The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

only trained them up better, ‘in the nurture and admonition of the Lord!’ I am saved,” he says; “but alas, alas! though it is a great salvation, I cannot enjoy it yet. I am dying in gloom, and clouds, and darkness. I trust, I hope I shall be gathered to my fathers, but I have no works to follow me — or very few indeed; for though I am saved, I am only just saved — saved ‘so as by fire.’ ” Here is another one; he too is dying. Ask him what his dependence is: he tells you, “I rest in no one else except Jesus.” But notice him as he looks back on his past life. “In such a place,” he says, “I preached the gospel, and God helped me.” And though with no pride about him — he will not congratulate himself upon what he has done — yet he does lift his hands to heaven, and he blesses God that throughout a long life he has been able to keep his garments white; that he has served his Master; and now, like a shock of grain fully ripe, he is about to be gathered into his Master’s garner. Listen to him! It is not the feeble lisp of the trembler; but with “victory, victory, victory!” for his dying shout, he shuts his eyes, and dies like a warrior in his glory. That is the “abundant entrance.” Now, the man that “gives diligence to make his calling and election sure,” shall ensure for himself “an abundant entrance into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

      16. What a terrible picture is hinted at in these words of the apostle — “Saved so as by fire!” Let me try and present it to you. The man has come to the edge of Jordan; the time has arrived for him to die. He is a believer — just a believer; but his life has not been what he could wish; not all that he now desires that it had been. And now stern death comes to him, and he has to take his first step into the Jordan. Judge his horror, when the flames surround his foot. He treads upon the hot sand of the stream; and the next step he takes, with his hair almost on end, with his eye fixed on heaven on the other side of the shore, his face is yet marked with horror. He takes another step, and he is all bathing in fire. Another step, and he is up to his very waist in flames — “saved, so as by fire.” A strong hand has grasped him, that drags him onward through the stream. But how dreadful must be the death even of the Christian, when he is saved “so as by fire!” There on the river’s brink, astonished he looks back and sees the liquid flames, through which he has been called to walk, as a consequence of his indifference in this life. Saved he is — thanks to God; and his heaven shall be great, and his crown shall be golden, and his harp shall be sweet, and his hymns shall be eternal, and his bliss unfading; — but his dying moment, the last article of death, is blackened by sin; and he was saved “so as by fire!” Notice the other man; he too has to die. He has often feared death. He dips the first foot in Jordan; and his body trembles, his pulse waxes faint, and even his eyes are almost closed, his lips can scarcely speak, but still he says, “Jesus, you are with me, you are with me, passing through the stream!” He takes another step, and the waters now begin to refresh him. He dips his hand and tastes the stream, and tells those who are watching him in tears, that to die is blessed. “The stream is sweet,” he says, “it is not bitter: it is blessed to die.” Then he takes another step, and when he is almost submerged in the stream, and lost to vision, he says —

      And when you hear my eye strings break,

      How sweet my minutes roll! —

      A mortal paleness on my cheek

      But glory in my soul!

      That is the “abundant entrance” of the man who has manfully served his God — who, by divine grace, has had a path unclouded and serene — who, by diligence, has “made his calling and election sure”; and therefore, as a reward, not of debt, but of grace, has entered heaven with higher honours and with greater ease than others equally saved, but not saved in so splendid a manner.

      17. Just one thought more. It is said that the entrance is to be “ministered to us.” That gives me a sweet hint that, I find, is dwelt upon by Doddridge. Christ will open the gates of heaven; but the heavenly train of virtues — the works which follow us — will go up with us and minister an entrance to us. I sometimes think, if God should enable me to live and die for the good of these congregations, so that many of them shall be saved, how sweet it will be to enter heaven, and when I shall come there, to have an entrance ministered to me, not by Christ alone, but by some of you for whom I have ministered. One shall meet me at the gate, and say, “Minister you were the cause of my salvation!” And another, and another, and another, shall all exclaim the same. When Whitfield entered heaven — that highly honoured servant of the Lord — I think I can see the hosts rushing to the gate to meet him. There are thousands there who have been brought to God by him. Oh how they open wide the gates; and how they praise God that he has been the means of bringing them to heaven; and how do they minister to him an abundant entrance? There will be some of you, perhaps, in heaven, with starless crowns: for you never did good to your fellow creatures; you never were the means of saving souls; you are to have crowns without stars. But “they who turn many to righteousness,” shall “shine as the stars, for ever and ever”; and an entrance shall be abundantly ministered to them. I do want to get a heavy crown in heaven — not to wear, but to have all the more costly gift to give to Christ. And you ought to desire the same, that you may have all the more honours, and so have the more to cast at his feet, with — “Not to us, but to your name, oh Christ, be the glory!” “Rather, brethren, give all diligence to make your calling and election sure.”

      18. And now, to conclude. There are some of you with whom this text has nothing to do. You cannot “make your calling and election sure”; for you have not been called; and you have no right to believe that you are elected, if you have never been called. To such of you, let me say, do not ask whether you are elected first, but ask whether you are called. And go to God’s house, and bend your knee in prayer; and may God, in his infinite mercy, call you! And notice this — if any of you can say —

      Nothing in my hands I bring,

      Simply to your cross I cling;

      if any of you, abjuring your self-righteousness, can now come to Christ and take him to be your all in all; you are called, you are elect. “Make your calling and election sure,” and go on your way rejoicing! May God bless you; and to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be glory for evermore! Amen.

      The Snare Of The Fowler

      No. 124-3:137. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, March 29, 1857, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

       Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler. {Psalms 91:3}

      1. If Moses wrote this psalm, he might represent the fowler as being in his case the king of Egypt, who sought to kill him, or the Amalekites, who pounced upon Israel in the plain, when they least expected it. If David penned it, he might have compared Saul to the fowler, for he himself says, he was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains. But we believe, if the verse is applicable to either of those cases, it was intended by the psalmist not to have a private interpretation, but to be applicable to all time; and we believe it is spoken concerning that archenemy of souls, the great deceiver, Satan, of whom we just now sang —

      Satan, the fowler, who betrays

      Unguarded souls a thousand ways.

      “The prince of the power of this world, the spirit which still works in the children of disobedience,” is like a fowler, always attempting to destroy us. It was once said by a talented writer, that the old devil was dead, and that there was a new devil now; by which he meant to say, that the devil of old times was a rather different devil from the deceiver of these times. We believe that it is the same evil spirit; but there is a difference in his mode of attack. The devil of five hundred years ago was a black and grimy thing, well portrayed in our old pictures of that evil spirit. He was a persecutor, who cast men into the furnace, and put them to death for serving Christ. The devil of this day is a well spoken gentleman: he does not persecute — he rather attempts to persuade and to beguile. He is not now the furious Romanist, so much as the insinuating unbeliever, attempting to overturn our religion, while at the same time he pretends he would only make it more rational, and so more triumphant. He would only link worldliness with religion;