A Sermon by C H Spurgeon
Acts 16:31. And they said. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
- “But,” says another, “I do think sometimes I have a little faith, but I have so many doubts and fears. I am tempted every day to believe that Jesus Christ did not die for me, or that my belief is not genuine, or that I never experienced the regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit. Tell me, can I be a true believer in Christ if I have doubts and fears?” My answer is simply this: There is no Scripture which says: “He that believeth shall be damned, if that faith be mixed with doubts”. But “he that believeth shall be saved”, be that faith never so little, and even though it be intermingled with multitudes of doubts and fears. You remember that memorable story of our Saviour, when He was on board a ship with His disciples. The winds roared, the ship rocked to and fro, the mast was strained, the sails were rent, and the poor disciples were full of fear: “Lord, save us, we perish”. Here were doubts. What did Jesus say when He rebuked them? “Why are ye fearful?” – O ye of no faith? No; “O ye of little faith.”
So there may be little faith where there are great doubts. There is light at eventide in the air. Even though there is a great deal of darkness, yet there is light. And if your faith should never come to noonday, if it do but come to twilight, you are a saved man. Nay more, if it does not come to twilight, if your faith is but starlight, nay, candlelight, nay, a spark – if it be but a glow-worm spark, you are saved. And all your doubts and all your fears and your distresses, terrible though they may be, can never trample you in the dust, can never destroy your soul.
Do you not know that the best of God’s children are exercised with doubts and fears even to the last? Look at such a man as John Knox. There was a man who could face the frowns of a world, who could speak like a king to kings and fear no man; yet on his dying bed he was troubled about his interest in Christ because he was tempted to self-righteousness. If such a man have doubts, do you expect to live without them? If God’s brightest saints are thus exercised, if Paul himself keeps under his body lest he should be a castaway, how can you expect to live without clouds? O my dear man, drop the idea that the prevalence of your doubts disproves the truth of the promise. Again
1In the first part of this sermon, printed last month, the preacher dealt with the first three stumbling-blocks in the way of a sinner who may be coming to Christ: (1) the recollection of his past life, (2) the hardness of his heart and the lack of what he thinks is true penitence, (3) a consciousness of the smallness of his faith.
believe; away with all your doubts. Sink or swim, cast yourself on Jesus; and you cannot be lost, for His honour is engaged to save every soul that puts its trust in Him.
- “Ah,” says another, “but you have not yet hit upon my fear.” When I first knew the Saviour, I used to try myself in a certain manner and, as a result, I often threw stumbling-blocks in my path. And therefore I can speak very affectionately to any of you who are doing the same. Sometimes I would go up into my room and, by way of self-examination, I used to ask myself this question: Am I afraid to die? If I should drop down dead in my bedroom, can I say that I should joyfully close my eyes? Well, it often happened that I could not honestly say so. I used to feel that death would be a very solemn thing. And then I said, “I have never believed in Christ, for if I had put my trust in the Lord Jesus, I should not be afraid to die, but I should be quite confident”.
I do not doubt that there are many here who are saying, “I cannot follow Christ, because I am afraid to die. I cannot believe that Jesus Christ will save me, because the sight of death makes me tremble.” Ah poor soul, many of God’s blessed ones have, through fear of death, been much of their lifetime subject to bondage. I know precious children of God now; I believe that, when they die, they will die triumphantly; but I know this, that the thought of death is never pleasing to them. And this is accounted for because God has stamped on nature this law – love of life and self-preservation. And again, it is natural enough that the man who has kindred and friends should scarcely like to leave behind those that are so dear. I know that, when he gets more grace, he will rejoice in the thought of death; yet I do know that there are many quite safe, who could die triumphantly, but who now, in the prospect of death, feel afraid of it.
I remember my aged grandfather once preach a sermon which I have not forgotten. He was preaching from the text, “The God of all grace”, and he somewhat interested the assembly, after describing the different kinds of grace that God gave, by saying at the end of each sentence: “But there is one kind of grace that you do not need”. Then he wound up by saying, “You don’t need dying grace in living moments, but you shall have dying grace when you need it”.
Now you are testing yourself by a condition in which you are not placed. If you are placed in the condition, you shall have grace enough if you put your trust in Christ. In a party of friends we were discussing the question whether, if the days of martyrdom should come, we were prepared to be burned. Well now, I must frankly say that, speaking as I feel today, I am not prepared to be burned. But I do believe that if there were a stake in Smithfield
and I knew that I were to be burned there at one o’clock, I should have grace enough to be burned at one o’clock. But I have not yet got to a quarter past twelve, and the time is not come yet. Do not expect dying grace until you need it; and when the time comes, you may be sure you will have sufficient grace to bear it. Cast out that stumbling-block then. Rest yourself on Christ, and trust a living Christ to help you in your dying hour.
