Simply Trusting Christ

He that believeth on Him is not condemned… -John 3:18

This is the first way of salvation-simply trusting and looking up to Christ for everything. But, then, we did trust. There is a difference between knowing about trust and trusting. By God’s Holy Spirit, we were not left merely to talk about faith, nor to think about it, but we did believe. If the Government were to announce that there would be ten thousand acres of land in New Zealand given to a settler, I can imagine two men believing it. One believes it and forgets it; the other believes it and takes his passage to go out and get the land. Now the first kind of faith saves nobody; but the second faith, the practical faith, is that which, for the sake of seeking Christ, gives up the sins of this life, the pleasures of it-I mean the wicked pleasures of it-gives up all confidence in everything else, and casts itself into the arms of the Saviour. There is the sea of divine love; he shall be saved who plunges boldly into it, and casts himself upon its waves, hoping to be upborne. Oh! my hearer, hast thou done this? If so, thou art certainly a saved one. If thou hast not, oh! may grace enable thee to do it ere yet that setting sun has hidden himself beneath the horizon. Hast thou known this before, that a simple trust in Christ will save thee? This is the one message of this inspired Volume. This is the gospel according to Paul, the one gospel which we preach continually. Try it, and if it save thee not, we will be bondsmen for God for thee. But it must save thee, for God is true, and cannot fail, and He has declared, “He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the Son of God.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3509.cfm

Christ, Our Need Meeter

But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:19

We bear our witness that nothing but coming to Christ ever did give us any peace. In my own case I was distracted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted for some years, and I never could believe my sin forgiven or have any peace by day or night until I simply trusted Jesus, and from that time my peace has been like a river. I have rejoiced in the certainty of pardon, and sung with triumph in the Lord my God, and many of you are constantly doing the same, but until you looked to Christ, you had not any peace. You searched, and searched, and searched, but your search was fruitless until you looked into the five wounds of the expiring Saviour, and there you found life from the dead…

We came very tremblingly, but He did not cast us out. We thought He never died for us, that He could not wash our sins away….But still we came to Christ, because we dared not step away. We were like a timid dove that is hunted by a hawk and is afraid. We feared we should be destroyed, but he did not say to us, “You came to Me tremblingly, and I will reject you.” Nay, but into the bosom of His love He received us, and blotted out our sins. When we came to Jesus, we did not come bringing anything, but we came to Him for everything. We came strictly empty-handed, and we got all we wanted in Christ. There is a piece of iron, and if it were to say, “Where am I to get the power from to cling to the loadstone?” the loadstone would say, “Let me get near you, and I will supply you with that.” So we sometimes think, “How can I believe? How can I hope? How can I follow Christ?” Ay, but let Christ get near us, and He finds us with all that. We do not come to Christ to bring our repentance, but to get repentance. We do not come to Him with a broken heart, but for a broken heart. We do not so much even come to Him with faith, as come to Him for faith. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3509.cfm

To Whom Coming

To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious -1 Peter 2:4

In these three words you have, first of all, a blessed person mentioned, under the pronoun “whom”- “To whom coming.” In the way of salvation we come alone to Jesus Christ. All comings to baptism, comings to confirmation, comings to sacrament are all null and void unless we come to Jesus Christ. That which saves the soul is not coming to a human priest, nor even attending the assemblies of God’s saints; it is coming to Jesus Christ, the great exalted Saviour, once slain, but now enthroned in glory. You must get to Him, or else you have virtually nothing upon which your soul can rely. “To whom coming.” Peter speaks of all the saints as coming to Jesus, coming to Him as unto a living stone, and being built upon Him, and no other foundation can any man lay than that which is laid, and if any man say that coming anywhere but to Christ can bring salvation, he hath denied the faith and utterly departed from it. The coming mentioned in the text is a word which is sometimes explained in Scripture by hearing, at other times by trusting or believing, and quite as frequently by looking. “To whom coming.” Coming to Christ does not mean coming with any natural motion of the body, for He is in heaven, and we cannot climb up to the place where He is; but it is a mental coming, a spiritual coming; it is, in one word, a trusting in and upon Him. He who believes Jesus Christ to be God, and to be the appointed atonement for sin, and relies upon Him as such, has come to Him, and it is this coming which saves the soul. Whoever the wide world over has relied upon Jesus Christ, and is still relying upon Him for the pardon of his iniquities, and for his complete salvation, is saved.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3509.cfm

The Blessed Confession

I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee -Luke 15:18

Look, there he is, with the fellow commoners of the sty, in all his mire and filthiness. Suddenly a thought, put there by the good Spirit, strikes his mind. “How is it,” says he, “that in my father’s house there is bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.”…But his father puts his hand on his mouth. “No more of that,” says he; “I forgive you all; you shall not say anything about being a hired servant-I will have none of that. Come along,” says he, “come in, poor prodigal. Ho!” says he to the servants, “bring hither the best robe, and put it on him, and put shoes on his poor bleeding feet; and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it; and let us eat and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” And they began to be merry. Oh, what a precious reception for one of the chief of sinners! Good Matthew Henry says-” His father saw him, there were eyes of mercy; he ran to meet him, there were legs of mercy; he put his arms round his neck, there were arms of mercy; he kissed him, there were kisses of mercy; he said to him, there were words of mercy; “Bring hither the best robe,” there were deeds of mercy, wonders of mercy-all mercy. Oh, what a God of mercy He is.”

