The Sad Plight and Sure Relief

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly." Romans 5:6.

As I was sitting, the other day, with an aged Believer who is a local
preacher among our Wesleyan friends, he said to me, "I cannot hope, in
the course of nature, to stand up in the pulpit many more times.
Therefore, every time I preach now, I preach of nothing but Jesus
Christ. And I said to the people the other day, 'You will say when I am
dead and gone, Poor old Mr. So-and-So will come and preach to us no
more. But as he got older and older the more he preached about Jesus
Christ, till for the last few months of his life the old man never
spoke about anything but his Master.'" Then, as if confidentially
addressing himself to me, he said, "I should like to leave just that
impression upon the people's minds when I am taken from them."

The resolution seems to me so good that I think that it might be taken
up by us who are younger and adopted as our own. Paul, before he was,
"Paul the aged," said, "I determined not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." There is nothing like striking
at the center and keeping to vital points. And if we are keeping to
Christ crucified, we are keeping to that which will save souls, which
will build up Believers and which will glorify God. But, dear Friends,
if we might be allowed to go astray from this subject sometimes, yet
certainly not on an evening like this, when we are about to gather
around the Lord's Table which is loaded with the memorials of our
Redeemer's passion. Tonight, you who are Believers in Jesus ought to
have no eyes for any object but Him, no ear for any sound but that
which tells of Him–indeed, no hearts with which to relish any theme
save your crucified Lord. Blind, deaf, dead to every worldly
consideration, let us be just now, all alive, all awake and all aglow
with love to Him and the desire to have fellowship with Him.

Our text brings us at once to the Cross and it sheds a light upon our
former estate. Let us see where we were and what was needed to make us
the children of God. Do you ask, How did our Redeemer view us when He
died for us? The response is here clearly given, "When we were yet
without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Thus we
have a two-fold description of the state in which Christ viewed mankind
when He shed the blood of redemption. The men for whom His Propitiation
was offered, were "without strength," and they were "ungodly." If you
or I have any part or lot in the matchless death of Jesus, we must feel
ourselves to have been in just this condition, for it cannot have any
relation to any persons but those who, by nature, are "without
strength" and "ungodly."

I. THAT EACH MAN FOR WHOM CHRIST DIED WAS WITHOUT STRENGTH IS OBVIOUS.
He was legally weak. Before God's bar he had a weak case, a case
without strength. He stood up as a prisoner to be tried and of all the
cases that were ever brought into court his was the most destitute of
power. He was without strength. To make the case our own, as it really
is ours, we could not deny the charge that we had broken the Law. We
could not set up an alibi, nor could we put in a plea of extenuation.
The fact was clear. Our own conscience vouched for it, as well as the
record of God's Providence.

We could not make apologies, for we sinned willfully, sinned against
light and against knowledge, sinned repeatedly, sinned without any
necessity and sinned with an extravagant willfulness. We sinned with
many different aggravations. We sinned after we knew sin to be
exceedingly sinful before God and extremely injurious to ourselves.
Yes, we sinned deliberately and presumptuously when we knew the
penalty–when we understood what we should lose for lack of obedience
and what we should incur as the chastisement of transgression. I say
again, man's case is well described as being extremely weak.

Looked at legally, it is utterly without strength. No advocate who
understood the case would have ventured to plead it, except that one
glorious Advocate who did plead it, but at the cost of His own life. He
knew that if He undertook it and stood up to plead with God for us, He
must die for it, for it was a case in which, before the Law, we were
without

strength. We had no good works to be a setoff for our sin. We had no
hope of ever performing any in the future which could ever stand in the
place of the good works which ought to have been done in the past. The
case, put however it might be, broke down utterly–and the prisoner
himself, if, indeed, able to speak the truth, would be compelled to

say–

"Should sudden vengeance seize my breath,

I must confess You just in death.

And if my soul is sent to Hell,

Your righteous Law approves it well."

We were without strength. It was a bad case, altogether, and could not
be defended. And man, by nature, is morally weak. We are so weak by
nature that we are carried about like dust and driven to and fro by
every wind that blows. We are swayed by every influence which assails
us. Man is under the dominion of his own lusts–his pride, his sloth,
his love of ease, his love of pleasure. Man is such a fool that he will
buy pleasure at the most ruinous price. He will fling his soul away as
if it were some paltry toy and barter his eternal interests as if they
were but trash. For some petty pleasure of an hour he will risk the
health of his body. For some paltry gain, he will jeopardize his soul.
Alas! Alas! Poor Man, you are as light as the thistledown which goes
this way or that, as the wind may turn. In your moral constitution you
are as the weathercock which shifts with every breeze.

At one time man is driven by the world–the fashions of the age prevail
over him and he foolishly follows them. At another time a clique of
small people, notables in their little way, is in the ascendant and he
is afraid of his fellow men. Threats awe him, though they may be but
the frowns of his insignificant neighbors. Or he is bribed by the love
of approbation which may possibly mean no more than the nod of the
squire, or merely the recognition of an equal. So he sacrifices
principle and runs with the multitude to do evil. Then the evil spirit
comes upon him and the devil tempts him–and away he goes! There is
nothing which the devil can suggest to which man will not yield while
he is a stranger to Divine Grace. And if the devil should let him
alone, his own heart suffices. The pomp of this world, the lust of the
eyes, the pride of life–any of these things will drive men about at
random.

Look at them rushing to murder one another with shouts of joy! Look at
them returning blood-red from the battlefield! Listen to the
acclamations with which they are greeted because they have killed their
fellow men. Look at how they will go where poison is served to
them–they will drink it till their brain reels–and they fall upon the
ground intoxicated and helpless. This is pleasure which they pursue
with avidity and having yielded themselves up to it once, they will
repeat it over and over till the folly of an evil hour becomes the
habit of an abandoned life! Nothing seems to be too foolish, nothing
too wicked, nothing too insane for mankind. Man is morally weak–a
poor, crazy child. He has lost that strong hand of a well-trained
perfect reason which God gave him at the first. His understanding is
blinded and his foolish heart is darkened. And so Christ finds him,
when He comes to save him, morally without strength.

Now, I know I have described exactly the condition of some here. They
are emphatically without strength. They know how soon they yield. It is
only to put sufficient pressure upon them and they give way despite
their resolutions, for their strongest resolves are as weak as
reeds–and when but a little trial has come, away they go back to the
sins which in their conscience they condemn–though nevertheless they
continue to practice them. Here is man's state, then–legally condemned
and morally weak!

But, further, man is, above all things, spiritually without strength.
When Adam ate of the forbidden fruit he incurred the penalty of death
and we are all involved in that penalty. Not that he at once died
naturally, but he died spiritually. The blessed Spirit left him. He
became a soulish or natural man. And such are we. We have lost the very
Being of the Spirit by nature. If He comes to us, there is good need He
should, for He is not here in us by nature. We are not made partakers
of the Spirit at our natural birth. This is a gift from above to man.
He has lost it and the spirit–that vital element which the Holy Spirit
implants in us at regeneration–is not present in man by his original
generation. He has no spiritual faculties, he cannot hear the voice of
God, he cannot taste the sweets of holiness. He is dead, yes, and in
Scripture he is described as lying like the dry bones that have been
parched by the hot winds and are strewn in the valley dry, utterly dry.

Man is dead in sin. He cannot rise to God any more than the dead in the
grave can come out of their sepulchers by themselves and live. He is
without strength–utterly so. It is a terrible case, but this is what
the text says, "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly." Putting all these things into one, man, by
nature, where

Christ finds him, is utterly devoid of strength of every sort for
anything that is good–at least anything which is good in God's
sight–and acceptable unto God. It is of no use for him to sit down and
say, "I believe I can force my way into purity." Man, you are without
strength till God gives you strength! He may sometimes start up in a
kind of alarm and say, "It shall be done," but he falls back again,
like the madman who, after an attack of delirium, sinks, again, to his
old state. It will not be done. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or
the leopard his spots?" If so, then he that is accustomed to do evil
may learn to do well. Not till, by his own unaided strength can he
perform any right and noble purpose.

