Spurgeon On Self Righteousness #2

If you think yourselves strong enough to procure heaven by your own efforts, you are ignorantly insulting the cross of Christ, for you seem to insinuate that your virtues can avail you without Jesus. If you really mean this, there is no more venom of rebellion against God in your self-righteousness than in the outward vice of those who make no pretence to godliness. For you to put your works in the place of Jesus is a blasphemy against the Saviour's blood and righteousness. Why needed Christ to die if men could save themselves? Why need he bleed upon the cross if your merits will suffice to gain you a place among the blessed? There is a fatal weakness in the claim of that man who thinks himself strong enough to force his own passage to the throne of God; that weakness lies in the pride which insults the Crucified, the disloyalty which prefers itself to the royal Saviour.

Spurgeon On Self Righteousness #1

Sinner, if you grow no sweeter flowers than the dunghill of your own nature can nourish, you will die amid poisonous weeds. If you never drink of better water than the filthy well of your own heart will yield, you will perish of thirst, or of a deadly draught. Another, and a better helper than one born in your house, must come this way. Help must be laid upon one that is mighty, exalted of the Lord out of the people, and endowed with divine power and Godhead, for only such a Saviour, infinitely good and great, can save a soul so lost as yours.

Don't Look To Yourself!

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor--but the sick!" Matthew 9:12

From the garden of Gethsemane--where the bleeding pores of the Savior sweat pardons; from the cross of Calvary--where the bleeding hands of Jesus drop mercy--the cry comes, "Look unto Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth!" From Calvary's summit, where Jesus cries, "It is finished!" I hear a shout, "Look unto Me, and be saved!"

But there comes a vile cry from our soul, "No, look to yourself! Look to yourself!" Ah, look to yourself--and you will certainly be damned! As long as you look to yourself--there is no hope for you. It is not a consideration of what you are--but a consideration of what Christ is, that can save you. You must look away from yourself, and to Jesus!

Oh! there are many who quite misunderstand the gospel; they think that their good works qualify them to come to Christ; whereas SIN is the only qualification for man to come to Jesus!

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor--but the sick!" Matthew 9:12

- Charles Spurgeon

The Heart Of The Gospel!

"I have found, my brethren, by long experience that nothing touches the heart like the cross of Christ. When the heart is touched and wounded by the two-edged sword of the Law, nothing heals its wounds like the balm that flows from the pierced heart of Jesus." -The Heart of The Gospel, July 1886 by Charles. H. Spurgeon

What Makes You Better?

"What makes you better than anyone else? What do you have--that God hasn't given you? And if all you have is from God--why boast as though you have accomplished something on your own?" 1 Corinthians 4:7

Christian! By nature--you are no better than others! What would you be--without the continual influence of the Spirit? O believer, whatever you are--you have nothing to make you proud. The more you have--the more you are in debt to God--and should you be proud of that which renders you a debtor?

Consider your origin--look back to what you were. "Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins!" Ephesians 2:1. Consider what you would have been--but for divine grace!

It is only God's grace--which has made you to differ! Great believer--you would have been a great sinner--if God had not made you to differ! O you who are valiant for truth--you would have been as valiant for error--if grace had not laid hold upon you!

Therefore, do not be proud, though you have a wide domain of grace--for once, you had not a single thing to call your own--except your sin and misery!

Oh! strange infatuation, that you--who have borrowed everything, should think of exalting yourself! How foolish--that you--a poor dependent pensioner upon the bounty of your Savior--are yet proud! Shame on you--O silly heart!

CH Spurgeon

Why Unbelievers Should Be Afraid!

Worldlings may well be afraid, for they have an angry God above them, a guilty conscience within them, and a yawning hell beneath them; but we who rest in Jesus are saved from all these through rich mercy.

- Charles Spurgeon

Regeneration Fact #5

I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul... that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God. One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment—I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, ‘I ascribe my change wholly to God.’

