confession of sin

Death Bed Repentance- Is It Sincere?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation 2 Comments

Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise. – Luke 23:43

Heaven and hell are not places far away. You may be in heaven before the clock ticks again, it is so near. Could we but rend that veil which parts us from the unseen! It is all there, and all near. “To-day,” said the Lord; within three or four hours at the longest, “shalt thou be with Me in paradise;” so near is it. A statesman has given us the expression of being “within measurable distance.” We are all within measurable distance of heaven or hell; if there be any difficulty in measuring the distance, it lies in its brevity rather than in its length.

Surely, if anything beyond faith is needed to make us fit to enter paradise, the thief would have been kept a little longer here; but no, he is, in the morning, in the state of nature, at noon he enters the state of grace, and by sunset he is in the state of glory. The question never is whether a death-bed repentance is accepted if it be sincere: If it be so, if the man dies five minutes after his first act of faith, he is as safe as if he had served the Lord for fifty years. If your faith is true, if you die one moment after you have believed in Christ, you will be admitted into paradise, even if you shall have enjoyed no time in which to produce good works and other evidences of grace. He that reads the heart will read your faith written on its fleshy tablets, and He will accept you through Jesus Christ, even though no act of grace has been visible to the eye of man. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2078.cfm

The Glory of Christ’s Grace

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

Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise. – Luke 23:40-43

I constantly meet with persons in this condition: they have lived a life of wantonness, excess, and carelessness, and they begin to feel the fire-flakes of the tempest of wrath falling upon their flesh; they dwell in an earthly hell, a prelude of eternal woe. Remorse, like an asp, has stung them, and set their blood on fire: they cannot rest, they are troubled day and night. “Be sure your sin will find you out.” It has found them out, and arrested them, and they feel the strong grip of conviction. This man (the thief) was in that horrible condition. What is more, he was in extremis. He could not live long; the crucifixion was sure to be fatal; in a short time, his legs would be broken, to end his wretched existence. He, poor soul, had but a short time to live-only the space between noon and sundown; but it was long enough for the Saviour, who is mighty to save. Some are very much afraid that people will put off coming to Christ, if we state this. I cannot help what wicked men do with truth, but I shall state it all the same. If you are now within an hour of death, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. If you never reach your homes again, but drop dead on the road, if you will now believe in the Lord Jesus, you shall be saved: saved now on the spot. Looking and trusting to Jesus, He will give you a new heart and a right spirit and blot out your sins. This is the glory of Christ’s grace. How I wish I could extol it in proper language! He was last seen on earth before His death in company with a convicted felon, to whom He spoke most lovingly. Come, O ye guilty, and He will receive you graciously! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2078.cfm

None Excluded-He Will Save You

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

And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise. Luke 23:43

I want you to notice that the last companion of Christ on earth was a sinner, and no ordinary sinner. (The thief) had broken even the laws of man, for he was a robber. One calls him “a brigand”; and I suppose it is likely to have been the case. The brigands of those days mixed murder with their robberies: he was probably a freebooter in arms against the Roman government, making this a pretext for plundering as he had opportunity. At last, he was arrested, and was condemned by a Roman tribunal, which, on the whole, was usually just, and in this case was certainly just; for he himself confesses the justice of his condemnation (v.41). The malefactor who believed upon the cross was a convict, who had lain in the condemned cell, and was then undergoing execution for his crimes. A convicted felon was the person with whom our Lord last consorted upon earth. What a lover of the souls of guilty men is He! What a stoop He makes to the very lowest of mankind! To this most unworthy of men the Lord of glory, ere He quitted life, spoke with matchless grace. He spoke to him such wondrous words as never can be excelled if you search the Scriptures through: “To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” …You may come to him, whoever you may be; for this man did. Here is a specimen of one who had gone to the extreme of guilt, and who acknowledged that he had done so; he made no excuse and sought no cloak for his sin; he was in the hands of justice, confronted with the death-doom, and yet he believed in Jesus, and breathed a humble prayer to Him, and he was saved on the spot…None of you are excluded from the infinite mercy of Christ, however great your iniquity: if you believe in Jesus, He will save you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2078.cfm

All Sins Put Upon Our Redeemer

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

…and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:6

Sin I may compare to the rays of some evil sun. Sin was scattered throughout this world as abundantly as light, and Christ is made to suffer the full effect of the baleful rays, which stream from the sun of sin. God as it were holds up a burning glass and concentrates all the scattered rays in a focus upon Christ. That which was scattered abroad everywhere is here brought into terrible concentration; upon the devoted head of our blessed Lord all the sin of His people was made to meet. Before a great storm when the sky is growing black and the wind is beginning to howl, you have seen the clouds hurrying from almost every point of the compass as though the great day of battle were come, and all the dread artillery of God were hurrying to the field. In the center of the whirlwind and the storm, when the lightnings threaten to set all heaven on a blaze, and the black clouds labor to conceal the light of day, you have a very graphic metaphor of the meeting of all sin upon the person of Christ; the sin of the ages past and the sin of the ages to come, the sins of those of the elect who were in heathendom, and of those who were in Jewry; the sin of the young and of the old, sin original and sin actual, all made to meet; all the black clouds concentrated and brought together into one great tempest that it might rush in one tremendous tornado upon the person of the great Redeemer and substitute. As when a thousand streamlets dash down the mountain side in the day of rain, and all meet in one deep swollen lake, that lake the Savior’s heart, those gushing torrents the sins of us all who are here described as making a full confession of our sins… the Lord made to meet on Him the debts of all His people so that He became responsible for all the obligations of every one of those whom His Father had given Him whatsoever their debts might be. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0694.cfm

Victory in the Sinner’s Battle

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, The Father Leave a comment

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions…Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. – Psalm 51:1,7

Do not appeal to justice, sinner. That is against you; appeal to mercy. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness!” This prayer he brings before God is prayer tipped with a hope in the mercy of God. Go, sinner, and plead with God and fight your sins with hope in His mercy. When he had done that, he then turns to confession: “I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me.” There is no weapon to drive away guilty fears like making a clean breast of your sins. Tell your Father whom you have offended; do not plead any extenuations or mitigations. Confess that you deserve His wrath. Put yourself before the throne of God’s clemency. Confess that if it were turned to a throne of vengeance, you deserve it well. Prayers, tears, pleas for mercy, and full confession-these are weapons to conquer with.

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Hyssop was a little bunch, a brush, used to dip into the blood-a basin full of blood, and then with this brush of hyssop the priest sprinkled the guilty man, the unclean man, and he was counted clean. The master argument in this verse is blood. Oh! how this destroys our sins, how this scatters all our doubts and fears-the almighty weapon of the cross, the divine weapon of the atonement. Let sins come on, and let them be more than the hairs of my head, loftier than mountains and deeper than the unfathomed ocean, let them come on-God’s flaming wrath behind them, hell itself coming to devour me; yet if I can but take the cross and hold it up before me, if I can plead the precious blood I shall be safe, for I shall be saved and proved a conqueror, notwithstanding all. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0972.cfm

Prayer for Fruitfulness

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. – Mark 5:16

“I’m not ashamed to own my Lord,
Or to defend His cause;
Maintain the honour of His word,
The glory of His cross.”

“Lord, I do not want to be set away in a corner; I am satisfied to stand where men may see my good works and glorify my Father who is in heaven. I do not ask to be observed; but I am not ashamed to be observed; only, Lord, make me fit for observation…I pray Thee, help me to make my calling and election sure. I beseech Thee, help me to bring forth the expected fruit. Thy grace can do it.”

I would suggest to everyone here to cry to the Lord to make us conscious of our natural barrenness. Gracious ones, may the Lord make us mourn our comparative barrenness, even if we do bear some fruit. “Lord, I do serve Thee, and I am no deceiver. I do love Thee; Thou hast wrought the works of the Spirit in me. But alas! I am not what I want to be, I am not what I ought to be. I aspire to holiness: help me to attain it…My cry is, ‘God be merciful to me.’ If I had done all, I should still have been an unprofitable servant; but having done so little, Lord, where shall I hide my guilty head?”

Come Holy Spirit, produce fruit in us this day, through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen, and Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

Be True to Your Profession

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, confession of sin, prayer, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.” Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. – Mark 11:13,14,20

I have seen the fair professor undergo a blight. He has looked like a thing that has felt the breath of a furnace and has had its moisture dried up. The man is no longer himself: his glory and his beauty are hopelessly gone. No axe was lifted; no fire was kindled; a word did it, and the tree withered from the root. So, without thunderbolt or pestilence, the once brave professor is stricken as with the judgment of Cain. It is an awful fate. Better far to have the vinedresser come to you with the axe in his hand, and strike you with the head of it, and say to you, “Tree, thou must bear fruit, or be hewn down.” Such a warning would be terrible, but it would be infinitely better than to be left in one’s place untouched, quietly to wither to destruction.

Let no man say, “This is very hard.” Brother, it is not hard, is it, that if we profess a thing, we should be expected to be true to it? Besides, I pray you not to think that anything my Lord can do is hard…He is all love and tenderness: He does not want to wither you, nor will He, if you be but true. The very least He may expect is that you be true to what you profess…Come and bow humbly at His feet, and say, “Lord, if anything in this solemn truth bears upon me, I beseech Thee so to apply it to my conscience that I may feel its power and flee to Thee for salvation.” Many men are converted in this way-these hard but honest things drive them from false refuges and brings them to be true to Christ and to their own souls. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm