Unknown Depths and Heights

Unknown Depths and Heights

(No. 3068)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1907.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING IN
THE YEAR 1861.

"Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they
do." Luke 23:34.

[Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon Christ's cries from the Cross (in
addition to those mentioned later) are as follows: #2562, Volume
44–CRIES FROM THE CROSS; #2803, Volume 48–THE SADDEST CRY FROM THE
CROSS; #2344, Volume 40–CHRIST'S DYING WORDS FOR HIS CHURCH; #2311,
Volume 39– OUR LORD'S LAST CRY FROM THE CROSS and #2644, Volume
45–THE LAST WORDS OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS.]

IT needs a tongue as eloquent as that which uttered these words to
fitly describe the scene before us. Christ, the King of kings, and yet
the sorrowful Substitute for sinners, has been stripped naked. The
mocking soldiers have unconsciously fulfilled the Scripture which said,
"They parted My raiment among them, and for My vesture they did cast
lots." He has been thrown roughly to the ground. His legs and arms have
been stretched out upon the transverse wood. Rough hands have grasped
the cruel nails. Stern blows have been dealt with the heavy hammer–He
now begins to know the physical sufferings of crucifixion. He looks
down to the faces of the men who have been putting him to exquisite
torture and to bitter shame and utters not a single word of complaint,
much less of accusation or of vengeance. And He breathes a prayer,
"Father, forgive them"–My murderers, the rough men who have stripped
Me, the cruel men who have nailed My hands and pierced My
feet–"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Brothers and Sisters, the sayings of Christ upon the Cross have a
deeper meaning than that which appears upon the surface. They were
texts of which His eternal life should be the sermon–they were no
common words. As no Word of Scripture is of private interpretation, no
Word of the Savior upon the Cross loses its force and significance in
later times. What He said then, He is saying now. What He said then was
but the utterance of a sentence which shall roll through the ages and
which shall prevail with God through time and throughout eternity.
"Father, forgive them," was the prayer of a dying Man, but it was not a
dying prayer. "They know not what they do," was the plea of lips that
were about to be closed, but it was no plea which was doomed to
silence–it is heard in Heaven today, as much as when Jesus first
offered it on Calvary from His Cross!

The text seems to me to be of great depth. I shall not attempt to
fathom it tonight, but reserve it for some future sermons, only tonight
exploring two of its parts, rather flitting like a swallow across its
surface, than like the leviathan stirring its depths. [Mr. Spurgeon
carried out this intention with Sermons #897, Volume 15–THE FIRST CRY
FROM THE CROSS and #2263, Volume 38–

CHRIST'S PLEA FOR IGNORANT SINNERS.]

There are two things in the text, the unknown depths of sin–"They know
not what they do." And the unknown heights of mercy, as manifested in
Christ's dying plea–"Father, forgive them." May God grant His blessing
while I shall endeavor to set forth both, according as the Spirit of
God shall enable me to do so!

I. And first, my Friends, it appears from the text that THERE ARE
UNKNOWN DEPTHS IN HUMAN INIQUITY. "They know not what they do."

You will tell me, perhaps, that Christ applied this remark to His
murderers who did not know that He was the Son of God, for if they had
known Him to be the Messiah, "they would not have crucified the Lord of
Glory." And it might have been said to them, "You did it ignorantly in
unbelief." I grant you that this was the immediate meaning of Christ's
words, but I think, to return to what I have already affirmed, this
saying is true of the entire human family–whenever any of us sin, we
know not what we do. Do not misunderstand me. There is no man in the
world who has not enough perception left to teach him the difference
between right and wrong. Even upon the natural conscience of man there
is

engraved so much of the Law of God that his conscience either accuses
or excuses him. I can scarcely think that there is any race of bushmen,
or that there is a single tribe of aboriginal savages who have
altogether lost that "candle of the Lord which searches all the inward
parts of the belly." They know enough to leave them without excuse, so
that if they perish, they perish through willful sin. Yet I must admit,
at the outset, that it is possible for the conscience to become so
blind through prevailing customs, so seared through lengthened habit
and so preserved through absolute ignorance, that men may sin and yet
know not what they do. There may be some in whom the judgment has left
its seat–they have become maniacs so far as any moral judgment is
concerned. They sin with both their hands and, perhaps, write down that
very sin as being righteousness, and their obscenity as being a
sacrifice acceptable to God! There are none such, however, here. I
think in a land like this, with an open Bible, with a preached Gospel,
with the Presence of the Spirit of God, I need not address such an
assembly as this as not knowing what they do in that sense. If you sin,
my Hearers, you sin against light and knowledge. You sin knowing that
you do wrong. You put out your hand to touch the accursed thing knowing
that it is accursed. You sin willingly and many shall be your stripes,
seeing that you know your Master's will and do it not! But still, of
the whole human race it is nevertheless true that when they sin, "they
know not what they do." Let me show you, as briefly and forcibly as I
can, how this is the fact.

Who among us knows, to the full, the real meaning and nature of sin?
can give some description to you of what sin is, but I question,
Brothers and Sisters, whether even the most enlightened of us know the
whole of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Sinner, I address myself
pointedly to you. Do you know that when you sin, you call God a fool?
You say that His Law is not the best thing for you, that He has made a
mistake and has asked you to do that which would not conduce to your
happiness. You call God a fool–is that nothing? Do you know that when
you sin, you call God a liar? He tells you that sin is a bitter and an
evil thing. You say, "No, it is sweet. It is pleasant. At any rate, I
will taste it." You give the lie to the Eternal God! Is that nothing?
Whenever you sin, you call God a tyrant. You do, in fact, avow that He
has given Laws which are hard and arbitrary, which He ought not to have
given and which you are determined to break because you feel that they
are not for your happiness–they do not promote your comfort! And is
this nothing? Is this nothing–to call the all-wise God a fool, the
truthful God a liar and the good and generous God a tyrant?

But there is more than this in your sin. Every time a man sins, he aims
a blow at the crown of God. He refuses to let God be the King but puts
his hand, his wicked hand, upon the diadem of Deity and would dash the
crown from God's head if he could. No, more! He aims a blow at God's
very existence. The language of sin is, "No God!" And every time a
sinner sins, he tries to get rid of God–and his aim and drift is to
stop the Eternal One and to put the King of kings out of His own
universe. Is this nothing? Is this nothing? Does not even this, feeble
though the explanation is, make sin to be exceedingly sinful? Verily,
when we sin, we know not what we do! I can hardly believe that there is
a man or woman in this assembly who would, in cold blood, stand up and
say, "I defy God! I will do my best to drive Him from His throne. Yes,
and to drive Him from existence!" And yet, Sinner, every time you
curse, or lie, or swear, or break God's Law in any way whatever, you
do, in fact, do all these things and I think I may say you know not
what you do.

Let us now shift the kaleidoscope and get another view of this great
and solemn Truth of God. Some of us know what we do if we judge of sin
by its loathsomeness in God's sight There is no man living who knows
how much God hates and abhors sin! You may detest the loathsome toad.
You may give way to a wicked disposition and hate some enemy till you
cannot live till that enemy is slain. But you cannot loathe the toad,
you cannot hate your foe so thoroughly as God abhors and hates sin!
Wherever sin is, there is God's utmost hate, anger and ire. He cannot
endure it! His eyes cannot light upon it without burning it up and His
hand is always longing to smite it to the death. Why, look Sirs, God
had a choice archangel–a glorious being whose wings were like the
beams of the rising sun, whose stature was like a great snow-clad
mountain and whose beauty was as a fair field girt with flowers. He
sinned and God spared neither him nor the angels that followed him in
his rebellion, but cast them down to Hell and reserved them "in
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."
Angelhood could not save an angel–angelic stature, a seraphic voice
and a cherubic flight could not save Satan and his hosts when the stain
of sin had fallen on them! How much, then, must God hate sin?

When God had made the world, He smiled and said, "It is good." The
morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy,
for the world was very good and God's own heart was glad at the sight
of the new-made world. But when Adam sinned, God did not spare Eden,
with all its perfections of beauty! And later, when the iniquity of man

was fully ripe, He did not spare the round world itself, but bade the
floods leap up from their cavernous darkness and bade the clouds burst
their swaddling bands, and the earth was covered with a flood, for "it
repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him
at His heart."

No, if we still want to see more clearly how God hates sin, let us see
how sin came upon His own Son, His only-begotten, His well-beloved Son.
It came there, not by any deed of His own, but because He took our
iniquities upon Himself and, therefore, was numbered with the
transgressors. And did His Father spare Him? Far from it! He smote Him
with the rod, He scourged Him with the lash, He pierced Him to the
heart with His sword. He gave up His darling to the power of the dog,
and "Lama Sabachthani?" was a sorrowful proof that God hates and
loathes sin, let it be wherever it

may. [See Sermon #2133, Volume 36–"MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU
FORSAKEN ME?"] Now, Sirs, would you go and press to your bosom and
dandle and pamper and pet that thing which God loathes and hates? I
think not. If we ever had, before our eyes, God's hatred of sin and
this were revealed to our heart by the Holy Spirit, we would long to be
rid of it and, therefore, I say that when we take hold of it and
embrace it, we know not what we do.

Again, what man among us knows sin in its awful consequences?s there a
mother here who would go home tonight and ask herself the quickest way
to damn her child's soul? Is there a father here who would take counsel
with his own wickedness as to the readiest method of sending his son to
Hell? I think not. And yet, when the father is a drunk or a swearer,
what does he do but do his worst to ruin his child? And when the mother
is prayerless, Godless, Christless, does she not do her utmost to
murder her child's soul? Verily, we in our relationships, when we go
into sin, know not what we do! What master could sit down wantonly to
undermine the spiritual health of his workmen? What citizen would wish
to become the deadly upas tree dropping poison from all its branches?
What man of influence would wish to be the basilisk whose eyes should
tempt men to their destruction? Not one! And yet when you commit
iniquity–and especially those of you who occupy the responsible
position of parents, or masters, or ministers, or employers in any
way–you do your best to destroy the souls of others! So I can truly
say, "Surely you know not what you do."

Do you know, Sinner, that every time you sin, your sin affects the
whole world? Let me not stagger you. It is only our finite vision which
prevents us seeing the effect of even one thought upon the entire
universe. The word I am speaking, just now, sets in motion a wave in
the air which reaches your ears. It will abide in your memory, to a
certain degree, throughout eternity. In limiting the sphere of my voice
to your ears, I have set eternity pulsating–you shall think these
things over either in the waves of fiery Hell, or in the fields of
glorious Heaven. Eternity has been affected by the speech of a man! And
so it is with what you do–there is an effect produced on earth, in
Heaven, in Hell by whispered blasphemy or by an unseen lust–you cannot
sin alone! You are part of a universe–you cannot disentangle yourself
from the meshes of the net of society. You are in the ship of the
universe and you cannot get out of it. You cannot even be thrown out of
it, as Jonah was cast out of the ship into the sea. Your sin is
dragging other men down to Hell, or else the Grace that is in you is
helping to lift up others towards God and Heaven. Mind that when you
sin, for from this day on I think that you will hardly be able to say
as, perhaps, you may have done before, that you know not what you do.

But Sinner, let me speak to you solemnly–to you–about something in
which no imagination is needed. Do you see that man yonder? What is he
doing? I see a pearly gate within which I mark the splendors of
unutterable bliss and hear the hymns of the Paradise of God! What is
that man doing? He is putting bolts and bars upon that gate to shut
himself out. Do you call him a madman? Sinner, that madman is you! Your
sins are shutting you out of Heaven. Do you see yonder man? He is
carrying wood on his weary shoulders and stooping to the very ground as
he bears his burden. For what purpose is he carrying that fuel? It is
to make a bed of fire on which he shall lie and swelter in flames
forever! Do you call him a madman? Sinner, that madman is yourself!
What is Hell but the laying on upon your back of a whip whose knots you
have yourself tied? What is it but the drinking of a cup of gall, every
drop of which was distilled from your own sin? These are awful things
to say, but I feel that when I look at what Hell is, in all its
horrors, and what the loss of Heaven is, with all its dreadful
darkness, I must say to you when you sin, surely you know not what you
do! The man who puts himself to death with the halter, or drives the
knife into his heart, or throws himself into his watery grave may have
some present griefs which may, to him, though not to us, seem to be an
excuse for fleeing from them. But you, when you sin, are a suicide
without excuse because you flee from good that stands before you to an
evil that has no mixture of benefit or mercy! You leap into the fire
yourself–a fire which you have yourself kindled and which your own
blasphemous breath has fanned! Oh, may God teach us, when we sin, what
we have really done, that we may not do it again and that, by His
Grace, we may be led to the precious blood of Christ to have the guilt
of it washed away!–

"There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel's veins.
And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains."

Only once more upon this point and then I will leave it. "They know not
what they do." Sinner, do you know that when you sin, eternity is
involved in every act?Faith binds me to eternal bliss–sin and unbelief
fetter me to everlasting woe. I think I hear the voice of a spirit
which has been these last ten years in Hades. Listen! Listen! There is
a cry, a groan, but now the words are audible–"Fool that I was to come
here! Here I am tortured in indescribable agony that is to go on
forever–and for what? For a few hours of giddy mirth, for a few silly
jokes that I might indulge my pride rather than submit to the Free
Grace of God. Why am I here? Because I would serve Satan–and God knows
that it was a bitter service and what little sweet it had is all
forgotten now." Do you hear this man as he speaks to himself? "Oh, if I
could ever escape from this dreadful dungeon, it would be a Heaven to
me! If these awful fires could be quenched, if this gnawing worm would
but die, then I would be content! If after ten thousand, thousand,
thousand years I could hope to make my escape from this pit of woe, it
would set all the bells of my heart a-ringing for very joy at the bare
possibility that, at last, I might escape! But what is it that I see
written before me? Forever! Forever, on my chains! Forever, branded on
my limbs of pain! Forever, on yon waves of fire! Forever, in the angry
gaze of an incensed Deity! Forever, in those hungry depths which seem
to yawn to suck me into deeper woe! Forever, forever, forever,
forever!" O drunkard, swearer, whoremonger–when you sin the next time,
remember that the deed you do entails everlasting consequences which
will run on forever, forever, FOREVER! Surely, when you have sinned in
the past, you must have been ignorant of this overwhelming Truth of
God–you could not have known what you were doing!

Job speaks of washing himself with snow water and trying to make
himself clean. And this he speaks of right earnestly. However far from
the hot plains in which he lived, Job might have to send for snowy
water–whatever quantity of soap (for in the Hebrew there is an
allusion to soap in the second clause)–however much nitre and soap he
might have to take in order to wash himself perfectly clean, it was
worth all the expense and trouble if only it could be accomplished.

And, dear Friends, we must be clean in the sight of God. We must desire
to be clean in the sight of God for, if not, we are the objects of His
continual displeasure. ' 'God is angry with the wicked every day." This
is a solemn Truth of God which is far too much forgotten in the present
day. Many have tried to put the thought of it right on one side and
held forth only the Doctrine of the Divine Benevolence. But while that
Doctrine is blessedly true, these solemn declarations are equally true,
"The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget
God." And, "He that believes not, is condemned already, because he has
not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." Now, if we
were right-hearted towards God, this would seem to us to be a very
dreadful thing. We little know how exceedingly hateful sin is to

God. [See Sermon #3068, Volume 53–UNTOLD DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS.] You

know that there are some things which you and I sometimes see which are
very disgusting and loathsome to us. I went into a railway station in
Italy once, where I saw a man who had lost his arm and who by way of
begging, exposed to us the stump of it and also a horrible ulcer from
which he was suffering. I turned away sick at the sight and dreaded to
go to that station again, for fear that I should be met inside the door
of the waiting room by that horrible spectacle! But, depend upon it, no
mutilation and no disease of man's body was ever so sickening to the
most delicate taste as sin is sickening to God! He loves purity and,
therefore, He must loathe impurity. He delights in those who are just
and true and upright–and He cannot endure those who are unjust, false,
or unrighteous. His holy soul abhors them as that strong expression of
His in the prophecy of Zechariah proves–"My soul loathed them and
their soul also abhorred Me." The sinner does not dislike God more than
God dislikes him as a sinner. The sinless God cannot look with
complacency upon him who is sinful–he is loathsome to the holy mind of
God. So, surely, if we are right-hearted, we shall feel that anything
and everything that we can do in order to get right with God and to
become clean in His sight, we ought to do at once!

Let us also remember that as long as we are unclean, we are in daily
danger of the fires of Hell. Do any of you know what Hell is? It is the
leper colony of the universe! Just as in the olden times when the
"black pest," or some other terrible epidemic ran through a town or
village, they would build a house some miles away from the place and
call it the pest house where they would put away all those who had the
pest or plague–such is Hell, only a million times worse than any
earthly pest house ever was! Hell is the pest house of the moral
universe. You know that in countries where leprosy prevails, they shut
up the lepers in a place by themselves, lest the terrible disease
should pollute the whole district. And Hell is God's leper colony where
sinners must be confined forever when they are incurable and past hope!
And what are the pains of Hell? They are the natural result of sin. Sin
is the mother of Hell. The pains and groans of lost spirits in Hell are
simply the fully-developed flowers of which their sins were the seed.
Bitter is the fruit, sour is the vintage of that vine of Sodom and
Gomorrah which some men set themselves so diligently to plant–and so
industriously to water. Sin bears its own sting within itself. The
torments that are to come are the stings of conscience and the
inevitable effects of remorse upon the soul and body of the man who
will continue to be unclean in the sight of God! Lest, therefore, any
of you should ever be shut up in that place of "everlasting destruction
from the Presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power," I do
beseech you to awaken yourselves and diligently seek to find out how
you may be made clean in God's sight–

"You sinners, seek His Grace, Whose wrath you cannot bear! Fly to the
shelter of His Cross, And find salvation there. So shall that curse
remove, By which the Savior bled And the last awful day shall pour His
blessings on your head."

In addition to the eternal loss which all who are cast into Hell must
sustain, also remember that none can enter Heaven until they are pure.
Those holy gates are so closely guarded by angelic watchers that no
contraband of sin shall ever cross the frontiers of Heaven. The angels
look up and down and through and through. The man who presents himself
there–if so much as a speck, or spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing is
found upon him–cannot be allowed to enter! Just think for a minute how
utterly impossible it must be for the impure to enter the courts of the
thrice-holy God. You sometimes see, in the streets of London, wretched
creatures in whom poverty, drunkenness and debauchery have so combined
that even in their outward appearance, they present a truly horrible
aspect. They are so foul, filthy and loathsome that I should not dare
to describe them more fully. None of us would like to come near
them–our flesh creeps at the very thought of them! Now, suppose that
these shoeless, ragged, filthy, diseased creatures should present
themselves at the gates of Buckingham Palace on some great occasion
when all the princes of the blood and the peers of the realm were
gathered there? Do even the most democratic of you think that the
soldiers would be too squeamish if they were to tell them that they
were unfit to enter such a place and to mingle with such company? "Why,
no," you say, "of course they must at least be clean, or they can never
enter the royal palace." Well then, it must assuredly be so in a still
more emphatic sense with regard to the palace of the King of kings!
Would it be possible for any to enter there defiled with sin, foul with
fornications, adulteries, thefts, murders, infidelities, blasphemies,
profanities and rebellions against God? It cannot be that the pure air
of Heaven should ever be breathed by them, for it is expressly declared
that "there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles,
neither whatever works abomination or makes a lie." All who are there
are absolutely perfect! And you and I, if we would be with them, must
be renewed in heart and converted unto God–and washed from every
stain, and spot and speck of sin. It is clearly impossible that the
thrice-holy God should have unrenewed, unclean sinners immediately
under His own eyes, in His own courts. It is bad enough for Him to have
them, for a time, in this little planet, floating in the vast sea of
space. But He could not endure to have them up there amid the splendors
of eternal Glory! That cannot, must not and will not be!

Once more, every man will feel that it is worth his while to endeavor
to be clean before God if he wants a quiet conscience, for a truly
quiet conscience is never possessed by any man until he has been washed
in the precious blood of Jesus and so made "whiter than snow." Does
anyone ask, "Can that be done?" I answer in God's own words. "Come now,
and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though

they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." This great miracle
of mercy can be worked and nobody's conscience will ever be perfectly
at peace till it is accomplished. There is a way of silencing
conscience without that miracle being worked, but it is like the way in
which cruel tyrants sometimes silenced the martyrs. "Hold your tongue,"
the tyrant has said, "I will not listen to your heresy." But the brave
man has still gone on speaking–he would not be silenced. And then the
tyrant has cut his tongue out. I think I have known men cut out the
tongue of their conscience, so that it could no longer speak. Perhaps
some here have done it–torn it right out by the roots by going to the
drink shop, by frequenting evil company, by taking up infidel ideas
when they knew better. They knew that they could not, with a clear
conscience, do what they wanted to do, so they resolved that they would
tear out its tongue, so that it could no longer rebuke them!

O foolish Man, you could not have dome a worse thing for yourself than
that, for he who quiets his conscience after that fashion is like one
of whom I have heard who, one night, was unable to sleep because a
faithful dog kept on howling under his window. He called out to it and
bade it lie down, and went back to bed and tried to sleep, but still
the howling continued. And at last, when the creature would not be
quiet, he took his gun and shot it, in his anger. He ought to have
known that the dog wanted to tell him that there were burglars who were
trying to enter his house and that the faithful animal was doing its
best to preserve its master's life. After the dog was dead and the man
had gone to sleep again, the burglars entered his bedroom, stole
everything of value that they could find and ended by staining their
hands with the blood of the foolish man who had killed the poor
creature that warned him of his peril! The devil is trying to destroy
your soul and your conscience, like that faithful dog, gives the alarm,
but you cry to it, "Lie down!" It does not lie down, however, and
perhaps this very sermon is helping to wake it up, but you are
determined that it shall be quiet and you will even kill it if you can!
Well, if you do, you will then have sealed your own destiny by that
very deed. The only proper way of quieting conscience is the method
that a wise owner would have taken of quieting his dog. Supposing that
man had gone downstairs and patted his dog on the head and praised it
for being a good dog? Suppose that he had loosed its chain and taken it
round the yard with him? Suppose, too, that he had taken that gun, with
which he so foolishly killed his dog, and when, at last, he had
discovered the villains who had come to rob him, he had set his dog on
them, or even leveled his gun at them? That would have been far wiser
than killing his dog and losing his own life! In such a fashion as
that, go and lose your conscience and let your sins be
destroyed–otherwise they will assuredly destroy you! The quieting of
an awakened conscience can only be rightly done by getting rid of
sin–and there is but one way to get rid of sin–of which I will speak
before I have finished my discourse.

Thus much on the first point–to be clean in the sight of God is worth
any and every effort.

II. Now secondly, ALL EFFORTS OF OUR OWN, MADE IN OUR OWN WAY, WILL
CERTAINLY FAIL.

It is very curious what efforts people will make to get rid of their
sins. Some try to get clean by ceremonies. Ah, Mr. Priest, is that good
soap that you are bringing with your bowl of water? "Yes," he replies,
"the best Roman soap, or you can have a cake from Canterbury or Oxford
if you would prefer it. How beautifully white your hands will look if
you only use enough of this patent soap." So you say, but if you had
your eyes opened, you would see that after all your washing, they are
as black as night! The soapsuds get in your eyes, Sir, and therefore
you do not see the dirt that is still on the sinner's hands. That is
all that ever comes of mere ceremonies–they blind, but they do not
cleanse.

Another thinks that he can obtain cleansing by religious observances.
His form of washing with snow water is attendance at his usual place of
worship. He goes there regularly. He would never be away if he could
help it! When the proper time for service comes and having done that,
he asks, "Will not that take away my sin?" No, Sir, not a spot, nor
even half a spot! Some have given away large sums of money with the
hope of thereby cleansing themselves from sin. But all the gold in the
world can never form a golden ointment with which to cleanse iniquity.
There are many who have tried to get cleansing by their moralities and
their charities, but their efforts have all been in vain. Mr. Legality
and Mr. Civility are said to be great hands at washing Blackamoors
white, but I have very grave doubts as to whether the Blackamoors are
not blacker after the washing than they were before!

Men have had the strangest notions as to how they might be cleansed
from sin. Read John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of
Sinners–which is, as you know, a record of his own experience–and you
will see some very curious ideas of his concerning the way in which he
hoped to wash himself from sin. Yet, his ideas are not any more curious
than those of people who are now living. The other day I read a letter
from a young farm laborer, describing the way in which, at one time, he
hoped to get saved. He said that in the village where he lived, there
were some young men who went to the Patagonian Mission and there got
what he called, "massacreated." Of course, he meant to say that they
were massacred. And he further wrote, "I thought that if the Patagonian
Mission would have taken me and the natives would only have killed me,
I would have gone joyfully and gladly, for I heard that they were all
saints who died in that way and I would willingly have gone if I could
have got to Heaven by that method." Yes, and so would I, and so would
most of us when we were under the burden of sin. We would not have
minded being killed and eaten if we might in that way have entered into
eternal life, for a man who really feels the burden of sin is willing
to try all sorts of extraordinary methods of getting rid of it! Look at
the methods adopted by the heathen in order, as they hope, to get rid
of sin. Go to India and look at the great car of Juggernaut, and see by
what cruel means the people there hope to get rid of sin! And there are
many other equally useless methods which the spiritual quacks are
vainly puffing as unfailing ways of getting rid of sin!

But on the authority of the Word of God, we confidently declare that
all human methods of seeking the cleansing of sin which men may
practice must end in failure, even as Job's did when he said, "If I
wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean; yet shall
You plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me." Yet, if
God really means to save you, He will never let you be satisfied with
any human plan of salvation, but He will, to use Job's expression,
plunge you in the ditch and make you feel even blacker than you did
before! How will He do that?

