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SUBJECT: 21 JOH 6:44 Human Inability
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Human Inability
March 7, 1858
by
C. H. SPURGEON
1834-1892
"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw
him."-- Joh_6:44.
Coming to Christ" is a very common phrase in Holy Scripture. It is
used to express those acts of the soul wherein, leaving at once our self-
righteousness, and our sins, we fly unto the Lord Jesus Christ, and
receive his righteousness to be our covering, and his blood to be our
atonement. Coming to Christ, then, embraces in it repentance, self-
negation, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and it sums within itself all
those things which are the necessary attendants of these great states of
heart, such as the belief of the truth, earnestness of prayer to God, the
submission of the soul to the precepts of God's gospel, and all those
things which accompany the dawn of salvation in the soul. Coming to
Christ is just the one essential thing for a sinner's salvation. He that
cometh not to Christ, do what he may, or think what he may, is yet in
"the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity." Coming to Christ is
the very first effect of regeneration. No sooner is the soul quickened
than it at once discovers its lost estate, is horrified thereat, looks out for
a refuge, and believing Christ to be a suitable one, flies to him and
reposes in him. Where there is not this coming to Christ, it is certain
that there is as yet no quickening; where there is no quickening, the
soul is dead in trespasses and sins, and being dead it cannot enter into
the kingdom of heaven. We have before us now an announcement very
startling, some say very obnoxious. Coming to Christ, though described
by some people as being the very easiest thing in all the world, is in our
text declared to be a thing utterly and entirely impossible to any man,
unless the Father shall draw him to Christ. It shall be our business, then,
to enlarge upon this declaration. We doubt not that it will always be
offensive to carnal nature, but, nevertheless, the offending of human
nature is sometimes the first step towards bringing it to bow itself
before God. And if this be the effect of a painful process, we can forget
the pain and rejoice in the glorious consequences.
I shall endeavour this morning, first of all, to notice man's inability,
wherein it consists. Secondly, the Father's drawings--what these are,
and how they are exerted upon the soul. And then I shall conclude by
noticing a sweet consolation which may be derived from this seemingly
barren and terrible text.
I. First, then, MAN'S INABILITY. The text says, "No man can come to
me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." Wherein does this
inability lie?
First, it does not lie in any physical defect. If in coming to Christ,
moving the body or walking with the feet should be of any assistance,
certainly man has all physical power to come to Christ in that sense. I
remember to have heard a very foolish Antinomian declare, that he did
not believe any man had the power to walk to the house of God unless
the Father drew him. Now the man was plainly foolish, because he must
have seen that as long as a man was alive and had legs, it was as easy
for him to walk to the house of God as to the house of Satan. If coming
to Christ includes the utterance of a prayer, man has no physical defect
in that respect, if he be not dumb, he can say a prayer as easily as he can
utter blasphemy. It is as easy for a man to sing one of the songs of Zion
as to sing a profane and libidinous song. There is no lack of physical
power in coming to Christ. All that can be wanted with regard to the
bodily strength man most assuredly has, and any part of salvation
which consists in that is totally and entirely in the power of man
without any assistance from the Spirit of God. Nor, again, does this
inability lie in any mental lack. I can believe this Bible to be true just as
easily as I can believe any other book to be true. So far as believing on
Christ is an act of the mind, I am just as able to believe on Christ as I
am able to believe on anybody else. Let his statement be but true, it is
idle to tell me I cannot believe it. I can believe the statement that Christ
makes as well as I can believe the statement of any other person. There
is no deficiency of faculty in the mind: it is as capable of appreciating
as a mere mental act the guilt of sin, as it is of appreciating the guilt of
assassination. It is just as possible for me to exercise the mental idea of
seeking God, as it is to exercise the thought of ambition. I have all the
mental strength and power that can possibly be needed, so far as mental
power is needed in salvation at all. Nay, there is not any man so
ignorant that he can plead a lack of intellect as an excuse for rejecting
the gospel. The defect, then, does not lie either in the body, or, what we
are bound to call, speaking theologically, the mind. It is not any lack or
deficiency there, although it is the vitiation of the mind, the corruption
or the ruin of it, which, after all, is the very essence of man's inability.
Permit me to show you wherein this inability of man really does lie. It
lies deep in his nature. Through the fall, and through our own sin, the
nature of man has become so debased, and depraved, and corrupt, that it
is impossible for him to come to Christ without the assistance of God
the Holy Spirit. Now, in trying to exhibit how the nature of man thus
renders him unable to come to Christ, you must allow me just to take
this figure. You see a sheep; how willingly it feeds upon the herbage!
You never knew a sheep sigh after carrion; it could not live on lion's
food. Now bring me a wolf; and you ask me whether a wolf cannot eat
grass, whether it cannot be just as docile and as domesticated as the
sheep. I answer, no; because its nature is contrary thereunto. You say,
"Well, it has ears and legs; can it not hear the shepherd's voice, and
follow him whithersoever he leadeth it ?" I answer, certainly; there is
no physical cause why it cannot do so, but its nature forbids, and
therefore I say it cannot do so. Can it not be tamed? cannot its ferocity
be removed? Probably it may so far be subdued that it may become
apparently tame; but there will always be a marked distinction between
it and the sheep, because there is a distinction in nature. Now, the
reason why man cannot come to Christ, is not because he cannot come,
so far as his body or his mere power of mind is concerned, but because
his nature is so corrupt that he has neither the will nor the power to
come to Christ unless drawn by the Spirit. But let me give you a better
illustration. You see a mother with her babe in her arms. You put a
knife into her hand, and tell her to stab that babe to the heart. She
replies, and very truthfully, "I cannot." Now, so far as her bodily power
is concerned, she can, if she pleases; there is the knife, and there is the
child. The child cannot resist, and she has quite sufficient strength in
her hand immediately to stab it to its heart. But she is quite correct
when she says she cannot do it. As a mere act of the mind, it is quite
possible she might think of such a thing as killing the child, and yet she
says she cannot think of such a thing; and she does not say falsely, for
her nature as a mother forbids her doing a thing from which her soul
revolts. Simply because she is that child's parent she feels she cannot
kill it. It is even so with a sinner. Coming to Christ is so obnoxious to
human nature that, although, so far as physical and mental forces are
concerned, (and these have but a very narrow sphere in salvation) men
could come if they would: it is strictly correct to say that they cannot
and will not unless the Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them. Let
us enter a little more deeply into the subject, and try to show you
wherein this inability of man consists, in its more minute particulars.
I. First, it lies in the obstinacy of the human will. "Oh!" saith the
Arminian, "men may be saved if they will." We reply, "My dear sir, we
all believe that; but it is just the if they will that is the difficulty. We
assert that no man will come to Christ unless he be drawn; nay, we do
not assert it, but Christ himself declares it--"Ye will not come unto me
that ye might have life;' and as long as that "ye will not come' stands on
record in Holy Scripture, we shall not be brought to believe in any
doctrine of the freedom of the human will." It is strange how people,
when talking about free-will, talk of things which they do not at all
understand. "Now," says one, "I believe men can be saved if they will."
My dear sir, that is not the question at all. The question is, are men ever
found naturally willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel
of Christ? We declare, upon Scriptural authority, that the human will is
so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, and so inclined to
everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good,
that without the powerful. supernatural, irresistible influence of the
Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained towards Christ. You
reply, that men sometimes are willing, without the help of the Holy
Spirit. I answer--Did you ever meet with any person who was? Scores
and hundreds, nay, thousands of Christians have I conversed with, of
different opinions, young and old, but it has never been my lot to meet
with one who could affirm that he came to Christ of himself, without
being drawn. The universal confession of all true believers is this--"I
know that unless Jesus Christ had sought me when a stranger
wandering from the fold of God, I would to this very hour have been
wandering far from him, at a distance from him, and loving that
distance well." With common consent, all believers affirm the truth,
that men will not come to Christ till the Father who hath sent Christ
doth draw them.
