Salvation is Not Inherited

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

So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. – Romans 9:16

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God… – Ephesians 2:8

Some imagine that faith comes by hereditary descent, and they act upon the supposition. Hence, in certain churches, birthright membership is thought to be a proper practice, and the child of a Christian is thought to be a Christian. In some other churches, though the theory would not be stated in so many words, yet it is practically accepted, and children of pious parents are regarded as scarcely needing conversion. The text is forgotten which saith that the heirs of salvation are born, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God.” The typical covenant secured outward privileges to the children born after the flesh, but under the covenant of grace the blessing is secured to the spiritual and not to the natural seed. “He who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.” (Galatians 4:23). That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and nothing more: the new-born nature is not transmissible from father to son like a natural temperament or a cast of countenance. I know the answer will be that “the promise is to us and to our children,” but it will be well for the objector to reply to himself by completing the quotation—”even to as many as the Lord your God shall call.” The fact is, that nothing spiritual is inherited by carnal generation. Our children, even if we are far advanced in grace, will still be “shapen in iniquity.” No matter how high the sainthood of the professing Christian, his child (when capable of understanding) must for himself become a personal believer in Jesus.

How Can I Obtain Faith? by C. H. Spurgeon

A Voice From the Hartley Colliery

Sherry sermon

Hartley Colliery disaster of January 1862

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

Beware, Ye that Reject the Savior

Sherry Christian Life

But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. – Hebrews 10:12,13

Christ will be one of two things to every one of us here present: either we shall see Him at the right hand of God and rejoice that He is lifted so high, or else we shall behold Him there with horror as we writhe beneath His feet. For His people, perfected for ever, it is their heaven to think that Christ is highly exalted. Oh, would we not exalt Him if we could! Is there anything in this world that we would keep back from Him? Is there any suffering from which we would shrink if we could lift Him high? I hope I can speak for all of God’s people and say, the dearest object of our life is to honor Him. Oh, for high thrones for Jesus and bright crowns for Jesus! Let Him have the highest place that heaven can yield Him.

“Let Him be crowned with majesty
Who bowed His head to death!
And be His honors sounded high
By all things that have breath!”

But, if we will not believe His Godhead, if we will not trust Him as the Mediator, if we have no part in His sacrifice, if we oppose His gospel, if we reject His claims to our obedience, there is another position we shall have to take up, and that is, beneath His feet. Those feet will be heavy indeed! They were pierced once; but if ever those pierced feet come upon you, they will crush you to powder. Nothing is so terrible as love when once it is turned to anger. Oil is soft, but how it burns. Inflame love into jealousy and it is cruel as the grave. Beware, ye that reject the Savior, for in the day when He cometh He will smite you with a rod of iron, and even His face, which is full of tenderness today, shall then be full of terror, and this shall be your cry, “Hide us ye mountains, ye rocks conceal us, from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.”

The Only Atoning Priest by C. H. Spurgeon

Believers Altogether Accepted in Christ

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

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. – Hebrews 10:14

Our posture is that of those who are perfected in Christ Jesus. How I wish that we could all realize this and live in the power of it. If I am, indeed, a believer, I have nothing whatever to do in order to put away the guilt of my sins. I have much to do by faith to overcome the power of sin in me, and to seek after holiness; but so far as the guilt of transgression is concerned, Jesus Christ’s one offering hath perfected all His people, there is not a sin remaining upon them, nor a trace of sin; they are “without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing;” before God’s sight they are perfectly lovely; they are not somewhat beautiful, but they are altogether lovely in Christ; they are accepted not in part but altogether, “accepted in the Beloved.” When I get upon this strain, words are quite inadequate to express the emotions of my soul. This truth might well make David dance before the ark of the Lord—to think that though black in ourselves, we are comely in Christ; though like the smoke-dried tents of Kedar we are foul yet clothed in our Savior’s beauties we are like the curtains of Solomon for glory. The glory of the text is that we are perfected for ever; not for tomorrow and then suffered to fall from grace; not for the next twenty years, and then turned out of the covenant; but He hath perfected “for ever” those that are set apart.

The text says, “Hath perfected them that are sanctified,” or set apart as holy unto God. We must be more and more set apart every day, we must labor after holiness; this must be our object, not in order that we may be saved, for we are saved already, but in order that by others it may be clearly seen that we are saved, and they seeing our good works may glorify our Father which is in heaven. If I have in myself no measure of holiness, how shall I be recognized as belonging to Christ? Is it not foolish presumption to say “I am perfect in Christ,” if still my soul lives in sin, and loves it? May the Lord, by His Spirit, lead us in the ways of holiness, and then, walking in the light as He is in the light, we shall have fellowship one with another; and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son shall cleanse us from all sin.