- Another most grievous perplexity to many a seeking soul is this: “I would trust Christ, but I feel no joy. I hear the children of God singing sweetly about their privileges; I hear them saying that they have been to the top of Pisgah and have viewed the promised land, have taken a pleasant prospect of the world to come, but my faith yields me no joy. I hope I do believe, but at the same time I have none of those raptures. My worldly troubles press heavily upon me, and sometimes even my spiritual woes are greater than I can bear.”
Ah poor soul, let me cast out that stone from your road. Remember, it is not written, “He that is joyful shall be saved”, but, “He that believeth shall be saved”. Your faith will make you joyful by and by, but it is as powerful to save you even when it does not make you rejoice. Look at many of God’s people, how sad and sorrowful they have been! I know they ought not to be. This is their sin, but still it is a sin that does not destroy the efficacy of faith. Notwithstanding all the sorrows of the saint, faith still stays alive, and God is still true to his promise. Remember, it is not what you feel that saves you; it is what you believe. It is not feeling but believing. “We walk by faith, not by sight.” When I feel my soul as cold as an iceberg, as hard as a rock, and as sinful as Satan, yet even then faith ceases not to justify. Faith prevails as truly in the midst of sad feelings as of happy feelings, for then, standing alone, it proves the majesty of its might. Believe, O son of God, believe in Him, and do not look for anything in yourself.
- Again, many are distressed because they have blasphemous thoughts. Here too I can heartily sympathize. I remember a certain narrow and crooked lane in a country town, along which I was walking one day while I was seeking the Saviour. Suddenly the most fearful oaths that any of you can conceive rushed through my heart. I put my hand to my mouth to prevent the utterance. I had not, that I know of, ever heard those words; and I am certain that I had never in my life used so much as one of them, for I had never been profane. But these things sorely beset me; for half an hour together the most fearful imprecations would dash through my brain. O how I groaned and cried before God! That temptation passed away; but a few days later it was renewed again. When I was in prayer or reading the Bible, these blasphemous thoughts would pour in upon me more than at any other time.
I consulted an aged godly man about it. He said to me, “O, many of the people of God have proved all this before you. But,” said he, “do you hate these thoughts?” “I do,” I truly said. “Then,” said he, “they are not yours; treat them as the old parishes used to do with vagrants – whip them and send them on to their own parish. So do with them,” said he; “groan over them; repent of them; and send them on to the devil, the father of them, to whom they belong – for they are not yours.”
Do you not recollect how John Bunyan hits off the picture? He says, when Christian was going through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, “There stepped up one to him, and whispered blasphemous thoughts into his ear, so that poor Christian thought they were his own thoughts; but they were not his thoughts at all, but the injections of a blasphemous spirit”. So when you are about to lay hold on Christ, Satan will ply all his engines and try to destroy you. He cannot bear to lose one of his slaves; he will invent a fresh temptation for each believer so that he may not put his trust in Christ. Now come, poor soul, notwithstanding all these blasphemous thoughts in your soul; dare to put your trust in Christ. Even should those thoughts have been more blasphemous than any you have ever heard, come and trust in Christ; come and cast yourself on Him. I have heard that, when an elephant is going over a bridge, he will sound the timber with his foot to see if it will bear him over. Come, you who think yourself an elephantine sinner, here is a bridge that is strong enough for you, even with all these thoughts of yours: “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men”. Throw that in Satan’s face, and trust yourself in Christ.
- One other stumbling-block, and I will have done. Some there be that say, “I would trust in Christ to save me if I could see that my faith brought forth fruits. When I would do good, evil is present with me.” Excuse me for always bringing in my own feelings as an illustration, but I feel, when I am preaching to tried sinners, that the testimony of one’s own experience is generally more powerful than any other illustration that can be found. It is not, believe me, any display of egotism, but the simple desire to come home to you, that makes me state what I have felt myself.
The first Sabbath after I came to Christ, I went to a Methodist chapel. The sermon was on this text: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” I had just got as far as that in the week. I knew that I had put my trust in Christ; and I knew that, when I sat in that house of prayer, my faith was simply and solely fixed on the atonement of the Redeemer. But I had a weight on my mind, because I could not be as holy as I wanted to be. I could not live without sin. When I rose in the morning I thought I would abstain from every hard word, from every evil thought and
look; and I came up to that chapel groaning because, “when I would do good, evil [was] present with me”. The minister said that, when Paul wrote the verse I have quoted, he was not a Christian – that this was his experience before he knew the Lord.