Now, what am I talking about? Man has no strength of his own at all! He
is without strength and there he lies– hopeless, helpless, ruined, and
undone, utterly destroyed–a splendid palace all in ruins, through
whose broken walls sweep desolate winds with fearful wailings. Man is
like a place where beasts of evil names and birds of foulest wings do
haunt–a palace majestic even in ruins, but still utterly ruined and
quite incapable of self-restoration. "Without strength." Alas! Alas!
Poor humanity! The persons for whom Christ died are viewed by Him from
the Cross as being "ungodly," that is to say, men without God. "God is
not in their thoughts." They can live for the month together and no
more remember Him than if there were no God. God is not in their
hearts. If they do remember Him, they do not love Him. God is scarcely
in their fears. They can take His name in vain, profane His Sabbaths
and use His name for blasphemy. God is not in their hopes. They do not
long to know Him, or to be with Him, or to be like He is. Practically,
unconverted men have said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His
voice?"

If they do not say it in so many words, they imply it by a daily
neglect of God. Even if they take up with religion, yet the natural man
sticks to the sentiments or the ritual that belong to his profession.
Subscribing to a creed, or observing a series of customs, he remains
utterly oblivious of that communion with God which all true religion
leads us to seek–and therefore he never gets to God. He adapts himself
to the outward form, but he does not discern the Spirit. He listens to
pious words, but he does not feel them. He joins in holy hymns, but his
heart does not sing. He even gets down on his knees and pretends to
pray, but all the while his heart is wandering far from God. He does
not commune with his Maker and he cannot, for he is alienated from his
Creator, or, as the text puts it, he is ungodly.

"Now," you say, "you have made man out to be a strange creature."
Believe me, I have not painted the picture one-half as black as it is,
nor can I. But do not be angry with me for so painting it. So much the
better for you, for now you see there is no man too bad to be included
in this description–without strength and ungodly. For such as these
did Christ die! The description of the men for whom Christ died has not
one letter of goodness in it. It describes them as hopelessly,
helplessly bad. Yet for such Christ died. O Sirs, I am not going to
tell you that Christ died for saints! He died for sinners, not for the
godly, but for the ungodly! He did not die for the strong in Divine
Grace, strong in morals and the like, but for those who were without
strength!

Truly I know He died for the saints, but who made them saints? When He
died for them they were sinners! I know He died for those whom He has
made "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might," but who made
them strong? When He died for them they were as weak as others. All the
difference between Peter in Heaven and Judas in Hell is a difference
made by free rich Sovereign Grace! There was the same raw material to
begin with in one as in another, and Jesus Christ looked upon men, not
at their best, when He laid down His life for their redemption, but at
their worst! This is clear, yes, it is self-evident–had they been
whole they would not have needed a physician–if they had not been lost
they would not have needed a Savior!

If the disease had not been very bad they would not have needed so
matchless a medicine as the blood of Christ–if they had not been
helplessly lost, there could have been no necessity for Omnipotence to
step in to effect their rescue! And had not the ruin been terrible to
the last degree, it would not have been demanded that God, Himself,
should come in human flesh and make expiation for guilt by His own
death upon the Cross. The glory of the remedy proves the desperateness
of the disease. The grandeur of the Savior is a sure evidence of the
terribleness of our lost condition. Look at it, then, and as man sinks,
Christ will rise in your esteem–and as you value the Savior, so you
will be more and more stricken with terror because of the greatness of
the sin which needed such a Savior to redeem us from it!

Thus I have described the way in which Christ viewed us when He died
for us. I only wish the Spirit of God would give to poor trembling
sinners the comfort which this doctrine ought to give. You will say,
"Oh, I am one of the worst in the world." Christ died for the worst in
the world! "Oh, but I have no power to be better." Christ died for
those that were without strength. "Oh, but my case condemns itself."
Christ died for those that legally are condemned. "Yes, but

my case is hopeless." Christ died for the hopeless! He is the hope of
the hopeless. He is the Savior, not of those partly lost, but of the
wholly lost! Your case, however bad it may be, must come within the
sweep of the glorious arm which wields the pierced hands! Christ came
to save the very vilest of the vile!

II. But now, secondly, the text tells us WHEN CHRIST INTERPOSED TO SAVE
US. "When we were yet without

strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." What does it mean
by, "due time"? Why, it means that the death of Christ occurred at a
proper period! I cannot suggest any other period in time which would
have been so judiciously chosen for the death of the Redeemer as the
one which God elected. Nor can I imagine any place more suitable than
Calvary, outside the gates of Jerusalem. There was no accident about
it. It was all fixed in the eternal purpose and for infinitely wise
reasons.

We do not know all the reasons and must not pretend to know them. but
we do know this, that at the time our Savior died, sin among mankind in
general had reached a climax. There never was a more debauched age. It
is impossible to read the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans,
and to understand its testimony, without feeling sick at the depravity
it records. It is such a desperate and altogether truthful description
of the infamous vices into which men had fallen in those days, that we
feel that they must have gone, in fact, beyond all that we could
suppose that the vilest imagination could have fabled! Indeed, so far
as our modern time is concerned, the annals of crime are silent as to
such atrocities. And for the most of us, it surpasses our belief that
licentiousness should ever have grown so extravagant in committing
willful violations of nature and indulging a propensity to revel in
loathsome folly and unnecessary vice.

Their own satirists said that there was no new vice that could be
invented. Any person who has passed through Naples by Herculaneum and
Pompeii, and seen the memorials of the state of society in which those
cities existed, will almost rue the day in which he ever saw what he
did–for there is no morgue that is so foul as was the common life of
the Romans of that age. And, in all probability, the Romans were as
good as any other nation then existing upon earth. Their very virtue
was but painted vice! What little of virtue had existed among mankind
before was gone. Socrates and Solon, so much vaunted everywhere, were
in the habit of practicing vices which I dare not mention in any modest
assembly. The very leaders of society would have done, openly, things
which we should now be committed to prison for mentioning–which it is
not lawful to think!

Society was rotten through and through. It was a stench and offensive
to the utmost by its corruption. But it was then, when man had got to
his worst, that on the bloody tree Christ, Himself, was lifted up to be
a standard of virtue– to be a bronze serpent for the cure of the
multitudes of mankind who everywhere were dying of the serpent bites!
Christ came at a time when the wisdom of man had got to a great height
and, whenever it does get to a great height, man becomes an
extraordinary fool! The various masters of philosophy were then going
up and down the earth seeking to dazzle men with the brightness of
their teaching. But their science was absurdity and their morals were a
systematized immorality. Putting the whole of it together, whatever was
true in what they taught, our most common Sunday school child
understands. But the bulk of it was altogether foolishness, couched in
paradoxical terms to make it look like wisdom. "The world by wisdom
knew not God."

But, surely, man had a religion at that time! He had, but man's
religion–well, the less we say about the religion which existed when
Christ came into the world the better. One of their own poets, speaking
of the Egyptians, ridiculed them by saying, "O happy people, who grow
your gods in your own kitchen garden!"–for they worshipped leeks and
onions! These well-trained and tutored people embalmed the ibis and the
cat, and made these objects of religious reverence. If you had stepped
into the temple of Isis anywhere, you would soon have discovered
emblems of the utmost obscenity. And the holy rites of the common
religion of the period–the holy rites, I say–done in honor of God
were acts of flagrant sin! The temples were abominable and the priests
were abominable beyond description. And where the best part of man, his
very religion, had become so foul, what could we expect of his ordinary
life?

To give a boy a Lempriere's Dictionary, as schoolmasters do, is, I
believe, to debauch that boy's mind, though the most of its execrable
records concern the religion of the period of which I am now speaking.
If such were the religion of the time, O God, what must its irreligion
have been? But was there not a true religion in the world, somewhere?
Yes, there was and it was in Judea. But those who inherited the canon
of Divine Revelation, what manner of men were they? Not one bit better
than the heathen, for they were gross hypocrites! Tradition had made
void the Law of God. Ritualism

had taken the place of spiritual worship. The Pharisee stood with
uplifted eyes and thanked God that he was not as other men were–when
he had in his pocket the deeds of a widow's estate of which he had
robbed her!

The Sadducee came forth and vaunted his superior light and
intelligence, while at the same time he betrayed his gross darkness and
his dire skepticism, for he said that there was no angel, or
resurrection, or spirit. The best men of the period in Christ's days
said to Him, because He was holy, "Away with such a fellow from the
earth!" I have heard men tell of king killers, as if they were strange
beings. But, O earth, you are a regicide! No, you are worse than that,
you are a Deicide, for did you not put the Son at God, Himself to
death? A certain flowery orator once said, "O Virtue, you are so fair
and lovely, that if you were to come on earth all men would adore you."
But Virtue did come on the earth, clothed not in helmet and in royal
cape, nor with iron hand to crush the sons of men, but He came in the
silken garments of love and peace, personified by the Incarnate Savior!
And what said the world to Virtue? They said, "Crucify Him, crucify
Him!" And the only answer the world could give to the question, "Why,
what evil has He done?" was, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" They would not
have Him live upon the face of the earth!

Now, it was when men had got to this pitch, in due time, that Christ
came to die for them. If He had sat up in Heaven and launched His
thunderbolts at them. If, from the heights of Glory, He had
commissioned His mailed seraphim and sworded cherubim to come and sweep
the whole race away–and bid the bottomless Pit open wide her jaws and
swallow up these disgusting creatures–none could have blamed Him. They
deserved it. But, instead of that, the pure and Holy One comes down to
earth, Himself, to suffer and to bleed and die, that these
wretches–yes, that we–might live through

Him!

Thus I have described how He looked upon us and at what time He came.

III. But now, thirdly–and, oh, that these lips had language, or that
this heart could do without poor lips to tell this tale–WHAT DID HE DO
FOR US? There we were. Do not think that you are any better than the
rest, or the worst, of our fallen race. If the current social habits
and the spread of Christian light make us outwardly better, we had only
to have been put in the circumstances of those heathen–and we should
soon have been as bad as they. The heart is corrupt in every case–and
yet Jesus came.

What did He do for us? Well, first, He made the fullest degree of
sacrifice that was possible. To lift us up He stooped. He made the
heavens and yet He lay in Bethlehem's manger! He hung the stars in
their places and laid the beams of the universe–and yet He became a
carpenter's son, giving up all His rank and dignity for love's dear
sake! And then when He grew up, He consented to be the Servant of
servants, and made Himself of no reputation. He took the lowest place–
"He was despised and rejected of men"–He gave up all ease and comfort,
for He had not where to lay His head. He gave up all health of body,
for He bore our sickness and He bared His back to the smiters that the
chastisement of our peace might fall upon Him. He gave up the last rag
He had, for they took His own clothes from Him, and upon His vesture
did they cast lots. He gave up, for the world, all esteem.

They called Him a blasphemer. Reproach broke His heart, but He gave
that heart up for us. He gave His body to the nails and His heart to
the spear–and He could do no more. When at last He gave his life, "It
is finished," He said. And they took down His mangled body from the
tree and laid it in the grave. Self-sacrifice had reached its climax!
Further, He could not go, but He could not have saved us if He had
stopped short of that. So lost, so utterly lost were we, that without
this extreme self-devotion–till it could be said, "He saved others;
Himself he could not save–without this self-devotion, I say, He could
not have saved so much as one of us! In the fact that Christ's
self-sacrifice went so far I see evidence of the extreme degree of our
need.

It may be thought, perhaps, that I speak in excitement when I describe
the lost estate of man. Sirs, I have felt that lost estate in my own
soul and I do but tell you what I know! And if you had ever felt
it–and I pray God you may, if you never have–you would admit that it
cannot be exaggerated. But look at this. I challenge any reasonable man
to controvert the position. Would He who is "God over all, blessed
forever," have come from the height of Heaven, given up all that is
grand and honorable, have made Himself of no reputation and have
humbled Himself even to the death, to save us, if it had not been a
most terrible ruin to which we were subject? Could there need such a
mighty heave of the eternal shoulders if it had not been a dead lift,
indeed? Here is something more than a Samson needed to pull up the
gates, posts and bars of our great dungeon–and carry all away upon His
mighty shoulders that we might never be prisoners again.

