Believe God, Sinner!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. – Romans 10:13

Sinners…you who have heard all about this salvation by trusting—I charge you do not rest till you have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ and rested in the great promises of God. Here is one— “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more forever.” Here is another which is very cheering— “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Call upon Him in prayer and then say, “Lord, I have called, and You have said I shall be saved.” Here is another gracious word— “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Attend you to these two commands and then say, “Lord, I have Your Word for it that I shall be saved, and I hold You to it.” Believe God, Sinner!

Oh, that He would give you Grace by His Holy Spirit, to say, “How can I do otherwise than believe Him? I dare not doubt Him.” O poor tried Soul, believe in Jesus so as to trust your guilty soul with Him. The more guilty you feel yourself to be, the more is it in your power to glorify God by believing that He can forgive and renew such a guilty one as you are! If you lie buried like a fossil in the lowest stratum of sin, yet He can quarry for you and fetch you up out of the horrible pit—and make your dry, petrified heart live! Do you believe this? “If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.”

Trust the promise that He makes to every Believer that He will save him! Hold to it, for it is not a vain thing! It is your life! “But what if I obtain no joy or peace?” Still, believe the promise, and joy and peace will come. “But what if I see no signs?” Ask for no signs! Be willing to trust God’s Word without any other guarantee but His truthful Character and you will thus give Him glory. “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” Believe that Jehovah cannot lie and as He has promised to forgive all who believe in Jesus, hang on to that Word and you shall be saved!

How Is Salvation Received? by C. H. Spurgeon

Lean Hard on the Faithful Promise of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God

And being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform. – Romans 4:21

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. – Hebrews 10:23

Faith believes her God and trusts Him for time and eternity, for little things and great things, for body and for soul and this leads on to still higher results! O blessed God, what a union of desire, heart and aim exists between You and the soul that trusts You! How are we brought into harmony with Your mind and purposes! How is our heart made to delight in You! How completely is our soul “bound up in the bundle of life with the soul of the Lord our God”!

We grow up into Him in all things who is our Head, our Life, our All. I charge you, dear children of God, “as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” Live in His peace and abound in it more and more. Do not be afraid of being too peaceful, “rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.” When you have to condemn yourself for shortcomings, yet do not question the promises of the Lord! When sin overcomes you, confess the fault, but do not doubt the pardon which Jesus still gives you! When sharp temptations and severe trials arise from different quarters, do not suffer them to carry you by storm—let not the stronghold and castle of your spirit be captured— “let not your heart be troubled.” Stagger not at the promise through unbelief but hold to it whether you walk in the sunshine or in Egyptian darkness. That which the Lord has promised He is able, also, to perform. Do not doubt it! Lean hard on the faithful promise and when you feel sad at heart, lean harder and harder still, for, “faithful is He that has promised, who, also, will do it.”

How Is Salvation Received? by C. H. Spurgeon

Be Sure of This, God Must Keep His Promise

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all… – Romans 4:16

Many a chosen one of God is brought into such a condition that nothing is possible to him except faith, but Grace has made the act of believing divinely possible. Well was it for those bitten by serpents that all that was asked of them was a look, for this was possible even when the hot venom made the blood boil and scalded all the frame with fever! Faith is possible to the blind, the lame, the deaf, the dumb! Faith is possible to the almost-idiot, the desponding and the guilty! Faith can be possessed by babes and by the extremely aged, by the illiterate as well as by the instructed! It is well chosen as the cup to convey the living water, for it is not too heavy for the weak, nor too huge for the little, nor too small for the full-grown.

Now, Brothers and Sisters, you who are resting in the promise of God, you who are depending upon the finished work of Him who was delivered for your offenses—how do you feel? Are you rejoicing in your unquestionable safety? As I have turned this matter over and thought upon it, my soul has dwelt in perfect peace! I cannot conceive anything that God Himself could give to the Believer which would make him more safe than the work of Christ has made him. God cannot lie! Are you not sure of this? He must keep His promises! Are you not certain of this? What more do you need? As a little child believes its father’s words without any question, even so should we rest on the bare, naked promise of Jehovah! And in so doing we become conscious of a peace that passes all understanding, which keeps our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus.

