The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

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      No other can be really sound.

      If they will for one moment consider that there was a time when God had no creatures — when he dwelt alone, the mighty maker of ages, glorious in an uncreated solitude, divine in his eternal loneliness — “I am and there is no one beside me” — can anyone answer this question — Why did God make creatures to exist? — in any other way than by answering it thus: “He made them for his own pleasure and for his own glory.” You may say he made them for his creatures; but we answer, there were then no creatures to make them for. We admit that the answer may be a sound one now. God makes the harvest for his creatures; he hangs the sun in the firmament to bless his creatures with light and sunshine; he bids the moon walk in her course by night, to cheer the darkness of his creatures upon earth. But the first answer, going back to the origin of all things, can only be this: “For his pleasure they are and were erected.” “He made all things for himself and by himself”:

      3. Now, this which holds good in the works of creation, holds equally good in the works of salvation. Lift up your eyes on high; higher than those stars which glimmer on the floor of heaven; look up, where spirits in white clearer than light, shine like stars in their magnificence; look there, where the redeemed with their choral symphonies “circle the throne of God rejoicing,” and ask this question “Who saved those glorified beings, and for what purpose where they saved?” We tell you that the same answer must be given as we have previously given to the former question — “He saved them — he saved them for his name’s sake.” The text is an answer to the two great questions concerning salvation: who saved men and why are they saved? “He saved them for his name’s sake.”

      4. I shall endeavour to look into this subject this morning. May God make it profitable to each of us, and may we be found among the number who shall be saved “for his name’s sake.” Treating the text verbally — and that is the way most will understand — here are four things. First, a glorious Saviour — “He saved them”; secondly, a favoured people — “he saved them”; thirdly a divine reason why he saved them — “for his name’s sake”; and fourthly an obstruction conquered, in the word “nevertheless,” implying that there was some difficulty that was removed. “Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake.” A Saviour; the saved; the reason; the obstruction removed.

      5. I. First, then, here is A GLORIOUS SAVIOUR — “He saved them.” Who is to be understood by that pronoun “he?” Possibly many of my hearers may answer “Why, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour of men.” Right, my friends; but that is not all the truth. Jesus Christ is the Saviour; but not more so than God the Father, or God the Holy Spirit. Some people who are ignorant of the system of divine truth think of God the Father as being a great Being full of wrath, and anger, and justice, but having no love, they think of God the Spirit perhaps as a mere influence proceeding from the Father and the Son. Now, nothing can be more incorrect than such opinions. It is true the Son redeems me, but then the Father gave the Son to die for me, and the Father chose me in the everlasting election of his grace. The Father blots out my sin; the Father accepts me and adopts me into his family through Christ. The Son could not save without the Father any more than the Father without the Son; and as for the Holy Spirit, if the Son redeems, do you not know that the Holy Spirit regenerates? It is he that makes us new creatures in Christ, who begets us again to a lively hope, who purifies our soul, who sanctifies our spirit, and who, at last, presents us spotless and faultless before the throne of the Most High, accepted in the beloved. When you say, “Saviour,” remember there is a Trinity in that word — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, this Saviour being three persons under one name. You cannot be saved by the Son without the Father, nor by the Father without the Son, nor by Father and Son without the Spirit. But as they are one in creation, so are they one in salvation, working together in one God for our salvation, and to that God be glory everlasting, world without end, Amen.

      6. But, note here, how this Divine Being claims salvation wholly to himself. “Nevertheless HE saved them.” But, Moses, where are you? Did you not save them, Moses? You did stretch the rod over the sea, and it went back and divided into two; you lifted up your prayer to heaven, and the frogs came, and the flies swarmed, and the water was turned into blood, and the hail struck the land of Egypt. Were you not their Saviour, Moses? And you Aaron, you offered the bulls which God accepted, you led them, with Moses, through the wilderness. Were you not their Saviour? They answer, “No, we were the instruments, but he saved them. God made use of us, but to his name is all the glory, and none for ourselves.” But, Israel, you were a strong and mighty people; did you not save yourself? Perhaps it was by your own holiness that the Red Sea was dried up; perhaps the parted floods were frightened at the piety of the saints that stood upon their shore; perhaps it was Israel that delivered itself. No, no, says God’s Word; he saved them; they did not save themselves, nor did their fellow men redeem them. And yet notice, there are some who dispute this point, who think that men save themselves, or, at least, that priests and preachers can help them to do it. We say that the preacher, under God, may be the instrument of arresting man’s attention, of warning him and arousing him; but the preacher is nothing; God is everything. The most mighty eloquence that ever distilled from the lips of a seraphic preacher is nothing apart from God’s Holy Spirit. Neither Paul, nor Apollos, nor Cephas, are anything: God gave the increase and God must have all the glory. There are some we meet with here and there who say, “I am Mr. So-and-So’s convert; I am a convert of the Rev. Dr. this or that.” Well, if you are, sir, I cannot give you much hope of heaven, only God’s converts go there; not proselytes of man, but the redeemed of the Lord. Oh, it is very little to convert a man to our own opinions; it is something to be the means of converting him to the Lord our God. I had a letter some time ago from a good Baptist minister in Ireland, who very much wanted me to come over to Ireland, as he said, to represent the Baptist interest, because it was low there, and perhaps it might lead the people to think a little more of Baptists. I told him I would not go across the street merely to do that, much less would I cross the Irish Channel. I would not think of going to Ireland for that; but I might go there to make Christians, under God, and be the means of bringing men to Christ. I would leave it to them what they should be afterwards, and trust to God’s Holy Spirit to direct and guide them as to what denomination they would consider nearest akin to God’s truth. Brethren, I might make all of you Baptists, perhaps, and yet you would be none the better for it; I might convert you all in that way, but such a conversion would be that you would be washed to greater stains, converted into hypocrites, and not into saints. I have seen something of wholesale conversion. Great revivalists have risen up; they have preached thundering sermons that have made men’s knees knock together. “What a wonderful man!” people have said. “He has converted so many under one sermon.” But look for his converts in a month, and where will they be? You will see some of them in the alehouse, you will hear others of them swear, you will find many of them rogues, and cheats, because they were not God’s converts, but only man’s. Brethren, if the work is done at all, it must be done by God for if God does not convert there is nothing done that shall last, and nothing that shall be of any avail for eternity.

      7. But some reply, “Well, sir, but men convert themselves.” Yes, they do, and a fine conversion it is. Very frequently they convert themselves. But then what man did, man undoes. He who converts himself one day, unconverts himself the next; he ties a knot which his own fingers can loosen. Remember this — you may convert yourselves a dozen times over, but “what is born of the flesh is flesh,” and “cannot see the kingdom of God.” It is only “what is born of the Spirit” that “is Spirit,” and is therefore able to be gathered at last into the spirit realm, where only spiritual things can be found before the throne of the Most High. We must reserve this prerogative wholly to God. If any man states that God is not Creator, we call him an infidel, if any man insists upon this doctrine, that God is not the absolute Maker of all things, we hiss him down in a moment; but there is an infidel of the worst kind, because he is more deceptive and dangerous, who puts God out of the mercy throne, instead of putting him out of the creation throne, СКАЧАТЬ