salvation

Wash Me

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

“Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”- Psalm 51:7

Look at your sins and meditate upon them until they even drive you to despair. “What!” says one, “until they drive me to despair?” Yes; I do not mean that despair which arises from unbelief, but that self-despair which is so near akin to confidence in Christ. The more God enables you to see your emptiness, the more eager will you be to avail yourself of Christ’s fulness. I have always found that, as my trust in self went up, my trust in Christ went down; and as my trust in self went down, my trust in Christ went up, so I urge you to take an honest view of your own blackness of heart and life, for that will cause you to pray with David, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Weigh yourselves in the scales of the sanctuary, for they never err in the slightest degree. You need not exaggerate a single item of your guilt, for just as you are you will find far too much sin within you if the Holy Spirit will enable you to see yourselves as you really are.

When the sinner cries, “Wash me,” there must be some fount of cleansing where he can be washed “whiter than snow.” So there is, but there is nothing but the crimson blood of Jesus that can wash out the crimson stain of sin. What is there about Jesus Christ that makes Him able to save all who come unto God by Him? This is a matter upon which Christians ought to meditate much and often. Try to understand, dear friends, the greatness of the atonement. Live much under the shadow of the cross. Learn to-

“View the flowing
Of the Saviour’s precious blood,
By divine assurance knowing
He has made your peace with God.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3278.cfm

 

Bold Shall I stand in That Great Day

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

But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus… – Ephesians 2:4-6

O marvellous death of Christ, how securely dost, Thou set the feet of God’s people on the rocks of eternal love; and how securely dost Thou keep them there! Come, dear brethren, let us suck a little honey out of this honeycomb. Was there ever anything so luscious and so sweet to the believer’s taste as this all-glorious truth that we are complete in Him; that in and through His death and merits we are accepted in the Beloved? Oh, was there ever anything more sublime than this thought, that He hath already raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, far above all principalities and powers; just where He sits? Surely there is nothing more sublime than that, except it be that a master-thought stamps all these things with more than their own value, that master-thought that, though the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, the covenant of His love shall never depart from us. “For,” saith Jehovah, “I will never forget thee, O Zion;” “I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are continually before Me.” O Christian, that is a firm foundation, cemented with blood, on which thou mayest build for eternity! Ah, my soul! thou needest no other hope but this. Jesus, Thy mercy never dies; I will plead this truth when cast down with anguish, Thy mercy never dies. I will plead this when Satan hurls temptations at me, and when conscience casts the remembrance of my sin in my teeth; I will plead this ever, and I will plead it now,-

“Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

“It is finished, sin is pardoned!”

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

When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. – John 19:30

This much I know -ye may hear men stammer when they say it, but what I preach is the old Lutheran, Calvinistic, Augustinian, Pauline, Christian truth, there is not one sin in the Book of God against anyone that believeth. Our sins were numbered on the Scapegoat’s head, and there is not one sin, that ever a believer did commit, that hath any power to damn him, for Christ hath taken the damning power out of sin, by allowing it, to speak by a bold metaphor, to damn Himself, for sin did condemn Him; and, inasmuch as sin condemned Him, sin cannot condemn us. O believer, this is thy security, that all thy sin and guilt, all thy transgressions and thine iniquities, have been atoned for, and were atoned for before they were committed; so that thou mayest come with boldness, though red with all crimes, and black with every lust, and lay thine hand on that Scapegoat’s head, and when thou hast put thine hand there, and seen that Scapegoat driven into the wilderness, thou mayest clap thine hands for joy, and say, “It is finished, sin is pardoned.”

“Here’s pardon for transgressions past,
It matters not how black they’re cast;
And oh, my soul, with wonder view,
For sins to come, here’s pardon too!”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

Secure in Christ

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

“He laid down His life for us.” – 1 John 3:16

We, who know the gospel, see, in the fact of the death of Christ, a reason that no strength of logic can ever shake, and no power of unbelief can remove, why we should be saved. There may be men, with minds so distorted that they can conceive it possible that Christ should die for a man who afterwards is lost; I say, there may be such. I am sorry to say that there are still to be found some such persons, whose brains have been so addled, in their childhood, that they cannot see that what they hold is both a preposterous falsehood and a blasphemous libel. Christ dies for a man, and then God punishes that man again; Christ suffers in a sinner’s stead, and then God condemns that sinner after all! Why, my friends, I feel quite shocked in only mentioning such an awful error; and were it not so current as it is, I should certainly pass it over with the contempt that it deserves. The doctrine of Holy Scripture is this, that God is just, that Christ died in the stead of His people, and that, as God is just, He will never punish one solitary soul of Adam’s race for whom the Saviour did thus shed His blood. The Saviour did, indeed, in a certain sense, die for all; all men receive many a mercy through His blood, but that He was the Substitute and Surety for all men, is so inconsistent, both with reason and Scripture, that we are obliged to reject the doctrine with abhorrence. No, my soul, how shalt thou be punished if thy Lord endured thy punishment for thee? Did He die for thee? O my soul, if Jesus was not thy Substitute, and did not die in thy very stead, then He is no Saviour to thee! But if He was thy Substitute, if He suffered as thy Surety, in thy stead, then, my soul, “Who is he that condemneth?” Christ hath died, yea, rather, hath risen again, and sitteth at the right hand of God, and maketh intercession for us. There stands the master-argument: Christ “laid down His life for us,” and “if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