The Only Atoning Priest by C. H. Spurgeon

Our Posture in Christ

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

But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. – Hebrews 10:12,13

I want you, dearly beloved brethren, to gather from the text before us the true posture of every believer in Christ. “This man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down.” If I am a believer that is my posture, if you are a believer that is yours—you are to sit down. Under the law there was no sitting down. Even at the Passover the Israelites stood with their loins girt and their staves in their hands. There was no sitting down. It is only at the gospel supper that our proper posture is that of recumbency, reclining, or sitting down, because our warfare is accomplished. They that have believed have entered into rest. Jesus hath given us rest, we are not traversing the wilderness, we are come unto mount Zion, unto the glorious assembly of the Church of the first born whose names are written in heaven. Our justifying work is finished, finished by Christ. Sit down Christian, sit down and rest in thy Lord. There is much to be done as to fighting your sins, much to be done for Christ in the world, but so far as justification and forgiveness are concerned, rest is your proper place, peace in Christ Jesus your lawful portion.

Your position is also to be one of expectancy. Christ, when He sits down, expects His enemies to be made His footstool. Expect, O believer, the time when you shall be rid of all sin. Fight manfully against your inbred corruptions, struggle against sin as you see it in the outside world and expect every day with holy faith that you shall get the victory. As Christ sits there expecting, He hath raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Himself; and we will sit there and look down upon this erring world and expect the time when all evil shall be beneath our feet as it is beneath His.

The Only Atoning Priest by C. H. Spurgeon

Jesus is Able and Willing to Save You

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

But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God…For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. – Hebrews 10:12,14

The text leads me to say to you that it is utterly hopeless, if you desire salvation, for you to expect Jesus Christ to do anything more than He has already done. Many are waiting for a something, and they scarce know what. Now Jesus, when He died and went to heaven, perfected for ever all His work; and if you do not believe today in what He has done, there will be no surer grounds for belief tomorrow. If faith be difficult to me today, I must not expect that I shall have any more evidence, or that there will be any more truth for me to rely upon, if I live another twenty years. God has set forth Christ for you as guilty sinners to rest on; and if that is not enough for you, what more would you have? Christ has offered Himself, and died and suffered in our stead, and gone into His glory; and, if you cannot depend upon Him, what more would you have Him do? Shall He come and die again? You have rejected Him once; you would reject Him though He died twice. But that cannot be done; there is enough in His sacrifice to answer all the purposes of mercy, and if you sin wilfully by rejecting Him, “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation.”

Oh, poor troubled soul, rest thou on Him now. While I put these words, as it were, into your mouths, how I wish I could put them into your hearts! How foolish you are who are looking for signs and wonders or else you will not believe. May the Spirit of God show you that Jesus is now able and willing to save you, and that all you have to do is to take what He has done, and simply trust Him, and you shall be saved, completely saved, perfected through His one sacrifice. There remaineth no more to be done by the Redeemer. He sits down, and He will not rise for any further sacrifice. He has finished His atonement and perfected those He means to save; and if you believe not in Him, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.

The Only Atoning Priest by C. H. Spurgeon

One Sacrifice for Sins Forever

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

But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God… – Hebrews 10:12

The efficacy of the atonement of Christ for sin is as great today as ever it was. He “offered one sacrifice for sins,” for what? for a thousand years? No! But the text says “forever!”—FOREVER!

“The dying thief rejoiced to see,
That fountain in his day,
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood,
Shall never loose its power;
Till all the ransomed church of God,
Be saved to sin no more.”

“One sacrifice for sins for ever.” The devil tells you it is of no use for you to believe in Christ, there is not efficacy for you, you have sinned away your day of grace; tell him he is a liar, Christ has offered one sacrifice for sins for ever; and while a man lives beneath the covenant of mercy, where the gospel is sounded in his ears, there is efficacy in the atonement for ever. The atoning sacrifice has no limit in its merit, the salvation of some has not drained it of even the smallest degree of its power. As the sunlight, though it be seen by millions of eyes, is as bright as ever it was, so is it with Jesus. Perhaps the Sun’s fires may grow dull, and become dimmed in the course of ages, but it is certain that the eternal fount of mercy, the Sun of Righteousness, will never fail. He will continue to flood His people with the golden sunlight of His forgiving grace. He has made one sacrifice for sins for ever. I will come to Him then. He is able to save me—He is able to save me even though I were a sinner of seventy years of age. I will come to Him, I will rest in Him—in Him alone. Oh, believe me, if you do this you have eternal life abiding in you.

The Only Atoning Priest by C. H. Spurgeon