Wilt Thou be Saved or Not?

“…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” – Romans 10:9

Yes or no. Wilt thou be damned or not? Wilt thou be saved or not? I will not have thee say, “When I have a more convenient season I will send for thee.” Sinner, it cannot be a more convenient one than this… Now, sinner, wilt thou be reconciled, restored, forgiven? “Wilt thou be made whole?” said Jesus, and I say the same to thee, “Wilt thou be made whole?” Do you say, “No”? Must I take that for an answer? Mark you, sinner, I have to tell my Master. I must tell Him when I seek the closet of the King to-night; I must tell Him your reply that you would not. What then remains for an ambassador to do when he has spoken to you in the name of the Sovereign? If you will not turn, we must shake off the dust of our feet against you. I am clear, I am clear, of the blood of you all, I am clear. If you perish, being warned, you perish wantonly. The wrath cometh upon you, not on him who, to the best of his power, has told his Master’s message. Yet again, I beg you to accept it. Do you still say no?

Mercy is still held out to you…  Oh! turn ye, turn ye, turn ye! Come and welcome, sinner, come now while you are welcome. ‘Tis love invites you… Now, even now, may sovereign grace constrain, and irresistible love draw you. May you believe with your heart; may you record your profession at once. Before you close your eyes in sleep, just as you would wish before your eyes are closed in death, may you be at peace with God. I pray God, as I entreat you, that this may come to pass, for His Son, Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3497.cfm

“I Have Christ…”

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.  – Romans 8:9

At this present hour, if you are without Christ, you lack the very essence of good, by reason of which your choicest privileges are an empty boast, instead of a substantial boon. Without Christ all the ordinances and means of grace are worth nothing. Even this precious Book, that might be weighed with diamonds, and he that was wise would choose the Book, and leave the precious stones-even this sacred volume is of no benefit to you. You may have Bibles in your houses, as I trust you all have, but what is the Bible but a dead letter without Christ? Ah! I would you could all say what a poor woman once said. “I have Christ here,” as she put her hand on the Bible, “and I have Christ here,” as she put her hand on her heart, “and I have Christ there,” as she raised up her eyes towards heaven; but if you have not Christ in the heart, you will not find Christ in the Book, for He is discovered there in His sweetness, and His blessedness, and His excellence, only by those who know Him and love Him in their hearts. Do not get the idea that a certain quantity of Bible-reading, and particular times spent in repeating prayers, and regular attendance at a place of worship, and the systematic contribution of a guinea or so to the support of public worship and private charities will ensure the salvation of your souls. No, you must be born again. And that you cannot be; for it is not possible that you could have been born again if you are still living without Christ. To have Christ is the indispensable condition of entering heaven. If you have Him, though compassed about with a thousand infirmities, you shall yet see the brightness of the eternal glory; but if you have not Christ, alas! for all your toil, and the wearisome slavery of your religion, you can but weave a righteousness of your own, which shall disappoint your hope, and incur the displeasure of God.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3472.cfm

The Imminent Peril

He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. – John 3:18

The imminent peril is to be without Christ Himself. Do you see, there, the Saviour in human form-God made flesh, dwelling among us? He loves His people, and came to earth to wipe out an iniquity which had stained them most vilely, and to work out a righteousness which should cover them most gloriously, but without Christ that living Saviour is nothing to you. Do you see Him led away as a sheep to the slaughter, fastened to the cruel wood bleeding, dying? Without Christ you are without the virtue of that great sacrifice; you are without the merit of that atoning blood. Do you see Him lying in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, asleep in death? That sleep is a burial of all the sins of His people, but without Christ your sins are not atoned for; your transgressions are yet unburied; they walk the earth; they shall go before you to judgment; they shall clamour for your condemnation; they shall drag you down without hope. Without Christ, remember, you have no share in His resurrection. Bursting the bonds of death, you, too, shall rise, but not to newness of life, nor yet to glory, for shame and everlasting contempt shall be your portion if you be without Christ… Oh! my dear hearers, I cannot tell you what unutterable abysses of wretchedness and misery are comprised here within the fulness of the meaning of these dreadful words-without Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3472.cfm

Without a Saviour; Without a Hope

That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world – Ephesians 2:12

Without Christ, implies, of course, that you are without the benefit of all those gracious offices of Christ, which are so necessary to the sons of men, you have no true prophet. You may pin your faith to the sleeve of man, and be deceived. You may be orthodox in your creed, but unless you have Christ in your heart, you have no hope of glory. Without Christ truth itself will prove a terror to you. Like Balaam, your eyes may be open while your life is alienated. Without Christ that very cross which does save some will become to you as a gallows upon which your soul shall die. Without Christ you have no priest to atone or to intercede on your behalf. There is no fountain in which you can wash away your guilt; no passover blood which you can sprinkle on your lintel to turn aside the destroying angel; no smoking altar of incense for you; no smiling God sitting between the cherubim. Without Christ you are an alien from everything which the priesthood can procure for your welfare. Without Christ you have no shepherd to tend, no King to help you; you cannot call in the day of trouble upon one who is strong to deliver. The angels of God, who are the standing army of King Jesus, are your enemies and not your friends. Without Christ, Providence is working your ill, and not your good.

Without Christ you are without a Saviour; how will you do? what will become of you when you find out the value of salvation at the last pinch, the dreary point of despair? and without a friend in heaven, you must needs be if you are without Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3472.cfm

Without Christ

“That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:” – Ephesians 2:12

“Without Christ.” No tongue can tell the depth of wretchedness that lies in those two words. There is no poverty like it, no want like it, and for those who die so, there is no ruin like that it will bring. Without Christ!.. Oh! what terrible evils lie clustering thick within these two words!..The man who is without Christ is without any of those spiritual blessings which only Christ can bestow. Christ is the life of the believer, but the man who is without Christ is dead in trespasses and sins. There he lies; let us stand and weep over his corpse. It is decent and clean, and well laid out, but life is absent, and, life being absent, there is no knowledge, no feeling, no power…As long as that sinner is without Christ, we may give him ordinances, if we dare; we may pray for him, we may keep him under the sound of the ministry, but everything will be in vain. Till thou, O quickening Spirit, come to that sinner, he will still be dead in trespasses and sins. Till Jesus is revealed to him there can be no life.

Men sit in darkness until Jesus appears… Without Christ there is no light of true spiritual knowledge, no light of true spiritual enjoyment, no light in which the brightness of truth can be seen, or the warmth of fellowship proved. Come, Jesus, come! Thou art the sun of righteousness, and healing is beneath Thy wings. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3472.cfm

 

 

The Chief End of Man

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. -Ecclesiastes 12:13

“Is it not our duty to God that we should seek Him?” With some persons this reflection may be important. You remember the Countess of Huntingdon, one of the most remarkably gracious women that every lived–a mother in Israel. Her conversion was to a great degree caused by this: she was a blithe and worldly lady of noble rank, excellent and amiable, and all that, but she had no thought of the things of God. She was at a ball, and the amusements of the evening were engrossing all attention, and suddenly the answer to the first question of the assembly’s catechism, which she appears to have learnt when she was a child, came forcibly into her mind, “The chief end of man is to glorify God, and enjoy Him for ever.” She thought to herself, “Why, here am I, a butterfly among a lot of butterflies. All our chief end is to enjoy ourselves, to spend the evening merrily and make ourselves agreeable, and so on.” She went away smitten in her soul with that thought, “The end that God made me for I am not answering.” Now there are some minds that have sufficient in them to think of such a thing as that, and I shall leave that to fall into some honest and good ground. Perhaps some young man will say, “Well, after all, I am not serving my Creator as I should.”

Oh! I wish that some…might feel something of nobility within them that would make them feel, “It is mean to act so unjustly to God, as to prefer the trivial things of time to the weighty matters of eternity.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/history/spurgeon/web/ss-0036.html

Remorse! Remorse!! Remorse!!!

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? – Mark 8:36

When an American doctor, who had led a loose life, came to die, he seemed to wake up from a sort of stupor, and he said, “Find that word, find that word.” “What word?” they asked. “Why,” he said, “that awful word, remorse!” He said it again,-” Remorse!” and then, gathering up his full strength, he fairly seemed to shriek it out,-“Remorse!” “Write it,” said he, “write it.” It was written. “Write it with larger letters, and let me gaze at it; underline it. And now,” said he, “none of you know the meaning of that word, and may you never know it; it has an awful meaning in it, and I feel it now. Remorse! Remorse!! Remorse!!!”

What, I ask, is the pleasure of sin contrasted with the results it brings in this life? and what, I ask, is this pleasure’ compared with the joys of godliness? Little as you may think I know of the joys of the world, yet so far as I can form a judgment, I can say that I would not take all the joys that earth can ever afford in a hundred years for one half-hour of what my soul has known in fellowship with Christ. We, who believe in Him, do have our sorrows; but, blessed be God, we do have our joys, and they are such joys -oh, such joys, with such substance in them, and such reality and certainty, that we could not and would not exchange them for anything except heaven in its fruition. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2902.cfm