The Gospel’S Power In A Christian’S Life

The Gospel'S Power In A Christian'S Life

A SERMON PREACHED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
NEWINGTON.

"Only let your conversation be as it becomes the Gospel of Christ"
Philippians 1:27.

THE word "conversation" does not merely mean our talk, one with
another, but the whole course of our life and behavior in the world.
The Greek word signifies the actions and the privileges of citizenship
and we are to let our whole citizenship–our actions as citizens of the
new Jerusalem–be such as becomes the Gospel of Christ. Observe, dear
Friends, the difference between the exhortations of the legalists and
those of the Gospel. He who would have you perfect in the flesh exhorts
you to workthat you may be saved, that you may accomplish a meritorious
righteousness of your own and so may be accepted before God.

But he who teaches the doctrines of Divine Grace urges you to holiness
for quite another reason. He teaches you are saved because you believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ and he speaks to as many as are saved in Jesus
and asks them to make their actions conformable to their position. He
only seeks what he may reasonably expect to receive–"Let your
conversation be such as becomes the Gospel of Christ. You have been
saved by it, you profess to glory in it, you desire to extend it. Let,
then, your conversation be such as becomes it."

The one, you perceive, bids you to workthat you may enter Heaven by
your working. The other exhorts you to labor because Heaven is yours as
the gift of Divine Grace and he would have you act as one who is made
meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. Some
persons cannot hear an exhortation without at once crying out that we
are legal. Such persons will always find this Tabernacle the wrong
place for them to feed in. We are delighted to preach good high
doctrine and to insist upon it that salvation is of Grace alone! But we
are equally delighted to preach good high practice and to insist upon
it, that that grace which does not make a man better than his neighbors
is a grace which will never take him to Heaven, nor render him
acceptable before God!

I have already remarked that the exhortation is given in a form which
is highly reasonable. The followers of any other religion, as a rule,
are conformed to their religion. No nation has ever yet risen above the
character of its so-called gods. Look at the disciples of Venus–were
they not sunk deep in licentiousness? Look at the worshippers of
Bacchus– let their Bacchanalian rebels tell how they entered into the
character of their deity. The worshippers to this day of the goddess
Kale–the goddess of thieves and murderers–the Thugs–enter most
heartily into the spirit of the idol that they worship.

We do not marvel at the crimes of the ancients when we recollect the
gods whom they adored–Moloch, who delighted in the blood of little
children. Jupiter, Mercury and the like, whose actions stored in the
classical dictionary are enough to pollute the minds of youth. We
marvel not that licentiousness abounded, for "like gods, like people."
"A people are never better than their religion," it has often been
said–but in most cases they are rather worse. It is strictly in
accordance with nature that a man's religion should season his
conversation. Paul puts it, therefore, to you who profess to be saved
by Jesus Christ, "Let your conversation be as it becomes the Gospel of
Christ."

To get at this we must meditate for two or three minutes upon what the
Gospel is, then take up the points in which our conversation ought to
be like to the Gospel. And finally, utter a few earnest words to press
upon professors of religion here the stern necessity of letting their
conversation be such as becomes the Gospel of Christ.

I. "THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST!" WHAT IS IT? We look at the last two words,
"of Christ." Indeed, if you understand Christ you understand the
Gospel. Christ is the Author of it. He, in the council chamber of
eternity proposed to become the Surety for poor fallen man! He, in the
fullness of time, worked out eternal redemption for as many as His
Father had given Him. He is the Author of it as its Architect and as
its Builder. We see in Christ Jesus the Alpha and the

Omega of the Gospel. He has provided, in the treasury of Grace, all
that is necessary to make the Gospel the Gospel of our salvation.

And as He is the Author of it, so He is the matter of it. It is
impossible to preach the Gospel without preaching the Person, the work,
the offices, the Character of Christ. If Christ is preached, the Gospel
is promulgated and if Christ is put in the background, then there is no
Gospel declared. "God forbid that I should know anything among you,"
said the Apostle, "save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." And so saying,
he was carrying out his commission to preach the Gospel both to Jews
and to Gentiles. The sum total, the essential, the marrow–what the old
Puritans would have called the quintessence of the Gospel–is Christ
Jesus! So that when we have done preaching the Gospel we may say, "Now
of the things which we have spoken He is the sum," and we may point to
Him in the manger, to Him on the Cross, to Him risen, to Him coming in
the second advent, to Him reigning as Prince of the kings of the
earth–yes, point to Him everywhere–as the sum total of the Gospel.

It is also called "the Gospel of Christ," because it is He who will be
the Finisher of it. He will put the finishing stroke to the work as He
laid the foundation stone. The Believer does not begin in Christ and
then seek perfection in himself. No, as we run the heavenly race we are
still looking to Jesus! As His hand first tore away the sin which does
so easily beset us and helped us to run the race with patience, so that
same hand shall hold out the olive branch of victory, shall weave it
into a chaplet of Glory and put it about our brow. It is the Gospel of
Jesus Christ–His property. It glorifies His Person. It is sweet with
the savor of His name. It bears throughout the mark of His artistic
fingers. If the heavens are the work of God's fingers and the moon and
the stars are by His ordinance, so we may say of the whole plan of
salvation–the whole of it, great Jesus, is Your workmanship and by
Your ordinance it stands fast!

It is "the Gospel of Jesus Christ," and though hundreds of times this
has been explained, it will not be amiss to go over it again. It is the
"good-spell," the "good news" of Jesus Christ and it is "good news"
emphatically, because it clears away sin–the worst evil on earth.
Better still, it sweeps away death and Hell! Christ came into the world
to take sin upon His shoulders and to carry it away, hurling it into
the red sea of His atoning blood. Christ, the Scapegoat, took the sin
of His people upon His own head and bore it all away into the
wilderness of forgetfulness, where, if it is searched for, it shall be
found no more forever.

This is "good news," for it tells that the cancer at the vitals of
humanity has been cured! That the leprosy which rose even to the very
brow of manhood has been taken away! Christ has filled a better stream
than the river Jordan and now says to the sons of men, "Go, wash and be
clean." Besides removing the worst of ills, the Gospel is "good news"
because it brings the best of blessings. What does it do but give life
to the dead? It opens dumb lips, unstops deaf ears and unseals blind
eyes! Does it not make earth the abode of peace? Has it not shut the
doors of Hell upon Believers and opened the gates of Heaven to all who
have learned to trust in Jesus' name? "Good news?" Why that word "good"
has got a double meaning when it is applied to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ!

Well were angels employed to go and tell it and happy are the men who
spend and are spent in the proclamation of such glad tidings of great
joy. "God is reconciled!" "Peace on earth!" "Glory to God in the
highest!" "Goodwill towards men!" God is glorified in salvation,
sinners are delivered from the wrath to come and Hell does not receive
the multitudes of men, but Heaven is filled with the countless host
redeemed by blood! It is "good news," too, because it is a thing that
could not have been invented by the human intellect. It was news to
angels!–They have not ceased to wonder at it yet! They still stand
looking upon the Mercy Seat, desiring to know more of it. It will be
news in eternity! We shall–

"Sing with rapture and surprise, His loving kindness in the skies." The
"good news," put simply into a few words, is just this–"that God was
in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them." "God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life." "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." So
much, then, for what the Gospel is.

II. Now I am not going to speak to those who do not welcome the
Gospel–I will speak to them another time. I pray God helps them to
believe it, but today I have especially to speak to Believers. The text
says we are to LET OUR CONVERSATION BE SUCH AS BECOMES THE GOSPEL. What
sort of conversation, then, shall we have? In the first place the
Gospel is very simple. It is unadorned–no meretricious ornaments to
clog the pile. It is simple–"not with enticing words of man's wisdom."
It is grandly sublime in its simplicity. Let the Christian be such. It
does not become the Christian minister to be arrayed in blue and
scarlet and fine linen and vestments and robes–these belong to
Antichrist and are described in the book of the Revelation as the sure
marks of the whore of Babylon.

It does not become the Christian man or the Christian woman to be
guilty of spending hours in the adornment of his or her person. Our
adornment should be "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit." There
should be about our manner, our speech, our dress, our whole behavior
that simplicity which is the very soul of beauty. Those who labor to
make themselves admirable in appearance, by gaudy ornaments, miss the
road. Beauty is its own adornment and, "she is most adorned when
unadorned the most."

