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  SPURGEONS SERMONS VOLUME 15 1869
  by C.H. Spurgeon
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Volume 15 of Spurgeon's collected sermons, containing messages preached during
1869 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. These sermons showcase Spurgeon's powerful
biblical exposition, vivid illustrations, and passionate gospel proclamation
that drew thousands to hear the 'Prince of Preachers' during his Metropolitan
Tabernacle ministry.

  Chapters: 4

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    0. Spurgeons Sermons Volume 15 1869
    1. The Believer A New Creature
    2. The First Cry from the Cross
    3. This document

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  CHAPTER 0: SPURGEONS SERMONS VOLUME 15 1869
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  CHAPTER 1: THE BELIEVER A NEW CREATURE
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A Sermon (No.881) Delivered on Sunday Morning, July 18th, 1869, by C. H.
SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington "Therefore if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature." -- 2 Corinthians 5:17. THIS TEXT IS exceedingly
full of matter, and might require many treatises, and even multitudes of folios,
to bring forth all its meaning. Holy Scripture is notably sententious. Human
teachers are given to verbiage; we multiply words to express our meaning, but
the Lord is wondrously laconic; he writeth as it were in shorthand, and gives us
much in little. One single grain of the precious gold of Scripture may be beaten
out into acres of human gold leaf, and spread far and wide. A few books are
precious as silver, fewer still are golden; but God's Book hath a bank note in
every syllable, and the worth of its sentences it were not possible for mortal
intellect to calculate. We have two great truths here, which would serve us for
the subject of meditation for many a day: the believer's position -- he is "in
Christ;" and the believer's character -- he is a "new creature." Upon both of
these we shall speak but briefly this morning, but may God grant that we may
find instruction therein. I. First, then, let us consider THE CHRISTIAN'S
POSITION -- he is said to be "in Christ." There are three stages of the human
soul in connection with Christ: the first is without Christ, this is the state
of nature; the next is in Christ, this is the state of grace; the third is with
Christ, that is the state of glory. Without Christ, this is where we all are
born and nurtured, and even though we hear the gospel, and the Bible be in all
our houses, and even though we use a form of prayer, yet until we are born
again, we are without God, without Christ, and strangers from the commonwealth
of Israel. A man may stand at the banqueting-table, and may be without food,
unless he puts out his hand to grasp that which is provided; and a man may have
Christ preached in his hearing every Sabbath-day, and be without Christ, unless
he putteth forth the hand of faith to lay hold upon him. It is a most unhappy
condition to be without Christ. It is inconvenient to be without gold, it is
miserable to be without health, it is deplorable to be without a friend, it is
wretched to be without reputation, but to be without Christ is the worst lack in
all the world. O that God would make all of us sensible of it who are now the
subjects of it, and may we no longer tarry in the position of being without
Christ. The next state is that indicated in the text, "in Christ," of which I
will say more by-and-by. "In Christ" leadeth to the third state, which we can
never reach without this second one, namely, to be with Christ; to be his
companions in the rest which he has attained, all his work and labour done; to
be with him in the glory which he has gained, made to see it and to participate
in it world without end. To be with Christ is the angels' joy, it is the heaven
of heaven, it is the centre of bliss, the sun of paradise. Let us seek after it,
and in order that we may have it, let us labour with all our heart and mind to
be found in Christ now, that we may be in Christ in the day of his
appearing.Turn we now to the expression itself, "in Christ." I never heard of
any persons being in any other man but Christ; we may follow certain leaders,
political or religious, but we are never said to be included in them. We may
take for ourselves eminent examples and high models of humanity, but no man is
said in that respect to be in another. But this is a grand old scriptural phrase
in which the disciple and the follower of Christ becomes something more than an
imitator of his Lord, and is said to be in his Master. We must interpret this
scriptural phrase by scriptural symbols. We were all of us in the first Adam.
Adam stood for us. Had Adam kept the command, we had all of us been blessed. He
took off the forbidden fruit and fell, and all of us fell in him. Original sin
falleth upon us because of the transgression of our covenant head and
representative, Adam the first; but all believers are in the same sense in
Christ, Adam the second, the only other representative Man before God, the
heavenly Man, the Lord from heaven. Now, as in Adam we all fell, so all who are
in Christ are in Christ perfectly restored. The obedience of Christ is the
obedience of all his people; the atonement of Christ is a propitiation for all
his people's sins. In Christ we lived on earth, in Christ we died, in Christ we
rose, and he "hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
places" in himself. As the apostle tells us that Levi was in the loins of
Abraham when Melchisedec met him, so were we in the loins of Christ from before
the foundation of the world; faith apprehends that blessed truth, and thus by
faith we are experimentally in Christ Jesus.Noah's Ark was a type of Christ. The
animals that were preserved from the deluge passed through the door into the
ark, the Lord shut them in, and high above the foaming billows they floated in
perfect safety. We are in Christ in the same sense. He is the ark of God
provided against the day of judgment. We by faith believe him to be capable of
saving us; we come and trust him, we risk our souls with him, believing that
there is no risk; we venture on him confident that it is no venture; giving up
every other hope or shadow of a hope, we trust in what Jesus did, is doing, and
is in himself, and thus he becomes to us our ark, and we are in him.Another
similitude may be taken from the old Jewish law. By God's commands certain
cities were provided throughout all Canaan, that an Israelite who should slay
his fellow at unawares, might flee there from the avenger of blood. The city of
refuge no sooner received the manslayer than he was perfectly free from the
avenger who pursued him. Once within the suburbs or through the gate, and the
manslayer might breathe safely, the executioner would be kept at bay. In the
same sense we are in Christ Jesus. He is God's eternal city of refuge, and we
having offended, having slain, as it were, the command of God, flee for our
lives and enter within the refuge city, where vengeance cannot reach us, but
where we shall be safe world without end.In the New Testament the Lord Jesus
explains this phrase of being in himself in another way. He represents us as
being in him as the branch is in the vine. Now, the branch derives all its
nourishment, its sap, its vitality, its fruit-bearing power, from the stem with
which it is united. It would be of no use that the branch should be placed close
to the trunk, it would be of no service even to strap it side by side with the
stem, it must be actually in it by a vital union. There must be sap-streams
flowing at the proper season into it, life-floods gushing into it from the
parent stem; and even so there is a mysterious union between Christ and his
people, not to be explained but to be enjoyed, not to be defined but to be
experienced, in which the very life of Christ flows into us, and we by the
virtue that cometh out of him into us, become like unto him, and bring forth
clusters of good fruit unto his honour and unto God's glory. I trust you know
what this means, beloved, many of you. May you live in the possession of it
daily! May you be one with Jesus, knit to him, united to him never to be
separated for ever. As the limb is in the body, even so may you constantly be
one with Jesus.We may be in Christ also as the stone is in the building. The
stone is built into the wall and is a part of it. In some of the old Roman walls
you can scarcely tell which is the firmer, the cement or the stone, for their
cement was so exceedingly strong, that it held the stones together as though
they were one mass of rock; and such is the eternal love which binds the saints
to Christ. They become one rock, one palace wall, one temple, to the praise and
glory of the God who built the fabric. Thus you see what it is to be in Christ:
it is to trust him for salvation as Noah trusted the ark; it is to derive real
life from him as the branch does from the stem; it is to lean on him, and to be
united to him as the stone leans on the foundation and becomes an integral part
of the structure. The phrase "in Christ Jesus," then, has a weight of meaning in
it. "How do we come to be there?" saith one. To whom we answer: our union to
Christ is practically and experimentally wrought in us by faith when a man
giveth himself up to Christ to sink or swim with Christ, when he leaneth his
soul wholly on the Beloved, when as for his good works he abhorreth them, and as
for his self-righteousness, he counteth it dross and dung, when he clingeth to
the sole hope of the cross, then is such a man in Christ. He is further in
Christ when he loves Jesus, when the heart having trusted and reposed in the
cross, is moved with deep and warm affection to the Crucified, so that the soul
clings to Christ, embracing him with fervent love, and Christ becomes the
bridegroom, and the heart becomes his spouse, and they are married to one
another in a union which no divorce can ever separate. When love and faith come
together, then is there a blessedly sweet communion; these two graces become the
double channel through which the Holy Spirit's influence flows forth daily,
making the Christian to grow up more fully unto Christ Jesus in all things. The
riper the Christian becomes, the nearer to the glory, the closer to the
perfection which is promised, the more completely will he think and act, and
live and move, in Christ his Master, being one with Jesus in all things. I shall
not detain you longer over that one matter, every true Christian is in
Christ.II. Now we survey THE BELIEVER'S CHARACTER, for it is said that if any
man be in Christ he is a "new creature." This is a great utterance. We shall not
attempt to dive into it -- this were work for a leviathan divine -- but merely
like the swallow, we touch the surface of it with our wing, and away.What is
meant by the Christian being a new creature? Three thoughts seem to me to spring
up from the words, and the first is, the believer must then have been the
subject of a radical change. He is said to be a new creature, which is of all
things a most sweeping change. There are many changes which a man may undergo,
but they may be far from being radical enough to be worth calling a new
creation. Saul is among the prophets: hear how he prophesies; if they speak with
sacred rapture the secrets of God, so doth he. Is not Saul converted -- the
Scripture tells us that God gave him another heart! Ay, another heart, but not a
new heart. A man may be changed from one sin to another, from reckless profanity
to mocking formality, from daring sin to hypocritical pretension to virtue; but
such a change as is very far from being saving, and not at all like the work
which is called a new creation. Ahab went and humbled himself after his murder
of Naboth, and God turned away His vengeance for awhile from him, but that
temporary humiliation of Ahab was no sign of a renewal of his nature; it was
like the changes of the sea, which today is smooth, but which anon will be as
ravenous after wrecks as ever, being still unchanged in its nature, still
voracious and cruel, fickle and unstable. Ahab may humble himself, but he is
Ahab still, and as Ahab will he go down into the pit.Conversion is sometimes
described in Scripture as healing; yet the idea of healing does not rise to the
radical character of the text. Naaman went down to the Jordan full of leprosy,
and he washed himself, and came up, after the seventh immersion, with his flesh
clean like unto a little child; but it was the same flesh and the same Naaman,
and he was by no means a new creature. The woman, bowed down with infirmity
those sad eighteen years, was marvellously changed when she stood upright, as a
daughter of Abraham, loosed at last from her bondage; but she was the same
woman, and the description does not answer to a new creature. No doubt there are
great moral changes wrought in many which are not saving. I have seen a drunkard
become sober; I have known persons of debauched habits become regular; and yet
their changes have not amounted to regeneration or the new birth. The same sin
has been within them, reigning still, though it has assumed a different garb,
and used another voice. Ah, ye may be washed from outward leprosies, and ye may
be made straight from your visible infirmities, but this will not suffice you;
if you are in Christ you must have more than this; for "if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become
new."Nor will the most startling changes suffice unless they are total and deep.
The Ethiopian might change his skin, the leopard might suddenly lose his spots
-- these would be strange prodigies; but the leopard would remain a leopard, and
the Ethiop would still be black at heart; the improvement would not amount to
new creation. So may a man give up every outward lust and every crying sin which
he was wont to indulge, and yet, unless the change shall go far deeper than the
outward life, he is not saved -- he is not a new creature, and, therefore, he is
not in Christ Jesus. I venture to say, that even the metaphor of resurrection,
which is often applied to conversion, does not go so far as the language of the
text. The young daughter of Jairus is placed upon her bed, and she dies, and our
Lord comes and saith to her, "Talitha cumi," and she opens her eyes, she awakes,
she lives, she eats," still she is not a new creature; her mother receives her
as the selfsame child. Even Lazarus, who has been dead and is supposed through
four days of burial to have begun to stink, when he is called from the grave by
the voice of Jesus, is the subject of a remarkable miracle, but it scarcely
amounts to a new creation. He is the same Lazarus restored, not a new creature,
but the same creature vivified from a transient sleep of death. Do you see,
then, how very searching the word is here, a "a new creature," absolutely a new
creation. It is a root and branch change; not an alteration of the walls only,
but of the foundation; not a new figuring of the visible tapestry, but a renewal
of the fabric itself. Regeneration is a change of the entire nature from top to
bottom in all senses and respects. Such is the new birth, such is it to be in
Christ and to be renewed by the Holy Ghost. The text saith that we are new
creatures through being in Christ. How comes that about? We have known persons
inveigh very earnestly against the doctrine that men are saved by a simple faith
in Jesus Christ. That is the gospel, and nothing else is the gospel, and those
who do not preach that truth know nothing of God's gospel at all; for it is the
very soul and essence of the gospel -- the article, as Luther used to say, by
which a church stands or falls. We are saved by a simple faith in Jesus, but
these people argue against this on the ground that there must be a great moral
change in man before he can be reconciled to God and made meet to be with God
for ever. But, my brethren, if the text be true, that those who are in Christ
are new creatures, what greater change than this can be desired? I know no
language, I believe there is none, that can express a greater or more thorough
and more radical renewal, than that which is expressed in the term, "a new
creature." It is as though the former creature were annihilated and put away,
and a something altogether new were formed from the breath of the eternal God,
even as in the day when the world sprang out of nothing, and the morning stars
sang together over a new-made universe. Such is the fruit of being in Christ, to
be a new creature. And what, ye moralists, want ye more than this? What, ye
pretenders to perfection, what, ye mystic spiritualists, who strive after a
strange holiness to which ye never attain, what, ye that bind heavy burdens upon
men's shoulders which ye do not touch with your fingers yourselves, what want ye
more than this, for a man to be absolutely made a new creature by being in
Christ?How is this done? We reply that the man who is in the first Adam, being
translated into the second Adam, becomes legally a new creature. As in the first
Adam he is judged and condemned, his punishment is laid upon his substitute; but
as viewed in the second representative Man, he is legally, and before the bar of
God's justice, a new creature. But this is not all: he who believes in Christ,
finding himself completely pardoned as the result of his faith in the precious
blood of Jesus, loves Christ, and loves the God who gave Christ to be his
redemption, and that love becomes a master passion. We have all heard of the
expulsive power of a new affection; this new affection of love to God coming
into the soul, expels love to sin. It enters into the heart of man with such a
royal majesty about it that it puts down all his predispositions towards evil,
and his prejudices against the Most High, and with a real and divine power it
reigns within the soul. I suppose the mode of this great change is somewhat
after this sort: The man at first is ignorant of his God; he does not know God
to be so loving, so kind, so good as he is; therefore the Holy Spirit shows the
man Christ, lets him see the love of God in the person of Christ, and thus
illuminates the understanding. Whereas the sinner thought nothing of' God
before, or his few stray thoughts were all dark and terrible, now he learns the
infinite love of God in the person of Christ, and his understanding gets clearer
views of God than it ever had before. Then, in turn, the understanding acts upon
the affections. Learning God to be thus good and kind, the heart, which was hard
towards God, is softened, and the man loves the gracious Father who gave Jesus
to redeem him from his sins. The affections being changed, the whole man is on
the way towards a great and radical renewal, for now the emotions find another
ruler. The passions, once rabid as vultures at the sight of the carrion of sin,
now turn with loathing from iniquity, and are only stirred by holy principle.
The convert groweth vehement against evil, as vehement as he once was against
the right. Now he longeth and pineth after communion with God as once he longed
and pined after sin. The affections, like a rudder, have changed the direction
of the emotions, and meanwhile the will, that stubbornest thing of all, that
iron sinew, is led in a blessed captivity, wearing silken fetters. The heart
wills to do what God wills, yea, it wills to be perfect, for to will is present
with us, though how to perform all that we would we find not. See then, beloved
friends, how great is the change wrought in us by our being in Christ! It is a
thorough and entire change, affecting all the parts, powers, and passions of our
manhood. Grace doth not reform us, but re-creates us; it doth not pare away here
and there an evil excrescence, but it implants a holy and divine principle which
goes to instant war with all indwelling sin, and continues to fight until
corruption is subdued, and holiness is enthroned.I shall only pause to ask this
one question -- do my hearers all know what such a change as this means? Believe
me, you must know it personally for yourselves, or you can never enter heaven.
Let no man deceive you. That regeneration which is said to be wrought in
baptism, is a figment without the shadow of foundation. The sprinkling of an
infant makes no change in that child whatever; it is, as I believe, a vain
ceremony, not commanded of God, nor warranted in Scripture; and as the Church of
England practises it, it is altogether pernicious and superstitious, and if
there be any effect following it, it must be an evil effect upon those who
wickedly lie unto Almighty God, by promising and vowing that the unconscious
shall keep God's commandments, and walk in the same all the days of his life;
which they cannot do for the child, inasmuch as they cannot even so do for
themselves. Ye must have another regeneration than this, the work not of
priestly fingers, with their hocus-pocus and superstitious genuflexions, but the
work of the Eternal Spirit, who alone can regenerate the soul, whose office
alone it is that can give light to the spiritually blinded eye, and sensation to
the spiritually dead heart. Be not misled by the priests of this age. Ye profess
to have cast off Rome, cast off her Anglican children. Wear not the rags of her
superstition, nor bear her mark in your foreheads. Ye must be born again in
another sense than formality can work in you. It must be an inward work, a
spiritual work, and only this can save your souls. If any man be in Christ
Jesus, he is a new creature, that is, he has experienced a radical change.
Secondly, another thought starts up from the expression in the text. There is
divine working here. "A new creature." Creation is the work of God alone. It
must be so. If any doubt it, let us bid them make the effort to create the
smallest object. The potter places his clay upon the wheel, and shapes it after
his own pleasure, he fashions the vase, but he is not the creator of it. The
clay was there beforehand, he does but change its shape. Will any man who thinks
he can play the creator, produce a single grain of dust? Call now, and see if
there be any that will answer thee -- call unto nothingness, and bid a grain of
dust appear at thy bidding. It cannot be. Now, inasmuch as Paul declares the
Christian man to be a new creature, it is proven that the Christian man is the
work of God, and the work of God alone, "Which were born, not of blood, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." The inner life of
the Christian is the sole work of the Most High, neither can any pretend to put
his finger thereto to help the Creator. In creation, who helped God? who poised
the clouds for Him? who weighed the hills in scales to aid His skill, or helped
Him dig the channels of the sea? Who aided in rolling the stars along? who took
a torch to light up the lamps of heaven? With whom took the Almighty counsel,
and who instructed him? If there be any that can stand with God in the making of
the world, then may some pretend to compare with Him in the conversion of souls,
but until that shall be, the new creation is God's sole domain, and in it His
attributes, and His attributes alone, shine resplendent. "It is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." The sovereign
will of God creates men heirs of grace.My brethren, it was more difficult, if
such terms are ever applicable to Omnipotence, it was more difficult to create a
Christian than to create a world. What was there to begin with when God made the
world? There was nothing; but nothing could not stand in God's way -- it was at
least passive. But, my brethren, in our hearts, while there was nothing that
could help God, there was much that could and did oppose Him. Our stubborn
wills, our deep prejudices, our ingrained love of iniquity, all these, great
God, opposed thee, and aimed at thwarting thy designs. There was darkness in the
first creation, but that darkness could not obstruct the incoming of light.
"Light be!" was the eternal fiat, and light was. But, O great God, how often has
thy voice spoken to us and our darkness has refused thy light! We loved darkness
rather than light, because our deeds were evil; and it was only when thou didst
put on the garments of thine omnipotence, and come forth in the glory of thy
strength, that at the last our soul yielded to thy light, and the abysmal
darkness of our natural depravity made way for thy celestial radiance. Yes,
great God, it was great to make a world, but greater to create a new creature in
Christ Jesus.Chaos there was when God began to fit up this world for man;
confusion dire, disorder rampant. But the Spirit of God moved on the face of the
deep, and brought order speedily, for chaos could not resist the Spirit. But,
alas! the disorder of our soul was stout in resistance to the order of God. We
would not have His ways nor yield to His commands; but even as we could we set
our faces like a flint against the will and power and majesty of the Eternal.
Yet hath He subdued us, yet hath He made us the creatures of His mercy. Unto
Him, then, be glory and strength! Unto Him be praise, world without end!In the
creation of the old world God first gave light, and afterwards he created life
-- the life that crept, the life that walked, the life that dived, the life that
flew in the midst of heaven. So hath He wrought in our hearts; He hath given us
the life that creeps upon the ground in humiliation for sin; the life that walks
in service, the life that swims in sacred waters of repentance, the life that
flies on the wings of faith in the midst of heaven; and, as God separated the
light from the darkness, and the dry land from the sea, so in the new creature
He hath separated the old depravity from the new life. He hath given to us a
holy and incorruptible life which is for ever separated from, and opposed to,
the old natural death; and at last, when the old creation was all but finished,
God brought forth man in His own image as the topstone. A like work He will do
in us as His new creatures. Having given us light, and life, and order, He will
renew in us the image of God. Yea, that image is in every man who is in Christ
Jesus at this hour. Though it is not yet complete, the outlines, as it were, are
there. The great Sculptor has begun to chisel out the image of Himself in this
rough block of human marble; you cannot see all the features, the lineaments
divine are not yet apparent; still, because it is in His design, the Master
seeth what we see not; He seeth in our unhewn nature His own perfect likeness as
it is to be revealed in the day of the revealing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. Thus, dear brethren, I have tried to show you that the work which
wrought in us when we come to be in Christ Jesus, is a divine work, because it
is a new creation. I shall pause here again, and say to each hearer, Dost thou
know what it is to be under God's hand, and to be wrought by God's workmanship?
Strangers to God must be strangers to heaven. Beloved, if you have no more
religion than you have worked out in yourself, and no more grace than you have
found in your nature, you have none at all. A supernatural work of the Holy
Ghost must be wrought in every one of us, if we would see the face of God with
acceptance. This change is assuredly wrought in every man that is in Christ
Jesus. If thou believest in the Lord Jesus, this work is begun and shall be
carried on in thee; but if thou hast nothing about thee but thine own strivings
and resolvings, thine own prayings and reformings, thou fallest short of the
glory of God, and thou hast not that which will be a passport to the skies. God
grant you yet to have it. I pray God His truth may go right through and through
your souls like refining fire, and may you not be satisfied unless a true new
birth, the work of the living God, be really in your possession even now.We
shall now come to the third point which the singular expression of the text
brings up. The expression "a new creature," indicates remarkable freshness. It
is very long since this world saw a new creature. If geologists tell true, there
have been several series of creatures in different periods of time, and each
race has given place to another race of new creatures fresh from creation's
mint, new from God's hand. But it is now six thousand years at least, and some
of us think many thousand years more, since the day when this last set of
creatures came into this world, and started upon the race of life: all the
creatures we now see are old and antiquated. The flower which springs from the
soil, is the repetition of its like which bloomed five thousand years ago.
Yonder meads bedecked with yellow king-cups and fair daisies are the facsimiles
of those our sires looked upon three score years ago. As for ourselves, removed
by long lines of pedigree from the man whom Jehovah formed in the garden, we by
nature show small signs of the undefiled hand and sacred finger. The world is
hackneyed and stale and old. Time wearily drags on to its Saturday night, it
draws near to the last of its work-days with heavy footsteps. Any new creature
coming fresh into the world would startle and amaze us all. What would men give
if the Almighty hand would form a novelty in life, and send it among us; and
yet, ye Athenian wits, that are for ever seeking after some new thing, the text
tells you that there are new creatures upon earth, positive new creations,
fruits that have the freshness and bloom of Eden about them, flowers unfaded,
life with the dew of its youth upon it; and these new creatures are Christian
men; these new creatures fresh from the divine hand, as though just fashioned
between the eternal palms, are the men that weep for sin, the inca that confess
their iniquity, the men that say, "God be merciful to us, sinners," the men who
rest in the blood of the atonement, the men who love Christ Jesus, and live to
the glory of the Most High; these are new creatures. There is a freshness about
them; they have just come from the hand of God, they enjoy nearness to God, they
get to the fountain-head of life, and drink where the crystal stream is cool and
clear, and not mudded by long trickling through earthly channels. There is a
freshness, I say, about them which is to be found nowhere else. I do believe
this, believe it because I have experienced it. This world's a dream, an empty
show; there is nothing lasting beneath the stars, everything of seeming joy soon
palls upon the mind. Take to study, and ransack all the learned tomes, and your
mind will soon be satiated with knowledge. Take to travel, and behold the
fairest realms, climb the summits of the Alps, or traverse the valleys with all
their picturesque beauty, and you will soon say, "I have exhausted all, I know
it, I am weary of it." Follow what pursuit you will, like Solomon you may get to
yourself gardens and palaces, singing men and singing women; or you may, if your
folly be great enough, give yourself to wine; or if you will, addict yourself to
commerce; but of the whole you will say ere long, "Vanity of vanities, all is
vanity." The world is but a mirage; it melts, it disappears as the traveller
passes on, and mocks his thirst with the deceptive image of the true. But,
beloved, the spiritual life is not so. There is a freshness, a vivacity, a
force, an energy, a power about it that never grows stale. He that prayed
yesterday with joy, shall pray in fifty years' time, if he be on earth, with the
selfsame delight. He that loves his Maker, and feels his heart beat high at the
mention of the name of Jesus, shall find as much transport in that name, if he
lives to the age of Methuselah, as he doth now. Year by year its sweets grow
sweeter, its lights grow brighter, its novelties grow fresher, its joys more
joyous, and its exhilarations more intense. We dance yet before the ark. While
heart and flesh are failing the spirit gathers new strength, and joy gathers
growing force. Let us seek after this new creatureship, this new power, this
fresh life, this ever-vigorous youth, that laughs at decrepit earth and worn out
time; this new life which counts even sun, and moon, and stars, but dying
things, like flickering lamps smoking out their lives for want of oil; while the
life divine, since it is fed by God, wears within it a secret immortality which
death, and hell, and time, cannot impair. Now I shall appeal to you again. Do
you know anything about this freshness? If you do, you will find that the world
does not understand you. A new creature put into this world, would be in a very
strange position, from the mere fact of its being a new creature. Believer, you
will find that the world does not suit you as it once did. You will be out of
your element, pining for another world; for there must needs be a new world to
suit a new creature. Do you feel pantings after the new world? God will not give
you what He has not taught you to long for, but your cravings and longings are
the shadows of the coming mercy. Ask yourselves whether you know these
mysteries. If you do not, may the Lord teach you; and if you do, praise and
bless his name.To conclude. This subject leads us to two things. It leads us to
self-examination. May I press upon every one to search himself, whether he
knoweth what this being made a new creature means! But I will not detain you on
this point, lest I weary you on this sultry morning. Pursue practically the
exhortation I fail to enlarge upon verbally.I would lead you to another thought,
on which I will dwell for a moment. Our subject excites hope in the Christian.
If God has made a new creature of him, which is the greatest work of grace, will
he not do the lesser work of grace -- namely, make the new creature grow up unto
perfection? If the Lord has turned you to himself, never be afraid that He will
leave you to perish. If He had meant to destroy you, he would not have done this
for you. God does not make creatures for annihilation. Chemists tell us that
though many things are resolved into their primary gases by fire, yet there is
not a particle less matter on the earth today than there was when it was
created. No spiritual life that comes from God is ever annihilated. If you have
obtained it, it never shall be taken from you -- it shall be in you a well of
water springing up unto everlasting life. If when you were an enemy, God looked
upon you in grace, and changed you, and made you what you now are, will He not
now that you are reconciled continue to preserve and nurture you till He
presents you faultless before His presence with exceeding great joy? The Lord
grant it to you.One other word of hope, and it is this: If salvation be entirely
a creation of God, if God alone can work it, what hope this ought to give the
most forlorn sinner! Ah! my dear friend, if your salvation rested on you, you
might well despair. Chaos, if it remained with thee to make order, order could
never be! Darkness, if it were thine to create the light, light could never
shine! But God's fiat brings forth order and light. Sinner, if it were for thee
to make thyself a saint, and work out thine own salvation alone, thou mightst
well despair; but it is God's work, and He can do whatsoever He will. He can
instantly dispel thy gloom, He can immediately overcome thine unbelief. He can
change thy heart, He can make thee, the greatest of sinners, to become the
brightest of saints. Lift up thy heart to Him. He heareth prayer. Heaven's gate
is open. Seek, for he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be
opened; and God bless thee, for Christ's sake Amen.PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ
BEFORE SERMON -- 1 John 3.


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  CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST CRY FROM THE CROSS
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A Sermon (No.897) Delivered on Sunday Morning, October 24th, 1869, by C. H.
SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington "Then said Jesus, Father,
forgive them; for they know not what they do." -- Luke 23:34. OUR LORD WAS at
that moment enduring the first pains of crucifixion; the executioners had just
then driven the nails through his hands and feet. He must have been, moreover,
greatly depressed, and brought into a condition of extreme weakness by the agony
of the night in Gethsemane, and by the scourgings and cruel mockings which he
had endured all through the morning, from Caiaphas, Pilate, Herod, and the
Praetorian guards. Yet neither the weakness of the past, nor the pain of the
present, could prevent him from continuing in prayer. The Lamb of God was silent
to men, but he was not silent to God. Dumb as sheep before her shearers, he had
not a word to say in his own defense to man, but he continues in his heart
crying unto his Father, and no pain and no weakness can silence his holy
supplications. Beloved, what an example our Lord herein presents to us! Let us
continue in prayer so long as our heart beats; let no excess of suffering drive
us away from the throne of grace, but rather let it drive us closer to it. "Long
as they live should Christians pray, For only while they pray they live." To
cease from prayer is to renounce the consolations which our case requires. Under
all distractions of spirit, and overwhelmings of heart, great God, help us still
to pray, and never from the mercy-seat may our footsteps be driven by despair.
Our blessed Redeemer persevered in prayer even when the cruel iron rent his
tender nerves, and blow after blow of the hammer jarred his whole frame with
anguish; and this perseverance may be accounted for by the fact that he was so
in the habit of prayer that he could not cease from it; he had acquired a mighty
velocity of intercession which forbade him to pause. Those long nights upon the
cold mountain side, those many days which had been spent in solitude, those
perpetual ejaculations which he was wont to dart up to heaven, all these had
formed in him a habit so powerful, that the severest torments could not stay its
force. Yet it was more than habit. Our Lord was baptised in the spirit of
prayer; he lived in it, it lived in him, it had come to be an element of his
nature. He was like that precious spice, which, being bruised, doth not cease to
give forth its perfume, but rather yieldeth it all the more abundantly because
of the blows of the pestle, its fragrance being no outward and superficial
quality, but an inward virtue essential to its nature, which the pounding in the
mortar did not fetch from it, causing it to reveal its secret soul of sweetness.
So Jesus prays, even as a bundle of myrrh gives forth its smell, or as birds
sing because they cannot do otherwise. Prayer enwrapped his very soul as with a
garment, and his heart went forth in such array. I repeat it, let this be our
example -- never, under any circumstances, however severe the trial, or
depressing the difficulty, let us cease from prayer. Observe, further, that our
Lord, in the prayer before us, remains in the vigour of faith as to his Sonship.
The extreme trial to which he now submitted himself could not prevent his
holding fast his Sonship. His prayer begins, "Father." It was not without
meaning that he taught us when we pray to say, "Our Father," for our prevalence
in prayer will much depend upon our confidence in our relationship to God. Under
great losses and crosses, one is adapt to think that God is not dealing with us
as a father with a child, but rather as a severe judge with a condemned
criminal; but the cry of Christ, when he is brought to an extremity which we
shall never reach, betrays no faltering in the spirit of sonship. In Gethsemane,
when the bloody sweat fell fast upon the ground, his bitterest cry commenced
with, "My Father," asking that if it were possible the cup of gall might pass
from him; he pleaded with the Lord as his Father, even as he over and over again
had called him on that dark and doleful night. Here, again, in this, the first
of his seven expiring cries, it is "Father." O that the Spirit that makes us
cry, "Abba, Father," may never cease his operations! May we never be brought
into spiritual bondage by the suggestion, "If thou be the Son of God;" or if the
tempter should so assail us, may we triumph as Jesus did in the hungry
wilderness. May the Spirit which crieth, "Abba, Father," repel each unbelieving
fear. When we are chastened, as we must be (for what son is there whom his
father chasteneth not?) may we be in loving subjection to the Father of our
spirits, and live; but never may we become captives to the spirit of bondage, so
as to doubt the love of our gracious Father, or our share in his adoption. More
remarkable, however, is the fact that our Lord's prayer to his Father was not
for himself. He continued on the cross to pray for himself, it is true, and his
lamentable cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" shows the
personality of his prayer; but the first of the seven great cries on the cross
has scarcely even an indirect reference to himself. It is, "Father, forgive
them." The petition is altogether for others, and though there is an allusion to
the cruelties which they were exercising upon himself, yet it is remote; and you
will observe, he does not say, "I forgive them" -- that is taken for granted --
he seems to lose sight of the fact that they were doing any wrong to himself, it
is the wrong which they were doing to the Father that is on his mind, the insult
which they are paying to the Father, in the person of the Son; he thinks not of
himself at all. The cry, "Father, forgive them," is altogether unselfish. He
himself is, in the prayer, as though he were not; so complete is his
self-annihilation, that he loses sight of himself and his woes. My brethren, if
there had ever been a time in the life of the Son of man when he might have
rigidly confined his prayer to himself, without any one cavilling thereat,
surely it was when he was beginning his death throes. We could not marvel, if
any man here were fastened to the stake, or fixed to a cross, if his first, and
even his last and all his prayers, were for support under so arduous a trial.
But see, the Lord Jesus began his prayer by pleading for others. See ye not what
a great heart is here revealed! What a soul of compassion was in the Crucified!
How Godlike, how divine! Was there ever such a one before him, who, even in the
very pangs of death, offers as his first prayer an intercession for others? Let
this unselfish spirit be in you also, my brethren. Look not every man upon his
own things, but every man also on the things of others. Love your neighbours as
yourselves, and as Christ has set before you this paragon of unselfishness, seek
to follow him, treading in his steps.There is, however, a crowning jewel in this
diadem of glorious love. The Son of Righteousness sets upon Calvary in a
wondrous splendour; but amongst the bright colours which glorify his departure,
there is this one -- the prayer was not alone for others, but it was for his
cruellest enemies. His enemies, did I say, there is more than that to be
considered. It was not a prayer for enemies who had done him an ill deed years
before, but for those who were there and then murdering him. Not in cold blood
did the Saviour pray, after he had forgotten the injury, and could the more
easily forgive it, but while the first red drops of blood were spurting on the
hands which drove the nails; while yet the hammer was bestained with crimson
gore, his blessed mouth poured out the fresh warm prayer, "Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do." I say, not that that prayer was confined to his
immediate executioners. I believe that it was a far-reaching prayer, which
included Scribes and Pharisees, Pilate and Herod, Jews and Gentiles -- yea, the
whole human race in a certain sense, since we were all concerned in that murder;
but certainly the immediate persons, upon whom that prayer was poured like
precious nard, were those who there and then were committing the brutal act of
fastening him to the accursed tree. How sublime is this prayer if viewed in such
a light! It stands alone upon a mount of solitary glory. No other had been
prayed like it before. It is true, Abraham, and Moses, and the prophets had
prayed for the wicked; but not for wicked men who had pierced their hands and
feet. It is true, that Christians have since that day offered the same prayer,
even as Stephen cried, "Lay not this sin to their charge;" and many a martyr has
made his last words at the stake words of pitying intercession for his
persecutors; but you know where they learnt this, let me ask you where did he
learn it? Was not Jesus the divine original? He learnt it nowhere; it leaped up
from his own Godlike nature. A compassion peculiar to himself dictated this
originality of prayer; the inward royalty of his love suggested to him so
memorable an intercession, which may serve us for a pattern, but of which no
pattern had existed before. I feel as though I could better kneel before my
Lord's cross at this moment than stand in this pulpit to talk to you. I want to
adore him; I worship him in heart for that prayer; if I knew nothing else of him
but this one prayer, I must adore him, for that one matchless plea for mercy
convinces me most overwhelmingly of the deity of him who offered it, and fills
my heart with reverent affection.Thus I have introduced to you our Lord's first
vocal prayer upon the cross. I shall now, if we are helped by God's Holy Spirit,
make some use of it. First, we shall view it as illustrative of our Saviour's
intercession; secondly, we shall regard the text as instructive to the church's
work; thirdly, we shall consider it as suggestive to the unconverted.I. First,
my dear brethren, let us look at this very wonderful text as ILLUSTRATIVE OF OUR
LORD'S INTERCESSION. He prayed for his enemies then, he is praying for his
enemies now; the past on the cross was an earnest of the present on the throne.
He is in a higher place, and in a nobler condition, but his occupation is the
same; he continues still before the eternal throne to present pleas on the
behalf of guilty men, crying, "Father, O forgive them." All his intercession is
in a measure like the intercession on Calvary, and Calvary's cries may help us
to guess the character of the whole of his intercession above.The first point in
which we may see the character of his intercession is this -- it is most
gracious. Those for whom our Lord prayed, according to the text, did not deserve
his prayer. They had done nothing which could call forth from him a benediction
as a reward for their endeavours in his service; on the contrary, they were most
undeserving persons, who had conspired to put him to death. They had crucified
him, crucified him wantonly and malignantly; they were even taking away his
innocent life. His clients were persons who, so far from being meritorious, were
utterly undeserving of a single good wish from the Saviour's heart. They
certainly never asked him to pray for them -- it was the last thought in their
minds to say, "Intercede for us, thou dying King! Offer petitions on our behalf,
thou Son of God!" I will venture to believe the prayer itself, when they heard
it, was either disregarded, and passed over with contemptuous indifference, or
perhaps it was caught as a theme for jest. I admit that it seems to be too
severe upon humanity to suppose it possible that such a prayer could have been
the theme for laughter, and yet there were other things enacted around the cross
which were quite as brutal, and I can imagine that this also might have
happened. Yet our Saviour prayed for persons who did not deserve the prayer,
but, on the contrary, merited a curse -- persons who did not ask for the prayer,
and even scoffed at it when they heard it. Even so in heaven there stands the
great High Priest, who pleads for guilty men -- for guilty men, my hearers.
There are none on earth that deserve his intercession. He pleads for none on the
supposition that they do deserve it. He stands there to plead as the just One on
the behalf of the unjust. Not if any man be righteous, but "if any man sin, we
have an advocate with the Father." Remember, too, that our great Intercessor
pleads for such as never asked him to plead for them. His elect, while yet dead
in trespasses and sins, are the objects of his compassionate intercessions, and
while they even scoff at his gospel, his heart of love is entreating the favour
of heaven on their behalf. See, then, beloved, if such be the truth, how sure
you are to spend with God who earnestly ask the Lord Jesus Christ to plead for
you. Some of you, with many tears and much earnestness, have been beseeching the
Saviour to be your advocate? Will he refuse you? Stands it to reason that he
can? He pleads for those that reject his pleadings, much more for you who prize
them beyond gold. Remember, my dear hearer, if there be nothing good in you, and
if there be everything conceivable that is malignant and bad, yet none of these
things can be any barrier to prevent Christ's exercising the office of
Intercessor for you. Even for you he will plead. Come, put your case into his
hands; for you he will find pleas which you cannot discover for yourselves, and
he will put the case to God for you as for his murderers, "Father, forgive
them."A second quality of his intercession is this -- its careful spirit. You
notice in the prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Our Saviour did, as it were, look his enemies through and through to find
something in them that he could urge in their favour; but he could not see
nothing until his wisely affectionate eye lit upon their ignorance: "they know
not what they do." How carefully he surveyed the circumstances, and the
characters of those for whom he importuned! Just so it is with him in heaven.
Christ is no careless advocate for his people. He knows your precise condition
at this moment, and the exact state of your heart with regard to the temptation
through which you are passing; more than that, he foresees the temptation which
is awaiting you, and in his intercession he takes note of the future event which
his prescient eye beholds. "Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift
thee as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." Oh, the
condescending tenderness of our great High Priest! He knows us better than we
know ourselves. He understands every secret grief and groaning. You need not
trouble yourself about the wording of your prayer, he will put the wording
right. And even the understanding as to the exact petition, if you should fail
in it, he cannot, for as he knoweth what is the mind of God, so he knoweth what
is your mind also. He can spy out some reason for mercy in you which you cannot
detect in yourselves, and when it is so dark and cloudy with your soul that you
cannot discern a foothold for a plea that you may urge with heaven, the Lord
Jesus has the pleas ready framed, and petitions ready drawn up, and he can
present them acceptable before the mercy-seat. His intercession, then, you will
observe is very gracious, and in the next place it is very thoughtful. We must
next note its earnestness. No one doubts who reads these words, "Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do," that they were heaven-piercing in their
fervour. Brethren, you are certain, even without a thought, that Christ was
terribly in earnest in that prayer. But there is an argument to prove that.
Earnest people are usually witty, and quick of understanding, to discover
anything which may serve their turn. If you are pleading for life, and an
argument for your being spared be asked of you, I will warrant you that you will
think of one when no one else might. Now, Jesus was so in earnest for the
salvation of his enemies, that he struck upon an argument for mercy which a less
anxious spirit would not have thought of: "They know not what they do." Why,
sirs, that was in strictest justice but a scant reason for mercy; and indeed,
ignorance, if it be wilful, does not extenuate sin, and yet the ignorance of
many who surrounded the cross was a wilful ignorance. They might have known that
he was the Lord of glory. Was not Moses plain enough? Had not Esaias been very
bold in his speech? Were not the signs and tokens such that one might as well
doubt which is the sun in the firmament as the claims of Jesus to be the
Messias? Yet, for all that, the Saviour, with marvelous earnestness and
consequent dexterity, turns what might not have been a plea into a plea, and
puts it thus: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Oh, how
mighty are his pleas in heaven, then, in their earnestness! Do not suppose that
he is less quick of understanding there, or less intense in the vehemence of his
entreaties. No, my brethren, the heart of Christ still labours with the eternal
God. He is no slumbering intercessor, but, for Zion's sake, he doth not hold his
peace, and for Jerusalem's sake, he doth not cease, nor will he, till her
righteousness go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that
burneth.It is interesting to note, in the fourth place, that the prayer here
offered helps us to judge of his intercession in heaven as to its continuance,
perseverance, and perpetuity. As I remarked before, if our Saviour might have
paused from intercessory prayer, it was surely when they fastened him to the
tree; when they were guilty of direct acts of deadly violence to his divine
person, he might then have ceased to present petitions on their behalf. But sin
cannot tie the tongue of our interceding Friend! Oh, what comfort is here! You
have sinned, believer, you have grieved his Spirit, but you have not stopped
that potent tongue which pleads for you. You have been unfruitful, perhaps, my
brother, and like the barren tree, you deserve to be cut down; but your want of
fruitfulness has not withdrawn the Intercessor from his place. He interposes at
this moment, crying, "Spare it yet another year." Sinner, you have provoked God
by long rejecting his mercy and going from bad to worse, but neither blasphemy
nor unrighteousness, nor infidelity, shall stay the Christ of God from urging
the suit of the very chief of sinners. He lives, and while he lives he pleads;
and while there is a sinner upon earth to be saved, there shall be an
intercessor in heaven to plead for him. These are but fragments of thought, but
they will help you, I hope, to realise the intercession of your great High
Priest.Think yet again, this prayer of our Lord on earth is like his prayer in
heaven, because of its wisdom. He seeks the best thing, and that which his
clients most need, "Father, forgive them." That was the great point in hand;
they wanted most of all there and then forgiveness from God. He does not say,
"Father, enlighten them, for they know not what they do," for mere enlightenment
would but have created torture of conscience and hastened on their hell; but he
crieth, "Father, forgive;" and while he used his voice, the precious drops of
blood which were then distilling from the nail wounds were pleading too, and God
heard, and doubtless did forgive. The first mercy which is needful to guilty
sinners is forgiven sin. Christ wisely prays for the boon most wanted. It is so
in heaven; he pleads wisely and prudently. Let him alone, he knows what to ask
for at the divine hand. Go you to the mercy-seat, and pour out your desires as
best you can, but when you have done so always put it thus, "O my Lord Jesus,
answer no desire of mine if it be not according to thy judgment; and if in aught
that I have asked I have failed to seek for what I want, amend my pleading, for
thou art infinitely wiser than I." Oh, is it sweet to have a friend at court to
perfect our petitions for us before they come unto the great King. I believed
that there is never presented to God anything but a perfect prayer now; I mean,
that before the great Father of us all, no prayer of his people ever comes up
imperfect; there is nothing left out, and there is nothing to be erased; and
this, not because their prayers were originally perfect in themselves, but
because the Mediator makes them perfect through his infinite wisdom, and they
come up before the mercy-seat moulded according to the mind of God himself, and
he is sure to grant such prayers. Once more, this memorable prayer of our
crucified Lord was like to his universal intercession in the matter of its
prevalence. Those for whom he prayed were many of them forgiven. Do you remember
that he said to his disciples when he bade them preach, "beginning at
Jerusalem," and on that day when Peter stood up with the eleven, and charged the
people with wicked hands they had crucified and slain the Saviour, three
thousand of these persons who were thus justly accused of his crucifixion became
believers in him, and were baptised in his name. That was an answer to Jesus'
prayer. The priest were at the bottom of the Lord's murder, they were the most
guilty; but it is said, "a great company also of the priests believed." Here was
another answer to the prayer. Since all men had their share representatively,
Gentiles as well as Jews, in the death of Jesus, the gospel was soon preached to
the Jews, and within a short time it was preached to the Gentiles also. Was not
this prayer, "Father, forgive them," like a stone cast into a lake, forming at
first a narrow circle, and then a wider ring, and soon a larger sphere, until
the whole lake is covered with circling waves? Such a prayer as this, cast into
the whole world, first created a little ring of Jewish converts and of priest,
and then a wider circle of such as were beneath the Roman sway; and to-day its
circumference is wide as the globe itself, so that tens of thousands are saved
through the prevalence of this one intercession "Father, forgive them." It is
certainly so with him in heaven, he never pleads in vain. With bleeding hands,
he yet won the day; with feet fastened to the wood, he was yet victorious;
forsaken of God and despised of the people, he was yet triumphant in his pleas;
how much more so now the tiara is about his brow, his hand grasp the universal
sceptre, and his feet are shod with silver sandals, and he is crowned King of
kings, and Lord of lords! If tears and cries out of weakness were omnipotent,
even more mighty if possible must be that sacred authority which as the risen
Priest he claims when he stands before the Father's throne to mention the
covenant which the Father made with him. O ye trembling believers, trust him
with your concerns! Come hither, ye guilty, and ask him to plead for you. O you
that cannot pray, come, ask him to intercede for you. Broken hearts and weary
heads, and disconsolate bosoms, come ye to him who into the golden censer will
put his merits, and then place your prayers with them, so that they shall come
up as the smoke of perfume, even as a fragrant cloud into the nostrils of the
Lord God of hosts, who will smell a sweet savour, and accept you and your
prayers in the Beloved. We have now opened up more than enough sea-room for your
meditations at home this afternoon, and, therefore we leave this first point. We
have an illustration in the prayer of Christ on the cross of what his prayers
always are in heaven.II. Secondly, the text is INSTRUCTIVE OF THE CHURCH'S
WORK.As Christ was, so his church is to be in this world. Christ came into this
world not to be ministered unto, but to minister, not to be honoured, but to
save others. His church, when she understands her work, will perceive that she
is not here to gather to herself wealth or honour, or to seek any temporal
aggrandisement and position; she is here unselfishly to live, and if need be,
unselfishly to die for the deliverance of the lost sheep, the salvation of lost
men. Brethren, Christ's prayer on the cross I told you was altogether an
unselfish one. He does not remember himself in it. Such ought to be the church's
life-prayer, the church's active interposition on the behalf of sinners. She
ought to live never for her ministers or for herself, but ever for the lost sons
of men. Imagine you that churches are formed to maintain ministers? Do you
conceive that the church exists in this land merely that so much salary may be
given to bishops, and deans, and prebends, and curates, and I know not what? My
brethren, it were well if the whole thing were abolished if that were its only
aim. The aim of the church is not to provide out-door relief for the younger
sons of nobility; when they have not brains enough to win anyhow else their
livelihood, they are stuck into family livings. Churches are not made that men
of ready speech may stand up on Sundays and talk, and so win daily bread from
their admirers. Nay, there is another end and aim from this. These places are
not built that you may sit here comfortably, and hear something that shall make
you pass away your Sundays with pleasure. A church in London which does not
exist to do good in the slums, and dens, and kennels of the city, is a church
that has no reason to justify its longer existing. A church that does not exist
to reclaim heathenism, to fight with evil, to destroy error, to put down
falsehood, a church that does not exist to take the side of the poor, to
denounce injustice and to hold up righteousness, is a church that has no right
to be. Not for thyself, O church, dost thou exist, any more than Christ existed
for himself. His glory was that he laid aside his glory, and the glory of the
church is when she lays aside her respectability and her dignity, and counts it
to be her glory to gather together the outcast, and her highest honour to seek
