salvation

A Gracious Promise

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

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord… – Acts 3:19

To the man who confesses his guilt, the law says, “Yes, you are guilty, and you must suffer the penalty attached to your crime.” If a person pleads “guilty” in a court of law, the judge does not say to him, “If you will promise amendment, you may go free.” No, he pronounces sentence upon him, and God, the righteous Judge, might justly have done the same to us; but, instead of doing so, He says, “Forsake your wicked way, and your evil thoughts, and turn to Me, and I will abundantly pardon you. Only repent of your iniquity, and abandon it, and it shall all be blotted out. All the evil of your past life shall be forgiven and forgotten; and your sins and your transgressions I will not remember against you any more for ever.” Oh, precious gospel message! Who would not turn from his sin when such a gracious promise awaits him in the turning?

What you cannot do of yourself, the Holy Spirit will enable you to do, or will do for you. There is no form of sin which you cannot conquer by the power of the Spirit of God, and that Spirit is freely given to all who sincerely seek His aid. He is here on earth still. On the day of Pentecost, He descended from heaven, and He has never gone back again. “But,” says someone, “the Holy Spirit was given to the saints.” Yes, I know He was; but He was also given to sinners like yourself, for Peter said to those who were awakened on the day of Pentecost, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” I wish that many of you would pray the prayer, “Turn us, O God, and we shall be turned.” You must be turned, by sovereign grace, if you would really turn unto the Lord; and you must forsake your wicked way, and your evil thoughts, if you are to be saved, and you cannot do this of yourself; but the Holy Spirit has been given on purpose to enable you to do it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2797.cfm

Return to God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 4 Comments

…and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. – Isaiah 55:7

He who would find mercy must return to God to obtain it. Do you ask how you are to do so? Well, first, you must begin to think about God. I really believe that some of you do not think half as much about God as you do about the Sultan of Turkey; and with some of you, almost anybody is a greater factor in your life than God is. With some of you, it would not make any difference if there were no God at all, except that you would be rather glad if that could be proved to be the case, for you would feel easier in your mind, and could, in such a case, go on in your sin without any of the compunction that you now feel. Yet, is it not a singular state of mind for a man, who knows that he is a creature made by God, but who really cares so little about Him that, if he could be assured that there were no such being, he would be better pleased than he is now? Oh, what a wretched state your heart must be in if it feels like that! It will have to be greatly altered if you are ever to be saved.

So, first, you must begin to think of God; and then, thinking of Him, you must yield to Him, give up your will to His will; and, doing that, you must pray to Him, cry to Him for mercy; and then you must trust Him. Especially, you must accept His way of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ; and when you do that, then you will be sure to love Him. When you get as far as that, you will be a new creature altogether. Then, God will delight in you; then, it will be misery to you to be out of His presence, and it will be the highest joy of your life to have constant communion with Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2797.cfm

Repentance

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, repentance, salvation 1 Comment

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts… – Isaiah 55:7

“Let the wicked forsake his way.” It does not say, “Let him own that his way is bad.” There are some who will say, ‘Oh, yes, I know that my way is very wrong;” and there they stop. Such an admission as that will not save you, my friend; you must forsake your way as well as own that it is wrong. To know that it is wrong, and yet to go on in it, will double your sin. This kind of confession will not help you in the least; on the contrary, it will only increase your guilt. You must forsake your wicked way if you are to be forgiven. “Oh, sir,” you say, “I am very sorry for all the sin that I have committed!” I am glad that you are, and I hope that you will be still more so; but that sorrow alone will never save you. It is not saying, “I am sorry,” nor yet your being sorry for your sin that will save you; that is right as far as it goes, but you must forsake the sin as well as be sorry for it. “I must forsake it; well, I resolve that I will do so.” Yet that resolve by itself will not save you, for there are plenty of good resolutions that are good for nothing. You have actually to forsake your wicked way before you have complied with the requirements of our text. I know how the devil will try to deceive you, when you have made a good resolution. He will say, “Ah, you are a fine fellow; and that is a splendid resolution of yours!” Yet mere resolutions are not worth a penny a thousand; we must act, not simply resolve what we mean to do. We must not be like the man who owes a lot of money, and has not a penny to pay, yet who keeps on saying to his creditors, “I hope I shall be able to pay you tomorrow.” Then, when that day comes, he says he is very sorry, but he missed the friend he expected to see, so he must postpone the payment for a few days; yet, when the few days have passed, there is still nothing forthcoming. So it is with many who resolve to forsake sin; they are like those who promise, but never pay. This will not do; you must forsake your sin if it is to be forgiven.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2797.cfm

You Must Forsake Your Sins

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 4 Comments

Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. – Titus 2:14

If you go on sinning, you cannot be saved. If you continue to love sin, and to practise it, you cannot be saved. Think, for a moment, what any other result would involve; if it were possible for a man to live in sin, and yet be forgiven, what would be the value of the work of the Holy Ghost? He has come in order that we may be born again, and have new hearts and right spirits; but if men could be forgiven without having new hearts and right spirits, of what service would the Holy Spirit be? This would be contrary, also, to the whole design of Christ in our salvation. The angel said to Joseph, before our Saviour’s birth, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins;” but if they can be saved in their sins, where is the meaning of His name? When He hung upon the cross, and one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, “forthwith came there out blood and water;” but what is the use of the purifying water if we need not be purified, and can be pardoned without being cleansed? Paul wrote to Titus that Christ “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works;” but how can that purpose be accomplished if men can be pardoned, and yet continue to live in sin?

