salvation

You Cannot Save Yourself

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, salvation 8 Comments

He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. -Hebrews 7:25

The sinner in his natural estate reminds me of a man who has a strong and well-nigh impenetrable castle into which he has fled. There is the outer moat; there is a second moat; there are the high walls; and then afterward there is the dungeon and keep, into which the sinner will retire. Now, the first moat that goes round the sinner’s trusting place is his good works. “Ah!” he says, “I am as good as my neighbor; twenty shillings in the pound down, ready money, I have always paid; I am no sinner; ‘I tithe mint and cummin;’ a good respectable gentleman I am indeed.” Well, when God comes to work with him, to save him, He sends His army across the first moat; and as they go through it, they cry, “Salvation is of the Lord;” and the moat is dried up, for if it be of the Lord, how can it be of good works? But when that is done, he has a second intrenchment-ceremonies. “Well,” he says, “I will not trust in my good works, but I have been baptized, I have been confirmed; do not I take the sacrament? That shall be my trust.” “Over the moat! Over the moat!” And the soldiers go over again, shouting, “Salvation is of the Lord.” The second moat is dried up; it is all over with that. Now they come to the next strong wall; the sinner, looking over it, says, “I can repent, I can believe, whenever I like; I will save myself by repenting and believing.” Up come the soldiers of God, His great army of conviction, and they batter this wall to the ground, crying, “‘Salvation is of the Lord.’ Your faith and your repentance must all be given you, or else you will neither believe nor repent of sin.” And now the castle is taken; the man’s hopes are all cut off; he feels that it is not of self; the castle of self is overcome, and the great banner upon which is written “Salvation is of the Lord” is displayed upon the battlements. “Salvation is of the Lord;” though it is not of man, it is of God; “He is able to save, even to the uttermost,” though you can not save yourself. That is the effect this doctrine has upon the sinner; may it have that effect on you! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0131.cfm

Bearing All and Caring for None

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

But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” -James 4:6

A poor minister began to preach once, and all the world spoke ill of him; but God blessed him. By-and-bye they turned round and petted him. He was the man-a wonder! God left him! It has often been the same. It is for us to recollect, in all times of popularity, that “Crucify Him; crucify Him” follows fast upon the heels of “Hosanna,” and that the crowd to-day, if dealt faithfully with, may turn into the handful of to-morrow; for men love not plain speaking. We should learn to be despised, learn to be contemned, learn to be slandered, and then we shall learn to be made useful by God. Down on my knees I have often fallen, with the hot sweat rising from my brow, under some fresh slander poured upon me; in an agony of grief my heart has been well-nigh broken; till at last I learned the art of bearing all and caring for none. And how my grief runneth in another line. It is just the opposite. I fear lest God should forsake me, to prove that He is the author of salvation, that it is not in the preacher, that it is not in the crowd, that it is not in the attention I can attract, but in God, and in God alone. And this thing I hope I can say from my heart: if to be made as the mire of the streets again, if to be the laughingstock of fools and the song of the drunkard once more will make me more serviceable to my Master, and more useful to His cause, I will prefer it to all this multitude, or to all the applause that man could give.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0131.cfm

In Heaven

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

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. – Titus 2:11

…that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. – Titus 3:7

Soon, soon, the saints of earth shall be saints in light; their hairs of snowy age shall be crowned with perpetual joy and everlasting youth; their eyes suffused with tears shall be made bright as stars, never to be clouded again by sorrow; their hearts that tremble now are to be made joyous and fast, and set for ever like pillars in the temple of God. Their follies, their burdens, their griefs, their woes, are soon to be over; sin is to be slain, corruption is to be removed, and a heaven of spotless purity and of unmingled peace is to be theirs for ever. But it must still be by grace. As was the foundation such must the top-stone be; that which laid on earth the first beginning must lay in heaven the top-most stone. As they were redeemed from their filthy conversation by grace, so they must be redeemed from death and the grave by grace too…

There may be Arminians here, but they will not be Arminians there; they may here say, “It is of the will of the flesh,” but in heaven they shall not think so. Here they may ascribe some little to the creature; but there they shall cast their crowns at the Redeemer’s feet, and acknowledge that He did it all. Here they may sometimes look a little at themselves, and boast somewhat of their own strength; but there, “Not unto us, not unto us,” shall be sung with deeper sincerity and with more profound emphasis than they have even sung it here below. In heaven, when grace shall have done its work, this truth shall stand out in blazing letters of gold, “Salvation is of the Lord.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0131.cfm

 

The Royal Bath of Mercy

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

Salvation is of the LORD. -Jonah 2:9

No one has helped to provide salvation; God has done it all Himself. The banquet of mercy is served up by one Host; that Host is He to whom the cattle on a thousand hills belong. But none have contributed any dainties to that royal banquet; He hath done it all Himself… The royal bath of mercy, wherein black souls are washed, was filled from the veins of Jesus; not a drop was contributed by any other being. He died upon the cross, and as an expiator He died alone. No blood of martyrs mingled with that stream; no blood of noble confessors and of heroes of the cross entered into the river of atonement that is filled from the veins of Christ, and from nowhere else beside. He hath done it wholly. Atonement is the unaided work of Jesus. On yonder cross I see the Man who “trod the winepress alone;” in yonder garden I see the solitary conqueror who came to the fight single-handed, whose own arm brought salvation, and whose omnipotence sustained Him. “Salvation is of the Lord,” as to its provisions; Jehovah-Father, Son, and Spirit-hath provided everything.

“Salvation of the Lord alone;
Grace is a shoreless sea.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0131.cfm

Salvation is of the Lord

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, salvation 3 Comments

Our God is the God of salvation; and to God the Lord belong escapes from death. – Psalm 68:20

To begin at the beginning, the plan of salvation is entirely of God. No human intellect and no created intelligence assisted God in the planning of salvation; He contrived the way, even as He himself carried it out. The plan of salvation was devised before the existence of angels. Before the day-star flung its ray across the darkness, when as yet the unnavigated ether had not been fanned by the wing of seraph, and when the solemnity of silence had never been disturbed by the song of angel, God had devised a way whereby He might save man, whom He foresaw would fall. He did not create angels to consult with them; no, of Himself He did it. We might truly ask the question, “With whom took He counsel? Who instructed Him, when He planned the great architecture of the temple of mercy? With whom took He counsel when He digged the deeps of love, that out of them there might well up springs of salvation? Who aided Him?” None. He Himself, alone, did it. In fact, if angels had then been in existence, they could not have assisted God; for I can well suppose that if a solemn conclave of those spirits had been held, if God had put to them this question, “Man will rebel; I declare I will punish; my justice, inflexible and severe, demands that I should do so; but yet I intend to have mercy;” if He had put the question to the celestial squadrons of mighty ones, “How can those things be? How can justice have its demands fulfilled, and how can mercy reign?” the angels would have sat in silence until now; they could not have dictated the plan; it would have surpassed angelic intellect to have conceived the way whereby righteousness and peace should meet together, and judgment and mercy should kiss each other. God devised it, because without God it could not have been devised. It is a plan too splendid to have been the product of any mind except of that mind which afterward carried it out. “Salvation” is older than creation; it is “of the Lord.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0131.cfm

Learned By Trouble

Sherry Attributes of God, prayer, promises, salvation 3 Comments

When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer went up to You, into Your holy temple…Salvation is of the Lord.- Jonah 2:7,9

Jonah learned this sentence of good theology in a strange college. He learned it in the whale’s belly, at the bottom of the mountains, with the weeds wrapped about his head, when he supposed that the earth with her bars was about him for ever. Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them. No man is competent to judge in matters of the kingdom, until first he has been tried; since there are many things to be learned in the depths which we can never know in the heights. We discover many secrets in the caverns of the ocean, which, though we had soared to heaven, we never could have known. He shall best meet the wants of God’s people as a preacher who has had those wants himself; he shall best comfort God’s Israel who has needed comfort; and he shall best preach salvation who has felt his own need of it. Jonah, when he was delivered from his great danger, when, by the command of God the fish had obediently left its great deeps and delivered its cargo upon dry land, was then capable of judging; and this was the result of his experience under his trouble-“Salvation is of the Lord.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0131.cfm

Christ Died in Vain for No One

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

Lost man! Lost woman! Where are you? Do you feel yourself to be lost? I am so glad of it; for there is remission by the blood-shedding. O sinner, are there tears in your eyes? Look through them. Do you see that Man in the garden? That Man sweat drops of blood for you. Do you see that Man on the cross? That Man was nailed there for you. Oh! if I could be nailed on a cross this morning for you all, I know what you would do: you would fall down and kiss my feet, and weep that I should have to die for you. But sinner, lost sinner, Jesus died for you-for you; and if He died for you., you cannot be lost. Christ died in vain for no one. Are you, then, a sinner? Are you convinced of sin because you believe not in Christ? I have authority to preach to you. Believe in His name and you cannot be lost. Do you say you are no sinner? Then I do not know that Christ died for you. Do you say that you have no sins to repent of? Then I have no Christ to preach to you. He did not come to save the righteous; He came to save the wicked. Are you wicked? Do you feel it? Are you lost? Do you know it? Are you sinful? Will you confess it?…”Oh!” but you say, “I am such a sinner;” “Ah!” says He, “that is just why I died for you, because you are a sinner.” “But,” you say, “I do not deserve it.” “Ah !” says He, “that is just why I did it.” Say you, “I have hated Him.” “But,” says He, “I have always loved you.” “But, Lord, I have spat on Thy minister, and scorned Thy word.” “It is all forgiven,” says He, “all washed away by the blood which did run from My side. Only believe Me; that is all I ask. And that I will give you. I will help you to believe.” “Ah!” says one, “but I do not want a Saviour.” Sir, I have nothing to say to you except this-“The wrath to come! the wrath to come!” ~ C.H. Spurgen

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0118.cfm