SIMPLE FACT AND SIMPLE FAITH.

NO. 3547

PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 18TH 1917.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through thin man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.” — Acts 13:38, 39.

Apostolical preaching was widely different from the common sermonizing of this age. Doubtless, when the Apostles addressed assemblies of believers, they took distinct subjects, and kept to them, opening up and expounding the particular truths they had in view. But when speaking to the outside world, and making their appeals to unbelievers, they do not usually appear to have selected any one doctrine as their topic. The manner in which they preached did not so much consist in inculcating a specific doctrine, and showing the inferences that would naturally arise from it, as it did in declaring certain facts of which they had been actual witnesses themselves, and had been chosen to bear witness to others. Turn to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, or the same Apostle’s sermon to Cornelius, or to the record of Paul’s preaching at Perga or at Antioch. you will find these discourses were an argument from the Scriptures that as God had of old promised to send a Savior, so Jesus Christ had come into the world, had lived a holy life, had been put to death, being falsely accused, had been laid in the grave, after three days had risen again, that afterwards the had ascended, according to the testimony of the Prophets. Of him they spoke, that whosoever believed in this man, who was very God, should certainly be saved by him. This was the declaration which they made. I do not find them, as a rule, expounding the doctrine of election in promiscuous assemblies of unbelievers; arguing the subtle questions of free agency and predestination, or striving about words to no profit, to the subverting of the hearers. Their resolute purpose it was to declare those things that pertain directly to the salvation of the soul, this being the all-important matter which they would have all men to heed. Thus they charged every one who heard them, at the peril of his soul, to accept the revelation and embrace the faith of the gospel. Listen to the Apostle Paul in that famous fifteenth chapter in the first Epistle to the Corinthians which is usually read at funerals. He says there: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I delivered unto you.” Now you expect him to begin a long list of doctrines; but instead of that he says, “How that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that on the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.” This it is that he emphatically describes as the gospel. To assert these facts, to exhort men to believe them, and to put their trust in the Man who thus lived, and died, and rose again, was the preaching of the gospel which of old shook the hoary systems of superstition, fastened though they seemed to be upon their thrones most securely; which enlightened the darkness of heathendom, and made, in those first ages of Christianity, the whole world to be astonished with the light and the glory of Christ.

Let us, then, strive to imitate the Apostles, and endeavor to preach a simple gospel sermon, if not with their ability, or with their inspiration, yet with their earnestness, and with the same desire as burned within their bosoms, that men may be saved thereby. We shall accordingly have to deal, first, with the history of Jesus, whom we hold forth as a Savior; secondly, with the claims of Jesus; and thirdly, with the blessings which Jesus brings. In respect to —

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I. The History Of Jesus, if you will kindly refer to your Bibles, you will find that the Apostle here commenced his sermon by noticing that many prophets had gone before to speak concerning the coming of Jesus. In the twenty-third verse he especially mentions the promise made to David, that of his seed God would raise up a Prince and a Savior to the house of Israel. Let me remind you, brethren, that full often in the world’s history sages have appeared, claiming a divine inspiration, whose announcements fostered the hope of a coming man who should redeem the world from thralldom, and become the Savior of our race. All the seers whose eyes, were anointed of God to look into the future herald the advent of a great Prophet, a Prince, and a Savior, whose claims to homage it would he alike perilous and preposterous to reject. These prophets have appeared at divers times and various places, and without any collusion they have one and all proclaimed the same thing. The most of them sealed their witness with their blood. “Which of the prophets did not your fathers slay?” Yet in the teeth of suffering extreme, or of violent death, they seem to have been impelled by a divine furore within them to proclaim, even to the last, that One was coming who would overturn the old reign of terror, and the old order of outward ceremonies, to introduce a spiritual kingdom, and to redeem the world from its sins and sorrows.

In the favored land of Judea that bright star of hope beamed most brightly through the dark night of long years and dreary watches. At length there appeared a remarkable individual who had been foreshown by some of these prophets. They had signified, that before the promised Man, the Messiah, arrived, there would be a harbinger — one like unto Elijah. Elias would first come. Now the Tishbite, whose career had been so memorable in Israel, was a man of much sanctity, but little polish. His raiment was rough, his diet frugal, his bearing austere, and his address earnest or even vehement. He seemed to be fire embodied, if such a thing could be — so strong was his passion, and so dauntless his courage. He laid the axe at the root of every sin, nor did he quail before any man’s face, however high his station or lofty his pretensions. Let him but detect a wrong, he denounced it with all his might. Eighteen centuries have transpired since there appeared in the wilderness, near the river Jordan, a man whose raiment was of camel’s hair, and whose meat was locusts and wild honey. A child of the desert, ascetic in his habits, with a ministry all his own, rebuking the vices of the age with defiant air, and summoning men to repentance in trumpet tones, till the whole of Judea was startled with the phenomenon, and the multitudes poured forth from town and village to hear his preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The one culminating point of his exhortations was this, “Behold the Lamb of God! “ Look for him, gaze at him, resort to him. He taketh away the sin of the world. His mission it was to make straight in the wilderness a highway for the coming of the Lord, whose shoe latchet he declared himself not worthy to unloose. At length the Savior came — the Savior promised long. From the privacy of his home at Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he came to the river of Jordan. Of his miraculous birth and his infancy I forbear to speak. He appeared in the wilderness where John ministered by the fords of Jordan, and demanded baptism; and as he came up out of the water the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove, and a voice was heard by many witnesses, “This is my beloved Son. Hear ye him.” This man, this wonderful individual, who had now become openly manifest, lived for three years a public life of extraordinary benevolence, in which there was a combination of deep humility and divine power — the most memorable life on record. Imagination has never dreamed its equal. Those who have thought much on virtue have been utterly unable to construct the story of a life out of their invention that could at all resemble it, or compare with it for purity or symmetry — a life in which there was not so much any one prominent virtue, as all the virtues divinely blended. As gentle as a lamb, as bold as a lion, stern against hypocrisy, always tender towards the sinner, especially when the tear-drop of repentance glistened in the eye. A man who rent to pieces all the old formalities, denounced the learning of the Rabbis, and came, with nothing but his own force of character and the witness of God, to speak truths which, like light, are self-evidential-truths which stand the test of time, and weather the changes of circumstance; truths which will endure unimpaired when the old world has passed away; truths which have set free human minds from the shackles of superstition; truths which have gladdened the laughters of despair; truths which have always been most acceptable to the poor and needy; truths which have elevated humanity from the very hour in which they were first proclaimed; truths which have drawn disciples through the ages, and have filled heaven with his admirers, who fall down before the glorious Son of God and worship him; truths which will yet make this world bright in the light of heaven.

Now that Man lived a perfectly blameless life — so blameless that when his enemies sought his death they could not find anything to lay to his charge, and, therefore, by false witnesses they accused and condemned him. The great point in his history to which we always call your most devout attention, and to which the Apostles always bore the most vehement testimony, was this — that he was crucified. It would be policy, some suppose, to conceal this. This great Teacher, this Promised One, this Divine Man-for he was man, yet God, perfect God and perfect man actually died a felon’s death. He was taken by wicked hands, scourged, mocked, made to carry his cross, and then on Calvary was fastened to the tree, and there he died. But we must tell you the interpretation which lends a charm to the information. He died there as a substitute for man. He had no guilt of his own, but he was appointed by God to bear all the sins of all his people — of all men, in fact, who will believe on him. He was punished that they might not he punished. He bore the penalty for all believers, that they might he released from the dread punishment that justice demanded of them. He did, in fact, go up to that tree with the load of all the guilt of all who had believed and all who should believe piled upon his shoulders; and owing to the excellence of his nature, being God, his sufferings made atonement for all the guilt of all that vast multitude. It was as much a vindication of God’s justice as if all those ten thousand times ten thousand had been cast into hell for ever. Here was the fact. The punishment due to all those souls was put into one bitter cup, and Jesus on the tree put that cup to his lips and —

“At one tremendous draught of love
He drank damnation dry.”

— drank to the very dregs all the wrath which God had towards his offending, sinful, guilty, and condemned people, and they were, therefore, clear. This is the great doctrine of the Cross. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” When taken down from the cross he was laid in the tomb. There his sacred body remained for three days but on the morning of the third day, by his own eternal power and Godhead, he rose again from the grave, since he could not be holden by the bands of death, and now he liveth — henceforth he ever lives. At this moment, the Man who was born of the Virgin at Bethlehem, who was put to death in weakness by Pontius Pilate, but was raised in power having ascended on high after his resurrection, sits at the right tend of the Father, where as man, though God, he pleads with God incessantly for us, and by his eternal merit saveth so many as put their trust in him. These are historical facts which the gospel holds forth to be surely believed. Some think them old wives’ fables. Let them think so; they miss the benefit which simple faith would certainly confer. On their own heads be the blame, for on their own souls will come the smart. Many of us can aver, with our hands on our breasts, that we have proved the truth of all that is written in the Book. These precious truths have exerted a potent spoil over our own lives. Our believing them has enabled us to overcome our passions, and it has been the leverage which has lifted us up out of our depravity. These verities are our unfailing solace while as creatures we are subject to vanity, and in the hour of death they shall be our succor and support as tens of thousands before us have found them to be. With the history of Jesus thus clearly in our view, let us now ask: —

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II. What Are The Claims Of Jesus?

He claims, as the Ever-living One, that we should accept him as being what he professes to he, if we would derive any benefit from. him. He professes to be the Messiah, anointed and commissioned of God. Dost thou believe that? Reading the prophecies concerning him, cost thou see how exactly he fits them as the key fits the wards of the lock? If thou seest that, I am glad. Moreover, he demands that thou shouldest receive him as God. This is his profession, that he is God over all blessed for ever, God incarnate. He trod the waves of the lake of Gennesaret; he raised the dead; he healed the sick; he multiplied the loaves and fishes; he stayed the winds; he lulled the storm. He hath done all things that God only can do. He was almighty, even here below as a man. Accept him, then, as very God. If thou doest so intelligently, sincerely, I am glad. And now wilt thou accept him as thy Priest, and none upon earth beside? To have him, you must renounce all else, for know of a surety our High Priest will not stand side by side with any other priest. Resort to him only for atonement, for intercession, for benediction. He offered himself as a sacrifice, gave himself up for the sins of his people. Believe in him as thy Priest, and in his sufferings and death as thy sacrifice. Avaunt, ye priests of Rome! Begone, ye priests of every other order! Away with every vain pretender to the priesthood! To him who hath entered into the holy place not made with hands pertaineth the exclusive privilege of the priesthood. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only Priest over the house of God. His people become priests through him every one of them. Yes; kings and priests after the Melchisedec type, but we own no priestcraft now. The religion of Jesus disavows and denounces all prelatical presences. It proclaims for ever the putting down of the hierarchy of men, with all their empty conceits and their inflated arrogance; their frocks and their robes, their lawn sleeves and their fine millinery, their vain boasting and their sanctimonious finger-play, with all the preternatural influence that is supposed to emanate from a bishop’s hands. Jesus is the only Priest. Wilt thou take him to be such? Then I rejoice that thou art thus enlightened. Yet know that he claims to be thy King. Thou must do what he bids thee. Thou must be his subject, observe his statutes, and keep his commandments. Art thou his subject? He will be thy friend. Thou shalt even be his brother, and thou shalt live near to him as one dear to him, in affectionate intercourse with him. Though he be in heaven, yet will he reveal himself to thee on the earth. Now, art thou willing to accept him as such? — thy Prophet, so that thou shalt believe what he teaches thee; thy Priest, so that thou shalt confide in his mediation; thy King, so that thou shalt serve him. And oh! in what accents of tenderness does Jesus claim that we should trust hint! This is a blessed message to some of you who may not have heard it before. If you will but trust this glorious Man, this blessed God, you shall this moment be saved. To trust him is what he demands. He saith, “I am God; rely upon me implicitly. I am perfect Man’; I died for mine enemies out of love to them. I have all power given to me in heaven and in earth, and with my blood sprinkled on my Father’s throne I reign supreme in the realm of mercy. Only trust me, and I will save you — save you from the guilt of the past, save you from the power of passion in your soul, save you from the dominion of sin; and in the future I will change you — make you a new man. I will give you a new heart and a right spirit. All of my grace shall be yours, if you will but trust me.” Even the power to trust, Jesus himself gives — for it is all of his grace from first to last — but whoever trusts him shall be saved. My Master has a right to this, and nothing short of this will he take, for these are his own words, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” He does not admit of any medium. Thou must either believe of not believe; and if thou believe not, his wrath falleth upon thee.” He that believeth not bath made God a liar, because he hath not believed on his Son, Jesus Christ.” He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already. “ “ He that believeth on him shall never perish; he shall never come into condemnation, for he hath passed from death unto life.” I do hope I am making this plain. It is my fervent desire and my heart’s prayer that you may all know the gospel if you never knew it before. If you have known it before, I would that ye might discern it more clearly. Should you reject it, the fault shall not be mine. God is my witness I have eschewed every idea of trying to be eloquent or oratorical in my preaching. I care nothing whatever about the gaudy show of speech-making. I only want just to tell you these truths in unvarnished speech. It may be that they awaken prejudice, and you who listen to them, perhaps, are saying they are dull and trite. Such trite truisms, however, contain the very pith and marrow of the gospel whereby you can be guided to heaven. Dull as you may account them, if rejected, dark and dreary indeed will be the ruin of your souls. I charge you, therefore, before Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead’ that ye remember these few simple things, seeing they involve your hope or your despair, your salvation or your perdition, for eternity. Door of heaven, there is none but this; gate of Paradise, there is none beside it. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and bath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” He bath devised for us a way of redemption. Trusting in him, we shall be saved; rejecting him, we are lost.

Jesus claims of you that you do not trust in yourselves; that you do not think that you are good enough; that you should not imagine that you ever can be good enough of yourselves; that you rely not in any ceremonies; that you will not depend upon any man; that you do not encourage a hope of heaven by any reasoning or resolution of your own, but that you just now put your sole trust in him. Though it seems too good to be true, yet true it is, that if you be the worst of sinners, defiled with vilest lusts, and degraded with heaviest crimes; though your sins be of scarlet dye, and their remembrance haunts you like ghostly spectres, yet if you will trust in Jesus, whom God bath set forth for a propitiation, you shall have perfect forgiveness from God the eternal Father, and power shall be given you to overcome those very trespasses to which you were prone, that you fall not into them again. Oh! glorious gospel of the ever-blessed God! would that men had hearts to receive and welcome its gracious provisions!

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III. The Blessings Which Jesus Christ Brings To All Who Trust Him.

This may well exceed our power to enumerate them. “By this Man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins. Not lenience, but pardon — the forgiveness of all sins. From your childhood to your old age; the sins of fourscore years, if you have lived so long; your public misdemeanours, your private trespasses, your overt acts, your secret thoughts, your uttered words, your smothered wishes; the Enrolled catalogue all unrolled of your transgressions and obliquities hall be at once blotted out from the book of God’s remembrance, if you trust in Jesus Christ. They shall not be laid to your charge. However black the list, or long the inventory, do but trust in this Man, they shall be all forgiven thee. He that confesses his sin, and comes to Jesus shall find mercy, shall find mercy now. Is there one here who feels his guilt? What grateful news this must be to his aching heart! I wish that ye all knew how guilty you have been, and how deeply stained ye are. A real broken-hearted sinner is a gem wherever you meet with him. There is no music in the world like the notes of pardon to the conscience-stricken self-convicted sinner. Jesus gives pardon for all sin. To those that believe in him he gives immediate pardon-not pardon in prospective, not pardon to be revealed when you come to die, but pardon now, pardon reaching sins yet to come, pardon comprehending the whole of your sinful life, given into your hand to be read by the eye of your faith, and to be as distinctly known as though it were delivered to you on parchment written by an angel’s hand, sealed with the Savior’s blood. Christ Jesus will give a pardon which never shall be revoked, a pardon that cannot hereafter be cancelled. God never plays fast and loose with men. Whom he once pardons he never condemn. If he pronounce a man forgiven, forgiven he is and forgiven he shall be when the world is on a blaze. What joy unspeakable shall fill the soul of him who hails this hallowed hour a pardon from the skies! His burden gone. his manacles struck off; his fetters loosed: the fever cured; his health restored; how he will leap with delight! dance with pleasure, and sing with holy mirth. Believe in the slain but ever-living Son of God, poor sinner, End this heavenly rapture it shall be yours to prove. This is a pardon of pure good will that retains no dregs of animosity. A man forgives his child and foregoes the rod, but he may say, “I shall not forget your conduct, for in the future I. cannot trust you.” But when God forgives he does not reproach. He takes the prodigal to his bosom. He does not set him at the farther end of the table to remind him of his waywardness, but he kills the fatted calf for him to convince him of his welcome. In some of us who were the very chief of sinners he puts such confidence that he gives a commission to preach the gospel to others by which we are saved ourselves, and sends us about the business which lies nearest to his heart, and most concerns his own glory. Oh! yes, it is a blessed pardon which sweeps the whole extent of human ruin and redeems us, restores us, and recoups us for the losses we sustained by sinning. And not only so, but by him, by Jesus, all that believe are justified as well as forgiven — justified from all things which we could not be justified by the law of Moses. Here we have a comparison, or rather a contrast. What does this mean? When men came, according to the law of Moses, they brought a bullock which they offered for their sin. This done, with what feelings would they depart from the altar? Conscious of guilt the man came; convinced that he had complied with a statute, he went away. But his conscience was not cleansed. The stain was not removed. Though the blood of the beast quieted some of his scruples and eased some of his terrors, it did not, could not, give him perfect peace. He must have known that the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer could not take away sin, neither could it atone for its guilt or eradicate its venom. By so much is the gospel of Christ better than the law of Moses. If you will come and trust Christ, you shall feel that you are no longer guilty. Up till now you have lived in guilt and sin. henceforth the whole force of sin upon the conscience shall be gone. You shall have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. You shall feel that for the past it is so obliterated that you have it no longer on your conscience. You can sing: —

“Thro’ Jesu’s blood, I’m clean.”

What a mercy this is — this perfect cleansing of the conscience from guilt! He that come to the altar under Moses’ law did not always feel that he could come to God. The blood was sprinkled, and there was the way of access; but only the High Priest went within the veil once in the year. The law of Moses could not so justify a man as to let him have access to the mercy-seat, but Jesus Christ so justifies his people that they come right up to God and speak to him as a child to a father; tell him all their wants and weaknesses, all their Gratitude and joy. Into his very ears they pour out their loving hearts. How sweet the access of the creature man to his covenant God, when once he knows Christ! I do avow that some of us have as truly talked with God as ever we spoke to men; and have been as sure that we were in the presence of our heavenly Father, and as conscious of that wonderful overshadowing as ever we have been conscious that we have been in fellowship with any man or woman born. Oh! if you did but know it, God would not seem far off from you when you once trusted Christ. You would not: think of him as the God of thunder driving his rattling car over the sky with a flashing spear of lightning, but you would sing of him: —

“The God that rules on high,
And thunders when he please,
That rides upon the stormy sky
And manages the seas.

“This awful God is ours,
Our Father and our Love;
He will send down his heavenly pourers
To carry us above.”

You would see him everywhere about you with the eyes of your spirit, and rejoice in him.

They that came by the law of Moses to the altar were not justified from apprehensions of the future; but each worshipper as he went home, after all the killing of lambs, and rams, and bullocks, was afraid to die. But he that trusts in Jesus feels that, so far as the future is concerned, he is perfectly secure. “Now,” saith he, “ God has promised to save those who trust Christ. I do trust Christ; God must save me. He is bound by his justice to do so.” On the lion of justice rides the fair maid of faith, and she hatch no fear. While God is just, no disciple of Jesus can be destroyed. What if Justice charges me with being a sinner? I reply, “’Tis true I am, and yet I am not amenable to judgment, for all my sins are taken from me. They were laid on my blessed Surety. I have not one left. Christ has been punished for my sin; shall two be punished for one offense? Shall my Substitute die, and I die, too? Shall Christ be condemned and I be condemned, too, for the one and self-same offense? God is not so unjust as to punish first the Substitute, and then the man for whom the Substitute stood.” Oh! this is something to roll back on. This is a pillow for an aching head; this is a safe boat to sail in amidst the storms of life and across the seas of death. Jesus Christ in my stead without the gate of the city poured out his heart’s blood as God’s great Victim. I trust in him. Trusting in him, I cannot perish. He has sworn and will not repent. By two immutable things wherein it is impossible for God to lie, he hath given strong consolation to them that flee for refuge to the hope set before them in the gospel. Oh! beloved, surely we can live on this promise, and on this promise die.

Would to God that you all trusted him! May full many of you trust him now for the first time. The preaching of this gospel is trustworthy, because the promise is trustworthy. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth. Do you believe? Say “Yes” or “No,” for there are signs following in either case. Say “Yes,” and say it now. Amen.