Jesus Came to Save Thee

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. – 1 Timothy 1:15

A profligate son had been a great grief to his father; he had robbed him and disgraced him, and at last he ended by bringing his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. He was a horrible wretch of a son: no one could have been more graceless. However, he attended his father’s funeral, and he stayed to hear the will read: perhaps it was the chief reason why he was there. He had fully made up his mind that his father would cut him off with a shilling, and he meant to make it very unpleasant for the rest of the family. To his great astonishment, as the will was read it ran something like this: “As for my son Richard, though he has fearfully wasted my substance, and though he has often grieved my heart, I would have him know that I consider him still to be my own dear child, and therefore, in token of my undying love, I leave him the same share as the rest of his brothers.” He left the room; he could not stand it; the surprising love of his father had mastered him. He came down to the executor the next morning, and said, “You surely did not read correctly?” “Yes, I did; there it stands.” “Then,” he said, “I feel ready to curse myself that I ever grieved my dear old father. Oh, that I could fetch him back again!” Love was born in that base heart by an unexpected display of love. May not your case be similar? Our Lord Jesus Christ is dead, but He has left it in His will that the chief of sinners are objects of His choicest mercy. Dying, He prayed, “Father, forgive them.” Risen He pleads for transgressors. Sinners are ever on His mind: their salvation is His great object. His blood is for them, His heart for them, His righteousness is for them, His heaven is for them. Come, O ye guilty ones, and receive your legacy. Put out the hand of faith and grasp your portion. Trust Jesus with your souls, and He will save you. God bless you. Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

The Pure is Alloyed with the Base in the Church

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” – Colossians 2:8

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one! – Job 14:4

God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. -John 4:24

“As it was with the worship of Israel of old, so it is now with that of the Christian church. The pure becomes alloyed with the base, that which is genuine with that which is spurious, divine revelation with human tradition, and the inspired decrees of heaven with the inventions and devices of the children of men. Some fallacies are perpetuated from generation to generation, until the deep hue of antiquity tinges them over, makes them look venerable and speciously invites a reverence and regard to which they never had any legitimate claim… But mark ye this, if the grace of God be once more restored to the church in all its fullness and the Spirit of God be poured out from on high, in all His sanctifying energy there will come such a shaking as has never been seen in our days.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

This Holy Fear, This Sacred Caution

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise… – Ephesians 1:13

A man who becomes a partaker of divine grace, and receives the new nature, is ever afterwards a partaker of daily helps from God’s Holy Spirit. God the Holy Ghost deigns to dwell in the bosom, of every man whom God has saved by His grace. Is not that a wonderful means of sanctifying? By what process can men be better kept from sin than by having the Holy Spirit Himself to dwell as Vice-regent within their hearts? The Ever- blessed Spirit leads believers to be much in prayer, and what a power for holiness is found in the child of grace speaking to the heavenly Father! The tempted man flies to his chamber, unbosoms his grief to God, looks to the flowing wounds of his Redeemer, and comes down strong to resist temptation. The divine Word also, with its precepts and promises, is a never-failing source of sanctification. Were it not that we every day bathe in the sacred fountain of eternal strength we might soon be weak and irresolute; but fellowship with God renews us in our vigorous warfare with sin. How is it possible that the doctrines of grace should suggest sin to men who constantly draw near to God? The renewed man is also by God’s Spirit frequently quickened in conscience; so that things which heretofore did not strike him as sinful are seen in a clearer light and are consequently condemned. I know that certain matters are sinful to me today which did not appear so ten years ago: my judgment has, I trust, been more and more cleared of the blindness of sin. The natural conscience is callous and hard; but the gracious conscience grows more and more tender till at last it becomes as sensitive as a raw wound. He who has most grace is most conscious of his need of more grace. The gracious are often afraid to put one foot before another for fear of doing wrong. Have you not felt this holy fear, this sacred caution? It is by this means that the Holy Spirit prevents your ever turning your Christian liberty into licentiousness, or daring to make the grace of God an argument for folly. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

Sin Abhorred

And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. – Romans 5:11

One of the chief securities for the holiness of the pardoned is found in the way of cleansing through atonement. The blood of Jesus sanctifies as well as pardons. The sinner learns that his free pardon cost the life of his best Friend; that in order to his salvation the Son of God Himself agonized even to a bloody sweat and died forsaken of His God. This causes a sacred mourning for sin, as he looks upon the Lord whom he pierced. Love to Jesus burns within the pardoned sinner’s breast, for the Lord is his Redeemer; and therefore, he feels a burning indignation against the murderous evil of sin. To him all manner of evil is detestable, since it is stained with the Saviour’s heart’s blood. As the penitent sinner hears the cry of, “Eloi, sabachthani!” he is horrified to think that one so pure and good should be forsaken of heaven because of the sin which He bore in His people’s stead. From the death of Jesus, the mind draws the conclusion that sin is exceedingly sinful in the sight of the Lord; for if eternal justice would not spare even the Well-beloved Jesus when imputed sin was upon Him, how much less will it spare guilty men? It must be a thing unutterably full of poison which could make even the immaculate Jesus suffer so terribly. Nothing can be imagined which can have greater power over gracious minds than the vision of a crucified Saviour denouncing sin by all His wounds, and by every falling drop of blood. What! live in the sin which slew Jesus? Find pleasure in that which wrought His death? Trifle with that which laid His glory in the dust? Impossible! Thus, you see that the gifts of free grace, when handed down by a pierced hand, are never likely to suggest self-indulgence in sin, but the very reverse. C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

The Word Made Flesh

“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth”- John 1:14.

I   cannot refrain from mentioning an incident connected with the perusal of the first chapter of John. I suppose there is not a passage in God’s Word which has not at some time or other been blessed to the conversion of a soul. Even the fifth chapter of Genesis, which is so uninteresting to the most of readers, because the verses continually end, “And he died,” “And he died,” “And he died,” has been blessed to one, who from the reiteration of the fact that men who lived nine hundred years nevertheless died, was led to think of his own death. Now, the first chapter of John was the means of the conversion of a celebrated writer, Junius the younger, one who did good service in the Church. His father, perceiving him to be an ungodly young man, put in his way as much as possible the New Testament, and the following is an extract from Junius’s account of his own life. “My father, who was frequently reading the New Testament, and had long observed with grief the progress I had made in infidelity, had put that book in my way in his library, in order to attract my attention, if it might please God to bless his design, though without giving me the least intimation of it. Here, therefore, I unwittingly opened the New Testament thus providentially laid before me. At the very first view, although I was deeply engaged in other thoughts, that grand chapter of the evangelist and apostle presented itself to me-‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.’ I read part of the chapter and was so greeted that I instantly became struck with the divinity of the argument, and the majesty and authority of the composition, as infinitely surpassing the highest flights of human eloquence. My body shuddered; my mind was in amazement, and I was so agitated the whole day that I scarcely knew who I was; nor did the agitation cease, but continued till it was at last soothed by a humble faith in Him who was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

Let me read it, giving another translation: “The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0414.cfm

Our New Nature Hates Sin

Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

Every man who tastes of the saving grace of God is made a new creature in Christ Jesus. Now if the doctrine of grace in the hands of an ordinary man might be dangerous, yet it would cease to be so in the hands of one who is quickened by the Spirit and created anew in the image of God. The Holy Spirit comes upon the chosen one, and transforms him: his ignorance is removed, his affections are changed, his understanding is enlightened, his will is subdued, his desires are refined, his life is changed-in fact, he is as one new-born, to whom all things have become new. This change is compared in Scripture to the resurrection from the dead, to a creation, and to a new birth. This takes place in every man who becomes a partaker of the free grace of God. “Ye must be born again,” said Christ to Nicodemus; and gracious men are born again. One said the other day, “If I believed that I was eternally saved, I should live in sin.” Perhaps you would; but if you were renewed in heart, you would not. “But,” says one, “if I believed God loved me from before the foundation of the world, and that therefore I should be saved, I would take a full swing of sin.” Perhaps you and the devil would; but God’s regenerate children are not of so base a nature. To them the abounding grace of the Father is a bond to righteousness which they never think of breaking: they feel the sweet constraints of sacred gratitude, and desire to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord. All beings live according to their nature, and the regenerated man works out the holy instincts of his renewed mind: crying after holiness, warring against sin, labouring to be pure in all things, the regenerate man puts forth all his strength towards that which is pure and perfect. A new heart makes all the difference. Given a new nature, and then all the propensities run in a different way, and the blessings of Almighty love no longer involve peril, but suggest the loftiest aspirations. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm