The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon

such a frame as this,

      And sit and sing herself away

      To everlasting bliss.

      Ah, no! not only is religion unlovely to you, but it is a weariness. But if you are now convicted of this sin, and are repenting of it, and desire to be delivered from its power, then God speaks to you this morning, and says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake — return to me, with sincere repentance, and I will have mercy upon you.”

      6. Note, again, the character. They have been thankless people: “You have not brought me the small cattle of your burnt offerings.” They have been unthankful. They had their cattle and their flocks all multiplied and increased many times, but they did not bring even one of the small cattle to him in return. You never gave him a kid for a burnt offering, but have been like the swine, regardless of the oak which strews food upon the ground for you; you have been a carnal worldly character, receiving a gift, but never thanking the Almighty who caused it to be bestowed; while the little chicken, after it has drunk of the stream, lifts its head, as if to thank God who provided the water. You have been fed, day by day, by an Almighty power, and yet you have never given in return even one of the small cattle of your flock for a burnt offering. This is true of some who attend our houses of prayer; they very rarely give to any collection for the cause of God; they are like the man in America, of whom some one has told us, who boasted that religion had been to him a very cheap thing, costing him only a few cents a year, of whom a good man said, “The Lord have mercy on your little stingy soul.” If a man has no more religion than that, if he has not a religion that will make him generous, he has no religion at all. I thought of that passage last Thursday night, while I was preaching: “You have bought me no sweet cane with money.” God needs nothing at your hands, but he likes little presents, he loves now and then to receive of your substance; for you know that little as it is in his eyes, comparatively speaking it is great, because it comes from a friend. But some of you have never bought him a sweet cane with your money — never sang a hymn to his praise; you have attributed everything to your good luck, and have boasted that you have obtained everything you have gotten by the labour of your own hands, and that you can say, I have need to thank no one for what I have. That has been your spirit; you have given no thanks to God, — the God of heaven and earth; you have not glorified him, but yourself, and yet the Most High is willing to pardon your sin in this thing, if you are only sincerely penitent, and do sue for forgiveness, for he says also to you, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions.”

      7. Yet, again, these people were a useless people. “Neither have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices; but you have made me to serve with your sins.” It is well said, the chief end of man is to glorify God. For that purpose God made the sun, moon, and stars, and all his works, that they might honour him. And yet how many are there, even, perhaps among my hearers this morning, who have never honoured God in their lives. Ask yourselves what have you done? If you were to write your own history, it would be little better than that of Belzoni’s toad, which existed in the rock for three thousand years; you may have lived like it, but you have done nothing. What souls have you ever won to the Saviour? How has his name been magnified by you? Have you ever served him? How have you ever worked for him? What have you done for God? Have you not been cumberers of the ground; taking the nourishment of the earth where some better tree might have grown, and bearing no fruit to the great husbandman, or at least, only a few sorry crabs, that were not worth his acceptance. For all you have done, the world might as well have never known you. You have not been even so much use as the glowworm, which, at least, serves to light the steps of the traveller. The world may possibly be glad to get rid of some of you, and rejoice when you are gone. Perhaps you have assisted in destroying the souls of those with whom you have been connected in life. You can remember the time when you led that young man first into the ale house. You can remember the hour when you swore a most horrible oath; your child was within hearing, and learned to be profane also. You may look upon some souls who are going even now to damnation through your example; and in hell you may see spirits springing up from their iron beds, and hear them shrieking in their woe: “Who is it that led me here, and caused my soul to be destroyed? — you are the author of my damnation.” Is the indictment true? Will you not be compelled to plead guilty to the charge? Do you not even now repent of your great transgressions? Even if it is so, my Master authorises me to say again, “Thus says the Lord, I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, and will not remember your sins.”

      8. Again, there are some who may be termed sanctuary sinners — sinners in Zion — and these are the worst of sinners. I can usually tell whether enquirers have been the children of pious parents or not, if after a confession of great guilt they feel unable to proceed at the remembrance of what they once were. Groaning, and sobbing, and tears running down their cheeks, are the silent language of their woe. When I see this, I always know that the language that succeeds will be: “I have been the child of pious parents; and I feel that I am one of the worst of sinners, because I was brought up religious; and yet I disregarded it, and turned aside from it.” Oh yes, the worst of sinners are sinners in Zion, because they sin against light and knowledge; they force their way to hell, as John Bunyan says, over the cross of Christ; and the worst way to hell is to go by the cross to it. Many of you now before me were consecrated to God by a beloved mother, and your father taught you to read and love the Scriptures of truth. You were brought up like Timothy; you well understand the theory of the way of salvation, and yet you come here, young men, some of you enemies to God and without Christ, and despisers of his word; some of you are even scoffers, or if not actually scoffers, you say religion is nothing to you, and by your actions, if not by your words, declare it is nothing to you that Jesus should die. Ah! when I speak to you, I would not forget myself. Should it ever be my lot to wake up in hell, I should be among the most horribly damned there, for I had a most pious training, and should be forced to take my place with the sanctuary sinners. And you who are such, whom I am addressing now, are you not afraid? Ask yourselves now, “Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire?” Do you tremble and shake for fear, and with a penitent heart desire forgiveness? If so, then I say again, in my Master’s name — who spoke nothing but love and mercy to penitent sinners, who said, “Neither do I condemn you” — Jehovah now declares “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember your sins.”

      9. Yet, once more, we have here men who had wearied God: “You have made me to serve with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.” You see the man who has been a professor of religion, and can look back twenty years ago, when he was a member of a Christian church; he was apparently walking in the fear of the Lord, and all men thought he had received the grace of God in truth; but he has turned aside into the paths of sin; sometimes his lips have been defiled with oaths, and his soul the bondslave of sin; but even now he is often found in God’s house; sometimes he is affected to tears, and says within himself, “Surely I will return to the Lord, for then was it better with me than now.” Self-condemned, he stands and weeps in the bitterness of his heart; and see, it may be this morning he has stepped into this vast assembly, and that his knees are knocking one against the other, yet it may be that his goodness shall prove like the morning cloud and the early dew, that passes away; or it may be that the turning point is now come; “Now or never,” as Baxter used to say; now God or Satan, now accepted or condemned. Poor backslider return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon you; he will blot out all your sins, and so blot them out that he will not remember them against you any more for ever.

      10. These, then, are the characters who receive mercy. Some of you may say, “You seem to think we are a bad lot” — and so I do. Others exclaim, “How can you talk to us in this way? We are an honest, moral, and upright people.” If so, then I have no gospel to preach to you. You may go elsewhere if you will, for you may get moral sermons in scores of chapels if you want them; but I am come in my Master’s name to preach to sinners, and so I will not say a word to you Pharisees except this — By so much as you think yourself righteous and holy, by so much shall you be cast out of God’s presence at last. Your sentence will be eternal banishment from the presence of him who has said to every repenting sinner, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, and will not remember your sins.”