Sometimes the Lord does this by bringing to a man's memory his old
sins.' 'There," says the self-satisfied man, "I am getting on now–how
clean I am after that last wash!" And just then he recollects some sin
he committed as a boy, or some foul deed which he can never wipe
completely off the tablet of his memory. "Oh!" he cries, "that dreadful
past sin of mine has not gone as I vainly hoped that it had–it is
still there." So he is again plunged in the ditch and all his beautiful
washing counts for nothing!

At another time, the Lord permits the man to be greatly tempted. He
gets up in the morning and says to himself, "Now I really feel a great
deal better than I have felt for a long time. I have firmly resolved to
make a man of myself and I know that my resolutions are much stronger
than they used to be." So he starts out very confidently. But presently
there comes to him something that is stronger than his resolutions–and
over goes the boastful man, generally failing in the very thing in
which he fancied himself to be strongest! He soon discovers that he was
only powerful as long as he had not a powerful adversary to contend
with him. That is the way in which many a man has been plunged by God
in the ditch.

Sometimes God will do it in another way–by opening a boastful man's
eyes to see the imperfection of his work He thinks, "I did that piece
of work well. I am sure I did and I do not see how any Christian could
do it better." When any man begins to talk like that, the Lord often
makes him sit down and closely examine that work of which he is so
proud. And as he looks at it, he sees that it is full of flaws. It is a
beautiful vase, but just try to fill it with water. Ah, it leaks! The
man looks at it and says, "Well, I never thought it was as faulty as
this. It seemed to me to be perfect! Yet this beautiful vase that
appeared to be so fair, leaks like a sieve." The man says to himself,
"That good action of mine was done with a bad motive, so it is like a
leaky vessel. While I was doing it, I was as proud as Lucifer over it.
So it leaks–and after I had done it, I went away and boasted about it,
so the vase kept on leaking." In that way the man gets plunged into the
ditch and he sees himself to be blacker than he was before he had thus
washed his hands with snow water!

Very frequently men have been plunged into the ditch by being made to
see the spirituality of the Law. A man says, "I have not broken the
Law. I have kept all the Commandments from my youth up. I never killed
anybody. No one can say that I ever did." But where he finds it
written, "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer," he cries, "Ah then
I have been a murderer!" A man says very boldly, "I have never
committed adultery! Who dares to say that I have?" But when he reads
the words of Jesus, "I say unto you, that whoever looks on a woman to
lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart,"
then the man says, "I must admit that I am guilty, for I see that I
have broken these commandments by my thoughts and looks, although I
knew that I had not broken them by my actions. I did not know that the
Law concerned itself so closely with looks and thoughts as well as with
acts and words." But, indeed, that is the very thing with which the Law
is concerned–and for which it condemns men! And when the
self-satisfied man learns this solemn Truth of God, he says, "Then I am
plunged in the ditch, and my own clothes abhor me, although I had
washed myself quite clean."

Others are plunged in the ditch in this way–they are made to realize
the supreme holiness of God. It had been the habit of a certain man to
say, "I am as good as my neighbors, and better than most of them. Don't
talk to me about Christian men and women–there's many a professing
Christian not half as good as I am! Why, was I not kind to my neighbor
when he was in distress? Did I not give a guinea to such-and-such a
charity? Am I not ready at all times to stand up for the right?" So he
talks. But when he gets a view of God, then, like Job, he abhors
himself and repents in dust and ashes! And he says, "I thought I could
compare myself with man, but I cannot compare myself with God! And as
God and not man, is the standard of holiness, I am indeed plunged in
the ditch. Yet I thought I had washed myself perfectly clean–that snow
water and patent soap did seem to take the dirt off beautifully–but
now I find that in the sight of God I am just as filthy as I can be."
And when the Lord, the Holy Spirit, convinces a man of sin, the words
of Job are none too strong–"My own clothes shall abhor me." You may
sometimes have abhorred your clothes because they were so dirty that
you were ashamed to be seen in them. But you must be dirty, indeed,
when your very clothes seem ashamed to hang upon you! This is what the
convicted sinner feels–that he is so foul that his very clothes seem
to be ashamed of him, as if they would rather have been on anybody
else's back than on the back of such a filthy sinner as he is!

"Ah," says someone, "you are exaggerating now." No, I am not
exaggerating, at least as far as my own personal experience is
concerned. I can well remember–though I did not then know that John
Bunyan had used somewhat similar expressions–I can well remember when
I was under deep conviction of sin, wishing that I had been a frog or a
toad rather than have been a human being because I felt myself to be so
foul in the sight of God. I felt that I was such a great sinner that
the bread I ate might justly choke me and that the air I breathed might
have righteously refused to give life to the lungs of such a sinner as
I was. I felt, at that time, that if God spared me, it was only because
He was boundless in compassion–and if He cast me into the hottest
Hell, I could never murmur against the justice of His sentence, for I
felt that I deserved any punishment that He might award me. When the
Holy Spirit brings sinners to feel like this, it is a proof that He is
leading them on the way by which He brings them to Christ. Oh, that the
Lord would make every guilty sinner here long to be clean in His sight!
And also make each one feel what is certainly the truth–that all the
means in a man's own power of making himself clean will turn out to be
dead failures–for though he should take snow water and wash himself
ever so clean, yet would he again be plunged in the ditch and his own
clothes would abhor him!

III. The last point on which I have to speak is the best. It is
this–THERE IS A RIGHT WAY OF GETTING CLEAN IN GOD'S SIGHT.