Now, prodigal, you do the same…”Ah, sir, I am so black, so filthy, so vile.” Well come along with you-you cannot be blacker than the prodigal. Come to your Father’s house, and as surely as He is God He will keep His word: “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0113.cfm

 

 

It is Hard Work to Die Without Jesus

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us -Acts 17:27

Those of you who make no profession of religion, are living without God and without Christ, strangers to the commonwealth of Israel,-let me affectionately remind you that the day is coming when you will want religion. It is very well now to be sailing over the smooth waters of life, but the rough billows of Jordan will make you want a Saviour. It is hard work to die without a hope; to take that last leap in the dark is a frightful thing indeed. I have seen the old man die when he has declared he would not die. He has stood upon the brink of death, and he has said, “All dark, dark, dark! O God, I cannot die.” And his agony has been fearful when the strong hand of the destroyer has seemed to push him over the precipice. He lingered shivering on the brink, and feared to launch away.” And frightful was the moment when the foot slipped and the solid earth was left, and the soul was sinking into the depths of eternal wrath. You will want a Saviour then, when your pulse is faint and few; you will need an angel then to stand at your bedside: and when the spirit is departing, you will need a sacred convoy to pilot you through the dark clouds of death and guide you through the iron gate, and lead you to the blessed mansion in the land of the hereafter. Oh, “seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: 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. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” O Lord, turn us and we shall be turned. Draw us and we will run after Thee; and Thine shall be the glory; for the crown of our race shall be cast at Thy feet, and Thou shalt have the glory forever and ever.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0198.cfm

“Onward, onward, onward!”

…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…Hebrews 12:2

He that would be saved, must hold on to the end: “He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.” Stop and loiter in the race before you have come to the end thereof, and you have made one of the greatest mistakes that could possibly occur. On, on, on! while you live; still onward, onward, onward! for until you come to the grave, you have not come to your resting place until you arrive at the tomb, you have not come to the spot where you may cry “Halt!” Ever onward if ye would win. If you are content to lose, if you would lose your own soul, you may say, “Stop,” if you please; but if you would be saved evermore, be on, on, till you have gained the prize.

Christian, run onward, for remember who it is that stands at the winning post. You are to run onward, always looking unto Jesus, then Jesus must be at the end. We are always to be looking forward, and never backward; therefore Jesus must be there. Are you loitering? See Him with His open wounds. Are you about to leave the course? See Him with His bleeding hands; will not that constrain you to devote yourself to Him? Will not that impel you to speed your course, and never loiter until you have obtained the crown? Your dying Master cries to you today, and He says. “By My agony and bloody sweat; by My cross and passion, onward! By My life, which I gave for you; by the death which I endured for your sake, onward!” And see! He holds out His hand, laden with a crown sparkling with many a star, and He says, “By this crown, onward!” I beseech you, onward, my beloved; press forward, for “I know that there is laid up for me a crown of life which fadeth not away, and not for me only, but for all them that love His appearing.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0198.cfm

You are Running for Your Life

And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey?…Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. -Hebrews 3:18; 4:11

Recollect, your race is win or lose-death or life, hell or heaven, eternal misery or everlasting joy. What a stake that is for which you run. If I may so put it, you are running for your life; and if that does not make a man run nothing will. Put a man there on yonder hill, and put another after him with a drawn sword seeking his life, If there is any run in him you will soon see him run; there will be no need for us to shout out to him, “Run, man, run” for he is quite certain that his life is at hazard, and he speeds with all his might-speeds till the veins stand like whipcords on his brow, and a hot sweat runs from every pore of his body-and still flees onward. Now, he looks behind, and sees the avenger of blood speeding after him; he does not stop; he spurns the ground, and on he flees till he reaches the city of refuge, where he is safe. Ah! if we had eyes to see, and if we knew who it is that is pursuing us every day of our lives, how we should run! for lo! O man, hell is behind thee, sin pursues thee, evil seeks to overtake thee; the City of Refuge has its gates wide open; I beseech thee, rest not till thou canst say with confidence, “I have entered into this rest, and now I am secure, I know that my Redeemer liveth.” And rest not even then, for this is not the place for rest; rest not until thy six days work is done; and thy heavenly Sabbath is begun. Let this life be thy six days of ever-toiling faith. Obey thy Master’s commandment; “labour therefore to enter into this rest,” seeing that there are many who shall not enter in, because, through their want of faith, they shall not be able. If that urge not a man to speed forward, what can? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0198.cfm