How Is Salvation Received? by C. H. Spurgeon

Our Immutable Security

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God

For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith…Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed – Romans 4:13,16

“When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall even die thereby.” But see the excellence of salvation by Grace—when you reach the ground of faith in the promises, you are upon terra firma and your soul is no longer in jeopardy. Here is a sure foundation, for the Divine promise cannot fail! If my salvation depends upon the Lord and is received by me on the ground that the Lord has decreed it, promised it in Covenant and ensured it to me by the blood of Jesus Christ, then it is so mine that neither life nor death nor Satan nor the world shall ever rob me of it! If I live to the age of Methuselah, my faith will have the same promises to rest upon—and clinging there she will defy the lapse of years to change her immutable security.

The promise would not be sure to one of the seed by any other means than that of Grace through faith, but now it is sure to all the seed. Moreover, if the promise had been made to works, there are some of the seed to whom, most evidently, it never could come. One of the seed of Abraham hung dying upon a cross and within an hour or two his bones were broken that he might the more quickly die. Now, if salvation to that poor dying thief must come by works, how can he be saved? His hands and feet are fastened up, and he is in the very grip of Death—what can he do? The promise would not have been sure to him, my Brothers and Sisters, if there had been any active condition! But he believed, cast a saving eye upon the Lord Jesus and said, “Lord, remember me,” and the promise was most sure to him, for the answer was, “Today shall you be with Me in Paradise”!

How Is Salvation Received? by C. H. Spurgeon

Fine Pleading

Sherry sermon

You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

Sermon Text

Salvation Must Be by Faith

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God

To the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed. – Romans 4:16

Look at this, dear Friends, very carefully. Salvation was made to be of faith and not of works that the promise might be sure to all the seed, for first, it could not have been sure to us Gentiles by the Law, because in a certain sense we were not under the Law of Moses at all. Turn to the text and you find that it runs thus— “Sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the Law, but to that, also, which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.” That is to say, the Jew, receiving the seal of circumcision and coming under the ceremonial Law, eating its Passover and presenting its sacrifices, might possibly have been reached by a legal method. But we who are Gentiles would have been altogether shut out. As to the Covenant according to the flesh, we are aliens and have never come under its bonds or participated in its privileges and, therefore, Grace chooses to bless us by faith in order that the Gentile may partake of the blessing of the Covenant as well as the Jew.

But there is a still wider reason—it is of faith because the other method has failed, already, in every case. We have all broken the Law and so have put ourselves beyond the power of ever receiving blessing as a reward of merit. Failure at the outset has ruined our future prospects—and from now on—by the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified. If your standing depends upon your own works, you are not safe and can never be safe till you are out of this present life, for you might sin and that one offense against the conditions would destroy the Covenant! What remains, then, if we are to be saved at all, but that it should be of faith? This door, alone, is open! Let us bless God that no man can shut it!

How Is Salvation Received? by C. H. Spurgeon

Boasting? No.

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit

Not of works, lest any man should boast. – Ephesians 2:9

If a man should boast of the strength of his faith, it would be clear evidence that he had none at all, or at least that he had, for the time, fallen into vainglorious presumption. Boasting? No. Faith loves to lie low and behave herself as a little child. And when she lifts herself up, it is to exalt her Lord, and her Lord, alone.

Faith, too, is well calculated to show forth the Grace of God, because Faith is the child of Grace. “Ah,” says Faith, “I have grasped the Covenant. I have laid hold on the promises, I have seen Christ, I have gazed into Heaven, I have enjoyed foretastes of eternal joys! But (she says) I am of the operation of God—I would never have existed if the Spirit of God had not created me!” The Believer knows that his faith is not a weed suitable to the soil of his heart, but a rare plant—an exotic which has been planted there by Divine Wisdom—and he knows, too, that if the Lord does not nourish it, his faith will die like a withered flower.

He knows that his faith is a perpetual miracle, for it is begotten, sustained and preserved by a power not less mighty than that which raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead! If I met with an angel in a hovel, I should know that he was not born there, but that he came from above. And so is it with faith—its heavenly descent is manifest to all! Faith, then, tracing her very existence to Grace, never can be anything but the friend, the vindicator, the advocate and the glorifier of the Grace of God—therefore it is of faith that it might be by Grace!

How Is Salvation Received? by C. H. Spurgeon