First, it is an effective way. He that believes on the Lord Jesus
Christ shall be made clean. He shall be cleansed from all the foulness
of the past–God will wipe it right out. He shall be cleansed as to his
heart and his nature. To him God repeats that ancient promise, "A new
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you."
"How is this to be had?" By trusting to the Divine method of cleansing
the filthy, for the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all
sin everyone who believes in Him. There are millions upon the earth now
whom the blood of Jesus Christ has completely cleansed–and there are
millions more now hymning His praises in Glory who have had every spot
of sin taken out of them by the application of His precious blood! O
sinful Souls, if you could ever have made yourselves clean, Christ
would not have needed to pour out His life's blood that you might be
washed in it! If the cleansing bath could have been filled with human
tears, or could have been filled by means of the incantations of a
so-called priest, there would have been no need for Your wounds, O
Emmanuel, and no need of Your indwelling, O regenerating and
sanctifying Spirit! But because we could not be cleansed by any other
means, the water and the blood flowed freely from the pierced heart of
Jesus, the Divine Son of God! And now the ever-blessed Spirit waits to
be gracious and to change the heart and renew the nature and make us
fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light!

This effective way of getting cleansed is also an immediate way. We
have often sung–

"There is life for a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
moment for you"– and it is true, for there is instant cleansing for
anyone who looks to Jesus Christ. A sinner may have committed more sins
than he could count in a million years and yet, as soon as he gives one
believing look at Jesus Christ, all those sins are gone forever! You
know that when a bill is paid, the receipt is written at the bottom and
that puts an end to the whole debt. So, Sinner, the name of Jesus at
the bottom of the whole roll of your indebtedness to God puts an end to
it all! The man who thinks he has only a few sins may bring his little
bill–and you who know that you have many sins may bring your big
bill–but Christ's receipt avails for one as much as the other! Even if
the roll of your guilt should be many miles long, it makes no
difference to the efficacy of the blood of Jesus! If the list of your
sins should be long enough to go right around the world–and just one
drop of the blood of Jesus should be put upon it–all that is written
there would at once disappear and be gone forever! And the sinner would
be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation!

Further, this effective and immediate way of cleansing is also an
attainable way of cleansing. To preach to sinners a salvation which
they cannot obtain would be to tantalize them. We do not so, but to
every person in this Tabernacle tonight and to everyone anywhere else
whom this message may reach, we have to say this, "If you will confess
your sin to God and then put your trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, you
shall be saved–even you, whoever you are, and whatever sin you may
have committed!" Your confession is to be made, not to your fellow
creature, but to Him against whom your sins were committed. Go to your
home, or seek some quiet spot where you can commune with your God. Tell
Him that you have sinned, and ask Him to have mercy upon you. Tell Him
that Jesus died in the place of sinners–plead the merit of His
precious blood and say, "Lord, I believe that You can save me and I
trust in You to save me, for Jesus' sake." If you will do this, you
shall be forgiven! You shall be renewed in heart, you shall be made
clean!

In closing my discourse, I remind you, as I have often done before,
that this cleansing is available now, at this very moment! I recollect
hearing of a somewhat stingy man who once needed to hire a horse and
chaise to go out for a drive. So he went to the man who let such things
and asked the price. He said that the sum asked was too high–and went
round to every other person in the little town who had such things to
let, but found that their prices were higher still. So, at last, he
went back to the first man and said to him, "I will take your horse and
chaise at the price you mentioned." "No," he said, "you won't, for you
have been around to everybody else to try to get them at a lower price,
and I shall not let you have mine now." I was not very much surprised
to hear that he was told that. Now, some of you have been to everybody
else for salvation except to the Lord Jesus Christ! You have been to
Rome and you have been to Oxford, and you have been to self and I
hardly know where you have not been! Yet, notwithstanding that, you may
come to Christ even now! He will not refuse you even now! Going to
Canterbury has not saved you, but going to Calvary can. You have found
no help in the city on the seven hills, but you may find immediate help
on the little hill outside Jerusalem's gate– the little mound called
Calvary, where the Savior shed His precious blood for all who will put
their trust in Him!

I have been talking to you in a very simple, homely way, for I have
been afraid lest anybody should by any possibility not know what the
Gospel really is. I always think that if my net has small meshes, the
big fish can get in and the little fish cannot get out, So I have put
small meshes to my net and talked in a homely style with simple
illustrations which all can understand. The Lord knows that I have done
this out of love to your souls. I would bring you all to Jesus if I
could–but I cannot do that. Oh, that the Spirit of God would do it!
Why do you need so much urging to come to Christ? You are filthy with
sin and here is a free bath in which you may be washed spotlessly
white! Come and bathe in Jesus' blood and that will make you fairer
than the lilies, and lovelier than all the glories of Solomon! If you
do but wash in this Fountain, you will scarcely know yourself when you
come up out of it! And if you happen to meet your old self, the next
day, you will say, "Ah, Self! I don't want to be on speaking terms with
you anymore. I never knew that you were so ugly! I never knew that you
were so filthy! I never knew that you were so abominable till I had
gotten rid of you by being made a new creature in Christ Jesus."

The Lord bless you and bring you to trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, and
He shall have all the praise and glory forever and forever! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW5:13-26.

Verse 13. You are the salt of the earth. The earth would go putrid if
there were no salt of Divine Grace to preserve it. So, dear Friends, if
God's Grace is in you, there is a pungent savor about you which tends
to preserve others from going as far into sin as otherwise they would
have done. "You are the salt of the earth."

