Charles H. Spurgeon

In order to the accomplishment of the designs of grace it was necessary further that a Gospel message should be issued full ed full of promise, encouragement, and blessing.

Truly, that message has been delivered to us; for that Gospel that we preach today is full of grace to the very brim. It speaks on this wise: Sinner, just as you are, return unto the Lord, and He will receive you graciously and love you freely. God hath said, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb 8:12). For Christ’s sake, and not because of any agonies, tears, or sorrows on your part, He will remove your sins as far from you as the east is from the west (Psa 103:12). He saith, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa 1:18). You may come to Jesus just as you are, and He will give you full remission upon your believing in Him. The Lord says today, “Look not within, as though you would search for any merit there; but look unto Me, and be ye saved. I will bless you apart from merit, according to the atonement of Christ Jesus.” He says, “Look not within as though you looked for any strength for future life: I am become both your strength and your salvation; for when you were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly”…The Gospel message is of grace because it is directed to those whose only claim is their need. The whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Come, therefore, ye morally sick; ye whose brows are white with the leprosy of sin; come and welcome, for to you is this free Gospel proclaimed by divine authority. Assuredly such a message as this is worth any exertion for its spreading, and it is so blessed, so divine, that we may gladly pour out our blood to proclaim it.

Further, brethren, that this Gospel blessing might come within the reach of men, God’s grace has adopted a method suitable to their condition.

“How can I be forgiven?” saith one, “tell me truly and quickly!” “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Act 16:31). God asks of you no good works, nor good feelings either, but that you be willing to accept what He most freely gives. He saves upon believing. This is faith: that thou believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that thou trust thyself with Him: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (Joh 1:12). If thou believest, thou art saved. Salvation “is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed” (Rom 4:16).

Dost thou say, “But faith itself seems beyond my reach”? Then, in the Gospel of the grace of God we are told that even faith is God’s gift and that He works it in men by His Holy Spirit. For apart from that Spirit they lie dead in trespasses and sins. Oh, what grace is this! The faith that is commanded is also conferred! “But,” saith one, “if I were to believe in Christ and have my past sins forgiven, yet I fear I should go back to sin; for I have no strength by which to keep myself for the future.” Hearken! The Gospel of the grace of God is this: that He will keep thee to the end, that He will preserve alive within thee the fire that He kindles; for He saith, “I give unto my sheep eternal life.” Again He saith, “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (Joh 4:14). The sheep of Christ shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of Christ’s hand. Dost thou hear this, thou guilty one, thou who hast no claim upon God’s grace whatever? His free grace comes to thee, even to thee. And if thou art made willing to receive it, thou art this day a saved man and saved forever beyond all question. I do say it again, this is a Gospel so well worth the preaching that I can understand Paul saying, “Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God”…

Do you seem inclined to accept the way and method of grace?

Let me test you. Some men think they love a thing and yet they do not, for they have made a mistake concerning it. Do you understand that you are to have no claim upon God? He says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Rom 9:15). When it comes to pure mercy, then no one can possibly urge a claim. In fact, no claim can exist. If it be of grace it is not of debt, and if of debt it is not of grace. If God wills to save one man, and another be left to perish in his own willful sin, that other cannot dare to dispute with God. Or if he do, the answer is “Can I not do as I will with my own?” Oh, but you seem now as if you started back from it! See, your pride revolts against the sovereignty of grace. Let me beckon you back again. Though you have no claim, there is another truth, which smiles upon you; for, on the other hand, there is no bar to your obtaining mercy. If no goodness is needed to recommend you to God, since all must be pure favor that He gives, then also no badness can shut you out from that favor. However guilty you may be, it may be God may show favor to you. He has in other cases called out the chief of sinners: why not in your case also? At any rate, no aggravation of sin, no continuance in sin, no height of sin, can be a reason why God should not look with grace upon you; for if pure grace and nothing else but grace is to have sway then the jet black transgressor⁵⁴ may be saved. In his case, there is room for grace to manifest its greatness.

I have heard men make excuse out of the doctrine of election, and they have said, “What if I should not be elected?” It seems to me far wiser to say, “What if I should be elected?” Yea, I am elected if I believe in Jesus; for there never was a soul yet that cast itself upon the atonement of Christ but what that soul was chosen of God from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4).

This is the Gospel of the grace of God, and I know that it touches the heart of many of you.

It often stirs my soul like the sound of martial music,⁵⁵ to think of my Lord’s grace from old eternity, a grace that is constant to its choice and will be constant to it when all these visible things shall disappear as sparks that fly from the chimney. My heart is glad within me to have to preach free grace and dying love…There is something in a free-grace Gospel worth preaching, worth listening to, worth living for, and worth dying for!

My friend, if the Gospel has done nothing for you, hold your tongue or speak against it. But if the Gospel has done for you what it has done for some of us, if it has changed the current of your life, if it has lifted you up from the dunghill and made you to sit as on a throne, if it is today your meat and your drink, if to your life it is the very center and sun—then bear constant witness to it. If the Gospel has become to you what it is to me, the light of my innermost heart, the core of my being, then tell it, tell it wherever you go; and make men know that even if they reject it, it is to you the power of God unto salvation and will be the same to every man that believeth. My time is gone, yet I must detain you a minute while I remind you of reasons why we, my brethren, should live to make known the Gospel of the grace of God:

First, because it is the only Gospel in the world, after all.

These mushroom gospels of the hour, which come and go like a penny newspaper, which has its day and then is thrown aside, have no claim on any man’s zeal…But to hear the Gospel of the grace of God is worth many a mile’s walk, and if it were plainly set forth in all our churches and chapels I warrant we should see very few empty pews: the people would come and hear it, for they always have done so. It is your graceless gospel which starves the flock till they forsake the pasture…Man wants something that shall cheer his heart in the midst of his labor and give him hope under a sense of sin. As the thirsty need water, so does man want the Gospel of the grace of God. And there are no two Gospels in the world any more than there are two suns in the heavens. There is but one atmosphere for us to breathe and one Gospel for us to live by…

Do it, next, because it is for God’s glory.

Do you not see how it glorifies God? It lays the sinner low; it makes man nobody, but God is all in all. It sets God on a throne and trails man in the dust; and then it sweetly leads men to worship and reverence the God of all grace, Who passeth by transgression, iniquity, and sin.

Therefore, spread it. Spread it because thus you will glorify Christ. Oh, if He should come on this platform this morning, how gladly would we all make way for Him! How devoutly would we adore Him! If we might but see that head, that dear majestic head, would we not all bow in worship? And if He then spoke and said, “My beloved, I have committed to you my Gospel. Hold it fast as ye have received it! Give not way to the notions and inventions of men, but hold fast the truth as ye have received it; and go and tell My word, for I have other sheep that are not yet of My fold, who must be brought in. And you have brothers that yet are prodigals, and they must come home!” I say, if He looked you each one in the face and addressed you so, your soul would answer, “Lord, I will live for Thee! I will make Thee known! I will die for Thee if needs be to publish the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
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From a sermon delivered on Lord’s Day morning, August 12, 1883, at Exeter Hall, reprinted by Pilgrim Publications.

54. jet black transgressor – one who is blackened by sin.
55. martial music – military music; a march.

Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892): Influential English Charles H. Spurgeon Baptist minister; history’s most widely read preacher, apart from those found in Scripture. Born at Kelvedon, Essex, England.

Courtesy of Chapel Library