The Christian man ought always to be simple in all respects. I think
wherever you find him, you ought not to need a key to him. He should
not be like certain books that you cannot make out without having
somebody tell you the hard words. He should be a transparent man like
Nathaniel–"an Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no guile." The man
who catches the spirit of his Master is, like Christ, a child-man, a
man-child. You know they called Him, "that holy Child, Jesus." So let
us be, remembering that, "Except we are converted and become as little
children," who are eminently simple and child-like, "we cannot enter
into the kingdom of Heaven."

In the next place, if our conversation is such as becomes the Gospel,
we shall remember that the Gospel is preeminently true. There is
nothing in the Gospel which is false–no admixture, nothing put in as
an "argumentum ad ho-minem" to catch the popular ear. It tells the
Truth–the naked Truth–and if men dislike it, the Gospel cannot help
it. It is gold without dross. It is pure water without admixture. Now
such should the Christian be. He should make his conversation true. The
saints are men of honor, but sometimes, Brethren, I think that many of
us talk too much to speak nothing but the Truth of God.

I do not know how people could bring out broadsheets every morning with
so much news if it were all true! I suppose there must be a little
padding to fill it up and some of that is very poor stuff. And people
that keep on talking, talking, talking, cannot grind all meal–surely
it must be, some of it–rather coarse bran. And in the conversation of
a good many professing Christians, how munch there is that is scandal,
if not slander, uttered against other Christians? How much
uncharitableness, if not willful falsehood, is spoken by some
professors? Too often a rebuke is taken up heedlessly and repeated
without any care being taken to ascertain whether it is true or not.

The Christian's lips should speak truth when falsehood drops from the
lips of all other men. A Christian man should never need to take an
oath because his word is as good as an oath–his, "yes," should be,
"yes." And his, "no, no." It is for him to so live and speak that he
shall be in good repute in all society–if not for the etiquette of his
manners, certainly for the truthfulness of his utterances! Show me a
man that is habitually or frequently a liar and you show me a man who
will have his portion in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone!

I do not care to what denomination of Christians he may belong, if a
man speaks the thing that is not, I am sure he is none of Christ's. And
it is very sad to know that there are some in all fellowships who have
this great and grievous fault–that you cannot trust them in what they
say. God deliver us from that! Let our conversation be such as becomes
the Gospel of Christ and then it will be invariably truthful! Or, if
there is error in it, it will always be through misadventure and never
on purpose or from carelessness.

In the next place, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a very fearless
Gospel. It is the very reverse of that pretty thing called "modern
charity." The last created devil is "modern charity." "Modern charity"
goes cap in hand round to us all, and it says, "You are all right,
every one of you! Do not quarrel any longer! Sectarianism is a horrid
thing–down with it! Down with it!" And so it tries to induce all sorts
of persons to withhold a part of what they believe–to silence the
testimony of all Christians upon points wherein they differ. I believe
that that thing called Sectarianism nowadays is none other than true
honesty.

Be a Sectarian, my Brother–be profoundly a Sectarian! I mean, by that,
hold everything which you see to be in God's Word with a tighter grasp
and do not give up even the little pieces of Truth. At the same time,
let that Sectarianism which makes you hate another man because he does
not agree with you–let that be far from you! But never consent to that
unholy league and covenant which seems to be rife throughout our
country which would put a padlock on the mouth of every man and send us
all about as if we were dumb–which says to me, "You must not speak
against the errors of such-and-such a Church." And to another, "You
must not reply." We cannot but speak! If we did not, the stones in the
street might cry out against us!

That kind of charity is unknown to the Gospel. Now hear the Word of
God! "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved. He that believes
not"–what?–"shall get to Heaven some other way?" NO!–"shall be
damned"! That is the Gospel. You perceive how boldly it launches out
its censure? It does not pretend, "you may reject Me and go by another
road and at last get safely to your journey's end!" No, no, no!–You
"shall be damned," it says! Do you not perceive how Christ puts it?
Some teachers come into the world and say to all, "Yes, Gentlemen, by
your leave, you are all right. I have a point or two that you have not
taught, just make room for me–I will not turn you out. I can stand in
the same temple as yourself."

