Character of Jesus

Experimental Knowledge

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

..and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. – 1 Timothy 2:4

This knowledge when it comes really to save the soul is what we call experimental knowledge-knowledge acquired according to the exhortation of the psalmist, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good”-acquired by tasting. Now, at this present moment, I, speaking for myself, know that I am originally lost by nature. Do I believe it? Believe it? I am as sure of it as I am of my own existence. I know that I am lost by nature. It would not be possible for anybody to make me doubt that: I have felt it. How many weary days I spent under the pressure of that knowledge! Does a soldier know that there is such a thing as a cat when he has had a hundred lashes? It would take a deal of argument to make him believe there is not such a thing, or that backs do not smart when they feel the lash. Oh, how my soul smarted under the lash of conscience when I suffered under a sense of sin! Do I know that I could not save myself? Know it? Why, my poor, struggling heart labored this way and that, even as in the very fire with bitter disappointment, for I labored to climb to the stars on a treadwheel, and I was trying and trying and trying with all my might, but never rose an inch higher. I tried to fill a bottomless tub with leaking buckets, and worked on and toiled and slaved, but never accomplished even the beginning of my unhappy task. I know, for I have tried it, that salvation is not in man, or in all the feelings, and weepings, and prayings, and Bible readings, and church goings, and chapel goings which zeal could crowd together. Nothing whatsoever that man does can avail him towards his own salvation. This I know by sad trial of it, and failure in it…

“Man lost: Christ his Savior. Man nothing: God all in all. The heart depraved: the Spirit working the new life by faith.” The Lord grant that these truths may come home to your hearts with power.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1516.cfm

A Personal Knowledge

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation Leave a comment

Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. – 1 Timothy 2:4

That which the Lord has revealed in holy Scripture you must devoutly believe to be true. In addition to this, your knowledge, if it becomes believing knowledge, must be personal knowledge-a persuasion that it is true in reference to yourself. It is true about your neighbor, about your brother, but you must believe it about yourself, or your knowledge is vain-for instance, you must know that you are lost-that you are in danger of eternal destruction from the presence of God-that for you there is no hope but in Christ-that for you there is hope if you rest in Christ-that resting in Christ you are saved. Yes, you. You must know that because you have trusted in Christ you are saved, and that now you are free from condemnation, and that now in you the new life has begun, which will fight against the old life of sin, until it overcome, and you, even you, are safely landed on the golden shore. There must be a personal appropriation of what you believe to be true. That is the kind of knowledge which saves the soul. But this must be a powerful knowledge, by which I mean that it must operate in and upon your mind. A man is told that his house is on fire. I will suppose that standing here I held up a telegram, and said, “My friend, is your name so-and-so?” “Yes.” “Well, your house is on fire.” He knows the fact, does he not? Yes, but he sits quite still. Now, my impression is about that good brother, that he does not know, for he does not believe it. He cannot believe it, surely he may believe that somebody’s house is on fire, but not his own. If it is his house which is burning, and he knows it, what does he do? Why he gets up and goes off to see what he can do towards saving his goods. That is the kind of knowledge which saves the soul-when a man knows the truth about himself, and therefore his whole nature is moved and affected by the knowledge. Do I know that I am in danger of hell fire? And am I in my senses? Then I shall never rest till I have escaped from that danger. Do I know that there is salvation for me in Christ? Then I never shall be content until I have obtained that salvation by the faith to which that salvation is promised. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1516.cfm

Christ, the Sin Slayer

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption… – 1 Corinthians 1:30

When a man comes in very deed to a knowledge of the truth about faith in Christ, he trusts Christ, and he is there and then saved from the guilt of sin; and he begins to be saved altogether from sin. God cuts the root of the power of sin that very day; but yet it has such life within itself that at the scent of water it will bud again. Sin in our members struggles to live. It has as many lives as a cat: there is no killing it. Now, when we come to a knowledge of the truth, we begin to learn how sin is to be killed in us-how the same Christ that justifies, sanctifies, and works in us according to His working who worketh in us mightily, that we may he conformed to the image of Christ, and made meet to dwell with perfect saints above. Beloved, many of you that are saved from the guilt of sin, have a very hard struggle with the power of sin, and have much more conflict, perhaps, than you need to have, because you have not come to a knowledge of all the truth about indwelling sin. I therefore beg you to study much the Word of God upon that point, and especially to see the adaptation of Christ to rule over your nature, and to conquer all your corrupt desires, and learn how by faith to bring each sin before Him that, like Agag, it may be hewed in pieces before His eyes. You will never overcome sin except by the blood of the Lamb. There is no sanctification except by faith. The same instrument which destroys sin as to its guilt must slay sin as to its power. “They overcame by the blood of the Lamb,” and so must you. Learn this truth well, so shall you find salvation wrought in you from day to day.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1516.cfm

Salvation is for Every Empty, Needy Sinner

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

For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called… – 1 Corinthians 1:26

When a man wishes the way of salvation to be difficult he naturally kicks at it because it is easy; and, when his pride wants it to be hard to be understood, he is pretty sure to say that he does not understand it because it is so plain. Do not you know that the unlettered often receive Christ when philosophers refuse him, and that he who has not called many of the great, and many of the mighty, has chosen poor, foolish, and despised things? That is because poor foolish men, you know, are willing to believe a plain thing, but men wise in their own conceits desire to be, if they can, a little confounded and puzzled that they may please themselves with the idea that their own superior intellect has made a discovery; and, because the way of salvation is just so easy that almost an idiot boy may lay hold of it, therefore they pretend that they do not understand it. Some people cannot see a thing because it is too high up; but there are others who cannot see it because it is too low down. Now, it so happens that the way of salvation by faith is so simple that it seems beneath the dignity of exceedingly clever men. May God bring them to a knowledge of this truth: may they see that they cannot be saved except by giving up all idea of saving themselves; that they cannot be saved except they step right into Christ, for, until they get to the end of the creature, they will never get to the beginning of the Creator. Till they empty out their pockets of every mouldy crust, and have not a crumb left; they cannot come and take the rich mercy which is stored up in Christ Jesus for every empty, needy sinner. May the Lord be pleased to give you that knowledge of the truth!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1516.cfm

 

Saved from Despair – There is Hope!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;  Who gave Himself a ransom for all… – 1 Timothy 2:5, 6

Unable to be careless, and unable to find comfort in false confidences, some poor agitated minds are driven into a wide and stormy sea without rudder or compass, with nothing but wreck before them. “There is no hope for me,” says the man. “I perceive I cannot save myself. I see that I am lost. I am dead in trespasses and sins, and cannot stir hand or foot. Surely now I may as well go on in sin, and even multiply my transgressions. The gate of mercy is shut against me; what is the use of fear where there is no room for hope?” At such a time, if the Lord leads the man to a knowledge of the truth, he perceives that though his sins be as scarlet they shalt be as wool, and though they be red like crimson they shall be as white as snow. That precious doctrine of substitution comes in- that Christ stood in the stead of the sinner, that the transgression of His people was laid upon Him, and that God, by thus avenging sin in the person of His dear Son, and honoring His law by the suffering of the Savior, is now able to declare pardon to the penitent and grace to the believing. Now, when the soul comes to know that sin is put away by the atoning blood; when the heart discovers that it is not our life that saves us, but the life of God that comes to dwell in us; that we are not to be regenerated by our own actions, but are regenerated by the Holy Ghost who comes to us through the precious death of Jesus, then despair flies away, and the soul cries exultingly, “There is hope. There is hope. Christ died for sinners: why should I not have a part in that precious death? He came like a physician to heal the sick: why should He not heal me? Now I perceive that He does not want my goodness, but my badness; He does not need my righteousness, but my unrighteousness: for He came to save the ungodly and to redeem His people from their sins. I say, when the heart comes to a knowledge of this truth, then it is saved from despair; and this is no small part of the salvation of Jesus Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1516.cfm

Saved from Trusting in a Lie

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

Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. – ! Timothy 2:4

I have known men, when first they have come to a knowledge of this truth, become unable to sleep. They have started up in the night. They have asked those who were with them to help them to pray. The next day they have been scarcely able to mind their business, for a dreadful sound has been in their ears. They feared lest they should stumble into the grave and into hell. Thus they were saved from carelessness. They could not go back to be the mere brute beasts they were before. Their eyes had been opened to futurity and eternity. Their spirits had been quickened-at least so much that they could not rest in that doltish, dull, dead carelessness in which they had formerly been found. They were shaken out of their deadly lethargy by a knowledge of the truth…Often when men are awakened to know something about the wrath of God they begin to plunge about to discover divers methods by which they may escape from that wrath…Under such untruthful notions we have known people who were somewhat aroused sit down again in a false peace. They have done all that they judged right and attended to all that they were told. Suddenly, by God’s grace, they come to a knowledge of another truth, and that is that by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God. They discover that salvation is not by works of the law or by ceremonies, and that if any man be under the law he is also under the curse. Such a text as the following comes home, “Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” and such another text as this, “Ye must be born again,” and then this at the back of it-“that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” When they also find out that there is necessary a righteousness better than their own, a perfect righteousness to justify them before God, and when they discover that they must be made new creatures in Christ Jesus, or else they must utterly perish, then they are saved from false confidences, saved from crying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. It is a grand thing when a knowledge of the truth stops us from trusting in a lie. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1516.cfm

 

All Men Saved

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. – 1 Timothy 2:3, 4

It is quite certain that when we read that God will have all men to be saved it does not mean that He wills it with the force of a decree or a divine purpose, for, if He did, then all men would be saved. He willed to make the world, and the world was made: He does not so will the salvation of all men, for we know that all men will not be saved. Terrible as the truth is, yet is it certain from holy writ that there are men who, in consequence of their sin and their rejection of the Savior, will go away into everlasting punishment, where shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. There will at the last be goats upon the left hand as well as sheep on the right, tares to be burned as well as wheat to be garnered, chaff to be blown away as well as corn to be preserved. There will be a dreadful hell as well as a glorious heaven, and there is no decree to the contrary.

…The Holy Ghost by the apostle has written “all men,” and unquestionably He means all men…Then comes the question, “But if He wishes it to be so, why does He not make it so? ” …There stands the text, and I believe that it is my Father’s wish that “all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.” But I know, also, that He does not will it, so that He will save any one of them, unless they believe in His dear Son; for He has told us over and over that He will not. He will not save any man except he forsakes his sins, and turns to Him with full purpose of heart: that I also know. And I know, also, that He has a people whom He will save, whom by His eternal love He has chosen, and whom by His eternal power He will deliver. I do not know how that squares with this; that is another of the things I do not know. If I go on telling you of all that I do not know, and of all that I do know, I will warrant you that the things that I do not know will be a hundred to one of the things that I do know. And so we will say no more about the matter, but just go on to the more practical part of the text. God’s wish about man’s salvation is this: that men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1516.cfm