salvation

Our New Nature Hates Sin

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

Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

Every man who tastes of the saving grace of God is made a new creature in Christ Jesus. Now if the doctrine of grace in the hands of an ordinary man might be dangerous, yet it would cease to be so in the hands of one who is quickened by the Spirit and created anew in the image of God. The Holy Spirit comes upon the chosen one, and transforms him: his ignorance is removed, his affections are changed, his understanding is enlightened, his will is subdued, his desires are refined, his life is changed-in fact, he is as one new-born, to whom all things have become new. This change is compared in Scripture to the resurrection from the dead, to a creation, and to a new birth. This takes place in every man who becomes a partaker of the free grace of God. “Ye must be born again,” said Christ to Nicodemus; and gracious men are born again. One said the other day, “If I believed that I was eternally saved, I should live in sin.” Perhaps you would; but if you were renewed in heart, you would not. “But,” says one, “if I believed God loved me from before the foundation of the world, and that therefore I should be saved, I would take a full swing of sin.” Perhaps you and the devil would; but God’s regenerate children are not of so base a nature. To them the abounding grace of the Father is a bond to righteousness which they never think of breaking: they feel the sweet constraints of sacred gratitude, and desire to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord. All beings live according to their nature, and the regenerated man works out the holy instincts of his renewed mind: crying after holiness, warring against sin, labouring to be pure in all things, the regenerate man puts forth all his strength towards that which is pure and perfect. A new heart makes all the difference. Given a new nature, and then all the propensities run in a different way, and the blessings of Almighty love no longer involve peril, but suggest the loftiest aspirations. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

The Power of Undeserved Love

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

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them… – 2 Corinthians 5:19

A drunkard woke up one morning from his drunken sleep, with his clothes on him just as he had rolled down the night before. He saw his only child, his daughter Millie, getting his breakfast. Coming to his senses he said to her, “Millie, why do you stay with me?” She answered, “Because you are my father, and because I love you.” He looked at himself, and saw what a sottish, ragged, good-for-nothing creature he was, and he answered her, “Millie, do you really love me?” The child cried, “Yes, father, I do, and I will never leave you, because when mother died, she said, ‘Millie, stick to your father, and always pray for him, and one of these days he will give up drink, and be a good father to you’; so I will never leave you.” Is it wonderful when I add that, as the story has it, Millie’s father cast away his drink, and became a Christian man? It would have been more remarkable if he had not. Millie was trying free grace, was she not? According to our moralists she should have said, “Father, you are a horrible wretch! I have stuck to you long enough: I must now leave you, or else I shall be encouraging other fathers to get drunk.” Under such proper dealing I fear Millie’s father would have continued a drunkard till he drank himself into perdition. But the power of love made a better man of him.

I say to every one of you, whoever you may be, whatever your past condition, God can renew you according to the power of His grace; so that you who are to Him like dead, dry bones, can be made to live by His Spirit. That renewal will be seen in holy thoughts, and pure words, and righteous acts to the glory of God. In great love He is prepared to work all these things in all who believe. C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

Goodness Wins the Heart

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

For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again. – 2 Corinthians 5:14,15

Love has a great constraining power towards the highest form of virtue. Deeds to which a man could not be compelled on the ground of law, men have cheerfully done because of love. Would our brave seamen man the life-boat to obey an Act of Parliament? No, they would indignantly revolt against being forced to risk their lives; but they will do it freely to save their fellow-men. Remember that text of the apostle, “Scarcely for a righteous (or merely just) man will one die yet peradventure,” says he, “for a good (benevolent) man some would even dare to die.” Goodness wins the heart, and one is ready to die for the kind and generous. Look how men have thrown away their lives for great leaders…In several notable instances men have thrown themselves into the jaws of death to save a leader whom they loved. Duty holds the fort, but love casts its body in the way of the deadly bullet. Who would think of sacrificing his life on the ground of law? Love alone counts not life so dear as the service of the beloved. Love to Jesus creates a heroism of which law knows nothing. All the history of the church of Christ, when it has been true to its Lord, is a proof of this.

Kindness also, working by the law of love, has often changed the most unworthy…We have often heard the story of the soldier who had been degraded to the ranks, and flogged and imprisoned, and yet for all that he would get drunk and misbehave himself. The commanding officer said one day, “I have tried almost everything with this man, and can do nothing with him. I will try one thing more.” When he was brought in, the officer addressed him, and said, “You seem incorrigible: we have tried everything with you; there seems to be no hope of a change in your wicked conduct. I am determined to try if another plan will have any effect. Though you deserve flogging and long imprisonment, I shall freely forgive you.” The man was greatly moved by the unexpected and undeserved pardon and became a good soldier. The story wears truth on its brow: we all see that it would probably end so. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

The Principle of Love

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

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. – Romans 6:14

The principle of Love has been found to possess very great power over men. In the infancy of history nations dream that crime can be put down by severity, and they rely upon fierce punishments; but experience corrects the error. Our forefathers dreaded forgery, which is a troublesome fraud, and interferes with the confidence which should exist between man and man. To put it down they made forgery a capital offence…Yet the constant use of the gallows was never sufficient to stamp out the crime. Many offences have been created and multiplied by the penalty which was meant to suppress them. It is a notable fact as to men, that if they are forbidden to do a thing, they straightway pine to do it, though they had never thought of doing it before. Law commands obedience but does not promote it. Law fails, but love wins.