But hear what Christ says–"All that ever came before Me were thieves
and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them." Hear what His servant
Paul says, "Though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other Gospel
unto you than that which we have preached unto you,"–what then?–"Let
him be excused for his mistake?" No! But, "Let him be accursed"! Now
this is strong language, but mark you, this is just how the Christian
ought to live! As the Gospel is very fearless in what it has to say, so
let the Christian always be. It strikes me that a "living" which
becomes the Gospel of Christ is always a bold and fearless kind of
living!

Some people go crawling through the world as if they asked some great
man's permission to live. They do not know their own minds. They take
their words out of their mouths and look at them and ask a friend or
two's opinion. "What do you think of these words?" And when these
friends censure them they put them in again and will not say them. Like
jellyfish, they have no backbone. Now God has made men upright and it
is a noble thing for a man to stand erect on his own feet. And it is a
nobler thing, still, for a man to say that in Christ Jesus he has
received that freedom which is freedom, indeed, and therefore he will
not be the slave of any man.

"O God," says David, "I am Your servant, for You have loosed my bonds."
Happy is he whose bonds are loosed! Let your eyes be like that of an
eagle, yes, let them be brighter still! Let them never be dimmed by the
eyes of any other man. Let your heart be like that of the lion,
fearless! Say of yourself–

"Careless, myself a dying man, Of dying men's esteem,"

I must live as in the sight of God, as I believe I should live, and
then let man say his best or say his worst–it shall be no more than
the chirping of a grasshopper when the sun goes down. "Who are you that
you should be afraid of a man that shall die, or the son of man that is
but a worm?" Make yourselves like men! Be strong! Fear not! For only so
will your conversation be such as becomes the Gospel of Christ.

But again, the Gospel of Christ is very gentle. Hear it speak! "Come
unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you
rest." Here is its spirit in its Founder–"He will not quench the
smoking flax. A bruised reed He will not break." Moreover, bad temper,
snapping off of people's heads, making men offenders for a word–all
this is quite contrary to the Gospel. There are some people who seem to
have been nursed upon vinegar and whose entire attitude far better
suits Sinai than Zion. You might think that they had always come to the
mount that might not be touched, which burns with fire, for they seem,
themselves, to burn with fire. I may say to them that the best of them
is sharper than a thorn hedge.

Now, dear Friends, let it never be so with us. Be firm, be bold, be
fearless–but be cautious! If you have a lion's heart, have a lady's
hand. Let there be such a gentleness about your carriage that the
little children may not be afraid to come to you and the publican and
harlot may not be driven away by your hostility, but invited to
goodness by the gentleness of your words and acts. Again, the Gospel of
Christ is very loving. It is the speech of the God of Love to a lost
and fallen race. It tells us, "God so loved the world, that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life."

It proclaims in every Word the Divine Grace of Him "who loved us and
gave Himself for us." "Greater love has no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his friends." This same mind which was in Christ
Jesus should dwell richly in us. His last command to His disciples was,
"Love one another." He that loves is born of God, while without this
Grace, whatever we may think of ourselves, or others may think of us,
we are really, in God's sight, nothing better than sounding brass and
tinkling cymbals. Is not this an age in which we shall do well to
direct our attention to the flower of

Paradise? The atmosphere of the Church should foster this heavenly
plant to the highest perfection. The world ought to point to us and
say, "See how these Christians love one another? Not in word only, but
in deed and in truth!"

I care not for that love which calls me a dearly beloved Brother and
then if I happen to differ in sentiment and practice, treats me as a
schismatic, denies me the rights of the brotherhood, and if I do not
choose to subscribe to an arbitrarily imposed contribution to its
funds, seizes my goods and sells them in the name of the law, order and
Church of Christ! From all such shall our good Lord deliver us! But oh,
for more real hearty union and love to all the saints–for more of that
realization of the fact that we are one in Christ Jesus.

At the same time pray for more love to allmen. We ought to love all our
hearers, and the Gospel is to be preached by us to every creature. I
hate sin everywhere, but I love and wish to love yet more and more
every day the souls of the worst and vilest of men. Yes, the Gospel
speaks of love and I must breathe it forth, too, in every act and deed.
If our Lord was Love Incarnate, and we are His disciples, "let all take
knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus and learned of Him."