The splendid deed of Grace which Christ has accomplished was not a
triviality, it could not be, and therefore there must have been some
dire and urgent ruin imminent upon the sons of men for Christ to make
so tremendous a sacrifice as to bleed and die for us! And, mark,
Brothers and Sisters, while this death of Christ was to Him the height
of sacrifice. And while it proved the depth of our ruin, it was the
surest way of our deliverance! Behold how man has broken the Law! Can
you help him? Can you help him, you pure spirits that stand around the
Throne of God? Can you help him? Can you come and encourage him, cheer
him, give him hope that, perhaps, he may do better? Your encouragements
are all in vain, for you encourage him to do what cannot be done! He is
so ruined that the case is beyond your aid.

But suppose God, Himself, should take account of it? Yes, now there is
hope for him! But, perhaps, God should show His pity and give His
counsel–that would not go far in helping him. Then were the hope but
slender. But what if God will go as far as ever God can go–does that
need correction? No, let it stand! I cannot speak more correctly than
that. I know of nothing that God, the Eternal, Himself, could do more
than to become Incarnate and, in human flesh, to bleed and die for man!
God has here shown all the attributes and perfections of His Godhead.
What can I say more? He has purposed and effected the utmost that
Infinite Love can do for our infinite wretchedness! Well, if God will
do so much that no more can be done, and God is Infinite, then, depend
upon it, that is the surest thing to be done! It claims admiration and
defies argument while it excites inquiry.

Do you ask how He will do it? Well, Christ shall take upon Himself the
responsibility for this sin. He shall stand in the sinner's place. He
shall be punished as if He had committed the sin, though in Him was no
sin! The vials of wrath that were due to human transgression shall be
poured upon Him. The sword of Justice that ought to be sheathed in the
sinner's breast shall be plunged into the Savior's heart. Ah, was there
ever such a plan devised? The Just dies for the unjust! The offended
Judge, Himself, suffers for the offense against His own Law! Oh,
matchless plan! This, indeed, makes sure work for man–for now it takes
him, sinful and lost as he is–and puts Another in his place who is
able to bear his sin and puts man into the place of that Other. Yes,
hear it! It puts the sinner into the Savior's place–and God looks upon
the Savior as if He had been the sinner! And then upon the sinner as if
he had been the Perfect One. There is a transposition! Christ and the
sinner change places! He was made sin for us that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.

This is the way to do it. Yes, and this is the way to sweep out of the
path all attempts on our part to help, for this was so great a work
that Jesus Christ, Himself, must sweat while He did it! He must bleed
His soul away to accomplish it. O you self-righteous ones, stand back!
With broken limbs and dislocated bones you come hobbling up to help
this glorious Champion. Away with you! You are without strength and you
are ungodly by nature. What can you do in this great enterprise? Christ
has done it and every part of it is such a wondrous transaction that
the very majesty thereof might make self-righteousness cover its face
and fly away abashed, crying, "O God, I must lie down and die. I cannot
live. I have seen the righteousness of Christ and there is no more room
for me!" Come, Brothers and Sisters, since my words fail to set out
what the Savior has done, I want you to think it over and I want you to
love Him.

For my part, I want to love and adore Him, too, with all my heart, soul
and strength, for dying for me, for standing in my place, that I, a
lost, condemned and all but damned sinner, might yet live and be
justified and be loved and adopted and accepted–and at last crowned
with glory for His dear sake!

IV. Time fails me and, therefore, I must hurry to the last point, which
is, What then? What then? "Christ died for the ungodly." What then?
Then sin cannot shut any man out from the Grace of God if he believes.
The man says, "I am without strength." Christ died for us when we were
without strength. The man says, "I am ungodly." Christ died for the
ungodly. I remember how Martin Luther hammers on that word, "He gave
Himself for our sins." "There," says Martin, "it does not say He gave
Himself for our virtues. He thinks better of our sins than our
virtues," he says. "He gave Himself for our sins." He never says a word
about our excellencies–never a syllable about our goodness. Rotten
trash! But He gave Himself for our sins!"

"Oh," says a man, "I would come to Christ if I were cleaner." Man, He
did not die for the clean–He died for the filthy, that He might make
them clean. "I would come to the Great Physician," says one, "if I were
whole." Man, He never came to die for those that are whole! The
physician does not come to cure those that are whole, but those that
are sick. Look at it in this light. If you have committed every crime
in the whole catalog of sin, no matter what that crime may be, if you
will repent of it and look to Christ, there is pardon for you! There is
more–there is a new life for you–

and a new heart for you. There is a new birth for you, so complete you
shall be no more a child of Satan, but a child of God! And that is to
be had now. Oh, the splendor of the Grace of God! Our sins stand like
some tremendous mountain, and the Grace of God plucks that mountain
right up by its roots and hurls it into the sea!

It shall never be seen again. Christ's blood shall cover it. Christ
shall be seen and not you. He will stand between you and God, and God
will see you through the wounds of Christ if you believe in Him–and
you shall be "accepted in the Beloved." I have not put this too
strongly, either. The text says, "When we were without strength He died
for the ungodly," and it is to the ungodly and those without strength
that this message is sent. But, what then? What more? Why, then, Jesus
will never cast away a Believer for his future sins–for if when we
were without strength He died for us, if, when we were ungodly, He
interposed on our behalf–will He leave us now that He has made us
godly?

Did you notice the argument of the whole chapter as it was read to you
just now? It is the strongest and most unassailable argument that I can
deem possible. The Apostle declares that, "God commends His love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us: much more
then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through Him; for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved
through His life."

Notice the triple cord of reasoning employed here. When we were
enemies, He blessed us. Much more, now that we are reconciled. When we
were enemies, He reconciled us–will He not now save us? Shall those
who are reconciled be afterwards left to perish? And since we are so
freely and fully saved by the death of Christ, much more shall we be
saved by His life! If His death did so much, much more must His life be
a motive for our confidence. Oh, it is clear! It is clear! It is clear!
Though I may have backslidden and may have sinned, yet I have only to
go back to my Father and say, "Father, I have sinned," and I am still
His child and He will fall upon my neck and kiss me! And I shall yet
sit at His table and hear music and dancing, because He that was lost
is found! It is clear, now, from the text.

Again, it is equally clear that every blessing any child of God can
need he can have. He that spared not His own Son, when we were without
strength and ungodly, cannot deny us inferior blessings now that we are
His own dear children! Go, child of God, go with confidence to your
heavenly Father! He gave you Jesus, what can He keep back from you?
What then? Let us ask the question once more and I think a spontaneous
outflow of gratitude should furnish the reply. If, when we were without
strength, Christ died for the ungodly, let us praise Him! Let us praise
Him! Let us praise Him! Oh, if He came when there was nothing to draw
Him–when, if He looked us through and through He could not see a good
point in us–if He loved us so that He would save us when we were
altogether bad, hopeless and helpless, why, the very least thing we can
ever do is to love Him and praise Him as long as we have any being!

I am of that old woman's mind who said, "If Jesus Christ does save me,
He shall never hear the end of it." Nor shall He. We will talk of it
and we will praise Him. And we will bless Him for it as long as
immortality endures. "What, does Christ Jesus take the utterly
unworthy?" Yes, just so! Then, when He takes them, how they will serve
Him! Love Him? Love Him? Is there any question about it? When He has
forgiven me everything freely and saved me by the shedding of His own
blood, can I not love Him? I were worse than a devil if I did not love
Him! Yes, while this heart can beat–while memory holds her throne–His
name shall be dearest of all names, and His service the pleasure of my
life, if He does but give me Grace to stand to this!

Do you say the same, Beloved? I am sure you do! And may He of His mercy
touch the heart of some great sinner tonight! Perhaps there is a woman
that is a sinner, here. Oh, that you may come to wash His feet with
your tears and wipe them with the hairs of your head, because of His
love to you! Perhaps there is some thief here. Oh, that you might be
with Him in Paradise! And I am sure, if He pronounces you absolved, you
will sing more sweetly in Heaven than any other, because of what He has
done for you! Blessed be Your name, O Son of God, forever and forever!
And all our hearts say, "Amen."

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Romans 5
__________________________________________________________________

An Earnest Warning about Lukewarmness