Come to the Cross Again

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 1 Comment

…and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me. – Galatians 2:20

I notice that some believers, when they get rather dull and cold, begin the work of self-examination. This may appear very proper, but it is dreary work. I do not believe, dear friends, if you are very poor, that you will ever get rich by looking through all your empty cupboards. If it is very cold, and you have no coals in the cellar, you will not become warm by going into the cellar and seeing that there is nothing below but an empty coal-hole. No, no; if our graces are to be revived, we must begin with a renewed consciousness of pardon through the precious blood; and the only way to get that sense of pardon is to go to the cross again, even as we went at the first. I sometimes wonder that you do not get tired of my preaching, because I do nothing but hammer away on this one nail. I have driven it in up to the head, and I have gone round to the other side to clinch it; but still, I keep at it. With me it is, year after year, “None but Jesus! None but Jesus!” Oh, you great saints, if you have outgrown the need of a sinner’s trust in the Lord Jesus, you have outgrown your sins, but you have also outgrown your grace, and your saintship has ruined you! He that has the mind of Christ within him must still come to his Lord, just as he came at the first. I frankly confess that still I cry to my Lord Jesus-

“Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling.”

Still, to this day, I have no redemption in myself, but only in Jesus. I am not an inch forwarder as to the ground of my trust. Is it not so with you? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2207.cfm

All in Christ Alone

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

In whom we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sins… – Ephesians 1:7

The forgiveness of sins binds us to our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us read the text again. “In whom we have redemption through His blood.” We have nothing apart from Jesus. Every blessing of the covenant binds us to Christ. Covenant gifts are so many golden chains to fasten the soul of the believer to his Lord. Our wealth of mercy is all in Christ. There is nothing good outside of Christ. When are we pardoned, brethren? When have we forgiveness? Why, when we are in Him, “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” O son of Adam, living without Jesus, hear and take warning! So long as thou art out of Christ, thou must bear thine own burden till it crush thee to the dust; but as soon as thou hast touched the hem of His garment, there is a link of connection; and if thou canst rise from that to holding Him by the feet, the union is closer; and if thou canst from that become like Simeon, who took Him up in his arms, then mayest thou cry, “Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” When thou hast Christ to the full, thou hast grace to the full. It is as you are in Christ-in connection and communion with Christ-that you receive the pardon of sin, for all the pardon is in Him. Do you see that?

“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” The forgiveness is not so much in His office, and in His work, as in Himself. When thou gettest Christ, thou hast redemption; for He is redemption. When thou gettest Christ, thou hast forgiveness of sins; for He is the propitiation for our sins. He has put the sin away by the sacrifice of Himself. Get Christ, and thou hast the proof, the evidence, the sum, the substance of perfect pardon. If thou acceptest the Beloved, thou art “accepted in the Beloved.” When thou art in Him, then thou art forgiven; but thy forgiveness is alone in Him. In Him thou hast redemption: out of Him thou art in bondage. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2207.cfm

Rest for the Conscience

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

In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace… – Ephesians 1:7

This forgiveness of sins is enjoyed by us now. “In whom we have”-we have-“redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” I remember the astonishment with which I sat in a ministers’ meeting, and heard one, who professed to be a preacher of the gospel, assert that he did not think that any one of us could be sure that we were forgiven. I ventured at once to say that I was sure; and I was pleased, but by no means surprised, to find that others dared to say the same. I hope I have hundreds before me who enjoy the same assurance.

Brethren, if there be no consciousness of the forgiveness of sins possible, how can there be any rest for the conscience? Yet Jesus says, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” What rest is possible to the condemned? Can you go to bed to-night with your sins unforgiven? Some of you may have the foolhardiness to do that, but I would not dare to do it. See where you are. Within a moment you may be dead. Within that moment you will be in hell, past all hope. In a single instant you may be eternally lost: can you endure the thought? Our breath has but to stop, or the heart to cease beating, and instantly life is over. How can you be at peace, while sin is unforgiven? Unless sin had made men mad, they would never rest till they were cleared from their sins. There cannot be any true rest without a consciousness of forgiveness. Yet that rest is promised; therefore, the present enjoyment of an assurance of forgiveness must be possible. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2207.cfm

Overwhelming Grace

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

In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace… – Ephesians 1:7

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God…- Ephesians 2:8

Beloved, be this always remembered, that it is in the application of redemption, and the personal pardon of any sinner, through the blood of Jesus, that the grace of God is best seen by that sinner. To each one pardon through the Lord Jesus comes, not only according to grace, but “according to the riches of His grace.” I can understand that God should forgive you, all of you. I could hear it with full belief, and it would not astonish me. But that He should pardon me-that I should have the forgiveness of sins, and redemption by blood-that does astonish me. And I believe that any person, under a sense of sin, sees more of the grace of God in his own salvation than in the salvation of anybody else. He may be quite conscious that he has never been a thief, or a drunkard, or a murderer; and yet, when he comes to look at it, he may see reasons why the pardon of sin in his case should be more remarkable than even in the case of a drunkard, or a thief, or a murderer. There may be elements in his own case which may make him seem to have sinned even more grievously than open transgressors, because he transgressed against greater light, with less temptation thereto, and with a direr presumption of rebellion against the Most High. That Jesus died, is unutterable grace; but that He loved me, and gave Himself for me, this is overwhelming grace, and makes the heir of heaven say with emphasis, Blessed be God that, in Jesus, I have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2207.cfm

The Song of a City and the Pearl of Peace

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

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A Matter of His Rich Grace

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

In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace… – Ephesians 1:7

The forgiveness of sin is still a matter of grace, and of rich grace. “We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” I admit that the forgiveness of sins, on God’s part, is a matter of justice, now that the redemption by blood has been completed. The man believes; the man confesses his sin; and it is written, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” The sacrifice is so great that it justly puts away the sin, and it is righteously forgiven…Beloved, it is only by grace that we are justified; yet that this grace is exercised in a way of justice causes the grace to be not less, but even manifestly more gracious. The death of Christ, the redemption by blood, instead of veiling the grace of God, only manifests it. Oh, if it be so, that God, the Divine Ruler, the Judge of all the earth, says to guilty man, “I will pardon you, but it is imperative that My law be carried out; and this cannot be done except by the death of My dear Son, who is one with Me, who is very God of very God, who Himself wills to stand in your stead, and vindicate My justice, by suffering the penalty due to you”-then I say that the grace of God is a thousand-fold more clearly shown than by the free forgiveness which “modern thought” pleads for! Pardon which has cost God more than it cost Him to make all worlds-which has cost Him more than to manage all the empires of His providence-which has cost Him His only-begotten Son and has cost that only-begotten Son a life of sorrow and a death of unutterable and immeasurable anguish-I say that this pardon is pre-eminently gracious. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2207.cfm

For Our Soul’s Benefit

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

If sin had been blotted out so readily, and nothing more said of it, what effect would that have had on us in the future? I think that everyone who has felt the burden of sin, and has stood at the foot of the cross, and heard the cries of the great Sacrifice, and read God’s wrath against sin written in crimson lines upon the blessed and perfect person of the innocent Savior-every such person feels that sin is an awful thing. You cannot trifle with transgression after a vision of Gethesmane. You cannot laugh at it, and talk about the littleness of its demerit, if you have once stood on Golgotha, and heard the cry, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” The death of the Son of God upon the cross is the grandest of all moral lessons, because it is a lesson that affects the very soul of the man and changes his whole idea of sin. The cross straightens him from the desperate twist which sin gave him at the first. The cure of the first Adam’s fall is the second Adam’s death-the second Adam’s grace, which comes to us through His great sacrifice. We love sin till we see that it killed our best Friend, and then we loathe it evermore. I say, again, that if the great Father did forgive you, and said, “There is nothing in it; go your way, it is all over;” you would have lacked that grandest source of sanctified life which now you find in the wounds of Him who has made sin detestable to you, and has made perfect obedience, even unto death, the subject of you soul’s admiration. Now you long to be unto the great Father, in your measure, what your great Redeemer was to Him when He magnified the law and made it honorable. This is no mean benefit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2207.cfm