The Gospel of Christ, again, is the Gospel of mercy and if any man
would act as becomes the Gospel, he must be a man of mercy. Do I see
him? He is praying. He has been to the sacramental table and he has
been drinking the wine which betokens the Savior's blood–what a good
man he is! See him on Monday–he has got his hands on his Brother's
throat, with–"Pay me what you owe!" Is that such as becomes the Gospel
of Christ? There he sits–he will give his subscription to a charity,
but he will grind down the needle-woman! He will get fat on her blood
and bones! He will take a grasp, if he can, of the poor and sell them
and devour them as though they were bread and yet, at the same time,
"for a pretense he will make long prayers."

Is this such as becomes the Gospel of Christ? I think not. The Gospel
of Christ is mercy, generosity, liberality. It receives the beggar and
hears his cry! It picks up even the vile and undeserving and scatters
lavish blessings upon them and it fills the bosom of the naked and of
the hungry with good things. Let your conversation be such as becomes
the Gospel of Christ! You miserly and stingy people have not a
conversation such as becomes the Gospel of Christ! There might be
plenty of money for God's treasury, for God's Church and for God's poor
if there were not some who seem to live only to amass and to hoard!

Their life is diametrically opposed to the whole current and spirit of
the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Forgive all who offend you! Help all, as
far as you are able to do it, live a life of unselfishness! Be
prepared, as much as lies in you, to do good unto all men and
especially to the household of faith! And so shall your conversation be
such as becomes the Gospel of Christ. I must not, however, omit to say
that the Gospel of Christ is holy. You cannot find it excusing sin. It
pardons it, but not without an Atonement so dreadful that sin never
seems so exceedingly sinful as in the act of mercy which puts it away.

"Holy! Holy! Holy!" is the cry of the Gospel–and such is the cry of
cherubim and seraphim. Now, if our conversation is to be like the
Gospel, we must be holy, too. There are some things which the Christian
must not even name, much less indulge in. The grosser vices are to him
things to be hidden behind the curtain and totally unknown. The
amusements and pleasures of the world, so far as they may be innocent,
are his, as they are other men's. But wherein they become sinful or
doubtful, he discards them with disgust, for he has secret sources
ofjoy and needs not, therefore, to go and drink of that muddy river of
which thirsty worldlings are so fond. He seeks to be holy, as Christ is
holy. And there is no conversation which becomes the Gospel of Christ
except that.

III. Dear Friends, I might thus continue, for the subject is a very
wide one. But I stop because, unhappily for me, though perhaps happily
for your patience, my time has gone. Having just indicated what the
Christian life ought to be, I must, in a few words, plead with you that
by the power of God's Holy Spirit you will seek to make your lives
such. I could mention many reasons–I will only give you one or two.

The first is, if you do not live like this, you will make your fellow
members who are innocent of your sin, suffer. This ought to be a very
convincing motive. If a Christian man could dishonor himself and bear
the blame alone, why he might put up with it, but you cannot! I say,
Sir, if you are seen intoxicated, or if you are known to fall into some
sin of the flesh, you will make the life of every poor girl in the
Church harder than it is. And every poor young man who has to put up
with persecution will feel that you have put a sting into the arrows of
the wicked which could not otherwise have been there. You sin against
the congregation of God's people!

I know there are some of you here that have to suffer a good deal for
Christ's sake. The jeer rings in your ears from morning to night and
you learn to put up with it manfully. But it is very hard when they can
say to you, "Look at So-and-So–he is a Church member! Look at what he
did–you are alla parcel of hypocrites!" Now, my dear Friends, you know
that is not true! You know that there are many in our churches of whom
the world is not worthy–the excellent, the devout, the Christ-like. Do
not sin, then, for their sakes, lest you make them to be grieved and
sorely vexed.

Again, do you not see how you make your Lord to suffer, for they do not
lay your sins at your door merely, but they say that springs from your
religion. If they would impute the folly to the fool I might not care!
But they impute it to the wisdom which must have made that fool wise if
he could have learned. They will lay it to my door–that does not
matter much–I have long lost my character! But I cannot bear it should
be laid at Christ's door–at the door of the Gospel.

When I said just now that I had lost my character, I meant just
this–that the world loathes me and I would not have it do otherwise!
So let it, I say–there is no love lost between us. If the world hates
Christ's minister, he can only say he desires that he may never inherit
the curse of those who love the world, "in whom the love of the Father
is not." Yet it has ever been the lot of the true Christian minister to
be the butt of slander and, nevertheless, to glory in the Cross with
all its shame.

But I know, dear Friends, you would not, any of you, wish that I should
bear the reproach of your sins and yet I have to do it very often–not
very often for many, but for some. There are those, of whom I might
tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the Cross of
Christ. And some others whom we would pluck out of the fire, hating the
garment spotted with the flesh–they bring sad dishonor upon us, upon
the ministry–upon the Gospel and upon Christ Himself. You do not want
to do that! At least, I hope you do not. Then let your conversation be
such as becomes the Gospel of Christ!

And then, remember, dear Friends, unless your conversation is such, you
will pull down all the witness that you have ever borne for Christ. How
can your Sunday school children believe what you tell them when they
see your actions contradict your teaching? How can your own children at
home believe in your religion when they see the godlessness of your
life? The men at the factory will not believe in your going to Prayer
Meeting when they see you walking inconsistently among them. Oh, the
great thing the Church needs is more holiness! The worst enemies of the
Church are not the infidels–really, one does not know who the infidels
are nowadays–they are so small a fry and so few of them, that one
would have to hunt to find them out!

No, the worst enemies of the Church are the hypocrites, the formalists,
the mere professors, the inconsistent walkers. You, if there are any
such here–you pull down the walls of Jerusalem, you open the gates to
her foes and, as much as lies in you, you serve the devil! May God
forgive you! May Christ forgive you! May you be washed from this
atrocious sin! May you be brought humbly to the foot of the Cross to
accept mercy, which, until now, you have rejected! It is shocking to
think how persons dare to remain members of Christian churches and even
to enter the pulpit when they are conscious that their private life is
foul! Oh, how can they do it?

How is it that their hearts have grown so hard? What? Has the devil
bewitched them? Has he turned them away from being men and made them as
devilish as himself that they should dare to pray in public and to sit
at the sacramental table and to administer ordinances while their hands
are foul and their hearts unclean, and their lives are full of sin? I
charge you, if there are any of you whose lives are not consistent,
give up your profession, or else make your lives what they should be!

May the eternal Spirit, who still winnows His Church, blow away the
chaff and heave only the good golden wheat upon the floor! And if you
know yourselves to be living in any sin, may God help you to mourn over
it, to loathe it, to go to Christ about it tonight–to take hold of
Him, to wash His feet with your tears, to repent unfeignedly–and then
to begin anew in His strength a life which shall be such as becomes the
Gospel. I think I hear some ungodly person here saying, "Well I do not
make any profession, I am all right."

Now, listen, dear Friend, listen! I have got a word for you. A man is
brought up before the magistrates and he says, "Well, I never made any
profession of being an honest man." "Oh," says the magistrate, "there
is six months for you then." You see, he is a villain outright! And you
that say "Oh, I never made any profession," why, by putting yourselves
on that ground, you place yourselves among the condemned ones! But some
people make a boast of it. "I never made a profession." Never made a
profession of doing your duty to your Maker? Never made a profession of
being obedient to the God in whose hands your breath is? Never made a
profession of being obedient to the Gospel?

Why, it will be very short work with you, when you come to be tried at
last. There will need to be no witnesses, for you never made a
profession–you never pretended to be right. What would you think of a
man who said, "Well, I never made a profession of speaking the truth."
"Well," says another, "I never made a profession of being chaste." Why,
you would say, "Let us get out of this fellow's company, because
evidently nothing but evil can come from him for he is not good enough
even to make a profession!"

Now I put that strongly that you may remember it! Will you go home and
just meditate on this–"I never made a profession of being saved. I
never made a profession of repenting of my sins and therefore I am
every day making a profession of being God's enemy–of being
impenitent, of being unbelieving! And when the devil comes to look for
his own he will know me, for I make a profession of being one of his by
not making a profession ofbeing one of Christ's" ?

The fact is, I pray God to bring us all here first, to be Christ's, and
then to make a profession of it. Oh that your heart might be washed in
Jesus' blood and then, having given it to Christ, give it to Christ's
people! The Lord bless these words of mine for Jesus' sake. Amen.