Redemption through His blood

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 37, sermon number 2,207, "Redemption through blood."

"Do you ask—'How is it that there should always need to be redemption by blood, in order to the forgiveness of sin?' I call your attention to the expression, 'Redemption through his blood.'" 

Observe, it is not redemption through his power, it is through his blood. It is not redemption through his love, it is through his blood. This is insisted upon emphatically, since in order to the forgiveness of sins it is redemption through his blood, as you have it over and over again in Scripture. “Without shedding of blood is no remission.”

But they say—they say—that substitution is not just. One said, the other day, that to lay sin upon Christ, and to treat him as guilty, and let him die for the unjust, was not just. Yet the objector went on to say that God forgave men freely without any atonement at all.

Of this wise critic I would ask—Is that just? Is it just to pass by breaches of the law without a penalty? Why any law at all? and why should men care whether they keep it or break it? It was stated by this critic that God, out of his boundless love, treated the guilty man as if he were innocent.

I would ask—if that be right, where is the wrong of God’s treating us as innocent because of the righteousness of Christ? I venture to affirm that pardon is needless, if not impossible, upon the theory that the man, though guilty, is treated as if he were not guilty. If all are treated alike, whether guilty or not guilty, why should anyone desire pardon?

It were easy to answer cavillers, but they really are not worth the answering. It is to me always sufficient if I find a truth taught in Scripture: I ask no more. If I do not understand it, I am not particularly anxious to understand it: if it be in the Scriptures, I believe it.

I like those grand, rocky truths of the Bible which I cannot break with the hammer of my understanding, for on these I lay the foundations of my soul’s confidence.

Redemption by blood is here linked with forgiveness of sins, and, in many other Scriptures we find it plainly stated. It is so. Let that stand for a sufficient answer to all objectors.

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Living drainpipes

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from John Ploughman's Pictures, page 41, Pilgrim Publications.

"He is a walking barrel, a living drainpipe, a moving swill-tub." 

Drinking cold water neither makes a man sick, nor in debt, nor his wife a widow, but this mighty fine ale of his will do all this for him, make him worse than a beast while he lives, and wash him away to his grave before his time.

The old Scotchman said, “Death and drink-draining are near neighbours,” and he spoke the truth. They say that drunkenness makes some men fools, some beasts, and some devils, but according to my mind it makes all men fools whatever else it does.

Yet when a man is as drunk as a rat he sets up to be a judge, and mocks at sober people. Certain neighbours of mine laugh at me for being a teetotaler, and I might well laugh at them for being drunk, only I feel more inclined to cry that they should be such fools.

O that we could get them sober, and then perhaps we might make men of them. You cannot do much with these fellows, unless you can enlist them in the Coldstream guards.

He that any good would win 

  At his mouth must first begin. 

As long as drink drowns conscience and reason, you might as well talk to the hogs. The rascals will promise fair and take the pledge, and then take their coats to pledge to get more beer.

We smile at a tipsy man, for he is a ridiculous creature, but when we see how he is ruined body and soul it is no joking matter. How solemn is the truth that “No drunkard shall inherit eternal life.”

Gone

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 22, sermon number 1,296, "Gone. Gone for ever."

"Time is going and eternity approaching; will you never wake up?"  

As time has gone so also have many persons gone to whom we might have been useful. Thousands have passed away during our short span of life. Have you not had to say, “I ought to have spoken to So and-So, who was in my employment, but he died without hope before I had warned him, and he is gone where no words of mine can ever reach him?”

Oh, how many have passed away since I first began to address this audience, and if I could charge myself with unfaithfulness to you in preaching the word of God, how would I have to regret each funeral, and to remember each tomb, and say, “There lies one for whom I can render no acceptable account at last, for I have been unfaithful, and kept back the truth.”

I thank God that I have not this to burden my heart. Do not let it be so with any of you.

Sometimes, however, the confession of the thing gone concerns noble ideas and resolves. You had great conceptions, and if they had but been embodied in action something good would have come of them; but where are the ideas now? Were they not smothered in their birth?

You resolved to do great things, the plans were thoroughly arranged, and your whole heart was eager to carry it out, but delay chilled the goodly purpose till it died of cold, and it lies buried in forgetfulness. You dreamed well, but there you stopped.

As for actual work for the Lord, you had other fish to fry, and therefore you cast out your net for him. You suffered the season for activity to go by, and so your excellent ideas and resolutions melted into thin air, and they are gone.

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The Church of the first-born

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 28, sermon number 1,689, "The general convocation around Mount Zion."

"An innumerable company of this blessed firstborn race can have the whole of God to be their portion for ever and ever."

Our text adds to the term “general assembly” that of the “church of the first-born.” “Oh,” say the commentators, “this is tautology.” Not so. The apostle felt bound, after having used such a remarkable comparison, to call us back to the solemnity of the matter, and remind us that it is “a church” which is gathered. You and I have come to a great church-meeting, where all the saints of God are met at this moment. What makes a church? An ecclesia?

These words may help you:—they are, first, a people chosen; next, a people called; then a people culled; then a people consecrated; and then a people congregated. So they do become the church of the living God; separated unto God by his electing love; called out from the world by his effectual calling; culled out by being separated through a work of grace; congregated and gathered together into one in Christ; and evermore consecrated to the divine service. This is what you and I have come to. Oh for words with which to speak our joy for admission into such a company!

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