Simply Look to Christ

Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. – Isaiah 45:22

You are to come to Christ to get everything. You are not to say, “Well, I will believe first, and then come.” No; go to Christ for faith. You must look to the cross even to get a sense of sin. We do not feel our sins so much before we see the cross, but we feel them most afterwards. We look to Christ first; then repentance flows from both our streaming eyes. Remember, if you go anywhere else to find a Saviour, you are on the wrong track. If you try to bring anything to Christ, to use a homely proverb, it is like bringing coals to Newcastle. He has plenty-He does not want any of yours, and what is more, as soon as He sees anything in your hands He will turn you straight away. He will have nothing to do with you until you can say-

“Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.”

I have a hundred different phases of this singular fatuity of man-the desire to bring something to Christ. “Oh,” says one “I would come to Christ, but I have been too great a sinner.” Self again, sir; your being a great sinner has nothing to do with that. Christ is a great Saviour; and however great your sin, His mercy is greater than that. He invites you simply as a sinner. Be you big or little, He bids you come to Him and take His salvation “without money and without price.” Another says, “Ah! but I do not feel it enough.” Self again. He does not ask you about your feelings He simply says, “Look unto Me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth.” “But, sir, I cannot pray.” Self again. You are not to be saved by your prayers; you are to be saved by Christ, and your business is simply to look to Christ. He will help you to pray afterwards. You must begin at the right end by clinging only to His cross and trusting there. But, I said to myself, “I will try once more” and I went to the Master, with nothing of my own, casting myself simply on His mercy; and I believed that He died for me…Oh, do try Him.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0199.cfm

 

A Secure Salvation

All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. – John 6:37

If a man believeth in Christ with all his heart, his salvation is secure beyond hazard; and I always look upon this as the very jewel of the crown of salvation, that it be irreversible.

“His honor is engaged to save
The meanest of His sheep.
All that His heavenly Father gave
His hands securely keep.

God does not make you His child to-day, and turn you out to-morrow; He does not forgive you to-day, and then punish you the next day. As true as God is God, if thou gettest thy pardon, the earth may melt away just as a moment’s foam dissolves into the wave that bears it and is lost for ever; the great universe may pass away and be like the hoar-frost before the morning sun; but thou never canst be condemned. As long as God is God, he who has got his pardon signed and sealed, is beyond the reach of harm. I would not preach any other-I dare not. It would not be worth your receiving, it would not be worth my taking the trouble to preach; but this is worth any man’s having indeed, for it is a sure investment. He who puts himself into the hands of Christ has a sure keeper, come what may-and there may come strong temptations and strong affections, and there may come strong pains and hard duties, but He that hath helped us bears us through, and makes us more than conquerors too. Oh! to be pardoned once, with the certain assurance that we shall be pardoned for ever, beyond the hazard of being cast away! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0199.cfm

An Eternal Pardon

…and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. – 1 John 1:7

Here is pardon for your drunkenness, pardon for your oaths, pardon for your lust, pardon for your rebellion against heaven; for the sins of your youth and the sins of your old age, for the sins of the sanctuary and the sins of the brothel, or the tavern. Here is pardon for all sin, for “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” But again, the pardon we have to preach is a present pardon. If you feel your need of a Saviour, if now you are enabled to believe in Christ, you shall be pardoned now. Those who have ordinary hopes say they hope to be pardoned when they come to die. But, beloved, that is not the religion we preach. If you will now make confession of sin, now seek the Lord, you shall be pardoned now. It is possible for a man to have come in here with all his sins hanging about his neck like a millstone, enough to sink him lower than the lowest hell, and yet to go out of this door with every sin blotted out. If now he is enabled to believe on him, he may receive perfect pardon from the hand of God. The pardon of a sinner is not a thing done when he is dying, it is done when he is living-done now…Oh! Is it not a magnificent thing for a man to be able to tread God’s earth with this for a song in his mouth, “I am forgiven, I am forgiven; I am pardoned?” I think it is one of the sweetest songs in all the world-scarcely less sweet than that of the cherubim before the throne-

“Oh. how sweet to view the flowing
Of His soul redeeming blood!
With divine assurance knowing,
He has made my peace with God.”

…I am bidden to cry “Ho! ho! Every one that thirsteth; if you feel your need of Christ, if you are now ready to confess your sins, come and take it freely without money and without price.” The pardon which is proclaimed is not only free, and full, and present, but it is a pardon that will last for ever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0199.cfm

A Full and Free Salvation

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. – Isaiah 55:7

“What is the gospel?” Well, the gospel, as I take it, can be looked at in various ways, but I will put it as this-the gospel is the preaching of a full, free, present, everlasting pardon to sinners through Jesus Christ’s atoning blood. If I understand the gospel at all, it has in it a great deal more than this; but still this is the substance of it. I have to preach the great fact that while all have sinned, Christ hath died, and to all penitents who now confess their sins and put their trust in Christ, there is a full, free pardon-free in this respect, that you have nothing to do in order to get it. The meanest sin-stricken sinner has simply to pour out his plaintive griefs before God; that is all He asks.

There is no need to pass through years of penance, of hard labor, and of trial; the gospel is as free as the air you breathe. You do not pay for breathing; you do not pay for seeing the sunlight, nor for the water that flows in the river as you stoop to drink it in your thirst. So the gospel is free; nothing is to be done in order to get it. No merits need be brought in order to obtain it. There is free pardon for the chief of sinners through Jesus Christ’s blood… If now, sinner, God hath put it in thine heart to seek Him, the pardon which He is prepared to give thee, is a full one; not a pardon for a part of your sins, but for all at once.

“Here’s pardon for transgressions past,
It matters not how black they’re cast,
And, oh! my soul with wonder view,
For sins to come here’s pardon too.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0199.cfm

A Drink For the Common Days and the Special Days

… yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. – Isaiah 55:1

Wine, you know, is a rich thing, something that requires much time to manufacture. There has to be vintage and fermentation and preservation before wine can come to its full flavour. Now, the gospel is like that, it is an extraordinary thing for feast days; it gives a man power to use a vintage of thought, a fermentation of action, and a preservation of experience, till a man’s piety comes forth like the sparkling wine that makes the heart leap with gladness. There is that, I say, in religion, that makes it an extraordinary thing, a thing for rare occasions, to be brought out when princes sit at the table. But milk is an ordinary thing; you get it every day, anywhere. If you just run out into the farm yard there it is; there is no preparation required. it is ready to the hand. It is an ordinary thing. So is it with the gospel: it is a thing for every day. I love the gospel on Sunday, but, blessed be God, it is a Monday gospel too. The gospel is a thing for the chapel, and it is a thing for the church, there it is like wine. But it is a thing for the farm yard, it is a thing which you may observe behind the plough, and from behind the counter. The religion of Christ is a thing that will go with you into your shop, on to the Exchange, into the market, everywhere. It is like milk-an everyday dish-a thing which we may always have, and upon which we may always feast. Oh! thank heaven, there is wine for that high day when we shall see the Saviour face to face; there is wine for that dread day when we shall ford the stream of Jordan-wine that shall remove our fears and bid us sing in the midst of the dark billows of Death: but thanks be unto Him, there is milk too-milk for everyday occurrences, for every-day actions, milk for us to drink as long as we live, and milk to cherish us till the last great day shall come. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0199.cfm

Milk and Wine

“Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”- Isaiah 55:1

There we have a description of the gospel-wine that maketh glad the heart of man; milk, the one thing and the only thing in the world which contains all the essentials of life. The strongest man might live on milk, for in it. there is everything which is needed for the human frame-for bone, for sinew, for nerve, for muscle, for flesh-all is there. There you have a double description. The gospel is like wine which makes us glad. Let a man truly know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he will be a happy man, and the deeper he drinks into the spirit of Christ, the more happy will he become. That religion which teaches misery to be a duty. is false upon the very face of it, for God, when He made the world, studied the happiness of His creatures. You cannot help thinking, as you see everything around you, that God has sedulously, with the most strict attention, sought ways of pleasing man. He has not just given us our absolute necessities, He has given us more, not simply the useful, but even the ornamental The flowers in the hedgerow, the stars in the sky, the beauties of nature, the hill and the valley-all these things were intended not merely because we needed them, but because God would show us how He loved us, and how anxious He was that we should be happy. Now, it is not likely that the God who made a happy world would send a miserable salvation. He who is a happy Creator will be a happy Redeemer, and those who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, can bear witness that the ways of religion “are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace.” And if this life were all, if death were the burial of all our life, and if the shroud were the winding-sheet of eternity, still to be a Christian would be a bright and happy thing for it lights up this valley of tears, and fills the wells in the valley of Baca to the brim with streams of love and joy. The gospel then, is like wine. It is like milk, too, for there is everything in the gospel that you want…There is knowledge for the head; there is love for the heart; there is guidance for the foot. There is milk and wine, in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0199.cfm