The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

cannot be saved. I try to think so, but I cannot, because I have not been the most wicked. I want to think so, but I cannot. I want to be saved, but I do not know how to repent enough.” Now, if I have the pleasure of seeing him, I shall tell him, God does not require a man to think himself the most wicked in the world, because that would sometimes be to think a falsehood, there are some men who are not as wicked as others are. What God requires is this, that a man should say, “I know more of myself than I do of other people; I know little about them, and from what I see of myself, not of my actions, but of my heart, I do think there can be few worse than I am. They may be more guilty publicly, but then I have had more light, more privileges, more opportunities, more warnings, and therefore I am still more guilty.” I do not want you to bring your brother with you, and say, “I am more wicked than he is”; I want you to come yourself, and say, “Father, I have sinned”; you have nothing to do with your brother William, whether he has sinned more or less; your cry should be, “Father, I have sinned”; you have nothing to do with your cousin Jane, whether or not she has rebelled more than you. Your business is to cry, “Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner!” That is all. Do you feel yourselves lost? Again, I say, —

      Come, and welcome, sinner, come!

      19. To conclude. There is not a sinner in this place who knows himself to be lost and ruined, who may not have all his sins forgiven, and “rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” You may, though black as hell, be white as heaven this very instant. I know it is only by a desperate struggle that faith takes hold of the promise, but the very moment a sinner believes, that conflict is past. It is his first victory, and a blessed one. Let this verse be the language of your heart; adopt it, and make it your own:

      A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

      In Christ’s kind arms I fall;

      He is my strength and righteousness,

      My Jesus and my all.

      Rahab’s Faith

      No. 119-3:97. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, March 1, 1857, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

       By faith the prostitute Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace. {Hebrews 11:31}

      1. In almost every capital of Europe there are varieties of triumphal arches or columns upon which are recorded the valiant deeds of the country’s generals, its emperors, or its monarchs. You will find, in one case, the thousand battles of a Napoleon recorded, and in another, you find the victories of a Nelson pictured. It seems, therefore, but right, that faith, which is the mightiest of the mighty, should have a pillar raised to its honour, upon which its valiant deeds should be recorded. The apostle Paul undertook to raise the structure, and he erected a most magnificent pillar in the chapter before us. It recites the victories of faith. It begins with one triumph of faith, and then proceeds to others. We have, in one place, faith triumphing over death; — Enoch did not enter the gates of the grave, but reached heaven by another road from that which is usual to men. We have faith, in another place, wrestling with time; — Noah, warned of God concerning things not seen as yet, wrestled with time, which placed his deluge a hundred and twenty years away; and yet, in the confidence of faith, he believed against all rational expectation, against all probability, and his faith was more than a match for probability and time too. We have faith triumphing over infirmity — when Abraham fathers a son in his old age. And then we have faith triumphing over natural affection, as we see Abraham climbing to the top of the hill and raising the knife to kill his only and beloved son at the command of God. We see faith, again, entering the combat with the infirmities of old age and the pains of the last struggle, as we read — “By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.” Then we have faith combating the allurements of a wealthy court. “By faith Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.” We see faith dauntless in courage when Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, and equally patient in suffering when he endured as seeing him who is invisible. We have faith dividing seas, and casting down strong walls. And then, as though the greatest victory should be recorded last, we have faith entering the combat with sin, holding a tournament with iniquity, and becoming more than a conqueror. “Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.” That this woman was no mere hostess, but a real prostitute, I have abundantly proven to every candid hearer while reading the chapter. I am persuaded that nothing but a spirit of distaste for free grace would ever have led any commentator to deny her sin.

      2. I do think this triumph of faith over sin is not the least here recorded, but that if there is any superiority ascribable to any one of faith’s exploits, this is, in some sense, the greatest of all. What! faith, did you fight with hideous lust? What! would you struggle with that fiery passion which sends forth flame from human hearts? What! would you touch with your hallowed fingers foul and bestial debauchery? “Yes,” faith says, “I did encounter this abomination of iniquity; I delivered this woman from the loathsome chambers of vice, the wily snares of enchantment, and the fearful penalty of transgression; yes, I brought her out saved and rescued, gave her purity of heart, and renewed in her the beauty of holiness; and now her name shall be recorded in the roll of my triumphs as a woman full of sin, yet saved by faith.”

      3. I shall have some things to say this morning concerning this notable victory of faith over sin, such as I think will lead you to see that this was indeed a super eminent triumph of faith. I will make my divisions alliterative, that you may remember them. This woman’s faith was saving faith, singular faith, stable faith, self-denying faith, sympathising faith, and sanctifying faith. Let no one run away, when I shall have expounded the first point, and miss the rest, for you cannot apprehend the whole power of her faith unless you remember each of those particulars I am about to mention.

      4. I. In the first place, this woman’s faith was SAVING FAITH. All the other people mentioned here were doubtlessly saved by faith; but I do not find it specially remarked concerning any of them that they did not perish through their faith; while it is particularly said of this woman, that she was delivered amid the general destruction of Jericho purely and only through her faith. And, without doubt, her salvation was not merely of a temporal nature, not merely a deliverance of her body from the sword, but redemption of her soul from hell. Oh! what a mighty thing faith is, when it saves the soul from going down to the pit! So mighty is the ever rushing torrent of sin, that no arm but what is as strong as Deity can ever stop the sinner from being hurried down to the gulf of black despair, and when nearing that gulf so impetuous is the torrent of divine wrath, that nothing can snatch the soul from perdition but an atonement which is as Divine as God himself. Yet faith is the instrument of accomplishing the whole work. It delivers the sinner from the stream of sin, and so, laying hold upon the omnipotence of the Spirit, it rescues him from that great whirlpool of destruction to which his soul was being hurried. What a great thing it is to save a soul! You can never know how great it is unless you have stood in the capacity of a saviour to other men. That heroic man who, yesterday, when the house was burning, climbed the creaking staircase, and almost suffocated by the smoke, entered an upper bedroom, snatched a babe from its bed and a woman from the window, bore them both down in his arms, and saved them at the peril of his own life, he can tell you what a great thing it is to save a fellow creature. That noble hearted youth who, yesterday, sprang into the river, at the risk of his own life, and snatched a drowning man from death, he felt when he stood upon the shore, what a great thing it is to save life. Ah! but you cannot tell what a great thing it is to save a soul. It is only our Lord Jesus Christ who can tell you that, for he is the only one who has ever been the Saviour of sinners. And remember, you can only know how great a thing faith is by knowing the infinite value of the salvation of a soul. Now, “By faith, the prostitute Rahab was delivered,” That she was really saved in a gospel sense as well as temporally, seems to me to be proven from her reception of the spies which was a symbol of the entrance of the word into the heart, and her hanging out of the scarlet thread was an evidence of faith, not inaptly picturing faith in the blood of Jesus the Redeemer. But who can measure