PART I, SKETCH XXXVIII: GOING HOME: A CHRISTMAS SERMON

“Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee….” (Mark 5.19.)

Introduction. The poor wretch referred to, being possessed with a legion of evil spirits, had been driven to something worse than madness. He was worse than the wild beasts, for they might be tamed. In misery, he would howl and cut himself. Jesus passed by and told the devils to come out of him, and he was healed in a moment, and converted. Out of gratitude, he wanted to follow the Lord. The Lord told him to show his gratitude by going home and telling his friends about his deliverance. This teaches us that true religion does not separate men from their families. Superstition that calls itself Christianity has done that. Monks and nuns ought to go home to their friends! Be not without natural affection. True religion cannot be inconsistent with nature. Christianity does not free me from my duties as a son; it makes me a better son. Its intention is to make households which death itself shall never sever; it reunites families on the other side of the flood. Some are going home to see their friends. Our subject is about the story they have to tell. 

(1) Here is What They are to Tell. It is to be a story of personal experience. You are not commanded to go home and teach your doctrines, but to speak on what you have felt. Tell your friends how you were once a lost abandoned sinner, how the Lord met with you, how you poured out your soul before God, and leaped with joy. Next, it must be a story of free grace. It is not about what you have done, but about what the Lord has done for you. It is not about your doings, willings, prayings, and seekings, but about God who makes sinners his children, and heirs of everlasting life. And this poor man’s tale is a grateful story. A man who is grateful is always full of the greatness of the mercy God has shown him. With great earnestness, tell them it is a great story, and I hope they may be brought to believe that you, at least, are grateful. Lastly, the tale must be told by one who feels undeserving. Tell about ‘how he hath had compassion on thee.’ Do not tell the story of your conversion as if to boast about your sins, but with gratitude and thanksgiving. 

(2) Why Should We Tell this Story? First, for your Master’s sake. You can never think of his pierced hands and feet without loving him. Will you then refuse to tell the tale of his love to you? Next, if your friends are pious, tell it to make their hearts glad. Can you picture the joy when this poor demoniac went home and said that all the evil spirits were gone? If you, once possessed with sin, would go home and tell of your release, the scene could be somewhat similar. If they are bad, tell them for their soul’s salvation. Do not tell this story to your ungodly friends together, for they will laugh at you. Take them one by one, and they will hear you seriously. An elder in America rode five miles on horseback to tell this man that he had a concern for his soul. The next day that man was at the deacon’s house asking what he must do to be saved. 

(3) How is the Story to be Told? First, tell it truthfully. Do not tell Bunyan’s experience, but your own. One fly in the pot may spoil all. Next, tell it humbly, not as a preacher, but as a friend or a son. And tell it earnestly. Do not laugh at holy things, and maybe they won’t either. Also, tell it devoutly. Tell it to no man till you have told it to God. Wrestle with God for them, and you will be able to wrestle with them for God. Rely on the Holy Spirit. Trust not yourself, but fear not to trust him. He can give you words. He can apply those words to their hearts. 

Selection from Conclusion. “And shall such a tale be told in heaven?…Wilt thou not sit in the grassy meads of heaven, and tell the story of thine own redemption?…You will tell a long story there.”

PART I, SKETCH XXXVII: CHRIST: THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD

“Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1.24.)

Introduction. Unbelief toward the gospel of Christ is the most unreasonable thing in the world. The Jews wanted a sign. The miracles that Christ wrought were signs enough: Christ is the power of God. The Greeks wanted a wise philosophy. The gospel passes understanding: Christ is the wisdom of God. We shall understand our text in a threefold manner to answer both Jew and Greek.

(1) Christ Personally. He is the power of God from all eternity. When he came to earth in the fashion of a man, he still gave proof that he was the Son of God. The waves calmed by his voice, and became like marble beneath his tread. He raised the rotten carcass of Lazarus. After yielding up his own life, he proved his power by breaking the bonds of death. He is the power of God now, for it is written, “he sitteth at the right hand of God.” He is the Sovereign Head of the church and the Lord of heaven, death, and hell. He is equally the wisdom of God. He devised the system of atonement and substitution. He built the heavens by wisdom. As a child, he proved his wisdom before the doctors. As a man, those who came to take him stood spellbound by his oratory. Now he intercedes before the throne of God. We have abundant proofs that the wisdom of God is in Christ, as well as the power. Bow before him, you that love him!

(2) Christ’s Gospel. It is a thing of divine power. How else to account for its being spread the world over? It was spread by untaught fishermen. Did they convert men by force, as was done by those who followed Mohammed? Ah! no, but by simple words and the blessing of God’s Spirit. And what was this gospel which achieved so much? Did it offer a present paradise of happiness? prospects of wealth? prospects of lust like the coarse delusion of Joe Smith? No, this was a spotless gospel not palatable to human nature. Why did it spread? It has the power of God in it. How has it been maintained since then? Like the herb chamomile, the more it is trodden on, the more it grows. She cannot die, for she has the power of God within her. And what about that huge apostasy of Rome? A thousand miracles that the church outlived that! Even now, when I see the want of unction in the church and the disunions, it is a thousand miracles that the church of God should be alive. The power of God is in the church. And there are some here who were once unfaithful to truth, right, and chastity. Now they are as different as light from darkness. The gospel has been to men the power of God. And Christ’s gospel is the wisdom of God. Lord Lyttleton and West, professed infidels, sat down to write books ridiculing the subjects of Paul’s conversion and the resurrection. In studying, they both became Christians. Every man who gives the gospel the study it deserves will discover that it is true. 

(3) Christ in a Man, the Gospel in the Soul. The Christian begins in the prison chamber of conviction, ruin, and loss. But give him the name of Christ to plead, and he makes a happy escape. Then he is assailed by enemies. How shall he resist? By the true Jerusalem blade, Christ crucified. How shall he cross the river of Death? He remembers that Jesus died, and before his feet the Jordan opens up. Christ is wisdom, as well as power. Begin with the science of Christ crucified, and, beginning with the sun, you will see every other science moving round it in harmony. Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. Use the wisdom of God to direct your feet in his statutes.

Selection from Conclusion. “Do you feel that you are a sinner? If not, I have no gospel to preach to you…But if you feel your lost estate…come, and welcome, for he will never cast you away.”

PART I, SKETCH XXXVI: WHY ARE MEN SAVED?

“Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake” (Psalm 106.8.)

Introduction. In looking upon creation, two questions occur to the thoughtful mind: Who made all these things? And for what purpose were they made? The first question is easily answered. If man looks to the mountains, they seem to say, ‘The hand that made me is divine.’ The second question is not easy to answer apart from Scripture. The answer is that God made all things for his own glory and pleasure. What holds good in the works of creation holds good in the works of salvation. Lift up your eyes on high, higher than the stars. Who saved the glorified beings? And why were they saved? ‘He saved them for his name’s sake.’ Here, now, are four things from the text. 

(1) A Glorious Saviour. ‘He saved them.’ Who is to be understood by that pronoun ‘he?’ Jesus Christ is the Saviour of men, but not more so than God the Father, or God the Holy Ghost. The Father gave the Son; the Son redeems; the Holy Spirit regenerates. Moses stretched forth his rod, and the sea parted. But it was God who saved. Israel did not deliver itself. God did it. The preacher, under God, may be used to arrest man’s attention. But God gives the increase, and God must have all the glory. I would not cross the street to make a Baptist. But I would, under God, be the means of bringing men to Christ. Unless God converts, conversion shall not last. 

(2) The Favored Persons. ‘He saved them.’ Who are they? Respectable people? First, they were a stupid people. Moses says, “Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt.” God sends his gospel not always to the wise, but unto fools. Do not think that because you can barely spell your name that you cannot be saved. Next, they were an ungrateful people. Moses says “they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies.” God delivered them times without number; but they still rebelled. That is like you, my hearer. God has provided for you and kept you from the grave until now; but how ungrateful you have been! Yet some of your sort have been saved. ‘Nevertheless he saved them.’ And note, they were a provoking people. Moses says “they provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea.” Ah! how many people are provoking to God. Have you provoked God? If you repent, God has promised to save you. Sinner, I comfort you, not in your sin, but in your repentance. The saints of heaven were once as bad as you have been. Are you a drunkard, a swearer, unclean? “Such were some of them; but they have been washed.” 

(3) The Reason of Salvation. ‘He saved them for his name’s sake.’ Nothing in the sinner can entitle him to mercy, neither his goodness nor his talents. What does ‘his name’s sake’ mean? I think it means ‘his nature’s sake.’ He manifested his love by giving us the sun and stars. But he wanted to reveal himself still more. So he gave his Son to die in order to save the very worst of men. He has manifested all his attributes on the great balcony of salvation. Some say that God is a cruel tyrant. He saves the worst of sinners to vindicate his name and to make sinners love him. 

(4) The Obstacles Removed. ‘Nevertheless he saved them.’ The broken law demands blood. But Jesus silenced the law by keeping it and by paying the sinner’s penalty for breaking it. Further, his sprinkled blood silences the accusing conscience. And any covenant the sinner ever made with death and hell is nullified by the redemption that came before. The sinner is not his own. 

Selection from Conclusion. “Sinner, whatever be the ‘nevertheless,’ it shall never the less abate the Saviour’s love…On thy knee weep out a sorrowful confession; look to his cross.” 

PART I, SKETCH XXXV: MANASSEH

“Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God” (2 Chronicles 33.13.)

Introduction. Manasseh is one of those men who greatly sinned, and yet found great mercy. He ‘shed innocent blood very much,’ but found mercy through the Saviour whom God foresaw should die. 

(1) As a Sinner. He sinned against great light, a pious education, and early training. He was the son of Hezekiah, who ‘did right in the sight of the Lord.’ Manasseh pulled down what his father had built up, and built up the idol temples which his father had pulled down. The worst of men are those, who, having much light, still run astray. Such a one was Manasseh. He was a very bold sinner. He set up an idol right in the temple, as if to insult God to his face. He was a desperado in sin. Give me a coward—you give me nothing; give me a bold man, and you give me one that can do something, whether for Christ’s cause or the devil’s. Manasseh was a man of this kind. Yet this man, who had trampled on his father’s prayers, who had stifled the convictions of his conscience, and had gone to an extremity of guilt, was humbled to acknowledge that God was God alone. Let no man, therefore, despair of his fellow. Let no man despair of himself. Don’t give yourself up to Satan when he tells you your doom is cast. Manasseh had the power of leading others. As a king, he had great influence; what he commanded was done. It was the song and glory of the false priests that the king of Judah was on the side of the gods of the heathen. He was their great Goliath. He ‘caused his children to pass through the fire.’ Are there any here who have dedicated their children to the enemy? Even your case is not hopeless.

(2) As an Unbeliever. As an unbeliever of truth, Manasseh must have believed in the all-imaginary deities of the heathens. A man believes that atoms floated through space and came to certain shape, that man came to be in this world through the improvement of certain creatures, and that he is cousin-german to an ourang-outang. Then I may believe that Samson slew a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass! It requires the hardest faith to deny the Scriptures, because man, in his secret heart, knows they are true. ‘Lie down, conscience,’ he says, ‘or I cannot deliver my lecture tomorrow.’ The unlimited power Manasseh possessed tended to make him disbelieve in God. Unless governed by grace, power leads us to that. He was an unbeliever because he was proud. Pride lies at the root of infidelity; it is the germ of opposition to God. The intellectual will not become as a child to enter the kingdom! ‘I will not,’ says he. Manasseh was an unbeliever because he loved sin too well. Because the thought of God would check his lust, the unbeliever cries out, ‘There is no God.’ You would believe the gospel if you could believe it and live in your sin too. The gospel cries, ‘Down with sin.’ So men cry down the gospel. 

(3) As a Convert. Manasseh has just put his name to another murderous edict against the saints of God. But then he is taken captive to Babylon, and shut in prison. And now see what God can do. The proud king is on his knee. He weeps at how he ever could have sinned against a God so kind. Mercy whispers that promise from the murdered Isaiah: “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.” O! can you conceive the joy of believers on that day? There was joy in heaven too; the bells of heaven rang merry peals the day Manasseh prayed. He believed in God because of answered prayer and because his sin was forgiven. He believed because he had a sense of pardoned sin. The wisest infidel cannot pervert the poorest saint who senses his blood-bought pardon. 

Selection from Conclusion. “’Once in Christ, in Christ for ever,/Nothing from his love can sever.’” 

PART I, SKETCH XXXIV: JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE

“Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3.24.)

Introduction. You will confess, brethren, it was not at Olivet, on Sinai, or on Tabor that you found comfort. The bitter herbs of Gethsemene have often taken away the bitters of your life; the scourge of Gabbatha has scourged your cares; the groans of Calvary have put all other groans to flight.

(1) The Redemption that is by Christ Jesus. In Scripture, a captive must be ransomed before he is set free. By the fall of Adam and because of our guiltiness, we were given up to the vengeance of the law. We could find no ransom. Then Christ stepped in to take the place of all believers, and paid the ransom price to deliver us from the curse of the law and the vengeance of God so we could go our way, clean, free, and justified by his blood. He has redeemed a multitude ‘that no man can number,’ and these from every kingdom, nation, tongue, color, and rank. This ransom was all paid at once. This payment obtained a perfect and complete remittal of all the debts of all believers, past, present, and future, to the very end of time. He did this all himself! Two thieves hung beside him, not righteous men. The whole of the punishment of his people was distilled into one cup. He nearly spurned it: ‘Let this cup pass from me.’ But his love was so strong, that ‘At one tremendous draught of love/He drank damnation dry’ for all his people. They must, they shall, go free. The ransom was accepted. There lay Jesus in the grave. Now is the crisis of this world; it hangs trembling in the balance. Will God accept the ransom? The resurrection was a pledge of God’s accepting him. The second proof of his acceptance was the place he was given: at God’s right hand. O, what a spectacle was there that day!

(2) The Effect of the Ransom. ‘Justified freely by his grace through the redemption.’ What is the meaning of justification? Justification is always employed in a legal sense. The only way a prisoner can be justified is to be found not guilty. Now, the wonder of wonders is that we are proved guilty, and yet justified. Can any earthly tribunal do that? No, only the ransom of Christ can. The way God justifies a sinner. I might take a man’s punishment, but not his guilt. Christ takes my guilt to be his guilt. ‘Father, punish me,’ says he, ‘and consider that man to have been me. Let me endure his curse, and let him receive my blessing.’ This is a doctrine of revelation. It never could have been conceived by nature. Some characteristics of justification. Here stands a man all guilty. The moment he believes in Christ, he receives pardon, and his sins are no longer his. They were laid on the shoulders of Christ, and they are gone for good. The man stands guiltless in the sight of God. ‘What!’ say you, ‘do you mean that literally?’ Yes, that is the doctrine of justification by faith. Even more, the man ceases to be guilty in God’s esteem; he becomes righteous and meritorious, for he is looked upon by God with as much love as he ever looked upon the Son. Does this not pass all thought? Well, it is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The glorified spirits are no more accepted than the poor man below, who is once justified by grace. 

(3) The Manner of Giving the Justification. ‘Will Christ take my black sins, and am I to take his righteousness?’ Yes, poor soul, if God has made you willing, if you confess your sins. ‘Freely by his grace’ because there is no price to be paid for it; it is not of your deservings. If you bring any of your deservings, you shall never have it. The worse you are, the better to come to Christ.

Selection from Conclusion. “If he gives you the grace to make you believe, he will give you the grace to live a holy life afterward. If he gives you faith, he gives you good works afterward.” 

PART I, SKETCH XXXIII: THE BLOOD-SHEDDING

“Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9.22.)

Introduction. I will show you three fools. The first is the wounded soldier who asks the surgeon, not if there are any means of healing, but about what sword or Russian he was wounded by. He is bereft of his senses. The second is the captain speculating on where the storm took its rise instead of engaging himself to avert disaster. The man is clean gone mad. The third fool I will find among yourselves. You are sick and wounded with sin. And you ask, ‘Sir, what is the origin of evil?’ You are mad, sir, spiritually mad. You should ask, ‘How can I get rid of the evil? Are there any medicines? Is there a physician?’ Ah! you trifle with subtleties while you neglect certainties. The fact is, there is evil. And the solution is our chosen text. It is a worldwide truth, an essential law of God’s moral government. The very heathen have an inkling of it; the truth lies deep in the human breast. The blood-shedding that is meant is that of a Man—a God. There dripped blood in his sweat, blood from his brow, his back, his hands, his feet, and his side. This is the shedding of blood without which there is no remission of sin for you. Were our hearts what they should be, we would bleed away our lives in sorrow over this death. This murder was a deicide, the killing of a God. 

(1) A Negative Expressed. There is no remission without blood—the blood of Jesus Christ. You may disbelieve many things the preacher utters. But this is God’s utterance. The negative is divine in its authority. Bow yourselves to it. Some men will say that God’s way of saving men is cruel, though in truth it exhibits boundless love. So it must be, sirs; you despise your own salvation. Our text is decisive in its character. Can’t I get my sins forgiven by repentance? Not without shedding of blood. By sinning no more? Not without shedding of blood. The text is universal in its character. May a king get pardon without it? ‘Without shedding blood there is no remission.’ May the wise man? No. The benevolent man? No. ‘Without shedding of blood there is no remission.’ This is a leveling gospel. Put away your money-bags; roll up your diploma; cover that coat of arms. No hope for the best, any more than for the worst, without this shedding of blood! The text is perpetual in its character. The truth will never alter. Forgiveness can never be procured, nor the conscience cleansed, except by faith in that sacrifice. There is no use for you to satisfy your hearts with any thing less than what satisfied the Father and appeased his justice.

(2) A Positive Implied. With shedding of blood there is remission. This is a present fact. The law had demanded his blood. Death had held him. Why the open, untenanted tomb? I will tell you. The debts are paid; the sins are canceled; the remission and redemption are obtained. He has ascended into heaven with his blood to appear before God for us. God is merciful, but just also. God is just, and yet the justifier through the death of Christ. None of us ever met a man who thought he had his sins forgiven except through the blood of Christ. The Muslim does not say so, nor the infidel, nor the legalist. Do you feel you are lost? I am so glad of it, for there is remission by the blood-shedding. Do you see that Man on the cross? If Jesus died for you, you cannot be lost. Christ died in vain for no one. Are you convinced of sin? Believe in his name and you cannot be lost. Do you say you are no sinner? Then I do not know that Christ died for you. Sir, I have nothing to say to you except this, ‘The wrath to come! the wrath to come!’

Selection from Conclusion. “Do you feel yourself to be guilty, my hearer?…Let this verse be the language of your heart; adopt it and make it your own: ‘A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,/In Christ’s kind arms I fall;/He is my strength and righteousness,/My Jesus and my all.’”

PART I, SKETCH XXXII: RAHAB'S FAITH

“By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace” (Hebrews 11.31.)  

Introduction. The apostle Paul undertook to raise a grand pillar in the name of faith in the chapter before us. Faith triumphs over death when Enoch reaches heaven by another road; it triumphs over infirmity when Abraham begets a son in his old age; it divides the seas and casts down strong walls; and as though the greatest victory should be recorded last, here we have faith conquering sin. What! faith, did you fight with hideous lust? Yes, says faith, and I delivered this woman from the chambers of vice, and now her name shall be recorded in the roll of faith’s triumphs.  

(1) Rahab’s Faith was Saving. Her salvation was not merely a deliverance of her body from the sword, but redemption of her soul from hell. Nothing can snatch the soul from perdition but an atonement which is as divine as God himself. Yet faith is the instrument of accomplishing the whole work. A heroic man can tell you what a great thing it is to save a fellow-creature. But only our Lord Jesus Christ can know what it is to save a soul. Are you literally one of Rahab’s sisters in guilt? The same faith that saved Rahab can save you, if God shall grant you repentance. The greatest sinners are as welcome to Christ as the best of saints. The fountain filled with blood was opened for black ones; the robe of Christ was woven for naked ones. 

(2) Rahab’s Faith was Singular. The people of Jericho knew right well that death would come to each one if they should be attacked. Yet only this harlot repented and asked for mercy. It is hard to have singular faith, to believe a thing alone. O! it is a noble thing to be the lonely follower of despised truth. Worldly religious men will go along with the current. Rahab was ‘faithful among the faithless found.’ If you have grace in your heart you will dare to do right. 

(3) Rahab’s Faith was Stable. True faith exclaims, ‘The thing is unlikely, yet I believe it.’ Unbelief communed with Rahab this way: ‘Why put your life in jeopardy for these spies, when it is so improbable that their people, who are nothing but a parcel of slaves, will defeat the mighty Canaanites?’ All glory to God’s grace! the great sinner may become great in faith. 

(4) Rahab’s Faith was Self-Denying. She dared to risk her life for the sake of the spies. O men and brethren, trust not your faith unless it has self-denial with it. Faith and self-denial are like twins.

(5) Rahab’s Faith was Sympathizing. She desired mercy, not for herself only, but for her relations too. You are worse than a heathen and a publican if you care not for your own household. The spirit of proselyting is the spirit of Christianity. It is impossible to know the value of salvation without desiring to see others brought in. This is a first-fruit of the Spirit. It is a kind of instinct in a young Christian. Unless we desire others to taste the benefits we have enjoyed, we are either inhuman monsters or outrageous hypocrites; I think the last is more likely. 

(6) Rahab’s Faith was Sanctifying. Did Rahab continue a harlot after she had faith? No, she did not, but the name still stuck to her, as such names will. You cannot have faith, and yet live in sin. 

Selection from Conclusion. “The world has been trying all manner of processes to reform men: there is but one thing that ever will reform them, and that is, faith in the preached gospel.”