2. Again, not only is the will obstinate, but the understanding is
darkened. Of that we have abundant Scriptural proof. I am not now
making mere assertions, but stating doctrines authoritatively taught in
the Holy Scriptures, and known in the conscience of every Christian
man--that the understanding of man is so dark, that hecannot by any
means understand the things of God until his understanding has been
opened. Man is by nature blind within. The cross of Christ, so laden
with glories, and glittering with attractions, never attracts him, because
he is blind and cannot see its beauties. Talk to him of the wonders of
the creation, show to him the many-coloured arch that spans the sky, let
him behold the glories of a landscape, he is well able to see all these
things; but talk to him of the wonders of the covenant of grace, speak to
him of the security of the believer in Christ, tell him of the beauties of
the person of the Redeemer, he is quite deaf to all your description; you
are as one that playeth a goodly tune, it is true; but he regards not, he is
deaf, he has no comprehension. Or, to return to the verse which we so
specially marked in our reading, "The natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither
can he know them because they are spiritually discerned;" and
inasmuch as he is a natural man, it is not in his power to discern the
things of God. "Well," says one, "I think I have arrived at a very
tolerable judgment in matters of theology; I think I understand almost
every point." True, that you may do in the letter of it; but in the spirit of
it, in the true reception thereof into the soul, and in the actual
understanding of it, it is impossible for you to have attained, unless you
have been drawn by the Spirit. For as long as that Scripture stands true,
that carnal men cannot receive spiritual things, it must be true that you
have not received them, unless you have been renewed and made a
spiritual man in Christ Jesus. The will, then, and the understanding, are
two great doors, both blocked up against our coming to Christ, and
until these are opened by the sweet influences of the Divine Spirit, they
must be for ever closed to anything like coming to Christ.
3. Again, the affections, which constitute a very great part of man, are
depraved. Man, as he is, before he receives the grace of God, loves
anything and everything above spiritual things. If ye want proof of this,
look around you. There needs no monument to the depravity of the
human affections. Cast your eyes everywhere--there is not a street, nor
a house, nay, nor a heart, which doth not bear upon it sad evidence of
this dreadful truth. Why is it that men are not found on the Sabbath Day
universally flocking to the house of God? Why are we not more
constantly found reading our Bibles? How is it that prayer is a duty
almost universally neglected? Why is it that Christ Jesus is so little
beloved? Why are even his professed followers so cold in their
affections to him? Whence arise these things? Assuredly, dear brethren,
we can trace them to no other source than this, the corruption and
vitiation of the affections. We love that which we ought to hate, and we
hate that which we ought to love. It is but human nature, fallen human
nature, that man should love this present life better than the life to
come. It is but the effect of the fall, that man should love sin better than
righteousness, and the ways of this world better than the ways of God.
And again, we repeat it, until these affections be renewed, and turned
into a fresh channel by the gracious drawings of the Father, it is not
possible for any man to love the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. Yet once more--conscience, too, has been overpowered by the fall. I
believe there is no more egregious mistake made by divines, than when
they tell people that conscience is the vicegerent of God within the soul,
and that it is one of those powers which retains its ancient dignity, and
stands erect amidst the fall of its compeers. My brethren, when man fell
in the garden, manhood fell entirely; there was not one single pillar in
the temple of manhood that stood erect. It is true, conscience was not
destroyed. The pillar was not shattered; it fell, and it fell in one piece,
and there it lies along, the mightiest remnant of God's once perfect
work in man. But that conscience is fallen, I am sure. Look at men.
Who among them is the possessor of a "good conscience toward God,"
but the regenerated man? Do you imagine that if men's consciences
always spoke loudly and clearly to them, they would live in the daily
commission of acts, which are as opposed to the right as darkness to
light? No, beloved; conscience can tell me that I am a sinner, but
conscience cannot make me feel that I am one. Conscience may tell me
that such-and-such a thing is wrong, but how wrong it is conscience
itself does not know. Did any man s conscience, unenlightened by the
Spirit, ever tell him that his sins deserved damnation? Or if conscience
did do that, did it ever lead any man to feel an abhorrence of sin as sin?
In fact, did conscience ever bring a man to such a self-renunciation, that
he did totally abhor himself and all his works and come to Christ? No,
conscience, although it is not dead, is ruined, its power is impaired, it
hath not that clearness of eye and that strength of hand, and that thunder
of voice, which it had before the fall; but hath ceased to a great degree,
to exert its supremacy in the town of Mansoul. Then, beloved, it
becomes necessary for this very reason, because conscience is
depraved, that the Holy Spirit should step in, to show us our need of a
Saviour, and draw us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Still," says one, "as far as you have hitherto gone, it appears to me that
you consider that the reason why men do not come to Christ is that they
will not, rather than they cannot." True, most true. I believe the greatest
reason of man's inability is the obstinacy of his will. That once
overcome, I think the great stone is rolled away from the sepulchre, and
the hardest part of the battle is already won. But allow me to go a little
further. My text does not say,"No man will come," but it says, "No man
can come." Now, many interpreters believe that the can here, is but a
strong expression conveying no more meaning than the word will. I feel
assured that this is not correct. There is in man, not only unwillingness
to be saved, but there is a spiritual powerlessness to come to Christ; and
this I will prove to every Christian at any rate. Beloved, I speak to you
who have already been quickened by the divine grace, does not your
experience teach you that there are times when you have a will to serve
God, and yet have not the power? Have you not sometimes been
obliged to say that you have wished to believe. but you have had to
pray, Lord, help mine unbelief?" Because, although willing enough to
receive God's testimony, your own carnal nature was too strong for
you, and you felt you needed supernatural help. Are you able to go into
your room at any hour you choose, and to fall upon your knees and
say,"Now, it is my will that I should be very earnest in prayer, and that I
should draw near unto God ?" I ask, do you find your power equal to
your will? You could say, even at the bar of God himself, that you are
sure you are not mistaken in your willingness; you are willing to be
wrapt up in devotion, it is your will that your soul should not wander
from a pure contemplation of the Lord Jesus Christ, but you find that
you cannot do that, even when you are willing, without the help of the
Spirit. Now, if the quickened child of God finds a spiritual inability,
how much more the sinner who is dead in trespasses and sin? If even
the advanced Christian, after thirty or forty years, finds himself
sometimes willing and yet powerless--if such be his experience,--does it
not seem more than likely that the poor sinner who has not yet believed,
should find a need of strength as well as a want of will?
But, again, there is another argument. If the sinner has strength to come
to Christ, I should like to know how we are to understand those
continual descriptions of the sinner's state which we meet with in God's
holy Word? Now, a sinner is said to be dead in trespasses and sins. Will
you affirm that death implies nothing more than the absence of a will?
Surely a corpse is quite as unable as unwilling. Or again, do not all men
see that there is a distinction between will and power: might not that
corpse be sufficiently quickened to get a will, and yet be so powerless
that it could not lift as much as its hand or foot? Have we never seen
cases in which persons have been just sufficiently re-animated to give
evidence of life, and have yet been so near death that they could not
have performed the slightest action? Is there not a clear difference
between the giving or the will and the giving of power? It is quite
certain, however, that where the will is given, the power will follow.
Make a man willing, and he shall be made powerful; for when God gives the
will, he does not tantalize man by giving him to wish for that which he is
unable to do; nevertheless he makes such a division between the will and the
power, that it shall be seen that both things are quite distinct gifts of
the Lord God.
Then I must ask one more question: if all that were needed to make a
man willing, do you not at once degrade the Holy Spirit? Are we not in
the habit of giving all the glory of salvation wrought in us to God the
Spirit? But now, if all that God the Spirit does for me is to make me
willing to do these things for myself, am I not in a great measure a
sharer with the Holy Spirit in the glory? and may I not boldly stand up
and say, "It is true the Spirit gave me the will to do it, but still I did
it myself, and therein will I glory; for if I did these things myself
without assistance from on high, I will not cast my crown at his feet; it is
my own crown, I earned it, and I will keep it." Inasmuch as the Holy Spirit
is evermore in Scripture set forth as the person who worketh in us to
will and to do of his own good pleasure, we hold it to be a legitimate
inference that he must do something more for us than the mere making
of us willing, and that therefore there must be another thing besides
want of will in a sinner--there must be absolute and actual want of
power.
Now, before I leave this statement, let me address myself to you for a
moment. I am often charged with preaching doctrines that may do a
great deal of hurt. Well, I shall not deny the charge, for I am not careful
to answer in this matter. I have my witnesses here present to prove that
the things which I have preached have done a great deal of hurt, but
they have not done hurt either to morality or to God's Church; the hurt
has been on the side of Satan. There are not ones or twos but many
hundreds who this morning rejoice that they have been brought near to
God; from having been profane Sabbath-breakers, drunkards, or
worldly persons, they have been brought to know and love the Lord
Jesus Christ; and if this be any hurt may God of his infinite mercy send
us a thousand times as much. But further, what truth is there in the
world which will not hurt a man who chooses to make hurt of it? You
who preach general redemption, are very fond of proclaiming the great
truth of God's mercy to the last moment. But how dare you preach that?
Many people make hurt of it by putting off the day of grace, and
thinking that the last hour may do as well as the first. Why, if we never
preached anything which man could misuse, and abuse, we must hold
our tongues for ever. Still says one, "Well then, if I cannot save myself,
and cannot come to Christ, I must sit still and do nothing." If men do
say so, on their own heads shall be their doom. We have very plainly
told you that there are many things you can do. To be found continually
in the house of God is in your power; to study the Word of God with
diligence is in your power; to renounce your outward sin, to forsake the
vices in which you indulge, to make your life honest, sober, and
righteous, is in your power. For this you need no help from the Holy
Spirit; all this you can do yourself; but to come to Christ truly is not in
your power, until you are renewed by the Holy Ghost. But mark you,
your want of power is no excuse, seeing that you have no desire to
come, and are living in wilful rebellion against God. Your want of
power lies mainly in the obstinacy of nature. Suppose a liar says that it
is not in his power to speak the truth, that he has been a liar so long,
that he cannot leave it off; is that an excuse for him? Suppose a man
who has long indulged in lust should tell you that he finds his lusts
have so girt about him like a great iron net that he cannot get rid of
them, would you take that as an excuse? Truly it is none at all. If a
drunkard has become so foully a drunkard, that he finds it impossible to
pass a public--house without stepping in, do you therefore excuse him?
No, because his inability to reform, lies in his nature, which he has no
desire to restrain or conquer. The thing that is done, and the thing that
causes the thing that is done, being both from the root of sin, are two
evils which cannot excuse each other, What though the Ethiopian
cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots? It is because you
have learned to do evil that you cannot now learn to do well; and
instead, therefore, of letting you sit down to excuse yourselves, let me
put a thunderbolt beneath the seat of your sloth, that you may be
startled by it and aroused. Remember, that to sit still is to be damned to
all eternity. Oh! that God the Holy Spirit might make use of this truth in
a very different manner! Before I have done I trust I shall be enabled to
show you how it is that this truth, which apparently condemns men and
shuts them out, is, after all, the great truth, which has been blessed to
the conversion of men.
II. Our second point is THE FATHER'S DRAWINGS. "No man can
come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." How
then does the Father draw men? Arminian divines generally say that
God draws men by the preaching of the gospel. Very true; the
preaching of the gospel is the instrument of drawing men, but there
must be some thing more than this. Let me ask to whom did Christ
address these words? Why, to the people of Capernaum, where he had
often preached, where he had uttered mournfully and plaintively the
woes of the law and the invitations of the gospel. In that city he had
done many mighty works and worked many miracles. In fact, such
teaching and such miraculous attestation had he given to them, that he
declared that Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago in sack-
cloth and ashes, if they had been blessed with such privileges. Now, if
the preaching of Christ himself did not avail to the enabling these men
to come to Christ, it cannot be possible that all that was intended by the
drawing of the Father was simply preaching. No, brethren, you must
note again, he does not say no man can come except the minister draw
him, but except the Father draw him. Now there is such a thing as being
drawn by the gospel, and drawn by the minister, without being drawn
by God.
Clearly, it is a divine drawing that is meant, a drawing by the
Most High God--the First Person of the most glorious Trinity sending
out the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, to induce men to come to Christ.
Another person turns round and says with a sneer, "Then do you think
that Christ drags men to himself, seeing that they are unwilling!" I
remember meeting once with a man who said to me, Sir, you preach
that Christ takes people by the hair of their heads and drags them to
himself" I asked him whether he could refer to the date of the sermon
wherein I preached that extraordinary doctrine, for if he could, I should
be very much obliged. However, he could not. But said I, while Christ
does not drag people to himself by the hair of their heads, I believe that,
he draws them by the heart quite as powerfully as your caricature would
suggest. Mark that in the Father's drawing there is no compulsion
whatever; Christ never compelled any man to come to him against his
will. If a man be unwilling to be saved, Christ does not save him
against his will. How, then, does the Holy Spirit draw him?