Beside that, the very character of heaven prevents such a thing being done; we know that the unholy cannot enter there, nothing that defileth can pass the watchers at the pearly portals; therefore, be ye sure of this that you can never enter heaven, and you can never have forgiveness, if you continue to cling to your sins. You must forsake them, or mercy cannot be yours. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2797.cfm

Saved from the Love of Sin

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

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” – Luke 16:13

When the Lord Jesus Christ saves a sinner from the punishment of sin, He also saves him from the love of sin; He makes him holy as well as makes him happy and safe. The same lesson is taught in our Lord’s parables. For instance, there was no rejoicing over the lost sheep while it was still wandering away from the fold; the joy began when that lost sheep was found, and was brought home on the shepherd’s shoulder. A more striking example is that of the prodigal son. There was no joy over him while he was in the far country, and no kiss for him from his father while he was feeding the swine. He must come back, he must say, “Father, I have sinned,” there must be the forsaking of his former evil ways, or else there could be no enjoyment of his father’s forgiveness. We must ever say, as plainly as we can possibly say it: If thou wilt keep thy sins, thou shalt go to hell; but if thou wouldst go to heaven, thou must part company with thy sins. He who would be married to Christ must first be divorced from sin. There is no possibility of walking in the way of the Lord and, at the same time, treading the pathway of evil. “No man can serve two masters.” No one can, at the same time, be a servant of the Saviour and a servant of Satan.

Besides, dear friends, our common sense tells us that it would be highly dangerous to society if men were to be pardoned, and yet were not to be renewed in character and life. If Christ should meet with a man, and say to him, “I forgive thee because of the precious blood I shed for thee on Calvary; go and be a drunkard still, go and be unchaste, go and be a thief,” this would be the way to undermine the very pillars of society, and, very soon, we should not be safe in our beds. If there were no laws, or if the laws had no system of punishment for the guilty, human society would cease to be endurable. He who ruleth all things righteously will never set up such a scheme as this. The Judge of all the earth must punish sin; He will by no means clear the guilty. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2797.cfm

Turn and Live

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

As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live… – Ezekiel 33:11

This will be at once evident to you when I ask: How would it be consistent with the holiness of God for Him to put aside our past sin, and then to allow us to go on sinning as we did before? How could He be thought to be just and pure if He should remit the punishment for past transgressions, without seeing in us any determination to abstain from such sin in the future? Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, but He never came here to spare their sins. God would never have sent His Son to this earth to be the messenger of sin, yet Christ would be nothing better than the messenger of sin if He had come, and said to men, “You may continue in your sin, yet I will forgive you. You may live as you like, yet you shall find mercy with the Lord at the last.” It must strike you, in a moment, that such a course as this would be inconsistent with the character of the Judge of all the earth, who must do right. There is no such teaching as that in the whole of the Scriptures; and he who dares to believe it, believes a lie. Nowhere, in the whole compass of revelation, is there a promise of forgiveness to the man who continues in his iniquity. There is a promise of pardon to the sinner who forsakes his wicked way, and turns from his evil thoughts; there are many promises of forgiveness to those who confess their sins in humble penitence, and who seek to live new lives under the power of the Holy Spirit.

“Ye must be born again,” is Christ’s own word to all unregenerate sinners. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” There has never been any revocation of these truths, and again I repeat that, in the whole compass of the Word of God, there is no promise of pardon to the man who continues in his iniquities. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2797.cfm

A Gospel Demand

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

“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.”- Isaiah 55:7

This is not merely legal demand; it is a gospel demand, found in the centre of a gospel chapter in the writings of the most evangelical of all the prophets. The chapter begins with a number of gracious and wide invitations, and so naturally leads on to the promise of the coming Saviour. Only God Himself could find a Saviour for our ruined race, and none but God’s own Son could be that Saviour. Then there follows, in due order, the promise of a people to be saved. The Savour shall not come to the earth in vain. He shall call a people unto Himself, and “nations” shall run unto Him. Then, following the promise of a Saviour, and the declaration of the certainty that many shall be saved by Him, there comes in this loving invitation, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.” Since He is to have a people who shall be His for ever, put in your claim to be amongst them; and since, as a Saviour, He is near to you, call upon Him, and He will hear your call.

Here we are told, first, that the wicked must forsake his way. There is no Saviour for the man who will not forsake his sin. Such a man can never be among the people who shall run to Christ, for how can he run to Christ while he continues in the way of sin? Such a man shall seek sin, he cannot embrace the Saviour who hates sin with a perfect hatred… “For who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” May the Master bless His own searching word, and He shall have all the praise.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2797.cfm