Christian Life
There is No Other Way of Salvation
…For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation… – Revelation 5:9
How many have already entered into glory by the blood of the Lamb! When a man comes to die, nothing else will do for him but this: our own works are a poor staff for us when we pass through the river. All those who are now in the land of light have but one confidence, and but one song: they stand upon the merit of Jesus Christ, and they praise the Lamb who was slain, by whose blood they have been cleansed and sanctified. There is no other way of salvation but that. Even now that blood has virtue to take away your sin. Christ is a sufficient Saviour, because His death has unexhausted power. Believe that He can save you even now.
I would remind you that even now is a time of hope to you because the Spirit still can renew. He is yet at work, regenerating and sanctifying. He came down at Pentecost to dwell with His people and has never gone back again. He is still in the church. Sometimes we feel His mighty power more than at other times, but He is always at work. Oh, you that do not know anything about the power of the Holy Ghost, let me tell you that this is the most wonderful phenomenon that can ever be observed! Those of us who have seen and known His mighty energy can bear testimony to it…That same Holy Ghost is able to give you a new heart even now, to make you a new creature in Christ Jesus at this moment. Believest thou this?
How longingly the Father looks along the road, to see whether at length some of you are turning homeward! Ah! did you but know the joy that awaits those who come, and the feast which would load the welcoming table, you would say, “I will arise and go to my Father.” You should have returned long ago; but blessed be His love, which even now waits to clasp you to His heart! ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2249.cfm
Seek Such Faith
“But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” – John 11:22
Like Jacob at Jabbok, may we lay hold of God, saying, “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.” To such faith the Lord will give a quick response. He that will not be denied shall not be denied. My friend, Hudson Taylor, who has done such a wonderful work for China, is an instance of this. Brought up in a godly home, he, as a young man, tried to imitate the lives of his parents, and failing in his own strength to make himself better, he swung to the other extreme, and began to entertain skeptical notions. One day, when his mother was away from home, a great yearning after her boy possessed her, and she went up to her room to plead with God that “even now” He would save him. If I remember aright, she said that she would not leave the room until she had the assurance that her boy would be brought to Christ. At length her faith triumphed, and she rose quite certain that all was well, and that “even now” her son was saved. What was he doing at that time? Having half an hour to spare, he wandered into his father’s library, and aimlessly took down one book after another to find some short and interesting passage to divert his mind. He could not find what he wanted in any of the books, so, seeing a narrative tract, he took it up with the intention of reading the story, and putting it down where the sermon part of it began. As he read, he came to the words “the finished work of Christ”, and almost at the very moment in which his mother, who was miles away, claimed his soul for God, light came into his heart. He saw that it was by the finished work of Christ that he was to be saved; and kneeling in his father’s library, he sought and found the life of God. Some days afterwards, when his mother returned, he said to her, “I have some news to tell you.” “Oh, I know what it is!” she answered, smiling, “You have given yourself to God.” “Who told you?” he asked in astonishment. “God told me,” she said, and together they praised Him, who, at the same moment, gave faith to the mother, and life to the son, and who has since made him such a blessing to the world…Seek such faith even now, I beseech you, “even now.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2249.cfm
The Gospel is for the Hopeless
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” – John 11:39
Though you cannot reach your son, or your daughter, Christ can meet with them. “The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that He cannot save; neither is His ear heavy, that He cannot hear.” Though your prodigal boy or your wandering girl be at the end of the earth, Christ can reach them, and save them. Have faith in God. Even now Christ can aid you.
“Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to God alone,
Laughs at impossibilities,
And says, ‘It shall be done.'”
There was a brother here, who is now in heaven, a good, earnest Christian man, whose son had treated him very shockingly indeed, and the father, justly indignant, felt it right to give his son up. He had often tried to help him, but the young man was so scandalous a scapegrace that I did not wonder that the old man turned him away. But one night, as I was preaching here, I spoke in something like the same way in which I have spoken now; and the next morning the old man’s arm was about his child’s neck. He could not help himself; he felt he must go and find his son out and seek again to reclaim him. It seemed to have been the appointed time for that boy’s salvation, for it pleased God that within a few months that son died, and he passed away with a good hope, through grace, that he had been brought to his Saviour’s feet by his father’s love. If any of you have a very bad son, go after him, seeking, until by the grace of God, you shall find him. And you that have grown hopeless about your relatives, you must try not to give them up. If other people cast them off, you must not, for they are allied to you by the ties of blood. Seek them out. You are the best person in the world to seek them, and the most likely to find them, if you can believe that even now, when the worst has come to the worst, even now almighty grace can step in, and save the lost soul. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2249.cfm
Christ Can Save the Most Vile
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” – John 11:39,40
There are persons alive in the world, who are just masses of living putridity. It is a shocking thing that there are men and women, made in the image of God, with talents and ability, with capacity and conscience, who, nevertheless, seem to live for nothing else but to indulge their licentious passions, and to lead others into vices which else they had never known. There must come an awful day of reckoning to such when the Christ of God shall sit upon the throne and shall weigh before all men the secret doings of libertines, of debauched men, and depraved women. If any of you have such a one related to you, can you believe that even now Christ can raise that one? Yours is just the same sort of case as Martha had. She said, “Brother is buried; worse than that, he stinketh.” She did not like to say that of dear Lazarus, her own brother, but she could not help saying it. And there are some men of whom we are compelled to say, no matter how much our love seeks to shield them, that their character stinks. But can you still believe that, even now, there is hope that God can intervene, and that grace can save? Why, my dear friend, you and I know that it is so! I do believe it; we must all believe it. If it comes to a case very near and dear to you, and you begin to be a little bit staggered, recollect what you used to be yourselves-not openly so depraved, perhaps, but inwardly, quite the same, and take hope for these foul men and women from the remembrance of what you were: “and such were some of you; but ye are washed.”…I think while there is breath in the body of some of us, we must go on telling the gospel; for, if it saved us, it can save the worst of sinners. We are bound to believe that even now Christ can save even the most horrible and the most vile. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2249.cfm
Christ Will Come
Therefore, the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”…Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him…Now Martha said to Jesus…“But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” – John 11:3,,21,22
You say, “I have prayed long for a dear friend, and I believed, some time ago, that my prayer was heard, and that there was a change for the better; indeed, there was an apparent change; but it came to nothing.” You are just like Martha. She kept saying to herself, “Christ will come. Brother is very ill, but Jesus will come before he dies; I know He will. It cannot be that He will stay away much longer; and when He comes, Lazarus will soon be well.” Day after day, Mary and she sent their messenger to look toward the Jordan, to see if Jesus was not coming. But He did not come. It must have been a terrible disappointment to both these sisters; enough to stagger the strongest faith that had ever had in the sympathy of Christ. But Martha got the better of it, and she said, “Even now, though disappointed so bitterly, I believe that Thou canst do whatsoever Thou wilt.” Learn from Martha, my discouraged brother. You thought that your friend was converted, but he wanted to go back again; you thought that there was a real work of grace upon his heart, but it turned out to be a mere disappointment, and disappeared, like the mist in the sun. But can you not believe over the head of your disappointment, and say, “I believe even now, even now”? Blessed shall your faith be, if it gets so far. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2249.cfm
The Unshakable
Now this, “Yet once more” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. – Hebrews 12:27
Many things in our possession at the present moment can be shaken, and it ill becomes a Christian to set much store by them, for there is nothing stable under these rolling skies. Change is written on all things. If the things that can be shaken would all be taken away, you may derive real comfort from the things that cannot be shaken, which will remain.
Whatever your losses have been, or may be, you enjoy present salvation. You are standing at the foot of the cross, trusting alone in the merit of Jesus’ precious blood. No rise or fall of the markets can interfere with your salvation in Him. No breaking of banks, no failures, no bankruptcies can touch that. He who is God and man loves you with all the strength of His affectionate nature, nothing can affect that. We cannot lose our best portion and richest heritage. Let us show that we are not such little children as to be cast down by what may happen in this poor fleeting state of time. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
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He Hath Said 