repentance

Sinner, the Way to Christ is Simple

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

“Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.’ ” – Luke 14:23

What is the way for a sinner to come to Christ? It is simply this-the sinner, feeling his need of a Savior, trusts himself to the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the perplexity of my boyhood, but it is so simple now. When I was told to go to Christ, I thought “Yes, if I knew where He was, I would go to Him-no matter how I wearied myself, I would trudge on till I found Him.” I never could understand how I could get to Christ till I understood that it is a mental coming, a spiritual coming, a coming with the mind. The coming to Jesus which saves the soul is a simple reliance upon Him, and if being sensible of your guilt, you will rely upon the atoning blood of Jesus, you have come to Him, and you are saved. Is He not, then, approachable indeed, if there is so simple a way of coming? No good works, ceremonies, or experiences are demanded, a childlike faith is the royal road to Jesus.

This truth is further illustrated by the help which He gives to coming sinners, in order to bring them near to Himself. He it is who first makes them coming sinners. It is His Eternal Spirit who draws them unto Himself. They would not come to Him of themselves, they are without desires towards Him, but it is His work to cast secret silken cords around their hearts, which He draws with His strong hand, and brings them near to Himself. Depend upon it, He will never refuse those whom He Himself draws by His Spirit. Rest assured He will never shut the door in the face of any soul that comes to feed at the gospel banquet, moved to approach by the power of His love. He said once, “Compel them to come in,” but He never said, “Shut the door in their faces and bolt them out.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0809.cfm

Boldly Come to the Throne of Heavenly Grace

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

Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. – Romans 8:34

The Man who has lived a life of service, at last dies a felon’s death! Look upon His head girt with the crown of thorns! Mark well His cheeks whence they have plucked off the hair! See the spittle from those scornful mouths, staining His marred countenance! Mark the crimson rivers which are flowing from His back where they have scourged Him! See His hands and His feet which are pierced with the nails, and from which ensanguined rills are flowing! Look to that face so full of anguish, listen to His cry, “I thirst, I thirst;” and as you see Him there expiring, can you think that He will spurn the seeker? As you see Him turn His head and say to the dying thief by His side, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise,” you dare not belie Him so much as to deem that you may not come to Him. You will outrage your reason if you start back from Jesus crucified. The cross of Christ should be the hope, the anchorage of faith. You may come, sinner, black, vile, hellish sinner, you may come and have life even as the dying thief had it when he said, “Lord, remember me.”

Do you know what He is doing in heaven at this moment? He is exalted on high to give repentance and remission of sins. What a help that is to those who are coming to Him! This repentance is the greatest want of coming sinners, and He from the skies supplies it. Moreover, “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” His occupation in the skies is to plead for those sinners whom He redeemed with His blood, and hence He is able to save them unto the uttermost. Since He is the intercessor for souls, there is no reason why you should start back, but every reason why you should boldly come to the throne of heavenly grace, because you have a High Priest who is passed into the heavens. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0809.cfm

The Language of Christ

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

“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” – Matthew 11:28

“Ye horny-handed sons of toil, ye smiths and carpenters, ye ploughers and diggers, come unto Me, yea, come all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And again, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” He invites men to come; He pleads with them to come; and when they will not come, He gently upbraids them with such words as these, “Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life.” And, again, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” It is not “I would not,” but “ye would not.” Why, the whole of Scripture in its invitations, may be said to be the language of Christ, and therein you find loving, pleading words of this kind, “Come now, and let us reason together: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” “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.” All our blessed Lord’s sermons were so many loving calls to poor aching hearts to come and find what they needed in Him. I pray that the Holy Spirit may give an effectual call to many of you. It would gladden the heart of the Redeemer in the skies if you would come to Him for salvation, for you may come, since there is no barrier between you and the Savior of men. What is it that keeps you back? I repeat it with tears, what is it keeps you back? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0809.cfm

The Life of the Christian

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

…they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

The term to “seek the Lord,” I may say, is the description of the life of the Christian. When he lives as he should, his whole life is seeking the Lord. It is with this he begins. “Behold, he prayeth,” that is, he seeks the Lord. He has begun to be conscious of his sin; he is seeking pardon of the Lord. He has begun to be aware of his danger; he is seeking salvation in the Lord. He is now aware of his powerlessness, and he is looking for strength to the Lord. Those deep convictions, those cries and tears, those repentings and humblings, and, above all, those acts of simple confidence in which he casts himself upon the great atonement made upon Calvary’s bloody tree-those are all acts of seeking the Lord. Now, perhaps, some of you have got no farther than this. Well, you shall have your proportion of blessing, according to your strength. You shall have your share in it, little as you are. He will give to His children at the table their portion, as well as to those who have grown to manhood.

After a man has attained unto eternal life by confiding in the Lord Jesus, he then goes on to seek the Lord in quite another way. No wonder; since he has found the Lord, or rather has been found of Him, and yet he still presses on to apprehend Him of whom he has been already apprehended. He still presses forward, seeking the Lord, and he seeks the Lord thus. He seeks now to know the Lord’s mind, the Lord’s law and will. “Show me what Thou wouldest have me to do,” saith he. “Lord, I went by my own wit once, and I brought myself into a dark wood: I lost myself: I was at hell’s brink, and Thou didst save me: now, Lord, guide and direct me: be pleased to teach me: open my lips when I speak: guide my hands when I act: I wait at Thy feet, feeling that –

“For holiness no strength have I;
My strength is at Thy feet to lie.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

The Most God-like Work

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, The Father, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” – John 6:28

Never hope to be saved except by God’s way of salvation. O that the Holy Ghost would enable you in your heart to say, “Now I come to Thee, O Jesus; guilty as I am, I lift my eyes to Thee, and this is my prayer: ‘Help me for Thy mercy’s sake; have pity upon me and cleanse me in Thy blood, for I put all my trust in Thee.'” Resolve, O seeker, to have no refuge of lies, no Savior but the Lamb of God.

I will confess to you, dear seeker, that often I am myself personally driven to do what I trust you may be led to do today. I look back upon my past life, and while I have much to thank God for, much in which to see His Spirit’s hand, yet when I feel my responsibilities and my shortcomings, my heart sinks within me. When I think of my transgressions, better known to myself than to anyone else, and remember too that they are not known even to me as they are to God, I feel all hope swept away and my soul left in utter despair, until I come anew to the cross, and bethink me of who it was that died there, and why He died, and what designs of infinite mercy are answered by His death. It is so sweet to look up to the Crucified One again, and say, “I have nought but Thee, my Lord, no confidence but Thee. If Thou be not accepted as my substitute I must perish; if God’s appointed Savior be not enough, I have no other, but I know Thou art the Father’s Well-beloved, and I am accepted in Thee. Thou art all I want, and all I have.”…The Jews asked our Savior, “What shall we do that we may work the works of God?” and He said, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.” The greatest of all works, the most Godlike work, is to leave off self-righteous seeking, and trust in Jesus. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0947.cfm

Take Jesus as Your All in All

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

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace… – Ephesians 1:7

When the soul is seeking for Jesus, it is at the same time much grieved to find it cannot even now cease from sin...As if that poor heart expected to be perfect before it had even found pardon! As if a patient expected to be perfectly well before he had followed the advice of his physician! My dear hearer, if you were able to cease from all sin for a single day, I am sure you would be out of place on earth, for heaven is the place for perfect people, and not this sinful earth. If a fountain sent forth nothing but pure water for one whole day, we might conclude that it was completely purified. The bearing of good fruit for one season would prove the tree to be good. If your heart abstained from sin of itself throughout one day, it might for another, and so on forever, and where would be the need of a Savior? What, dost thou not know that Christ came to save thee from thy new sins as well as from thine old transgressions? Is His arm too short to reach thy daily needs? His blood of too little power to wash away thy fresh pollutions? Hast thou still some hope of bettering thyself? Have done with this trifling. Confess thyself a helpless sinner, shapen in iniquity, conceived in sin, depraved in heart, and, therefore, needing the never-ceasing mercy of the Lord thy God. Come, wash now in the fountain filled with blood, and if sin returneth, ask Jesus to wash thy feet again. Make Jesus your sole reliance. Cry to Him, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Nothing else can end your perplexities; you cannot untie the Gordian knot of your difficulties, cut it, then, by leaving all to Jesus. You cannot overcome your sins except by the blood of the Lamb. You cannot be what you should be, nor what you would be, except by taking Jesus to be your all in all. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0947.cfm

A Simple Word Full of Meaning

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

Come unto Me… – Matthew 11:28

“Come unto Me,” “Come.” A simple word, but very full of meaning. To come is to leave one thing and to advance to another. Come, then, ye laboring and heavy laden, leave your legal labors, leave your self-reliant efforts, leave your sins, leave your presumptions, leave all in which you hitherto have trusted, and come to Jesus, that is, think of, advance towards, rely upon, the Saviour. Let your contemplations think of Him who bore the load of human sin upon the cross of Calvary where He was made sin for us. Let your minds consider Him who from His cross hurled the enormous mass of His people’s transgressions into a bottomless sepulchre where it was buried forever. Think of Jesus, the divinely appointed substitute and sacrifice for guilty man. Then, seeing that He is God’s own Son, let faith follow your contemplation; rely upon Him, trust in Him as having suffered in your stead, look to Him for the payment of the debt which is due from you to the wrath of God. This is to come to Jesus. Repentance and faith make up this “Come”-the repentance which leaves that place where you now stand, the faith which comes into reliance upon Jesus.

Observe, that the command to “Come” is put in the present tense, and in the Greek it is intensely present. It might be rendered something like this: “Hither to Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden!” It is a “Come” which means not “Come to-morrow or next year,” but “Now, at once.” Advance, ye slaves, flee from your taskmaster now! Weary ones, recline on the promise now and take your rest! Come now! By an act of instantaneous faith which will bring instantaneous peace, come and rely upon Jesus, and He will now give you rest. Rest shall at once follow the exercise of faith. Perform the act of faith now. O may the eternal Spirit lead some laboring heavy laden soul to come to Jesus, and to come at this precise moment! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0969.cfm