Ah, what error, for I know that Paul was a Christian, and I know that the more Christians look to themselves the more they will have to groan, because they cannot be what they want to be. What, you will not believe in Christ until you are perfect! Then you will never believe in Him. You will not trust the precious Jesus till you have no sins to trust Him with? Then you will never trust Him at all. For rest assured you will never be perfect till you see the face of God in heaven. I knew one man who thought himself perfect, and that man was humpbacked. This was my rebuke to his pride: “Surely if the Lord gave you a perfect soul He would give you a perfect body to carry it in”. Perfection will not be found this side of the grave. Your business is to trust in Christ. You must depend on nothing but the blood of Christ. Trust in Christ and you stand secure. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life.”
It is our duty to fight against corruption; it is our privilege to conquer it; it is our honour to feel that we are fighting against sin; it shall be our glory one day to tread it beneath our feet. But do not expect complete victory today. Your very consciousness of sin proves that you are alive. The very fact that you are not what you want to be proves that there are some high and noble thoughts in you that could not have come by nature. You were content with yourself some six weeks ago, were you not? And the fact that you are discontented now, proves that God has put a new life into you which makes you seek after a higher and better element in which to breathe. When you become what you want to be on earth, then despair. When the law justifies you, then you have fallen from grace; for Paul has said. “whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace”. But while I feel that the law condemns me, it is my joy to know that, believing in Christ, “there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”.
Now, though I have been trying to clear the way, I feel conscious that very likely I have been putting a stone or two in the road myself. May God forgive me; it is a sin of inadvertence. I would lay this road as straight and clear as ever was turnpike road between one city and another. Sinner, there is nothing which can rob you of your right to believe in Christ. You are freely invited to come to the marriage banquet. The table is spread, and the invitation freely given. There are no porters at the door to keep you out, there are none to ask a ticket of admission of you:
“Let not conscience make you linger;
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him;
This He gives you:
’Tis His Spirit’s rising beam.”
Come to Him just as you are. But I know that, when we sit in our studies, it seems a light thing to preach the gospel and make people believe in Christ; but when we come to practice, it is the hardest thing in the world. If I were to tell you to do some great thing, you would do it; but when it is: “Believe, wash, and be clean!” you will not do it. If I said, “Give me £10 000”, you would give it. You would crawl a thousand miles on your hands and knees, or drink the bitterest draught that was ever concocted; but this trusting in Christ is too hard for your proud spirit. Ah sinner, are you too proud to be saved? Come, man, I beseech you for the love of Christ, by the love of your own soul, come with me, and let us go together to the foot of the cross. Believe on Him who hangs groaning there; O put your trust in Him who is risen from the dead and has led captivity captive. And if you trust Him, poor sinner, you shall not be disappointed; it shall not be trust misplaced.
Again I say it, I am content to be lost if you are lost trusting in Christ; I will make my bed in hell with you should God reject you, if you put your simple trust in Christ. I dare to say that and to look that boldly in the face, for you would be the first sinner who was ever cast away trusting in Jesus. “But”, says one, “I cannot think that such a wretch as I am can have a right to believe.” Soul, I tell you it is not whether you are a wretch, or not a wretch; it is the command that is your warrant. You are commanded to believe. And when a command comes home with power, the power comes with the command. And he who is commanded, being made willing, casts himself on Christ and believes and is saved.
I have laboured this morning to try to make myself as clear as I can about this doctrine. I know that, if any man is saved, it is the work of God the Holy Ghost from first to last. If any man is regenerate, it is not of the will of the flesh, nor of blood, but of God. But I do not see how that great truth interferes with this other: Whosoever believeth in Christ shall be saved. And I would again, even to the falling down on my knees, as though God did beseech you by me, pray you: “In Christ’s stead be ye reconciled to God”. And this is the reconciliation: That you “believe on [the Lord Jesus Christ] whom He hath sent”, that you trust Christ.
Do you understand me? That you cast yourself on Him; that you depend on nothing but what He has done. Saved you must be – lost you cannot be
– if you fling yourself wholly upon Christ, and cast the whole burden of your sins, your doubts, your fears, and your anxieties wholly there. Now, this is preaching free-grace doctrine. And if anyone wonders how a Calvinist can preach thus, let me say that this is the preaching that Calvin preached, and, better still, it is the preaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles. We have divine warrant when we tell you: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned”.