amid the foulest mire the priceless jewels for which Jesus shed his blood. To
rescue souls from hell and lead to God, to hope, to heaven, this is her heavenly
occupation. O that the church would always feel this! Let her have her bishops
and her preachers, and let them be supported, and let everything be done for
Christ's sake decently and in order, but let the end be looked to, namely, the
conversion of the wandering, the teaching of the ignorant, the help of the poor,
the maintenance of the right, the putting down of the wrong, and the upholding
at all hazards of the crown and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the prayer
of Christ had a great spirituality of aim. You notice that nothing is sought for
these people but that which concerns their souls, "Father, forgive them." And I
believe the church will do well when she recollects that she wrestles not with
flesh and blood, nor with principalities and powers, but with spiritual
wickedness, and that what she has to dispense is not the law and order by which
magistrates may be upheld, or tyrannies pulled down, but the spiritual
government by which hearts are conquered to Christ, and judgments are brought
into subjection to his truth. I believe that the more the church of God strains
after, before God, the forgiveness of sinners, and the more she seeks in her
life prayer to teach sinners what sin is, and what the blood of Christ is, and
what the hell that must follow if sin be not washed out, and what the heaven is
which will be ensured to all those who are cleansed from sin, the more she keeps
to this the better. Press forward as one man, my brethren, to secure the root of
the matter in the forgiveness of sinners. As to all the evils that afflict
humanity, by all means take your share in battling with them; let temperance be
maintained, let education be supported; let reforms, political and
ecclesiastical, be pushed forward as far as you have the time and the effort to
spare, but the first business of every Christian man and women is with the
hearts and consciences of men as they stand before the everlasting God. O let
nothing turn you aside from your divine errand of mercy to undying souls. This
is your one business. Tell to sinners that sin will damn them, that Christ alone
can take away sin, and make this the one passion of your souls, "Father, forgive
them, forgive them! Let them know how to be forgiven. Let them be actually
forgiven, and let me never rest except as I am the means of bringing sinners to
be forgiven, even the guiltiest of them."Our Saviour's prayer teaches the church
that while her spirit should be unselfish, and her aim should be spiritual, the
range of her mission is to be unlimited. Christ prayed for the wicked, what if I
say the most wicked of the wicked, that ribald crew that had surrounded his
cross! He prayed for the ignorant. Doth he not say, "They know not what they
do"? He prayed for his persecutors; the very persons who were most at enmity
with him, lay nearest to his heart. Church of God, your mission is not to the
respectable few who will gather about your ministers to listen respectfully to
their words; your mission is not to the 'lite and the eclectic, the intelligent
who will criticise your words and pass judgment upon every syllable of your
teaching; your mission is not to those who treat you kindly, generously,
affectionately, not to these I mean alone, though certainly to these as among
the rest; but your great errand is to the harlot, to the thief, to the swearer
and the drunkard, to the most depraved and debauched. If no one else cares for
these, the church always must, and if there be any who are first in her prayers
it should be these who alas! are generally last in our thoughts. The ignorant we
ought diligently to consider. It is not enough for the preacher that he preaches
so that those instructed from their youth up can understand him; he must think
of those to whom the commonest phrases of theological truth are as meaningless
as the jargon of an unknown tongue; he must preach so as to reach the meanest
comprehension; and if the ignorant may come not to hear him, he must use such
means as best he may to induce them, nay, compel them to hear the good news. The
gospel is meant also for those who persecute religion; it aims its arrows of
love against the hearts of his foes. If there be any whom we should first seek
to bring to Jesus, it should be just these who are the farthest off and the most
opposed to the gospel of Christ. "Father, forgive them; if thou dost pardon none
besides, yet be pleased to forgive them."So, too, the church should be earnest
as Christ was; and if she be so, she will be quick to notice any ground of hope
in those she deals with, quick to observe any plea that she may use with God for
their salvation.She must be hopeful too, and surely no church ever had a more
hopeful sphere than the church of this present age. If ignorance be a plea with
God, look on the heathen at this day -- millions of them never heard Messiah's
name. Forgive them, great God, indeed they know not what they do. If ignorance
be some ground for hope, there is hope enough in this great city of London, for
have we not around us hundreds of thousands to whom the simplest truths of the
gospel would be the greatest novelties? Brethren, it is sad to think that this
country should still lie under such a pall of ignorance, but the sting of so
dread a fact is blunted with hope when we read the Saviour's prayer aright -- it
helps us to hope while we cry, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."It
is the church's business to seek after the most fallen and the most ignorant,
and to seek them perseveringly. She should never stay her hand from doing good.
If the Lord be coming to-morrow, it is no reason why you Christian people should
not subside into mere talkers and readers, meeting together for mutual comfort,
and forgetting the myriads of perishing souls. If it be true that this world is
going to pieces in a fortnight, and that Louis Napoleon is the Apocalyptic
beast, or if it be not true, I care not a fig, it makes no difference to my
duty, and does not change my service. Let my Lord come when he will, while I
labour for him I am ready for his appearing. The business of the church is still
to watch for the salvation of souls. If she stood gazing, as modern prophets
would have her; if she gave up her mission to indulge in speculative
interpretations, she might well be afraid of her Lord's coming; but if she goes
about her work, and with incessant toil searches out her Lord's precious jewels,
she shall not be ashamed when her Bridegroom cometh. My time has been much too
short for so vast a subject as I have undertaken, but I wish I could speak words
that were as loud as thunder, with a sense and earnestness as mighty as the
lightening. I would fain excite every Christian here, and kindle in him a right
idea of what his work is as a part of Christ's church. My brethren, you must not
live to yourselves; the accumulation of money, the bringing up of your children,
the building of houses, the earning of your daily bread, all this you may do;
but there must be a greater object than this if you are to be Christlike, as you
should be, since you are bought with Jesus' blood. Begin to live for others,
make it apparent unto all men that you are not yourselves the end-all and be-all
of your own existence, but that you are spending and being spent, that through
the good you do to men God may be glorified, and Christ may see in you his own
image and be satisfied.III. Time fails me, but the last point was to be a word
SUGGESTIVE TO THE UNCONVERTED.Listen attentively to these sentences. I will make
them as terse and condensed as possible. Some of you here are not saved. Now,
some of you have been very ignorant, and when you sinned you did not know what
you did. You knew you were sinners, you knew that, but you did not know the
far-reaching guilt of sin. You have not been attending the house of prayer long,
you have not read your Bible, you have not Christian parents. Now you are
beginning to be anxious about your souls. Remember your ignorance does not
excuse you, or else Christ would not say, "Forgive them;" they must be forgiven,
even those that know not what they do, hence they are individually guilty; but
still that ignorance of yours gives you just a little gleam of hope. The times
of your ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent. Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance. The God whom you
have ignorantly forgotten is willing to pardon and ready to forgive. The gospel
is just this, trust Jesus Christ who died for the guilty, and you shall be
saved. O may God help you to do so this very morning, and you will become new
men and new women, a change will take place in you equal to a new birth; you
will be new creatures in Christ Jesus.But ah! My friends, there are some here
for whom even Christ himself could not pray this prayer, in the widest sense at
any rate, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," for you have
known what you did, and every sermon you hear, and especially every impression
that is made upon your understanding and conscience by the gospel, adds to your
responsibility, and takes away from you the excuse of not knowing what you do.
Ah! Sirs, you know that there is the world and Christ, and that you cannot have
both. You know that there is sin and God, and that you cannot serve both. You
know that there are the pleasure of evil and the pleasures of heaven, and that
you cannot have both. Oh! In the light which God has given you, may his Spirit
also come and help you to choose that which true wisdom would make you choose.
Decide to-day for God, for Christ, for heaven. The Lord decide you for his
name's sake. Amen.PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON -- Luke 23:1-34.


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  CHAPTER 3: THIS DOCUMENT
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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/spurgeons-sermons-volume-15-1869/
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