- Charles Spurgeon

Regeneration Fact #4

God absolutely interposes in the salvation of every man to makehim regenerate. In the salvation of every person there is an actual putting forth of divine power, whereby the dead sinner is quickened, the unwilling sinner is made willing, the desperately hard sinner has his conscience made tender; and he who rejected God and despised Christ, is brought to cast himself down at the feet of Jesus. There must be a divine interposition, a divine working, a divine influence, or else, do what you may, without that you perish, and are undone; "for except a man be born again, be can not see the kingdom of God." This change is radical--it gives us new natures,it makes us love what we hated and hate what we loved, it sets us in a new road; it makes our habits different, it makes our thoughts different, it makes us different in private, and different in public. 'If any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.'

- Charles Spurgeon

Regeneration Fact #3

When a man is converted to God, it is done in a moment. Regeneration is an instantaneous work. Conversion to God, the fruit of regeneration, occupies all our life, but regeneration itself is effected in an instant. A man hates God-- the Holy Spirit makes him love God. A man is opposed to Christ, he hates his gospel, does not understand it and will not receive it-- the Holy Spirit comes, puts light into his darkened understanding, takes the chain from his bondaged will, gives liberty to his conscience, gives life to his dead soul, so that the voice of conscience is heard, and the man becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus. And all this is done, mark you, by the instantaneous supernatural influence of God the Holy Spirit working as he wills among the sons of men.

- Charles Spurgeon

Regeneration Fact #2

A man is not saved against his will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Ghost. A mighty grace which he does not wish to resist enters into the man, disarms him, makes a new creature of him, and he is saved.

- Charles Spurgeon

Rejection of the Gospel

Sirs, if you would be saved you must have the blood of Jesus sprinkled upon you. He that believes not in Christ Jesus, in Jesus the atoning sacrifice, must perish. The eternal God must repulse with infinite disgust the man who refuses the loving sacrifice of Jesus. Inasmuch as he counted himself unworthy of this wondrous sacrifice, this marvelous expiation there remains no other sacrifice for sin, and nothing for him but that eternal blackness and darkness and thunder which were foreshadowed at Sinai. Those who refuse the atonement which wisdom devised, which love provided, and which justice has accepted, have signed their own death-warrant, and none can wonder that they perish.

- Charles Spurgeon

Fools Despise Wisdom!

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

- Charles Spurgeon

Wisdom produces Humility
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. James 3:13

Knowledge produces Pride
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God. 1 Corinthians 8:1b-3

What is your motive for searching the scriptures? Is it to gain knowledge or become more like Christ?

Evolution Is Crackers!

Reclining at the table last night I decided to put my four year old on the spot! Taking 5 seaweed rice crackers (each about the size of a small marble) I began a game called "Put" or "Drop".

Without explaining the purpose or rules, and with eyes shut tight each turn, I proceeded to "Put" (lay out the crackers in a loose pattern)* or "Drop" (let the chips fall as they may - so to speak) in a random sequence.

With a bemused look on her face (and probably thinking her dad was a bit crackers) she patiently complied with each request to decide "Put" or "Drop".

To my amazement, not only did she understand conceptually the differences between "Put" and "Drop", but by looking at the effect she was clearly able to distinguish the cause (as evidenced by her 100% success rate).

How is it then, that a four year old can look at a five crackers, ascertain a logical order (or pattern) and correctly conclude "Put", and a planet full of scientists surrounded by an infinite number of examples (from microbiological machines of irreducible complexity to huge sprawling galaxies), foolishly conclude "Drop"? It's Crackers! It doesn't make sense!

How can so many “learned” men and women get it so horribly wrong? We only have to turn to the scripture to find out, for in Romans 1:18-22 we read:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of human beings who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools!

May God give us eyes to see and ears to hear what the Spirit is saying!

The God of Truth must teach us the Truth of God or we shall never learn it! - Charles Spurgeon

Regeneration Fact #1

“A man who is really saved by grace does not need to be told that he is under solemn obligations to serve Christ. The new life within him tells him that. Instead of regarding it as a burden, he gladly surrenders himself–body, soul, and spirit–to the Lord who has redeemed him, reckoning this to be his reasonable service.”

- Charles Spurgeon