THE CURSE REMOVED.

NO. 3254

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 15TH, 1911,

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,

MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY AGO..

“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”-Galatians 3:13

Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon, upon the same text is No. 873 in Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, “Christ Made a Curse for us.”

THE law of God is a divine law, holy, heavenly, perfect. Those who find fault with the law, or in the least degree depreciate it, do not understand its design, and have no right idea of the law itself. Paul says, “We know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” In all that we ever say concerning justification by faith, we never intend to lower the opinion which our hearers have of the law, for the law is one of the most sublime of God’s works. There is not a commandment too many; there is not one too few. The law of the Lord is so incomparable that its perfection is a proof of its divinity. Not human lawgiver could have given forth such a law as this which we find in the Decalogue. It is a perfect law, for all human laws that are right are to be found in that, brief compendium and epitome of all that is good and excellent toward God, or between man and men.

But while the law is glorious, it is never more: misapplied than when anyone attempts to use it as a means of salvation. God never intended men to be saved by the law. When he proclaimed it on Sinai, it was with thunders, and lightnings, and cloud, and fire, and smoke, as if he would say, “O man, hear my law, but tremble while thou hearest it! It is proclaimed with the blast of the trumpet exceeding loud, even as the great day of destruction will also be of which it is the herald, if thou offendest against it, and findest none to bear thy doom for thee.” It was written on stone, as if to teach us’ that it was a hard, cold, stony law, one which would have no mercy upon us, but which, if we go against it, would fall upon us, and grind us to powder. O ye who are trusting in the law for your salvation, ye, have, erred from the faith; ye do not understand God’s designs; ye are ignorant of the truth that he hath revealed to us by his Holy Spirit. In the chapter from which our test is taken the apostle says, “If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under Sin, that the promise, by faith, of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” The law was intended, by its terrors, to crush every hope of self-righteousness, and, by its lightnings, to scathe and demolish every tower of our own works, that we might be brought humbly to accept a finished salvation through the one almighty Mediator who has magnified the law, and made it honorable, and brought in an everlasting righteousness wherein we stand complete in Christ if indeed we are in him by a living faith. So you perceive that all that the law doth is to curse, it cannot bless. In all the pages of revelation, you will find no blessings that the law ever gave to one who had offended it. There were blessings, for those who kept it completely,-though none ever did, but no blessing is ever written for one offender. Blessings we find in the gospel, curses we find in the law.

This afternoon, we shall briefly consider, first, the curse of the law; secondly, the curse removed; thirdly, the great Substitute who removed it by “being made a curse for us;” and then, lastly, we shall solemnly ask one another whether we are included amongst the innumerable multitude for whom Christ was “made a curse.”

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I. First, then, let us consider “The Curse Of The Law.” All who sin against the law are cursed by the, law; all who disobey its commands are cursed, cursed instantly, cursed terribly.

We shall regard that curse: first, as being a universal curse resting upon everyone of the seed of Adam. Perhaps some here will be inclined to say, “Of course, the law of God will curse all those who are loose in their lives or profane in their conversation. We can all of us imagine that the swearer is a cursed man, cursed by God. Who can suppose that the wrath of God rests upon the head of the man who is filthy in his life, the man who is degraded, and under the ban of society.” But, my friends, the real truth is that the curse of God rests upon every one of us as by nature we stand before him. Thou mayest be the most moral man in the world, yet the curse of God is upon thee; thou mayest be lovely in thy life, modest in thy carriage, upright in thy behavior, almost Christlike in thy conduct; yet, if thou hast not been born again, if thou hast not been regenerated by the Holy Spirit the curse of God still rests upon thine head. If thou hast committed but one sin in thy life, God’s justice is so inexorable, that it condemns thee for that one solitary offense; and though thy life should henceforth be one continued career of holiness, if thou haste sinned but once, unless than hast a saving interest in the blood of Christ the thunders of Sinai are meant to terrify there, and the lightnings of divine vengeance flash all around thee.

Ah, my hearers, had humbling is this truth to our pride,-that the curse of God is upon everyone who is of the seed of Adam, that every child born into this world is born under the curse since it is by under the law. Then, in addition to the curse that rests upon us because we are children of Adam, there is the further curse that comes through our own transgression. The first moment that I sin, though I sin but once, I came beneath the curve quoted in the tenth verse of this chapter, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,”-cursed without hope of mercy apart from that blessed Savior who “hath redeemed us from the, curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” It is a dreadful thought that the trail of the spent is over the whole earth, that the poison of sin is in the fountain of every human heart, that the blood in all our vein is corrupt, that we are all condemned already, that each one of us, without a single exception, whether he be philanthropist, senator, philosopher, divine, prince, or monarch, is under the curse unless he has been redeemed from it by Christ.

The curse, too, while it is universal, is also just. There are my persons who think that the curse of God upon those who are undeniably wicked is, of course, right; but that the curse of God upon those who, for the most part, appear to be excellent, and who may have sinned but once, is an act of injustice. But, when God pronounces the curse, he doeth it justly. He is a God of justice, and just and right are all his ways. And mark thee, man, if thou art condemned, it shall be by the strictest justice. Even if thou haste sinned but once, the curse is a righteous one when it lights upon thy head. Dost thou ask me how this is? I answer,-Thou sayest that thy sin is little; then, if it be but little, how little trouble it might have taken thee to have avoided it! If thy transgression be but small, at how small an expense thou mightest have refrained from it! Some have said, “Surely the sin of Adam was but a little one; he did but take an apple, and eat it.” Ay, but in its littleness was its greatness. If it was but a little thing to take the forbidden fruit, with how little trouble might the sin have been avoided! And because it was so small an act there was couched within it the greater malignity of guilt. So, too, thou mayest never have blasphemed thy God, thou mayest never have desecrated his Sabbath; yet, insomuch as thou hast committed a little sin, thou art justly condemned, for a little sin hath in it the essence of all sin; and I know not but that what we call little sins my be greater in God’s sight than those which the world universally condemns, and against which the hiss of the execration of humility continually rises. I say that God is just even though he should pronounce a curse upon all his creatures; so tremble, O sinners, and “kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

So the curse is universal, and it is just.

But, next, the curse of the law is also fearful. There are some who seem to, think that it is a little matter to be under the curve of God; but, oh! if they knew the fearful consequences of that crime, they would realize that it is indeed a terrible one. It were enough to make our knees knock together, to chill our blood, and to cause every hair of our head to stand on end, if we did but know what it is to be under the curse of God. What does that curse include? It involves the death of the body, and that is by no means an insignificant portion of its sentence. It also includes spiritual death, the death of that inner life which Adam had, the life of the spirit, which can only be restated by the Holy Spirit who quickeneth whom he will. And it includes, last, of all and worst of all, death eternal, that second death which can only be described by that awful-I had almost said, unutterable-word “hell.” This is the curse which rests upon every man by nature. We make no exception of rank or degree, for God has made none. We offer no hope of exception of character or reputation, for God has made none. The whole of us are shut up to this, that, so far as the law is concerned, we must die;-die here, and die in the next world the death which never dies, “where their worm dieth: not, and the fire is not quenched,” even by a flood of tears of penitence if they could be shed. There we must be for ever lost. Could we estimate all the consequences of that curse, we might well afford to ridicule all the torments that tyrants could inflict upon us, we might well despise any injuries that this body might sustain, when we compare them with that awful avalanche of threatening which rushes down with resistless force from the mountain of God’s truth.

We hasten from this point, beloved, for it is fearful work to speak upon it; yet we must not depart from it entirely until we have hinted at one thought more, and that is, that the curse of God which comes upon sinful men is a present curse. O my dear hearers, could I lay hold of your hands, if ye be not converted, I would labor, with tears and groans, to get you to grasp this thought! It is not merely damnation in the future that you have to dread, it is condemnation now that is your portion. Yes, my hearer, sitting where thou art, if thou art out of Christ, thou art condemned already, thy death warrant has been sealed with the great seal of the Majesty on high, and the angel’s sword of vengeance is already unsheathed over thy head this afternoon. Whosoever thou mayest be if thou art out of Christ there hangeth a sword over thee, suspended by a single hair which death shall cut, and the that sword shall descend, dividing thy soul from thy body, and dooming both to pains eternal. Ye might well start up from your seats in terror if ye did but realize your true condition in God’s sight. Ye are reputable, ye are respectable, ye are honorable, perhaps right honorable, yet ye are condemned men, condemned women. On the walls of heaven ye are proscribed, your names are written up there among the deicides who have slain the Savior, among the rebels against God’s government who have committed high treason against him; and perhaps even now the dark-winged angel of death is spreading his pinions upon the blast, hastening to hurry you down to destruction. Say not, O sinner, that I would alright thee; say rather, that I would bring thee to the Savior, for whether thou believes” this or not, thou canst not alter the truth thereof,-that thou art now, if than hast not given thyself to Christ “condemned already.” Wherever thou sittest, thou art but in the condemned cell; for to the unconverted, the unrenewed, the unrepentant, this whole world is but one huge prison-house, wherein the condemned one doth drag along a chain of condemnation till death takes him to the scaffold, where the fearful execution of terrific woe must take place upon him. This, then, is “the curse of the law.”

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II. But now I must speak, in the second place, of The Removal Of That Curse. This is a sweet and pleasant duty. Some of you, my dear friends, will be able to follow me in your experience while I just remind you how it was that, in your salivation, Christ removed the curse from you.

First, you will agree with me when I say that the removal of the curse from us is done in a moment. It is an instantaneous thing. I may stand here one moment under the curse; and then, if the Spirit shall quicken me, and I breathe a prayer to heaven,-if by faith I cask myself on Jesus,-in one solitary second, ere the clock hath ticked, my sins shall be all forgiven. Hart sang truly,-

“The moment a sinner believes,
And trusts in his crucified God,
His pardon at once he receives,
Redemption in full through his blood.”

You will remember, in Christ’s life, that most of the cures he wrought,-yea, I believe all-were instantaneous cures. See! There lies a man stretched upon his couch, from which he hath not risen for years. “Take up thy bed, and walk,” said Christ in majesty; and then, without the intervention of weeks of convalescence, “immediately he rose up before them, and took up that where he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.” There is another man; he is deaf, and practically dumb. Christ said to him, “Ephphatha, that is, Be opened; and straightway his ears were opened, and the sting of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.” Ay, and even in the case where Christ healed dearth itself, he did it instantaneously. When that beautiful young creature lay asleep in death upon the bed, Jesus went to her; and though he dark ringlets covered up her eyes, which were glazed in death, Jesus did but take her clay-cold hand in his, and, say to her, “Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise,” than “straightway the damsel arose, and walked.”

It is true that, in conversion, Christ commences a work which is to be carried am through life in sanctification; but the justification of the sinner, the taking away of the curse, is done in a single moment. “Unwrite the curse,” saith God, and it is done. The acquittal is signed and sealed; it taketh not long. I may stand here, at this moment, and I may have believe in Christ but five minutes ago; still, even if I have believed in Christ for only that short time, I am as fully justified, in God’s sight, as I would be should I live until these hairs are whitened by the sunlight a heaven, or age I shall be when I walk among the garden lamps of the city of palaces. God justifieth has people at once; the curse is removed in a single moment. Sinner, hear that! Thou mayest be now under condemnation, but ere, thou canst say “now” again, thou mayest be able to say, “There is therefore now no condemnation to me, for I am in Christ Jesus.”

Mark, beloved, in the next place, that this removal of the curse from us, when it does take place, is an entire removal. It is not merely a part of the curse which is taken away. Christ doth not stand at the foot of Sinai, and say, “Thunders, diminish your force!” He doth not catch the lightning now and then, and bind its wings; but when he cometh, he bloweth away all the, smoke, he putteth aside all the thunder, he quencheth all the lightning; he removeth it all. When Christ pardoneth sin, his pardoneth all sin. Thou mayest be old and gray-headed, and hitherto unpardoned, but though thy sins exceed in number the sitars of the sky, one moment suffices to take them all away. Mark that all! That sin of midnight; that black sin which, like a ghost, has haunted thee all thy life; that hideous crime; that unknown act of blackness which hath darkened thy character; that awful stain upon thy conscience; -they shall all be taken away in a moment. And though thou hast a stain upon thy had, which thou hast often sought in vain to wash out with the mixtures which Moses give thee, thou shalt find, when thou art bathed in Jesu’s blood, that thou shalt be able to say, “All clean, my Lord, all clean; not a spot, all is gone; I am completely washed from head to foot, the stains are all removed.” It is the glory of this removal of the curse that it is all taken away; there is not a single atom off it left. Hushed now is the law’s loud thunder; the sentence is completely reversed, and there is no fear of it left.

We must also say, upon this point, that, when Christ removes the curse, it is an irreversible removal. Once let man be acquitted by God, and who is he that God, condemn me? There are some, in these days, who teach that God justifieth, and yet, after that, condemns the same person whom he has justified. We have heard it asserted pretty boldly that a man may be a child of God to-day,-hear it, ye heavens, and be astonished!-and be a child of the devil to-morrow; we have heard it said, but we know it is untrue, for we find nothing in Scripture to warrant it. We have often asked ourselves,-Can men really believe that, after having been begotten again by-God unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from, the dead, that new birth clan fail and die? We have asked ourselves, Can men imagine that, after God hath once broken our chains, and set us free, he will call us back, and bind us once again, like Prometheus, to the great rocks of despair? Will he once blot out the handwriting that is against us, and then record the charge again? Once pardoned, then condemned? We trow that, if Paul had met with such teachers, he would have said, “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” There is no condemnation now to us who are “in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” It is a sweet thought to me that even Satan himself can never rob me of my pardon. I may lose my copy of it, and love my comfort from it; but the original pardon is filed in heaven. It may be that gloomy doubts may arise, and I may fear that I am not forgiven; yet I can say,-

“O my distrustful heart,
How small thy faith appears!
But greater, Lord, thou art
Than all my doubts and fears:
Did Jesus once upon me shine?
Then Jesus is for ever mine.”

I love, at times, to go back in thought to that hallowed hour when I first realized that my sins were all forgiven for Christ’s sake. There is much comfort in recalling that blessed hour when first we knew the Lord.

“Dost mind the place, the spot of ground
Where Jesus did thee meet?”

Perhaps thou dost; perhaps thou canst look back to the very place where Jesus whispered to thee that thou wast his. Canst thou do so? Oh, what comfort, it will give thee! for, remember, once acquitted, thou art acquitted for ever. So saith God’s Word. Once pardoned, thou art clear for ever; once set at liberty, thou shalt never to a slave again; once Sinai’s wrath hath been appeased, it shall never thunder against thee again. Blessed be God’s name, we have been brought to Calvary, and we shall be brought to Zion too. At last we shall stand before God; and even there we shall be able by grace to say,

“Great God, we are clean!
Through Jesu’s blood we are clean.”

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III. Now we are brought, in the third place, to observe The Great Substitute by whom the curse is removed.

“The case of the law” was not easily taken away; in fact, there was but one way whereby it could be removed. The lightnings were in God’s hand; they must be Launched, he said they must. The sword was unsheathed; divine justice must be satisfied, God vowed that it must. Vengeance was ready; vengeance must fall, God had said that it, must. How thou was the sinner to be saved! The only answer was this. The Son of God appears, and he says, Father, launch thy thunderbolts at me! Here is my breast, plunge the sword of justice, in here! Here are my shoulders, let the lash of vengeance fall on them!” Thus Christ our Substitute, came forth, and stood for us, “the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” It is our delight to preach the doctrine of substitution because we are fully persuaded that no gospel is preached where substitution is omitted. Unless sinners are plainly and positively told that Christ did stand in their room and stead, to bear their guilt and carry their sorrows, they never can see how God can “be just and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

We have heard some preach a gospel something after this order,-that, though God is angry with sinners, yet, out of his great mercy, for the sake of something that Christ has done, he does not punish them, but remits the penalty. Now we held that this is not God’s gospel, for it is neither just to God nor safe for man. We believe that God never remitted the penalty, that he did not forgive, the sin without punishing it; but that he exacted the full penalty without the abatement of a solitary jot or tittle; that Jesus Christ, our Savior, did drink the veritable cup of our redemption to its very dregs; that he did suffer, beneath the crushing wheels of divine vengeance, the selfsame pains and sufferings which we ought to have endured. Oh, the glorious doctrine of substitution! When it is preached fuller and rightly, what a charm and what a power it hath! Oh, how sweet is the work to be able to tell sinners that, although God hath said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” their Maker he himself bowed his hold to death in their place, and thus God is able righteously to pardon all believers in Jesus because he has met all the claims of divine justice on their account.

Should there be one here who does not you understand the doctrine of substitution, let me repeat what I have said. Sinner, the only way in which thou canst be saved is this. God must punish sin; if he did not, he would undeify himself, but if he has punished sin in the person of Christ for thee, thou art fully absolved, thou art quite clear. Christ hath suffered what thou oughtest to have suffered, and thou mayest well rejoice in that. “Well,” sayest thou, “I ought to have died.” But Christ hath died! “I ought to have been sent to hell.” But Christ hath suffered that which is a full equivalent, and which completely satisfies God’s demands. The cup which his Father gave him he drank to its dregs.

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

for all who believe in him. All the punishment, all the curse, was laid upon him; now it is all gone for ever. Yet it had not gone without having been taken away by the Savior. The thunders have not been reserved, the lightnings have been launched at him; divine justice is satisfied because Christ has endured the full penalty of all his people’s guilt.

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IV. Now we come to answer that last question, How Many Of Us Can Say That Christ Hath Redeemed Us From The Curse Of The Law, Having Been Made A Curse For Us?

The first part of our discourse has been entirely doctrinal, some of you have not cared for it, because you did not feel that you were interested in it. It was natural that it should be so. At the reading of a will, doth the servant stay to listen? Nay, for there is nothing for her; but if a man to a son of the testator, how early doth he open his ears to catch every sound that he may know whether the estate has been left to him; however badly the lawyer may read the will, he is anxious to hear every word that he may learn if he is to have a portion among the children. Now, beloved, let us read the will again to see, if you are among those for who Christ was the Substitute. The usual way with most of our congregations is this,-they write themselves down as Christ’s long before they know whether God has done as or not. You make a profession of religion, you wear a Christian’s cloak, you behave like a Christian, you take as seat in a church or a chapel, and you think you are Christianized at once. Yet many in our congregation, who fancy that they are Christian, have made a great mistake. Let me beg you not to suppose that you are believers in Christ because your parents were, or because you belong to an orthodox church. Religion is a thing which we must have for ourselves, and it is a question which we all ought to ask, whether we are savingly interested in the atonement of Christ and have a portion in the merit of his agonies?

Come, then, my friend, let me put a question or two to thee; and fist let me ask to the,-Wast thou ever condemned by the law in thine own conscience? “Nay,” sayest thou, “I know not what thou meanest.” Of course thou dost not, and thou hast therefore no true hope that thou art saved. But I will ask thee yet again,-Hast thou ever been condemned by the law in thy conscience? Hast thou ever heard the law of God’s saying in thy soul, “Cursed is every one that combineth not in, all things which are written in the book of the law to do them”? And hast thou felt that thou wast thus cursed? Didst thou ever stand before God’s bar, like a poor condemned criminal before his judge, ready for execution? Hast thou, as John Bunyan would have put it, ever had the me around thy neck? Hast thou ever seen the black cap placed upon the head of thy Judge? Hast thou even thought thyself about to be turned off from the gallows? Hast thou ever walled the earth as if, at every step, it would open beneath thy feet, and swallow thee up? Hast thou ever felt thyself to be a worthless, ruined, sin-condemned, law-condemned, conscience-condemned sinner? Hast thou ever fallen down before God, and said, “Lord, thou art just; though thou dost slay me, I will say that thou art just, for I am sinful, and deserve thy wrath”? As the Lord liveth, if thou hast never felt and spoken like that, thou art still a stranger to his grace, for the man who acquit himself God condemneth; and if the law condemn thee, God will acquit thee. So long as thou hast felt thyself condemned, thou mayest know that Christ died for condemned ones, and shed his blood for sinners; but if thou foldest, thine arms in self-security, if thou sayest, “I am, good, I am righteous, I am honorable,” be thou warned of this,-thine armor is the weaving of a spider, and it shall be broken in pieces; the garments of thy righteousness are light as gossamer, and shall be blown away by the breath of the Eternal in that day when he shall unspin all that nature hath ever woven. Ay, I bid thee now take heed of this,-if thou hast never been condemned by the law, thou hast never been acquitted by grace.

Now I will ask thee another question,-Hast thou ever felt thyself to be acquitted by grace? “No,” saith one, “I have never expected to feel that; I thought that we might perhaps know it when we came to die, or that a few eminent Christians might possibly then know themselves to be forgiven; but I think, sir, you are very enthusiastic to ask me whether I have ever felt, myself forgiven.” My dear friend, you make, a great mistake. If a man had been a galley-slave, chained to an car for many a year, and if he were once set free, do you think that he would not know whether he were free or not? Do you think that a slave, who had been toiling in bondage for years, when once he, trod the land of freedom, if you should say to him, “Do you know that you are emancipated?” do you think that he would not know it? Or if a man, who has been dead in his grave, were to be awakened to life, do you think he would not know it? He will know himself to be alive as the emancipated slave will know that he is a free man. If you have never felt your chains fall off you, then your chains are still on you; for when God breaketh our chains off us, we know ourselves to be free. The most of us, when God set, us free from our prisonhouse, did leap for very joy; and we remember that the mountains and the hills did break forth before us into singing, and all the trees of the field did clap their hands. We shall never forget that gladsome moment; it is indelibly impressed upon our memory; we shall remember it to life’s latest hour. I ask thee again,-Didst thou ever feel thyself to be forgiven? And if thou sayest, “No,” then thou hast no reason to think that thou art forgiven. If the Lord hath never whispered in thine ear, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions,” thou hast no right to think thyself pardoned. Oh, I beseech thee, examine thyself, and know whether thou hast been condemned by the law, and whether thou hast been acquitted by grace!

And, lastly, my dear friends, I may have, and doubtless have, many present here we have simply come to spend an hour, but who have no care, no interest, no concern about their souls, who are perhaps, utterly careless as to whether they are condemned or not. If I could speak to you as I could wish, I would speak-

“As though I ne’er might speak again,
And as a dying man to dying men.”