Why, by making him willing. It is true he does not use "moral suasion;" he
knows a nearer method of reaching the heart. He goes to the secret
fountain of the heart, and he knows how, by some mysterious
operation, to turn the will in an opposite direction, so that, as Ralph
Erskine paradoxically puts it, the man is saved "with full consent
against his will;" that is, against his old will he is saved. But he is
saved with full consent, for he is made willing in the day of God's power.
Do not imagine that any man will go to heaven kicking and struggling all
the way against the hand that draws him. Do not conceive that any man
will be plunged in the bath of a Saviour's blood while he is striving to
run away from the Saviour. Oh, no. It is quite true that first of all man is
unwilling to be saved. When the Holy Spirit hath put his influence into
the heart, the text is fulfilled--"draw me and I will run after thee." We
follow on while he draws us, glad to obey the voice which once we had
despised. But the gist of the matter lies in the turning of the will. How
that is done no flesh knoweth; it is one of those mysteries that is clearly
perceived as a fact, but the cause of which no tongue can tell, and no
heart can guess. The apparent way, however, in which the Holy Spirit
operates, we can tell you. The first thing the Holy Spirit does when he
comes into a man's heart is this: he finds him with a very good opinion
of himself: and there is nothing which prevents a man coming to Christ
like a good opinion of himself. Why, says man, "I don't want to come
to Christ. I have as good a righteousness as anybody can desire. I feel I
can walk into heaven on my own rights." The Holy Spirit lays bare his
heart, lets him see the loathsome cancer that is there eating away his
life, uncovers to him all the blackness and defilement of that sink of
hell, the human heart, and then the man stands aghast. "I never thought
I was like this. Oh! those sins I thought were little, have swelled out to
an immense stature. What I thought was a mole-hill has grown into a
mountain; it was but the hyssop on the wall before, but now it has
become a cedar of Lebanon. Oh," saith the man within himself, "I will
try and reform; I will do good deeds enough to wash these black deeds
out." Then comes the Holy Spirit and shows him that he cannot do this,
takes away all his fancied power and strength, so that the man falls
down on his knees in agony, and cries, "Oh! once I thought I could save
myself by my good works, but now I find that
"Could my tears for ever flow,
Could my zeal no respite know,
All for sin could not atone,
Thou must save and thou alone.'"
Then the heart sinks, and the man is ready to despair. And saith he, "I
never can be saved. Nothing can save me." Then, comes the Holy Spirit
and shows the sinner the cross of Christ, gives him eyes anointed with
heavenly eye-salve, and says, "Look to yonder cross. that Man died to
save sinners; you feel that you are a sinner; he died to save you." And
he enables the heart to believe, and to come to Christ. And when it
comes to Christ, by this sweet drawing of the Spirit, it finds "a peace
with God which passeth all understanding, which keeps his heart and
mind through Jesus Christ our Lord." Now, you will plainly perceive
that all this may be done without any compulsion. Man is as much
drawn willingly, as if he were not drawn at all; and he comes to Christ
with full consent, with as full a consent as if no secret influence had
ever been exercised in his heart. But that influence must be exercised,
or else there never has been and there never will be, any man who either
can or will come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. And, now, we gather up our ends, and conclude by trying to make a
practical application of the doctrine; and we trust a comfortable one.
"Well," says one, "if what this man preaches be true, what is to become
of my religion? for do you know I have been a long while trying, and I
do not like to hear you say a man cannot save himself. I believe he can,
and I mean to persevere; but if I am to believe what you say, I must
give it all up and begin again." My dear friends, it will be a very happy
thing if you do. Do not think that I shall be at all alarmed if you do so.
Remember, what you are doing is building your house upon the sand,
and it is but an act of charity if I can shake it a little for you. Let me
assure you, in God's name, if your religion has no better foundation
than your own strength, it will not stand you at the bar of God. Nothing
will last to eternity, but that which came from eternity. Unless the
everlasting God has done a good work in your heart, all you may have
done must be unravelled at the last day of account. It is all in vain for
you to be a church-goer or chapel-goer, a good keeper of the Sabbath,
an observer of your prayers: it is all in vain for you to be honest to your
neighbours and reputable in your conversation; if you hope to be saved
by these things, it is all in vain for you to trust in them. Go on; be as
honest as you like, keep the Sabbath perpetually, be as holy as you can.
I would not dissuade you from these things. God forbid; grow in them,
but oh, do not trust in them, for if you rely upon these things you will
find they will fail you when most you need them. And if there be
anything else that you have found yourself able to do unassisted by
divine grace, the sooner you can get rid of the hope that has been
engendered by it the better for you, for it is a foul delusion to rely upon
anything that flesh can do. A spiritual heaven must be inhabited by
spiritual men, and preparation for it must be wrought by the Spirit of
God. "Well," cries another, "I have been sitting under a ministry where
I have been told that I could, at my own option, repent and believe, and
the consequence is that I have been putting it off from day to day. I
thought I could come one day as well as another; that I had only to say,
"Lord, have mercy upon me,' and believe, and then I should be saved.
Now you have taken all this hope away for me, sir; I feel amazement
and horror taking hold upon me." Again, I say, "My dear friend, I am
very glad of it. This was the effect which I hoped to produce. I pray that
you may feel this a great deal more. When you have no hope of saving
yourself, I shall have hope that God has begun to save you. As soon as
you say "Oh, I cannot come to Christ. Lord, draw me, help me,' I shall
rejoice over you. He who has got a will, though he has not power, has
grace begun in his heart, and God will not leave him until the work is
finished." But, careless sinner, learn that thy salvation now hangs in
God's hand. Oh, remember thou art entirely in the hand of God. Thou
hast sinned against him, and if he wills to damn thee, damned thou art.
Thou canst not resist his will nor thwart his purpose. Thou hast
deserved his wrath, and if he chooses to pour the full shower of that
wrath upon thy head, thou canst do nothing to avert it. If, on the other
hand, he chooses to save thee, he is able to save thee to the very
uttermost. But thou liest as much in his hand as the summer's moth
beneath thine own finger. He is the God whom thou art grieving every
day. Doth it not make thee tremble to think that thy eternal destiny now
hangs upon the will of him whom thou hast angered and incensed?
Dost not this make thy knees knock together, and thy blood curdle? If it
does so I rejoice, inasmuch as this may be the first effect of the Spirit's
drawing in thy soul. Oh, tremble to think that the God whom thou hast
angered, is the God upon whom thy salvation or thy condemnation
entirely depends. Tremble and "kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye
perish from the way while his wrath is kindled but a little,"
Now, the comfortable reflection is this:--Some of you this morning are
conscious that you are coming to Christ. Have you not begun to weep
the penitential tear? Did not your closet witness your prayerful
preparation for the hearing of the Word of God? And during the service
of this morning, has not your heart said within you, "Lord, save me, or I
perish, for save myself I cannot?" And could you not now stand up in
your seat, and sing,
"Oh, sovereign grace my heart subdue;
I would be led in triumph, too,
A willing captive of my Lord,
To sing the triumph of his Word"?
And have I not myself heard you say in your heart--"Jesus, Jesus, my
whole trust Is in thee: I know that no righteousness of my own can save
me, but only thou, O Christ--sink or swim, I cast myself on thee?" Oh,
my brother, thou art drawn by the Father, for thou couldst not have
come unless he had drawn thee. Sweet thought! And if he has drawn
thee, dost thou know what is the delightful inference? Let me repeat
one text, and may that comfort thee: "The Lord hath appeared of old
unto me, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore
with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." Yes, my poor weeping brother,
inasmuch as thou art now coming to Christ, God has drawn thee; and
inasmuch as he has drawn thee, it is a proof that he has loved thee from
before the foundation of the world. Let thy heart leap within thee, thou
art one of his. Thy name was written on the Saviour's hands when they
were nailed to the accursed tree. Thy name glitters on the breast-plate of
the great High Priest to-day; ay, and it was there before the day-star
knew its place, or planets ran their round. Rejoice in the Lord ye that
have come to Christ, and shout for joy all ye that have been drawn of
the Father. For this is your proof, your solemn testimony, that you from
among men have been chosen in eternal election, and that you shall be
kept by the power of God, through faith, unto the salvation which is
ready to be revealed.
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