The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

was not right in the matter. I confess, I would dread above all things the unutterable hell of hells of hypocritical apostates, of men who stand in the ranks, profess to love God, prate of godliness, that sit in the pews and uphold Christianity, that take the sacrament, and speak about communion, that stand up to pray, and talk about being heard for their faith, who are all the while committing abominations, and under the cover of their profession are cheating the poor, robbing the fatherless, and doing all kinds of iniquity. I confess, I as much dread the excess of their damnation above the damnation of others, as I dread to be damned at all. It is as if in hell another hell had been made, to damn those who sin above others, to damn them after being damned — for hypocrites, for men who have been with us, and not of us; who professed to be Christ’s, and yet have been base deceivers after all. Oh! sirs, if you would not make your chains more heavy, if you would not stir the fire to a more furious heat, if you would not make your yells more hideous, quit your professions this night, if you are not worthy of them. Go out of this place, and send in your resignation to the church; or else, sirs, be honest, and bend your knee before God, and ask him to search you, and try you, and make you sincere and upright before him. Be one thing, or else the other; do not cloak yourselves in the robes of sanctity to hide the corruptions that all the while fester beneath. Stand out, bold, brave sinners; and do not be base, sneaking sinners that wear the masks of saints “How is the vine better than any other tree?” Without fruit it is worse than any other. It must perish more dolefully, more horribly than any other, if there is on it no fruit brought to perfection. Does not that shake us? Ah! it will shake you, very likely, that do not want the shaking; but the men that need arousing will keep just as they were. It will go into the hearts of some of you, like the cry, “Howl, Moab, howl, Moab!” but alas! Moab will not howl. You will weep for Kirhareseth, but Kirhareseth will not weep for herself. You will weep for your hypocritical friends; but they will rub their eyes, and say, “A strong sermon; but it has nothing to do with me.” And they will go out with cool presumption; sin with one hand, and take the sacramental cup with the other; sing the lascivious song one night, and then sing,

      “Jesus, lover of my soul,”

      the day after. Meet Christ here, and take the devil yonder, and bid him God speed in all his freaks of devilry. Ah! sirs, sirs, sirs, take heed, take heed, I beseech you, of this matter. Let us each search our hearts, lest we should have been deceived. And may God bring us to a right understanding in this matter, that we may be clear before him. “Search me, oh God, and know my ways; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there is any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting.”

      18. And, now, I must not send you away until I have had a word with my friend in the aisle there. He says, “I like that, I like that; I am no professor, I am not; I am all right. No one can call me a hypocrite.” Well, my dear friend, I am very glad you are not, because you say you are no Christian. But let me tell you, you must not expect to be a great deal better off for that. Suppose two men are brought up before the Lord Mayor, and one says, “Your worship, I am an honest man and not guilty”; and he blushes that an imputation should be cast on his character. Well he is proven to be guilty, and gets committed to prison for three months. Up comes the other one and says, “Your worship, I am a guilty man; I always was a rogue, and I always shall be; I do not make any profession at all.” “I think I must give you six months,” says his worship, “for really I think you must be the more determined rascal of the two.” So if any of you say, “I do not make a profession, I shall be all right,” let me tell you, that to make a lying profession is a very fearful thing; but for you to think of getting off because you make no profession at all, is equally bad. Take heed you do not deceive yourselves; it must be the new heart and the right spirit with God, or else, profession or no profession, we must perish. Oh! that God would give us grace to go to our houses, and cry to him for mercy, and would help us to repent of our sins, and bring us to put our trust simply and wholly upon the Lord Jesus Christ! So should we be saved now, and saved for ever.

      Justification By Grace

      No. 126-3:153. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, April 5, 1857, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

       Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. {Romans 3:24}

      1. The hill of comfort is the hill of Calvary; the house of consolation is built with the wood of the cross; the temple of heavenly cordials is founded upon the riven rock, riven by the spear which pierced its side. No scene in sacred history ever gladdens the soul like the scene on Calvary.

      Is it not strange, the darkest hour

      That ever dawn’d on sinful earth

      Should touch the heart with softer power

      For comfort, than an angel’s mirth?

      That to the cross the mourner’s eye should turn,

      Sooner than where the stars of Bethlehem burn?

      Nowhere does the soul ever find such consolation as on that very spot where misery reigned, where woe triumphed, where agony reached its climax. There grace has dug a fountain, which ever gushes with waters pure as crystal, each drop capable of alleviating the woes and the agonies of mankind. You have had your seasons of woe, my brethren and my sisters in Christ Jesus; and you will confess that you never found comfort on Olivet, not on the hill of Sinai, nor on Tabor; but Gethsemane, Gabbatha, and Golgotha have been a means of comfort to you. The bitter herbs of Gethsemane have often taken away the bitters of our life; the scourge of Gabbatha has often scourged away your cares, and the groans of Calvary have put all other groans to flight.

      2. We have, this morning, then, a subject which I trust may be the means of comforting God’s saints, seeing it takes its rise at the cross, and to there runs on in a rich stream of perennial blessing to all believers. You note, we have in our text, first of all, the redemption of Christ Jesus; secondly, the justification of sinners flowing from it; and then thirdly, the manner of the giving of this justification, “freely by his grace.”

      3. I. First, then, we have THE REDEMPTION THAT IS IN OR BY CHRIST JESUS.

      4. The type of redemption is very simple, and has been very frequently used in Scripture. When a prisoner has been taken captive, and has been made a slave by some barbarous power, it has been usual, before he could be set free, that a ransom price should be paid down. Now we being, by the fall of Adam, prone to guiltiness, and, indeed, virtually guilty, we were by the irreproachable judgment of God given up to the vengeance of the law; we were given into the hands of justice; justice claimed us to be his bondslaves for ever, unless we could pay a ransom, by which our souls could be redeemed. We were, indeed, poor as owlets, we had nothing by which to bless ourselves. We were, as our hymn has worded it, “bankrupt debtors”; a writ was issued against our house; all we had was sold; we were left naked, and poor, and miserable, and we could by no means find a ransom; it was just then that Christ stepped in, stood sponsor for us, and, in the place of all believers, paid the ransom price, that we might in that hour be delivered from the curse of the law and the vengeance of God, and go our way, clean, free, justified by his blood.

      5. Let me just endeavour to show you some qualities of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You will remember the multitude he has redeemed; not me alone, nor you alone, but “a multitude that no man can number,” which shall as far exceed the stars of heaven for number, as they exceed all mortal reckoning. Christ has bought for himself, some out of every kingdom, and nation, and tongue, under heaven; he has redeemed from among men some of every rank, from the highest to the lowest; some of every colour — black and white, some of every standing in society, the best and the worst. For some of all sorts has Jesus Christ given himself a ransom that they might be redeemed to himself.

      6. Now, concerning this ransom, we have to observe, that it was all paid, and all paid at once. When Christ redeemed his people, he did it thoroughly; he did not leave a single doit { a} unpaid, nor yet one farthing for them to settle afterwards. God demanded of Christ the payment for the sins of all his people;