The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

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СКАЧАТЬ and write their own opinions. They do not seem to have gotten much further than the genius of the monkey, which can pull everything to pieces, but can put nothing together. Then, on the other hand, there is the Antinomian, who says, “Yes, I know I am saved by grace alone”; and then breaks the law — says, it is not binding on him, even as a rule of life; and asks, “What purpose then does the law serve?” throwing it out of his door as an old piece of furniture only fit for the fire, because, truly, it is not adapted to save his soul. Why, a thing may have many uses, if not a particular one. It is true that the law cannot save; and yet it is equally true that the law is one of the highest works of God, and is deserving of all reverence, and extremely useful when applied by God to the purposes for which it was intended.

      2. Yet, pardon me my friends, if I just observe that this is a very natural question, too. If you read the doctrine of the apostle Paul you find him declaring that the law condemns all mankind. Now, just let us for one single moment take a bird’s eye view of the works of the law in this world. Lo, I see, the law given upon Mount Sinai. The very hill quakes with fear. Lightnings and thunders are the attendants of those dreadful syllables which make the hearts of Israel to melt. Sinai seems filled with smoke. The Lord came from Paran, and the Holy One from Mount Sinai; “He came with ten thousand of his saints.” Out of his mouth went a fiery law for them. It was a dreadful law even when it was given; and since then from that Mount of Sinai an awful lava of vengeance has run down, to deluge, to destroy, to burn, and to consume the whole human race, if it had not been that Jesus Christ had stemmed its awful torrent, and bidden its waves of fire to be still. If you could see the world without Christ in it, simply under the law, you would see a world in ruins, a world with God’s black seal put upon it, stamped and sealed for condemnation; you would see men, who, if they knew their condition, would have their hands on their loins and be groaning all their days — you would see men and women condemned, lost, and ruined; and in the uttermost regions you would see the pit that is dug for the wicked, into which the whole earth must have been cast if the law had its way, apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Indeed, beloved, the law is a great deluge which would have drowned the world with worse than the water of Noah’s flood; it is a great fire which would have burned the earth with a destruction worse than what fell on Sodom; it is a stern angel with a sword, athirst for blood, and winged to slay; it is a great destroyer sweeping down the nations; it is the great messenger of God’s vengeance sent into the world. Apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ, the law is nothing but the condemning voice of God thundering against mankind. “What purpose then does the law serve?” seems a very natural question. Can the law be of any benefit to man? Can that Judge who puts on a black cap and condemns us all, this Lord Chief Justice Law, can he help in salvation? Yes, he can; and you shall see how he does it, if God shall help us while we preach. “What purpose then does the law serve?”

      3. I. The first use of the law is to reveal to man his guilt. When God intends to save a man, the first thing he does with him is to send the law to him, to show him how guilty, how vile, how ruined he is, and in how dangerous a position. You see that man lying there on the edge of the precipice; he is sound asleep, and just on the perilous verge of the cliff. One single movement, and he will roll over and be broken in pieces on the jagged rocks beneath, and nothing more shall be heard of him. How is he to be saved? What shall be done for him — what shall be done? It is our position; we, too, are lying on the brink of ruin, but we are insensible to it. God, when he begins to save us from such an imminent danger, sends his law, which, with a stout kick, rouses us up, makes us open our eyes; we look down on our terrible danger, discover our miseries; and then it is we are in a right position to cry out for salvation, and our salvation comes to us. The law acts with man as the physician does when he takes the film from the eye of the blind. Self-righteous men are blind men, though they think that they are good and excellent. The law takes that film away, and lets them discover how vile they are, and how utterly ruined and condemned if they are to abide under the sentence of the law.

      4. Instead, however, of treating this doctrinally, I shall treat it practically, and come home to each of your consciences. My hearer, does not the law of God convict you of sin this morning? Under the hand of God’s Spirit does it not make you feel that you have been guilty, that you deserve to be lost, that you have incurred the fierce anger of God? Look here; have you not broken these ten commandments; even in the letter have you not broken them? Who is there among you who has always honoured his father and mother? Who is there among us who has always spoken the truth? Have we not sometimes borne false witness against our neighbour? Is there one person here who has not made to himself another God, and loved himself, or his business, or his friends, more than he has Jehovah, the God of the whole earth? Which of you has not coveted your neighbour’s house, or his man servant, or his ox, or his ass? We are all guilty with regard to every letter of the law; we have all of us transgressed the commandments. And if we really understood these commandments, and felt that they condemned us, they would have this useful influence on us of showing us our danger, and so of leading us to flee to Christ. But, my hearers, does not this law condemn you, because even if you should say you have not broken the letter of it, yet you have violated the spirit of it. What, though you have never killed, yet we are told, he that is angry with his brother is a murderer. As a negro said once, “Sir, I thought me no kill — me innocent there; but when I heard that he that hates his brother is a murderer, then me cry guilty, for me have killed twenty men before breakfast very often, for I have been angry with many of them very often.” This law does not only mean what it says in words, but it has deep things hidden in its heart. It says, “You shall not commit adultery,” but it means, as Jesus has it, “He who looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” It says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”; it means that we should reverence God in every place, and have his fear before our eyes, and should always pay respect to his ordinances, and evermore walk in his fear and love. Indeed, my brethren, surely there is not one here so fool-hardy in self-righteousness as to say, “I am innocent.” The spirit of the law condemns us. And this is its useful property; it humbles us, makes us know we are guilty, and so we are led to receive the Saviour.

      5. Notice this, moreover, my dear hearers, one breach of this law is enough to condemn us for ever. He who breaks the law in one point is guilty of the whole. The law demands that we should obey every command; and if one of them is broken, the whole of them are violated. It is like a vase of surpassing workmanship; in order to destroy it you need not shiver it to atoms; make but the smallest fracture in it and you have destroyed its perfection. As it is a perfect law which we are commanded to obey, and to obey perfectly, make only one breach in it and though we are ever so innocent we can hope for nothing from the law except the voice, “You are condemned, you are condemned, you are condemned.” Under this aspect of the matter ought not the law to strip many of us of all our boasting? Who is there that shall rise in his place and say, “Lord, I thank you, I am not as other men are?” Surely there cannot be one among you who can go home and say, “I have tithed mint and cummin; I have kept all the commandments from my youth?” No, if this law is brought home to the conscience and the heart we shall stand with the tax collector, saying, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” The only reason why a man thinks he is righteous is because he does not know the law. You think you have never broken it because you do not understand it. There are some of you most respectable people; you think you have been so good that you can go to heaven by your own works. You would not exactly say so, but you secretly think so; you have devoutly taken the sacrament, you have been mightily pious in attending your church or chapel regularly, you are good to the poor, generous and upright, and you say, “I shall be saved by my works.” No, sir; look to the flame that Moses saw, and shrink, and tremble, and despair. The law can do nothing for us except condemn us. The utmost it can do is to whip us out of our boasted self-righteousness and drive us to Christ. It puts a burden on our backs and makes us ask Christ to take it off. It is like a lancet, it probes the wound. It is, to use a parable, as when some dark cellar has not been opened for years and is full of all kinds of loathsome creatures; we may walk through it not knowing they are there. But the law comes, takes the shutters down, lets light in, and then we discover what a vile heart we have, and how unholy our lives have been; and, then, СКАЧАТЬ