desire, or good deed, that dwells in us by nature.
9. To go a little further: this truth, which holds good so far, holds good all the way. God’s people, after they are called by grace, are preserved in Christ Jesus; they are “kept by the power of God through faith to salvation”; they are not permitted to sin away their eternal inheritance, but as temptations arise they have strength given with which to encounter them, and as sin blackens them they are washed afresh, and again cleansed. But note, the reason why God keeps his people is the same as what made them his people — his own free sovereign grace. If, my brother, you have been delivered in the hour of temptation, pause and remember that you were not delivered for your own sake. There was nothing in you that deserved the deliverance. If you have been fed and supplied in your hour of need, it is not because you have been a faithful servant of God, or because you have been a prayerful Christian; it is simply and only because of God’s mercy. He is not moved to anything he does for you by anything that you do for him; his motive for blessing you lies wholly and entirely in the depths of his own heart. Blessed be God, his people shall be kept.
Nor death, nor hell shall ever remove
His favourites from his breast;
In the dear bosom of his love
They must for ever rest.
But why? Because they are holy? Because they are sanctified? Because they serve God with good works? No, but because he in his sovereign grace has loved them, does love them, and will love them, even to the end.
10. And now to conclude my exposition of this text, this shall hold good in heaven itself. The day is coming when every blood bought, blood washed child of God shall walk the golden streets arrayed in white. Our hands shall soon bear the palm; our ears shall be delighted with celestial melodies, and our eyes filled with the transporting visions of God’s glory. But note, the only reason why God shall bring us to heaven shall be his own love, and not because we deserved it. We must fight the fight, but we do not win the victory because we fight it; we must labour, but the wage at the day’s end shall be a wage of grace, and not of debt. We must honour God here, looking for the recompence of the reward; but that recompence will not be given on a legal ground, because we merited it, but given to us entirely because God had loved us, for no reason that was in us. When you and I and each of us shall enter heaven, our song shall be, “Not to us, not to us, but to your name be all the glory”; and that shall be true, it shall not be a mere exaggeration of gratitude. It shall be true; we shall be compelled to sing it, because we could not sing anything else. We shall feel that we did nothing, and that we were nothing, but that God did it all — that we had nothing in us to be the motive of his doing it, but that his motive lay in himself; therefore to him shall be every particle of the honour for ever and ever.
11. Now, this, I take it, is the meaning of the text; it is distasteful to the great majority, even of professing Christians in this age. It is a doctrine that requires a great deal of salt, or else few people will receive it. It is very unsavoury to them. However, there it stands. “Let God be true, and every man a liar.” His truth we must preach, and this we must proclaim. Salvation is “not of men, neither by man; not of the will of the flesh, nor of blood,” nor of birth, but of the sovereign will of God, and God alone.
12. II. And now, in the second place, I have to ILLUSTRATE AND ENFORCE THIS TEXT.
13. Consider for a moment man’s character. It will humble us, and it will tend to confirm this truth in our minds. Let me give you an illustration. I will consider man as a criminal. He certainly is such in the sight of God, and I shall not be slandering him. Suppose now that some great criminal is at last overtaken in his sin, and jailed in Newgate. He has committed high treason, murder, rebellion, and every possible iniquity. He has broken all the laws of the realm — every one of them. The public cry is everywhere — “This man must die; the laws cannot be maintained unless he shall be made an example of their rigour. He who does not bear the sword in vain must this time let the sword taste blood. The man must die; he richly deserves it.” You look over his character: you cannot see one solitary redeeming trait. He is an old offender; he has so long persevered in his iniquity that you are compelled to say, “The case is hopeless with this man; his crimes have such aggravation we cannot make an apology for him, even if we should try. No cunning itself of the Jesuits could devise any pretence of excuse, or any hope of a plea for this abandoned wretch; let him die!” Now, if her Majesty the Queen, having in her hands the sovereign power of life and death, chooses that this man shall not die, but that he shall be spared, do you not see as plain as daylight, that the only reason that can move her to spare that man, must be her own love, her own compassion? For, as I have supposed already that there is nothing in that man’s character that can be a plea for mercy, but that, contrariwise, his whole character cries aloud for vengeance against his sin. Whether we like it or not, this is just the truth concerning ourselves. This is just our character and position before God. Ah! my hearer, you may turn upon your heel, disgusted and offended; but there are some here who feel it to be solemnly true in their own experience, and they will therefore drink in the doctrine, for it is the only way by which they can be saved. My hearer, your conscience perhaps is telling you this morning that you have sinned so heinously that there is not an inlet for a solitary ray of hope in your character. You have added to your sins this great one, that you have rebelled against the Most High wantonly and wickedly. If you have not committed all the sins in the calendar of crime, it has been because providence has restrained your hand, your heart has been black enough for it all. You feel that the vileness of your imagination and desires has achieved the consummation of human guilt, and further you could not go. Your sins have prevailed against you, and have gone over your head. Now, man, the only ground upon which God can save you is his own love. He cannot save you because you deserve it, for you do not deserve it, because there is no excuse that might be made for your sin. No, you are without any excuse, and you feel it. Oh! bless his dear name, that he has devised this way, by which he can save you upon the basis of his own sovereign love and unbounded grace, without anything in you. I want you to go back to Newgate again to this criminal. We suppose now that this criminal is visited by her Majesty in person. She goes to him, and she says to him, “Rebel, traitor, murderer, I have in my heart compassion for you; you do not deserve it; but I am come this day to you, to tell you that if you repent you shall have mercy at my hands.” Suppose this man, springing up, should curse her — curse this angel of mercy to her face, spit upon her, and utter blasphemies, and imprecate curses upon her head. She retires; she is gone; but so great is her compassion, that the next day she sends a messenger, and days, and weeks, and months, and years, she continually sends messengers, and these go to him, and they say, “If you will repent of your transgressions you shall have mercy; not because you deserve it, but because her Majesty is compassionate, and out of her gracious soul she desires your salvation. Will you repent?” Suppose this man should curse at the messenger, plug his ears against the message, spit upon him, tell him he does not care for him at all. Or to suppose a better case — suppose he turns around upon his seat and says, “I do not care; whether I am hanged or not; I will take my chance along with other people; I shall take no notice of you.” And suppose worse than that, rising from his seat, he indulges again in all the crimes for which he has already been condemned, and plunges headlong afresh into the very sins which have brought his neck under the rope of the gallows. Now, if her Majesty would spare such a man as that, on what terms can she do it? You say, “Why, she cannot, unless she does it out of love; she cannot because of any merit in him, because such a beast as that ought to die.” And now what are you and I by nature but like this? And my unconverted hearer, what is this except a picture of you? Has not God himself visited your conscience? and has he not said to you, “Sinner! come now, let us reason together; though your sins are as scarlet they shall be as wool.” And what have you done? Plugged your ears against the voice of conscience — cursed and swore at God, blasphemed his holy name, despised his Word, and railed against his ministers. And this day, again, with tears in his eyes, a servant of God is come to you, and his message is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
