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.” 

PART I, SKETCH XXXI: FAITH

“Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11.6.) 

Introduction. The Old Assembly’s Catechism is correct in saying that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever. It is equally truthful to say that man’s end is to please God, for in doing so he will also please himself. He that pleases God is, by divine grace, journeying to the ultimate reward. He who is ill-pleasing to God must be banished from God’s presence. Do what you may, be as lovely and of good repute as can be, yet you will not be pleasing to God without faith. This is an old law. Cain and Abel brought their best offerings to God. Only Abel’s was accepted, being seasoned with faith. This rule will hold until the last man ascends to heaven. 

(1) An Exposition. What is faith? The old Puritan writers, by far the most sensible, tell us that faith consists of three things: knowledge, assent, and affiance. The first thing in faith is knowledge. A man cannot believe what he does not know. Some have heard the minister cry, ‘Believe! believe! believe!’ And they have got it into their heads that they are believers. There must be some degree of knowledge before there can be faith. By searching and reading comes knowledge, and by knowledge comes faith, and through faith comes salvation. But a man may know a thing and not have faith. Therefore assent is necessary. We must agree with what we know. Whosoever would be saved must know the Scriptures, and give his full assent to them. But a man may have all this, and yet not possess true faith. The chief part of faith is affiance to the truth: taking hold of it and resting on it for salvation. I shall not be saved and delivered from wrath by knowing Christ is a Saviour and that his atonement is sufficient. I shall be saved by making his atonement my refuge. With faith men are saved; without it men are damned. 

(2) An Argument. Why is it impossible to please God without faith? There is not one case in Scripture of a man pleasing God without faith. Judas repented, and then hanged himself. Saul confessed his sins, and yet went on as before. Like those who cast their crowns at God’s feet, we must bow in order to be saved. And faith is necessary because works can’t save. The key of works is broken, for you have broken the commandments. Christ alone can open heaven for you. If you think to enter heaven by your good works, they will be kindled into a flame wherein you must suffer for ever. Take heed of your good works; get them after faith. To be saved and to please God, there must be union with Christ. Christ is on the shore, so to speak, holding the rope of faith, and when we lay hold on that, he pulls us to shore. Grappling on your works with hooks of steel will avail you nothing. Without faith it is impossible to please God because it is impossible to preserve holiness without faith. Many Christians are tremendously religious in pious parlors and chapels. But if they are exposed to ridicule, it is all over with religion until the next fine day. That kind of religion is worse than irreligion. There is no shame in being a follower of Jesus. The only thing to be ashamed of is hypocrisy. Be true to your profession. 

(3) A Question. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart? If so, you may hope to be saved. He that has faith has renounced his own righteousness. True faith begets love to Christ. True faith begets good works. No one can have faith unless he also has holiness. 

Selection from Conclusion. “Cast yourselves upon his love and blood, his doing and his dying, his miseries and his merits; and if you do this you shall never fall, but you shall be saved now, and saved in that great day, when not to be saved will be horrible indeed.”

PART I, SKETCH XXX: CONFESSION OF SIN, A SERMON WITH SEVEN TEXTS

Introduction. Without a hearty confession of sins to God, we have no promise of mercy through the blood of the Redeemer. “Whosoever confesseth his sins and forsaketh them shall find mercy.” 

(1) The Hardened Sinner. Pharaoh—‘I have sinned.’ Why this confession from the proud tyrant? Because the Lord sent hail and fire upon Egypt. Pharaoh is a type of multitudes of the same class. When cholera strikes, churches are crammed with confessors. But once the cholera has done its work, conviction stops. Sirs, God has not forgotten the vows you then made. Do you think to lie against God and go unpunished? This first style of penitence is utterly worthless.

(2) The Double-Minded Man. Balaam—‘I have sinned.’ This man feels his sin deeply, but is worldly-minded. To quote Ralph Erskine, ‘To good and evil equal bent/And both a devil and a saint.’ He refuses to curse Israel, but advises the king of Moab to entice Israel from her God. Some men seem born with two characters. Balaam offered sacrifices to God on the altar of Baal. Many offer sacrifices to God on the shrine of Mammon. They give to the church, then enrich themselves by grinding the poor for bread. The double-minded man’s confession is of no avail. 

(3) The Insincere Man. Saul—‘I have sinned.’ To some extent Balaam was sincere in two things. Saul was the opposite, insincere in every thing. There are many such in every Christian assembly: men easily molded! Say what you please to them, they always agree. They confess their sins only to please someone. To say ‘I have sinned’ in an unmeaning manner is a mockery of God.

(4) The Doubtful Penitent. Achan—‘I have sinned.’ Achan stole some prey from Jericho and was put to death for it. He seems to have made a full confession of his sin. The most we can say is that we hope he was saved at last. His case, like the deathbed conversion, is doubtful. A physician once kept a record of a thousand persons who thought they were dying, but didn’t, and whom he thought were penitents. He says they all returned to their sins afterward except for two. 

(5) The Repentance of Despair. Judas—‘I have sinned.’ This is the worst case, the remorse of conscience. You tell such a man that Christ died for sinners. He answers, ‘There is no hope for me. I have cursed God to his face.’ Ah! there may be a man here who may have such a death as that. I warn him before he comes to it. May the Holy Spirit grant his turning unto God.  

(6) The Repentance of the Saint. Job—‘I have sinned.’ Job was a saint, but he sinned. This is the repentance of one who is a child of God already, an acceptable repentance before God. David was of this specimen. Study his penitential Psalms, which are full of weeping humility. 

(7) The Blessed Confession. The Prodigal—‘I have sinned.’ He has run away from a good home and a kind father. He has spent all his money on harlots. Look, there he is, with the fellow-commoners of the pigsty, hungry and miserable. Off he goes back to his father. He confesses, ‘I am not worthy to be called thy son.’ The father answers, ‘No more of that. I forgive you all.’ 

Selection from Conclusion. “’Ah, sir, I am so black, so filthy, so vile.’ Well, come along with you—you cannot be blacker than the prodigal…‘Him that cometh unto me I will no wise cast out.’”