13. But if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?If
the God-given Grace could be altogether taken from you. If you had no
sanctifying power about you at all, what could be done with you? You
would be like salt that has lost its savor.

13. It is therefore good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be
trodden under foot of men. Mark this, then– either the saints must
persevere to the end, or else the Grace of God has effectually done
nothing for them. If they do not continue to be saints and to exercise
a saintly influence, there is no hope for them! There cannot be two new
births for the same person. If the Divine work has failed once, it will
never be begun again. If they have really been saved, if they have been
made the children of God and if it is possible for them to lose the
Grace which they have received, they can never have it again. The Word
of God is very emphatic upon that point–"If they shall fall away, it
is impossible to renew them again unto repentance" Falling may be
retrieved, but falling away can never be. [See Sermon #75, Volume
2–final

PERSEVERANCE–Read/download the entire sermon, free of charge, at
http://www.spurgeongems.org.]

There are countries where there is found salt from which the pungency
has completely gone. It is an altogether useless article and if there
are men who ever did possess the Grace of God, and who were truly God's
people, if the Divine life could go out of them, they would be in an
utterly hopeless case. Perhaps there are no powers of evil in the world
greater than apostate churches–who can calculate the influence for
evil that the Church of Rome exercises in the world today?

14. You the are light of the world. The Bible is not the light of the
world, it is the light of the Church! But the world does not read the
Bible, the world reads Christians! "You are the light of the world."

14. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. You Christians are
like a city built upon a hilltop–you must be seen. As you will be
seen, mind that you are worth seeing.

15. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a
candlestick and it gives light unto all that are in the house. God's
intent is, first, to light you. And, secondly, to put you in a
conspicuous position where men can see you.

16. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.Let the light of your
purity and your good works be as bright as possible, yet let not the
light be to your own praise and glory, but let it be clearly seen that
your good works are the result of Sovereign Grace for which all the
glory must be given to "your Father which is in Heaven."

17. 18. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I
am not come to destroy, but to fulfill For verilyIsay unto you,
TillHeaven and earthpass away, onejot or one tittle shallin no wisepass
from the Law, tillallare fulfilled. See how the great Lord of the New
Testament confirms the Old Testament? He has not come to set up a
destructive criticism that will tear in pieces the Book of Deuteronomy,
or cut out the very heart of the Psalms, or grind Ezekiel to powder
between His own wheels. But Christ has come to establish yet more
firmly than before all that was written aforetime and to make it stand
fast as the everlasting hills.

19. Whoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and
shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of
Heaven: but whoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called
great in the Kingdom of Heaven. A true man may make mistakes and so he
may teach men to violate someone or other of the Divine Commandments.
If he does so, he shall not perish, for he was honest in his blunder.
But he shall be among the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But he who
earnestly, perseveringly and conscientiously teaches all that he knows
of the Divine Will, "the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven."

20. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ does not teach a lower kind of
morality than the Pharisees taught. They were very particular about
little things–jots and tittles–but we must go further than they went!
We must have more righteousness of life than they had, although they
seemed to their fellow men to be excessively precise. Christ aims at
perfect purity in His people and we must aim at it too. And we must
really attain to more holiness than the best outward morals can
produce.

21. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not
kill; and whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment God had
said, "You shall not kill." But the remainder of the verse was the
gloss of the Rabbis–a true one, yet one that very much diminishes the
force of the Divine Command.

22. But I say unto you, That whoever is angry with his brother without
a cause shall be in danger of the judgment And a far higher judgment
than that of men.

22. And whoever shall say to his brother, Raca. A word of very
uncertain meaning, a kind of snubbing word, a word of contempt which
men used to say to one another, meaning that there was nothing in them.
"Whoever shall say to his brother, Raca."

22. Shall be in danger of the council: but whoever shall say, You fool,
shall be in danger of Hell fire. Christ will not have us treat men with
anger, or with contempt, which is a very evil form of hate, akin to
murder, because we as good as say, "That man is nobody." That is, we
make nothing of him, which is morally to kill him. We must not treat
our fellow men with contempt and derision, nor indulge any angry temper
against them, for anger is of the devil, but "love is of God."

23, 24. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there
remember that your brother has anything against you; leave there your
gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your gift. Note that this injunction
is addressed to the man who has offended his brother Why is this?
Because he is the least likely to try to make up the quarrel. It is the
man who has been offended who usually exhibits the nobler spirit–the
offender is almost always the last to seek a reconciliation and
therefore, the Savior says to him, "If your brother has anything
against you, it is but right that you should be the first to seek
reconciliation with him. Leave your gift, go away from the Prayer
Meeting, turn back from the Lord's Table and go and first be reconciled
to your brother."

25. Agree with your adversary quickly.Always be ready to make
peace–not peace at any price–but, still, peace at any price except
the sacrifice of righteousness.

25, 26. While you are on the way with him, lest at any time the
adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the
officer, and you be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you, You shall
by no means come out from there till you have paid the uttermost
farthing. And there are some debts of which we cannot pay the uttermost
farthing! And there is a prison out of which no man shall come, for the
uttermost farthing demanded there shall never be paid. God grant that
we may, none of us, ever know what it is to be shut up in that dreadful
dungeon!