His Love So Peerless, So Matchless

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

For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. – Mark 10:45

Just think for a moment: He had a crown in heaven; but He laid that aside, that you and I might wear one for ever. He had a girdle of brightness-brighter than the stars-about His loins; but He took it off, and laid it by, that you and I might eternally wear a girdle of righteousness. He had listened to the holy songs of the cherubim and seraphim; but He left them all that we might for ever dwell where angels sing; and then He came to earth, and He had many things, even in His poverty, which might have tended to His comfort; He laid down, first one glory, and then another, at love’s demand; at last, it came to this, He had nothing left but one poor garment, woven from the top throughout, and that was clinging to His back with blood, and He laid down that also. Then there was nothing left, He had not kept back one single thing. “There,” He might have said, “take an inventory of all I have, to the last farthing; I have given it all up for My people’s ransom.” And there was nought left now but His own life. O love insatiable! couldst Thou not stay there? Though He had given up one hand to cancel sin, and the other hand to reconcile us unto God; and had given up one foot that we might have our sinful feet for ever transfixed, and nailed, and fastened, never to wander, and the other foot to be fastened to the tree that we might have our feet at liberty to run the heavenly race; and there was nothing left but His poor heart, and He gave His heart up too, and they set it abroach with the spear, and forthwith there came out thence blood and water.

Ah, my Lord! what have I ever given to Thee compared to what Thou hast given for me? … I will say, in the last hour, “My Master, I have done nothing for Thee, after all, in comparison with what Thou hast done for me; and yet, what can I do more? How can I show my love to Thee, for Thy love to me, so peerless, so matchless? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

Here It Is Ye Learn Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father 2 Comments

“He laid down His life for us” – 1 John 3:16

Pause at the remembrance of thy convictions; think of thy conversion; recollect thy preservation, and how God’s grace hath been working upon thee, in adoption, in justification, and in every item of the new covenant; and when thou hast summed up all these things, let me ask thee this question: Do all these things produce in thee such a sense of gratitude as the one thing that I shall mention now, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? For, my brother, if thy mind is like mine, although thou wilt think highly enough of all these things that God hath given thee, thou wilt be obliged to confess that the thought of the death of Christ upon the cross swallows them all up. This I know, my brethren, I may look back, I may look forward, but whether I look back to the decrees of eternity, or look forward to the pearl-gated city, and all the splendours that God has prepared for His own beloved children, I can never see my Father’s love so beaming forth, in all its effulgence, as when I look at the cross of Christ, and see Him die thereon. I can read the love of God in the rocky letters of the eternal covenant, and in the blazing letters of heaven hereafter; but, my brethren, in those crimson lines, those lines written in blood, there is something more striking than there is anywhere else, for they say, “He laid down His life for us” Ah, here it is ye learn love. You know the old story of Damon and Pythias, how the two friends struggled together as to which should die for the other; there was love there. But, ah! there is no comparison between Damon and Pythias, and a poor sinner and his Saviour. Christ laid down His life, His glorious life, for a poor worm; He stripped Himself of all His splendours, then of all His happiness, then of His own righteousness, then of His own robes, till He was naked to His own shame; and then He laid down His life, that was all He had left, for our Saviour had not kept anything back.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

How Great is His Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 2 Comments

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God…because He laid down His life for us – 1 John 3:1, 16

Did the Saviour lay down His life for me? We will read it now, “He laid down His life for me;” and I pray the Lord to help each of you, by faith, to read it so, because, when we say “us”, that is dealing in generalities- blessed generalities it is true -but let us, at this time, deal in specialities, and say, each one of us who can do so truthfully, “He laid down His life for me.” Then, HOW GREATLY HE MUST HAVE LOVED ME!

Ah, Lord Jesus! I never knew Thy love till I understood the meaning of Thy death. Beloved, we shall try again, if we can, to tell the story of our own experience, to let you see how God’s love is to be learned. Come, saint, sit down, and meditate on thy creation, note how marvellously thou hast been formed, and all thy bones fitted to one another, and see love there. Mark, next, that predestination which placed thee where thou art; for the lines have fallen unto thee in pleasant places, and, notwithstanding all thy troubles, thou hast, compared with many a poor soul, “a goodly heritage.” Mark, then, the love of God displayed in the predestination that has made thee what thou art, and placed thee where thou art. Then look thou back, and see the lovingkindness of thy Lord, as displayed to thee in all thy journey up till now. Thou art getting old, and thy hair is whitening above thy brow; but He hath carried thee all the days of old; not one good thing hath failed of all that the Lord thy God hath promised. Recall thy life-story. Go back now, and look at the tapestry of thy life, which God has been working every day with the golden filament of His love, and see what pictures of grace there are upon it. Canst thou not say that Jesus has loved thee? Turn thine eye back, and read the ancient rolls of the everlasting covenant, and see thy name amongst the firstborn, the elect, the Church of the living God. Say, did He not love thee when He wrote thy name there? Go and remember how the eternal settlements were made, and how God decreed and arranged all things so that thy salvation should come to pass. Say, was there not love there?~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm