A Gospel for All Ranks and Conditions of Men
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. – Ephesians 2:9
If salvation had been by works, our Lord could not have said to the thief, dying at His side, “To day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” That man could do no works. His hands and feet were fastened to the cross, and he was in the agonies of death. No, it must be of grace, all-conquering grace; and the modus operandi must be by faith, or else for dying men the gospel is a mockery. The man must look, and live. The expiring sinner must trust the expiring Savior. As life ebbs out, the penitent must find life in Jesus’ death. Is it not clear that the gospel of works is unsuitable in such a case as that? Now, a gospel which is unsuitable to anybody is not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, I put it plainly. A gospel that does not suit everybody does not suit anybody; and if it suits any class and condition really and truly, it must suit all classes…The gospel of salvation by grace, through faith, is suitable for every class of persons that we have to deal with. Sinful habit has bound in iron fetters many of our fellow-citizens, and the gospel can free them. Be the habit drunkenness, or profanity, or what it may, the habit holds them fast… The forces of natural depravity, and the acquired habits of sin in many cases, I think you will grant it, put the doctrine of salvation by works out of court; and if out of court as to one, it is gone as to all; for there can be but one gospel. Go through your convict settlements; go through your jails; and just see what you can do with a doctrine of salvation by good works. You will come home disappointed, however earnest may be your address. But go there, and tell of free grace and dying love, and pardon bought with blood, and eyes that stream with tears, confessions of sin, and cries for pardon, will tell you that you have not spoken in vain.~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2210.cfm
Salvation is Not by Works of the Law
“Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them”-Ephesians 2:9, 10.
We insist upon it, with all our might, that salvation is “not of works, lest any man should boast.” But, on the other hand, we freely admit, and earnestly teach, that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Where there are no good works, there is no indwelling of the Spirit of God. The faith which does not produce good works is not saving faith: it is not the faith of God’s elect: it is not faith at all in the Scriptural sense… Before, in the gracious providence of God, Luther was raised up to preach the doctrine of justification by faith, the common notion among religious persons was, that men must be saved by works; and the result was that, knowing nothing of the root from which virtue springs, very few persons had any good works at all. Religion so declined that it became a mere matter of empty ceremony, or of useless seclusion; and, in addition, superstition overlaid the original truth of the gospel, so that one could hardly find it out at all… The way of salvation is by something other than our own works… We who are saved walk in holiness; for we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” It is a decree of the sovereign Lord that His chosen should be led to walk in holiness… We preach salvation “not of works”; we repeat the teaching again and again, and mean to repeat it continually till we die. Salvation is of the Lord’s mercy, and not by works of the law. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2210.cfm
Grace Has Brought Us Nearer to God
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
Sin has separated us from God, but grace has brought us nearer to God than we ever were before sin divided us from Him. Until Christ became man, there was no man on the earth, and there would have been no man, who was more to God than man could be to his Maker; but now there lives a Man who is more to God than any created being ever could be, for that Man is also God, and He sits at the right hand of His Father, and shares with Him the control of the universe. That Man has brought the human race nearer to the Deity than the mere act of creation could possibly have done. Glory be to God for Jesus Christ, the Man from heaven, the Son of Mary, and the Son of the Highest… O wondrous Fall, which would have broken us hopelessly had it not been for still more marvelous grace! O wondrous restoration which has lifted us up, and made us more perfect than we were before we were broken, and elevated us to a glory of which we could never have dreamed, had we lived with Adam and Eve in paradise, and remained in innocence for ever!
If you have received this grace, which has abounded over your sin, take care that you do more for grace than you ever did for sin. It is wonderful how much people will do for sin, what they will give, what they will spend, and what they will endure to gratify their passions and serve their cruel taskmaster, Satan… They are not ashamed to make the welkin ring with their lascivious notes; then let us pluck up courage, and solidly assert the glories of our God and the wonders of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Especially, let us never be ashamed to say, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me, and blessed be His holy name for ever and ever. Amen.”~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3115.cfm
A Better Paradise
But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. – Mark 10:30
Sin has brought us very low, but Christ has lifted us higher than we stood before sin cast us down. Sin took away from man his love to God, but Christ has given us an intenser love to God than Adam ever had, for we love God because He has first loved us, and has given His Son to die for us, and we have, in His greater grace, a good reason for yielding to Him a greater love. Sin took away obedience from man, but now saints obey to a yet higher degree than they could have done before; for I suppose it would not been possible for unfallen man to suffer, but now we are capable of suffering for Christ; and many martyrs have gone sighing to death for the truth, because, while sin made them capable of suffering, Christ’s grace has made them capable of obedience to Him in the suffering, and so of doing more to prove their allegiance to God than would have been possible if they had never fallen. Sin, dear brethren and sisters in Christ, has shut us out of Eden; yet let us not weep, for Christ has prepared a better paradise for us in heaven; Sin has deprived us of the river that rippled o’er sands of gold, and of the green glades of that blessed garden into which suffering could never have come unless sin had first entered, but God has provided for us “a pure river of water of life,” and a lovelier garden than Eden ever was; and there we shall for ever dwell through the abounding grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which has abounded even over our abounding sin. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3115.cfm
They Loved Much
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. – Romans 7:24, 25
It is very wonderful, but it is certainly true, that there are many persons in heaven in whom sin once abounded. In the judgment of their fellow-men, some of them were worse sinners than others. There was Saul of Tarsus, there was the dying thief, there was the woman in the city who was a sinner, a sinner in a very open and terrible sense. These, and many more of whom we read in the Scriptures, were all great sinners, and it was a great wonder of grace, in every instance, that they should be forgiven; but did they make poor Christians when they were converted? Quite the reverse; they loved much because they had been forgiven much. Amongst the best servants of God are many of those who were once the best servants of the devil. Sin abounded in them, but grace much more abounded when it took possession of their hearts and lives. They were long led captive by the devil at his will, but they never were such servants to Satan as they afterwards became to the living and true God. They threw all the fervor of their intense natures into the service of their Savior, and so rose superior to some of their fellow-disciples who did not so fully realize how much they owed to their Lord.
The same truth comes out if we think of what sin has done for us. O brethren, sin has infected the nature of man with a foul leprosy, a deadly disease, but Jesus has cured the disease, and given us a life of a holier kind than we ever knew before. Sin has robbed us; but Christ has restored to us more than sin ever took away from us. Sin has stripped us; but Christ has clothed us in a better robe than our natural righteousness could ever have been. Well do we sing of Jesus,-
“In Him the tribes of Adam boast
More blessings than their father lost.”
~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3115.cfm
You Are Accepted in the Beloved
To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. – 1 Ephesians 1:6
I believe that many of you have had an experience similar to mine, and that there have been times when you have been living specially near to God, and walking in the light of his countenance, when, on a sudden, the sin that dwelleth in you has seemed to attack you just when you least expected it. I know that my fiercest temptations often come to me immediately after my highest enjoyment of communion with God… Well, I believe that, at such times, Christians try to nestle closer than ever under the wings of God, and they feel humbler, and they go to the precious blood of Jesus with a more intense desire to prove again its cleansing power; and they cry to the Strong for strength, and they feel, more than ever they did before, their need of the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying power. Ralph Erskine said that he was more afraid of a sleeping devil than of a roaring devil, and there was good reason for his fear, for when the devil was roaring, the saints would be more on the watch than when he was quiet. The worst temptation in the world is not to be tempted at all; but when there is a strong temptation, and your soul is fully aware of it, you are on your guard against it. The wave of temptation may even wash you higher up upon the Rock of ages, so that you cling to it with a firmer grip than you have ever done before, and so again where sin abounds, grace will much more abound.
O beloved, when your sin abounds, then is the time to recollect that grace much more abounds. Sinner as you are, you are forgiven, you are “accepted in the Beloved,” you are saved, you are a child of God, you shall be in heaven ere long, to praise for ever the grace that shall be crowned with glory. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3115.cfm
He Hath Said 