will not be because you have
never heard it. If you perish, there will be no excuse for you.

But there are some who do not believe this plan to be Divine. When they
hear it and understand it, they scrap it. Some will say it is
inconsistent with the pursuit of morality. Others will say it is
fantastic or unjust. One will say this and another that. But though the
Cross of Christ is to them that perish foolishness, to us who are saved
it is the wisdom of God and the power of God–and God forbid we should
preach any other Gospel to you. Some there are who even hate it. They
will gnash their teeth at the idea of being pardoned through the merit
of Another, their righteous self feels indignant at being insulted by
being put right out of the market.

Ah, cast not your soul away out of mere hate to God, but kiss Him whom
God has made King this day, and trust in Him who is Priest forever
after the order of Melchisedek, to put away the sin of man by His own
great sacrifice. Come now to Him and take the Atonement and the peace
which He brings. Some are not saved because they are too fearful to
come this way, but to such I would speak very gently. The bruised reed
He will not break, the smoking flax He will not quench. Let not your
sense of sin make you think little of my Master.

You are a great sinner, but He is a greater Savior. Do not say that you
have matched Christ, or overmatched Him. Come, Goliath Sinner, the Son
of David can conquer you or save you yet–"Though your sins are as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like
crimson, they shall be as wool." Think of David, how foully he had
transgressed, yet with all the lust stains, and the murder spots upon
him, he had faith enough to say, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be
clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

And so shall you be whiter than snow, when once the bloody sacrifice of
Christ in all its merit has become yours, as it may this very morning
if you simply trust in Him. May my God the Eternal Spirit, may my God
the blessed Father, may my God, even Jesus the Son, draw many reluctant
hearts now, and His shall be the praise. Amen.
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The Spur