If one should rob another it would be sufficiently bad; but suppose a man robbed his friend, who had helped him often when he was in need, everyone would say that his crime was most disgraceful. Love brands sin on the forehead with a red-hot iron. If a man should kill an enemy, the offence would be grievous; but if he slew his father, to whom he owes his life, or his mother, on whose breasts he was nursed in infancy, then all would cry out against the monster. In the light of love sin is seen to be exceeding sinful…Grace has a strange subduing power, and leads men to goodness, drawing them with cords of love, and bands of a man. The Lord knows that bad as men are the key to their hearts hang on the nail of love. He knows that His almighty goodness, though often baffled, will triumph in the end. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

Real Holiness

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

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. – Romans 6:18

You will see that the gospel of the grace of God promotes real holiness in men by remembering that the salvation which it brings is salvation from the power of sin. When we preach salvation to the vilest of men, some suppose we mean by that a mere deliverance from hell and an entrance into heaven. It includes all that, and results in that, but that is not what we mean. What we mean by salvation is this-deliverance from the love of sin, rescue from the habit of sin, setting free from the desire to sin. Now listen. If it be so, that that boon of deliverance from sin is the gift of divine grace, in what way will that gift, or the free distribution of it, produce sin? I fail to see any such danger. On the contrary, I say to the man who proclaims a gracious promise of victory over sin, “Make all speed: go up and down throughout the world, and tell the vilest of mankind that God is willing by His grace to set them free from the love of sin and to make new creatures of them.” Suppose the salvation we preach be this:-you that have lived ungodly and wicked lives may enjoy your sins, and yet escape the penalty-that would be mischievous indeed; but if it be this,-you that live the most ungodly and wicked lives may yet by believing in the Lord Jesus be enabled to change those lives, so that you shall live unto God instead of serving sin and Satan,-what harm can come to the most prudish morals? Why, I say spread such a gospel, and let it circulate through every part of our vast empire, and let all men hear it, whether they rule in the House of Lords or suffer in the house of bondage. Tell them everywhere that God freely and of infinite grace is willing to renew men, and make them new creatures in Christ Jesus. Can any evil consequences come of the freest proclamation of this news? …I defy the most cunning adversary to object, upon the ground of morals, to God’s giving men new hearts and right spirits even as He pleases. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

The Real Reformer of Men

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

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. – Romans 6:17,18

If we are ever to see a pure and godly (nation) we must have a gospelized (nation): if we are to put down drunkenness and the social evil, it must be by the proclamation of the grace of God. Men must be forgiven by grace, renewed by grace, transformed by grace, sanctified by grace, preserved by grace; and when that comes to pass the golden age will dawn; but while they are merely taught their duty, and left to do it of themselves in their own strength, it is labour in vain. You may flog a dead horse a long while before it will stir: you need to put life into it, for else all your flogging will fail. To teach men to walk who have no feet is poor work, and such is instruction in morals before grace gives a heart to love holiness. The gospel alone supplies men with motive and strength, and therefore it is to the gospel that we must look as the real reformer of men. The doctrine of grace, the whole plan of salvation by grace, is most promotive of holiness. Wherever it comes it helps us to say, “God forbid,” to the question, “Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?” If God is good to the undeserving, some men will go into sin, but there are others of a nobler order whom the goodness of God leadeth to repentance. They scorn the beast-like argument-that the more loving God is, the more rebellious we may be, and they feel that, against a God of goodness, it is an evil thing to rebel. I have found men pleading against the doctrines of grace on the ground that they did not promote morality, to whom I could have justly replied, “What has morality to do with you, or you with it?” These sticklers for good works are not often the doers of them. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

This Doctrine of Grace

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

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. – Romans 6:17,18

No sooner is this doctrine of grace set forth in a clear light than men begin to cavil at it. It is the target for all carnal logic to shoot at. Unrenewed minds never did like it, and they never will; it is so humbling to human pride, making so light of the nobility of human nature. That men are to be saved by divine charity, that they must as condemned criminals receive pardon by the exercise of the royal prerogative, or else perish in their sins, is a teaching which they cannot endure. God alone is exalted in the sovereignty of His mercy; and the sinner can do no better than meekly touch the silver scepter, and accept undeserved favour just because God wills to give it:-this is not pleasant to the great minds of our philosophers, and the broad phylacteries of our moralists, and therefore they turn aside, and fight against the empire of grace. Straightway the unrenewed man seeks out artillery with which to fight against the gospel of the grace of God, and one of the biggest guns he has ever brought to the front is the declaration that the doctrine of the grace of God must lead to licentiousness. If great sinners are freely saved, then men will more readily become great sinners; and if when God’s grace regenerates a man it abides with him, then men will infer that they may live as they like and yet be saved…They dare to assert that men will take license to be guilty because God is gracious, and they do not hesitate to say that if men are not to be saved by their works they will come to the conclusion that their conduct is a matter of indifference, and that they may as well sin that grace may abound. In part it is a great mistake, and in part it is a great lie. In part it is a mistake because it arises from misconception, and in part it is a lie because men know better or might know better if they pleased. Let legalists look to their own hands and tongues and leave the gospel of grace and its advocates to answer for themselves. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm