relying on them, and consequently was on the wrong road. Then the Holy Spirit enabled me to look to Christ hanging on the cross. I did not give up my prayers, but I did put the Lord Jesus, the object of my faith, far above all prayers, and then when I had looked to him hanging, dying, bleeding, my soul rejoiced, and I fell upon my knees no more to cry with agony, but to exclaim with delight, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” But if in that day, instead of simply looking to Christ, I had said, “No, Lord, I will not wash in Jordan and be clean; I will wait until Elijah comes out and strikes the leper with his hand; I will not look to the brazen serpent. That is legal preaching, that is Arminian doctrine. I will wait until the serpent knocks right against my eyes,” it would have never come. But having looked simply to Christ, I cast all my other trust away; and how my soul rejoices in the liberty by which Christ makes his people free. So shall it be with you. The gospel is this day freely preached to you. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came down from heaven, was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate; and was crucified for sin. Turn your eyes now to that cross. Behold a God expiring. Behold the Infinite hanging on the tree in pangs. Those sufferings must save you; will you rely upon them? Without any other trust, shall the cross be the unbuttressed pillar of your hope? It so, you are saved. The moment you believe in Jesus, the Redeemer, you are saved, your sins are forgiven; God has accepted you as his child; you are in a state of grace; you are passed from death to life. Not only are you not condemned but you never shall be. There is for you a crown, a harp, a mansion, in the realms of the glorified. Oh that God may help you now to go down into Egypt for heavenly grain, and may you return with your sacks full to the brim.
19. In conclusion, I make this last remark. — Did you notice the argument Jacob used why the sons should go to Egypt? It was this — “That we may live, and not die.” Sinner, this is my argument with you this morning. My dear hearers, the gospel of Christ is a matter of life and death with you. It is not a matter of little importance, but of all importance. There is an alternative before you; you will either be eternally damned, or everlastingly saved. Despise Christ, and neglect his great salvation, and you will be lost, as sure as you live. Believe in Christ; put your trust alone in him, and everlasting life is yours. What argument can be more potent than this to men who love themselves? Are you prepared for everlasting burnings? Friend, are you ready to make your bed in hell, and to be lost? If so, reject Christ. But if you desire to be blessed for ever, to be accepted by God in the tremendous day of judgment, and to be crowned by him in the day of the reward, I beseech you, hear again the gospel, and obey it. “He who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and is baptized, shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be damned.” For this is the gospel; it is yet again preached to you, and this is its solitary mandate — “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” Oh Lord, help us now to believe, if we have not believed before, for Jesus’ sake!
Just published, No. 7 of the New Park Street Tracts, entitled, “SO MANY CALLS,” being the Anecdote to referred to in No. 227 of the “New Park Street Pulpit.” Price 1s 4d. per 100.
The Fainting Warrior
No. 235-5:81. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, January 23, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. {Romans 7:24,25}
1. If I chose to occupy your time with controversial matters, I might prove conclusively that the apostle Paul is here describing his own experience as a Christian. Some have affirmed that he is merely describing what he was before conversion, and not what he was when he became the recipient of the grace of God. But such people are evidently mistaken, and I believe wilfully mistaken; for any simple hearted, candid mind, reading through this chapter, could not fall into such an error. It is Paul the apostle, who was not less than the very greatest of the apostles — it is Paul, the mighty servant of God, a very prince in Israel, one of the King’s mighty men — it is Paul, the saint and the apostle, who here exclaims, “Oh wretched man that I am!”
2. Now, humble Christians are often the dupes of a very foolish error. They look up to certain advanced saints and able ministers, and they say, “Surely, such men as these do not suffer as I do; they do not contend with the same evil passions as those which vex and trouble me.” Ah! if they knew the heart of those men, if they could read their inward conflicts, they would soon discover that the nearer a man lives to God, the more intensely he has to mourn over his own evil heart, and the more his Master honours him in his service, the more also does the evil of the flesh vex and tease him day by day. Perhaps, this error is more natural, since it is certainly more common, with regard to apostolic saints. We have been in the habit of saying, Saint Paul, and Saint John, as if they were more saints than any others among the children of God. They are all saints whom God has called by his grace, and sanctified by his Spirit; but somehow we very foolishly put the apostles and the early saints into another category, and do not venture to look on them as common mortals. We look upon them as some extraordinary beings, who could not be men of like passions with ourselves. We are told in Scripture that our Saviour was “tempted in all points like as we are”; and yet we fall into the outrageous error of imagining that the apostles, who were far inferior to the Lord Jesus, escaped these temptations, and were ignorant of these conflicts. The fact is, if you had seen the apostle Paul, you would have thought he was remarkably like the rest of the chosen family: and if you had talked with him, you would have said, “Why, Paul, I find that your experience and mine exactly agree. You are more faithful, more holy, and more deeply taught than I, but you have the very same trials to endure. No, in some respects you are more severely tried than I.” Do not look upon the ancient saints as being exempt either from infirmities or sins; and do not regard them with that mystic reverence which almost makes you an idolater. Their holiness is attainable even by you, and their faults are to be censured as much as your own. I believe it is a Christian’s duty to force his way into the inner circle of saintship; and if these saints were superior to us in their attainments, as they certainly were, let us follow them; let us press forward up to, yes, and beyond them, for I do not see that this is impossible. We have the same light that they had, the same grace is accessible to us, and why should we rest satisfied until we have outrun them in the heavenly race? Let us bring them down to the sphere of common mortals. If Jesus was the Son of Man, and very man, “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh”; so were the apostles; and it is an outrageous error to suppose that they were not the subjects of the same emotions, and the same inward trials, as the very lowliest of the people of God. So far, this may give us comfort and encouragement, when we find that we are engaged in a battle in which apostles themselves have had to fight.
3. And now we shall notice this morning, first, the two natures, secondly their constant battle; thirdly, we shall step aside and look at the weary warrior, and hear him cry, “Oh wretched man that I am”; and then we shall turn our eye in another direction, and see that fainting warrior girding up his loins for the conflict, and becoming an expectant victor, while he shouts, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
4. I. First, then, THE TWO NATURES. Carnal men, unrenewed men, have one nature — a nature which they inherited from their parents, and which, through the ancient transgression of Adam, is evil, only evil, and that continually. Mere human nature, such as is common to every man, has in it many excellent traits, when judging it between man and man. A merely natural man may be honest, upright, kind, and generous, he may have noble and generous thoughts, and may attain to a true and manly speech; but when we come to matters of true religion, spiritual matters that concern God and eternity, the natural man can do nothing. The carnal mind, whose ever mind it may be, is fallen, and is at enmity with God, does not know the things of God, nor can it ever know them. Now, when a man becomes a Christian, he becomes one by the infusion of a new nature. He is naturally “dead in trespasses and sins,” “without God and without hope.” The Holy Spirit enters into him, and implants in him a new principle, a new nature, a new life.
