New.Demonstration

I was supposed to post an excerpt from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening today. But then by God’s providence I was led instead to this sermon by that same man, dear Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Do give time to read the entirety of this excerpt, or if you can make a considerable time available maybe less than an hour or so. It is a very much captivating message of the Gospel of Scripture.

The first thing that was raised in my mind and heart was this: “Ah, the Gospel presented so pointedly and personally to me, a sinner. No apologies. No blushing over things. Nothing else, but the Gospel presented and shared to me with a weeping heart.”

“You have condemned us all,” cries one. Yes, but not I—God has done it. Are you condemned? Do you feel you are to night? Come, again, let me take thee by the hand, my brother: yes, I can look round upon the whole of this assembly, and I can say, there is not one now in this place whom I do not love as a brother. If I speak severely unto any of you, it is that you may know the right. My heart, and my whole spirit are stirred for you.

My harshest words are far more full of love than the smooth words of soft-speaking ministers, who say, “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace. Do you think it is any pleasure to me to preach like this? Oh? I had far rather be preaching of Jesus; his sweet, his glorious person, and his all-sufficient righteousness. Now, come, we will have a sweet word before we have done.

Do you feel you are condemned?

Do you say, “O God, I confess thou wouldest be just, if thou shouldest do all this to me?”

Dost thou feel thou canst never be saved by thine own works, but that thou art utterly condemned through sin?

Dost thou hate sin?

Dost thou sincerely repent?

Then, let me tell thee how thou mayest escape.

Men and brethren, Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was crucified, dead, and buried; he is now risen, and he sitteth on the right hand of God, where he also maketh intercession for us. He came into this world to save sinners, by his death. He saw that poor sinners were cursed: he took the curse on his own shoulders, and he delivered us from it.

Now, if God has cursed Christ for any man, he will not curse that man again.

You ask me, then, “Was Christ cursed for me?”

Answer me this question, and I will tell you

—Has God the Spirit taught you that you are accursed?

Has he made you feel the bitterness of sin?

Has he made you cry, “Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner?”

Then, my dear friend, Christ was cursed for you; and you are not cursed. You are not cursed now. Christ was cursed for you. Be of good cheer; if Christ was cursed for you, you can not be cursed again.

“Oh!” says one, “if I could but think he was cursed for me.”

Do you see him bleeding on the tree?

Do you see his hands and feet all dripping gore?

Look unto him, poor sinner. Look no longer at thyself, nor at thy sin; look unto him, and be saved. All he asks thee to do is to look, and even that he will help thee to do. Come to him, trust him, believe on him. God the Holy Spirit has taught you that you are a condemned sinner.

Now, I beseech you, hear this word and believe it: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.”

Oh, can you say,

“I believe this Word—it is true—blessed be his dear name; it is true to me, for whatever I may not be, I know that I am a sinner; the sermon of this night convinces me of that, if there were nothing else; and, good Lord, thou knowest when I say I am a sinner, I do not mean what I used to mean by that word.

I mean that I am a real sinner. I mean that if thou shouldest damn me, I deserve it; if thou shouldest cast me from thy presence forever, it is only what I have merited richly.

O my Lord I am a sinner; I am a hopeless sinner, unless thou savest me; I am a helpless sinner, unless thou dost deliver me.

I have no hope in my self-righteousness; and Lord, I bless thy name, there is one thing else, I am a sorrowful sinner, for sin grieves me; I can not rest, I am troubled. Oh, if I could get rid of sin, I would be holy, even as God is holy.

Lord, I believe. But I hear an objector cry out, “What, sir, believe that Christ died for me simply because I am a sinner!”

Yes; even so.

“No, sir; but if I had a little righteousness; if I could pray well, I should then think Christ died for me.”

No, that would not be faith at all, that would be self-confidence.

Faith believes in Christ when it sees sin to be black, and trusts in him to remove it all.

Now, poor sinner, with all thy sin about thee, take this promise in thy hands, go home to-night, or if thou canst, do it before thou gettest home—go home, I say, up stairs, alone, down by the bed-side, and pour out thine heart,

“O Lord, it is all true that that man said; I am condemned, and Lord, I deserve it. O Lord, I have tried to be better, and have done nothing with it all, but have only grown worse.

O Lord, I have slighted thy grace, I have despised thy gospel: I wonder thou hast not damned me years ago; Lord, I marvel at myself; that thou sufferest such a base wretch as I am to live at all.

I have despised a mother’s teaching, I have forgotten a father’s prayers.

Lord, I have forgotten thee; I have broken thy Sabbath, taken thy name in vain.

I have done everything that is wrong; and if thou dost condemn me, what can I say?

Lord, I am dumb before thy presence.

I have nothing to plead.

But Lord; I come to tell thee to-night, thou hast said in the Word of God, “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.”

Lord, I come: my only plea is that thou hast said, ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.’

Lord, I am a sinner; he came to save me; I trust in it—sink or swim—Lord, this is my only hope: I cast away every other, and hate myself to think I ever should have had any other.

Lord, I rely on Jesus only.

Do but save me, and though I can not hope by my future life to blot out my past sin, O Lord, I will ask of thee to give me a new heart and a right spirit, that from this time forth even for ever I may run in the way of thy commandments: for, Lord, I desire nothing so much as to be thy child.

Thou knowest, O Lord, I would give all, if thou wouldest but love me; and I am encouraged to think that thou dost love me; for my heart feels so.

I am guilty, but I should never have known that I was guilty if thou hadst not taught it to me.

I am vile, but I never should have known my vileness, unless thou hadst revealed it.

Surely, thou wilt not destroy me, O God, after having taught me this. If thou dost, thou art just, but,

“Save a trembling sinner, Lord,
Whose hopes still hovering round thy Word,
Would light on some sweet promise there;
Some sure support against despair.”

If you can not pray such a long prayer as that, I tell you what to go home and say. Say this,

“Lord Jesus, I know I am nothing at all; be thou my precious all in all.”

Oh, I trust in God there will be some to-night that will be able to pray like that, and if it be so, ring, the bells of heaven; sing, ye seraphim; shout, ye redeemed; for the Lord hath done it, and glory be unto his name, for ever and ever.

A Call to the Unconverted, a Sermon Delivered on Sabbath Evening,

November 8, 1857,

by the REV. C. H. Spurgeon

At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”—Galatians 3:10

Read the whole of this most Christ exalting sermon on the Gospel proclaimed for the salvation of dead sinners, in pdf, here.