The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon

You may say, “How am I to know whether I am a recipient of the comfort of the Holy Spirit?” You may know it by one rule. If you have received one blessing from God, you will receive all other blessings too. Let me explain myself. If I could come here as an auctioneer, and sell the gospel off in lots, I could dispose of it all. If I could say here is justification through the blood of Christ, free, giving away, gratis; many a one would say, “I will have justification: give it to me; I wish to be justified, I wish to be pardoned.” Suppose I took sanctification, the giving up of all sin, a thorough change of heart, leaving off drunkenness and swearing, many would say, “I do not want that; I would like to go to heaven, but I do not want that holiness; I would like to be saved at last, but I would like to have my drink still; I would like to enter glory, but then I must have an oath or two on the road.” No, sinner, if you have one blessing, you shall have all. God will never divide the gospel. He will not give justification to that man, and sanctification to another; pardon to one and holiness to another. No, it all goes together. Whom he calls, those he justifies; whom he justifies, those he sanctifies; and whom he sanctifies, those he also glorifies. Oh; if I could lay down nothing but the comforts of the gospel, you would fly to them as flies do to honey. When you come to be ill, you send for the clergyman. Ah! you all want your minister then to come and give you consoling words. But if he is an honest man, he will not give some of you a particle of consolation. He will not commence pouring oil when the knife would be better. I want to make a man feel his sins before I dare tell him anything about Christ. I want to probe into his soul and make him feel that he is lost before I tell him anything about the purchased blessing. It is the ruin of many to tell them, “Now just believe on Christ, and that is all you have to do.” If, instead of dying they get better, they rise up whitewashed hypocrites — that is all. I have heard of a city missionary who kept a record of two thousand people who were supposed to be on their deathbed, but recovered, and whom he should have written down as converted people had they died, and how many do you think lived a Christian life afterwards out of the two thousand? Not even two! Positively he could only find one who was found to live afterwards in the fear of God. Is it not horrible that when men and women come to die, they should cry, “Comfort, comfort?” and that hence their friends conclude that they are children of God, while after all they have no right to consolation, but are intruders upon the enclosed grounds of the blessed God. Oh God! may these people ever be kept from having comfort when they have no right to it! Have you the other blessings? Have you had conviction of sin? Have you ever felt your guilt before God? Have your souls been humbled at Jesus’ feet? And have you been made to look to Calvary alone for your refuge? If not, you have no right to consolation. Do not take an atom of it. The Spirit is a Convicter before he is a Comforter; and you must have the other operations of the Holy Spirit before you can derive anything from this.

      21. And now I am finished. You have heard what this babbler has said once more. What has it been? Something about the Comforter. But let me ask you, before you go, what do you know about the Comforter? Each one of you before descending the steps of this chapel, let this solemn question thrill through your souls — What do you know about the Comforter? Oh! poor souls, if you do not know the Comforter, I will tell you what you shall know — You shall know the Judge! If you do not know the Comforter on earth, you shall know the Condemner in the next world, who shall cry, “Depart you cursed into everlasting fire in hell.” Well might Whitfield call out, “Oh earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord!” If we were to live here for ever, you might slight the gospel; if you had a lease on your lives, you might despise the Comforter. But sirs, you must die. Since last we met together, probably some have gone on to their long last home; and before we meet again in this sanctuary, some here will be among the glorified above, or among the damned below. Which will it be? Let your soul answer. If tonight you fell down dead in your pews, or where you are standing in the gallery, where would you be? in heaven or in hell? Ah! do not deceive yourselves; let conscience have its perfect work; and if, in the sight of God, you are obliged to say, “I tremble and fear lest my portion should be with unbelievers,” listen one moment, and then I am finished with you. “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, and he who does not believe shall be damned.” Weary sinner, hellish sinner, you who are the devil’s castaway, reprobate, profligate, prostitute, robber, thief, adulterer, fornicator, drunkard, swearer, Sabbath breaker listen! I speak to you as well as the rest. I exempt no man. God has said there is no exemption here. “Whoever believes in the name of Jesus Christ shall be saved.” Sin is no barrier: your guilt is no obstacle. Whoever — though he were as black as Satan, though he were filthy as a fiend — whoever this night believes, shall have every sin forgiven, shall have every crime effaced, shall have every iniquity blotted out; shall be saved in the Lord Jesus Christ, and shall stand in heaven safe and secure. That is the glorious gospel. God apply it home to your hearts, and give you faith in Jesus!

      We have listened to the preacher —

      Truth by him has now been shown;

      But we want a GREATER TEACHER,

      From the everlasting throne:

      APPLICATION

      Is the work of God alone.

      Sweet Comfort For Feeble Saints

      No. 6-1:41. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, February 4, 1855, By C. H. Spurgeon, At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

      A bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, until he send forth judgment to victory. {Matthew 12:20}

      1. Babbling fame always loves to talk of one man or another. There are some whose glory it trumpets forth, and whose honour it extols above the heavens. Some are her favourites, and their names are carved on marble, and heard in every land, and every clime. Fame is not an impartial judge; she has her favourites. Some men she extols, exalts, and almost deifies; others, whose virtues are far greater, and whose characters are more deserving of commendation, she passes by unheeded, and puts the finger of silence on her lips. You will generally find that those people beloved by fame are men made of brass or iron, and cast in a rough mould. Fame caresses Caesar, because he ruled the earth with a rod of iron. Fame loves Luther, because he boldly and manfully defied the Pope of Rome, and with knit brow dared laugh at the thunders of the Vatican. Fame admires Knox; for he was stern, and proven himself the bravest of the brave. Generally, you will find her choosing out the men of fire and mettle, who stood before their fellow creatures fearless of them; men who were made of courage; who were consolidated lumps of fearlessness, and never knew what timidity might be. But you know there is another class of people equally virtuous, and equally to be esteemed — perhaps even more so — whom fame entirely forgets. You do not hear her talk of the gentle minded Melancthon — she says very little of him — yet he did as much, perhaps, in the Reformation, as even the mighty Luther. You do not hear fame talk much of the sweet and blessed Rutherford, and of the heavenly words that distilled from his lips; or of Archbishop Leighton, of whom it was said, that he was never out of temper in his life. She loves the rough granite peaks that defy the storm cloud: she does not care for the more humble stone in the valley, on which the weary traveller rests; she wants something bold and prominent; something that courts popularity; something that stands out before the world. She does not care for those who retreat in shade. Hence it is, my brethren, that the blessed Jesus, our adorable Master, has escaped fame. No one says much about Jesus, except his followers. We do not find his name written among the great and mighty men; though, in truth, he is the greatest, mightiest, holiest, purest, and best of men who ever lived; but because he was “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” and was emphatically the man whose kingdom is not of this world, because he had nothing of the rough about him, but was all love; because his words were softer than butter, his utterances more gentle in their flow than oil; because no man ever spoke as gently as this man; therefore he is neglected and forgotten. He did not come to be a conqueror with his sword, nor a Mohammed with his fiery eloquence; but he came to speak with a “still small voice,” that melts the rocky heart; that binds up the broken in spirit; and that continually says, “Come to me all you that are weary and heavy laden”; “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest to you souls.” Jesus Christ was all gentleness; and this is why he has not been extolled among men as otherwise he would have been. Beloved! our text