When I remember that, likely enough, I shall never see the faces of many of you again, I feel that there is a deep and an awful responsibility lying upon man to speak to such of you as are careless. There are some of you who are putting off the evil day, or you are saying, “If I be condemned, I care not for it.” Ah, my friend! if I saw to asleep upon thy bed when the flames were raging in thy chamber, I would shout in thine ear, or I would drag thee from thy couch a slumber. If I knew that, while thou hadst a fatal disease within thee, thou wouldst not take the medicine which alone could cure thee, I would upon my knees implore thee to take that medicine. But, alas! here you are, many of you, in danger of eternal destruction, and you have a disease, within your souls that most soon destroy them for ever; yet what careless, hardened, thoughtless creatures you are, just caring for the body, and not seeing Christ to be the Savior of your souls. As the angels laid hold upon Lot, and said to him, “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed;” so would I do to you. I would come to each one of you, and say, “My brother, carelessness may avail thee now; but carelessness will not stop the voice of death when he speaks. Indifference may silence my voice in thy conscience now; but when that grim skeleton tyrant comes to address thee, indifference will not do then. Thou mayest laugh now, thou mayest dance now, thou mayest be merry now, thy cup may be full to the brim now; but what wilt thou do in that day when the heavens are clothed with glory, when the books are opened, when the great white throne is set, and when thou comest before thy Maker to be acquitted or condemned? I beseech thee, do forestall that day. I beg of thee, for Christ’s sake, to picture thyself before thy Judge; conceive of him there in yonder heavens seated upon his throne, imagine that thou art now looking upon him. O my hearer, what wilt thou do? Thou art before the judgment-throne, without Christ as thy Savior. “Rocks, hide me, for I am naked!” But thou art dragged out, sinner, naked before thy Judge; who wilt thou do now? I see thee bend thy knee, I hear thee cry, “O Jesus, clothe me now!” “Nay,” saith Jesus, “that robe can never be worn by thee now.” “Savior, have mercy upon me even now.” “Nay,” saith he, “I called, but you refused; I stretched out my hand, but no man regarded; you set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproach; so now I will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh.” Am I talking realities or mere fictions? Why, realities, and yet, if I were reading a; novel to you, you would be lost in tears; but when I tell you God’s truth, that soon his throne shall be set, and we shall all appear before him, you sit, unmoved, and remain careless concerning that great event. But be it known to every careless sinner that death and judgment are not the unimportant things that they merely have fancied, everlasting wrath and eternal severance from God are not such light things to endure as they may have conceived.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Have I one here who is saying, “What must I do to be saved, for I feel myself condemned?” Hear thou Christ’s own words: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Dost thou ask me what it is to believe? Hear, then, the answer. To believe is to look to Jesus; that little word “look” beautifully expresses what a sinner is to do. There is little in its appearance, but there is much in its meaning. Believing is letting the hands lie still, and turning the eyes to Christ. We cannot be saved by our hands; but we are saved when we look to Jesus by faith. Sinner, it is no use for thee to try to save thyself; to believe, in Christ is the only way of salvation; and that is, throwing self behind thy back, and putting Christ right before thee. I never can find a better description than that of the negro,-to believe is to fall flat down upon the promise, and to be there. To believe is to do as one might do in a stream. It is said that, if we were to fold our arms’, and lie motionless upon the water, we, should not sink. To believe is to float upon the stream of grace. I grant you that there will be much that you will do afterwards, but, you must live before you can do. The gospel is the reverse of the law. The law says, “Do, and live;” the gospel says, “Live first, then do.” The thing for thee to say, poor sinner, is just this, “Lord Jesus, here I am, I give, myself to thee.”

I never had a better idea of believing in Jesus then I once had from a poor countryman. I may have mentioned this before; but it struck me very forcibly at the time, and I cannot help repeating it. Speaking about faith, he said, “The old enemy has been troubling me very much lately; but I told him that he must not say anything to me about my sins, he must go to my Master, for I had transferred the whole concern to him, bad debts and all.” That is believing in Jesus; believing is giving up all we have to Christ and taking all that Christ has to ourselves. It is changing houses with Christ changing clothes with Christ changing our unrighteousness for his righteousness, changing our sins for his merits. Execute the transfer, sinner; or rather, may God’s grace execute it, and give thee faith in it; and then the law will no, longer be thy condemnation, but it shall acquit thee. May Christ add his blessing! May the Holy Spirit rest upon us, and may we all at last meet in heaven! Then will we sing “to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”