This is one of the most comprehensive statements of the Spirit of God with respect to the glad tidings, and the apostle, observe, beloved brethren, gives this as his reason for not being “ashamed of the gospel.” The expression, “of Christ,” is not in the original, the statement really is, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” I need not say that it is the gospel of Christ in one sense, and it is the gospel of God in another sense; but he is speaking of it here simply without reference to its being either of Christ as through Him, or of God as from Him, it is simply the gospel in itself, the good news: “I am not ashamed of the good news.” Now some people are ashamed of it. Are you? A great many people are ashamed of it, and for different reasons, but still they are ashamed of it. Are you ashamed of it? Why are you ashamed of it? It will uncover all your filth, and your wretchedness, and your nakedness, and your destitution, and your misery, and your ruin. It will do that for this reason—that it is God’s great extrication for sinners out of that condition, His extricating power for them. And the deplorable part of the matter is, that people are in that plight and are not conscious of it; they are not alive to the sense of it, their souls and consciences are not moved by the deep danger that they are in. Men and women who are unconverted, who are living away from God in their sins and lost estate, unforgiven and guilty, are hanging over the precipice of hell, unconsciously. If a man finds any one walking over a precipice like that, and goes with rather a rude grasp and lays his hand on the shoulder of the person that is in danger, and roughly, it may be, seeks to awake him out of his sleep, you will say it is rough, but oh! beloved friends, how kind, what marvelous mercy to be arrested before it is too late. And it is just that kind of thing that you find so frequently in the minds and hearts of people, that they shrink back from this, they are averse to it, they are positively ashamed of the gospel. It is said that the only person that really is ashamed of his God and his religion, is the person who at least made a profession of the true God and the true religion. The worshiper of false gods, he is not ashamed of his religion or his god. What a strange thing to think, that the professing Christian is the only person that is really ashamed of his religion. The Mohammedan or the Turk, or the heathen, is not ashamed of his religion, nay, rather he glories in it; but the professor of Christ is ashamed. Now the apostle says, “I am not ashamed.” He gloried in it, as we know; it was that of which he made his boast; he exulted in it.
Now let me for a moment or two seek to interest your hearts and consciences in the thought of what the gospel really is. And if you look a little further back in this chapter, you will find a divine definition of it, a most precious unfolding of what the gospel is in its own nature. The apostle says he was “a servant”—a bondman, “of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle”—a called apostle, an apostle by calling – “separated unto the gospel of God”—he was set apart to it. What a sense it gives the heart and conscience of what the gospel is in that way, when God conceived it of such preciousness and value in His eyes that He said, There is a man whom I will separate unto that very thing, I separate him to the service of that gospel; and go where he will all this wide world over, whether he makes tents (for he was a tent-maker) or whether he is engaged in any other trade, still, there he was, he was Christ’s bondservant, and he was separated to the gospel, and his making the tents did not in the slightest degree take away from the fact, that he was separated unto God’s gospel; that for him was the great thing; whether he made few or many tents the gospel was that to which he was called out, separated to it and sent out for it, “separated unto the gospel of God.” Now mark, what the Spirit tells us this gospel is—“which he had promised before by his prophets in holy writings.” It was never, beloved friends, a thing known in former days; it was promised, but I need not say that a promise and the accomplishment are not the same thing. A promise of God is equal to an accomplishment as to the certainty of the thing being brought about; but there is a vast difference between a thing coming out in full blown accomplishment into plain light and a thing being promised.
Now God had promised to Israel a deliverer, one who was to deliver that people, and there were promises in the Old Testament scriptures of glory and blessing, even unto Gentiles, in the coming days. But now we are come down into accomplishment; and what God delights to do is to take things out of pattern. God put them into pattern, and God takes them out of pattern; and you and I are living in the days when they are taken out of pattern; we have come to the day of accomplishment, when the promise is made good. But it was promised in holy writings. And now look at the promise, and then you will find what the gospel is—“Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be holiness, by resurrection out from among the dead” {Rom. 1:44And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: (Romans 1:4)}.
Now there you have the gospel. And the gospel in that way is summed up in two things, that is to say, there is the Person of the One who gives all its blessedness, and substance, and preciousness to the glad tidings, there is the Person of the Deliverer, namely, “Jesus Christ our Lord, made of David’s seed according to the flesh.” Here we have the Person, even the Savior. What is the good of telling me about a salvation that has not in it all the value and preciousness, and all the divine stamp of the One who alone was competent to work out such a salvation, suitable to God and suitable for sinners? Because the more you tell me of the vastness of the salvation, and you do not tell me of the Savior, there is an aching void and want in my heart. Oh, be assured, the more you tell of the nature of the work and the fulness of it, the more poor hearts will crave to know, Who is competent to do it? where was the Person who could give effect to that? where was the One who could accomplish that? where was the One who could hold up one hand to the throne of God in the heavens, and stretch another down to the deep need of a poor wretched creature like me in his sins and misery? Where, for instance, was the One who could meet the earnest longings of the heart of a Job when he said, “Neither is there any daysman betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both?”
Where was the One who could span the eternal throne in the heavens and stoop down to pick up a poor, wretched, guilty, lost, miserable, hell-deserving sinner like myself in this world? That is what I want, and therefore the first part of this wonderful glad tidings concerns itself with the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is “concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord,” this blessed Person, the Deliverer, the One who was competent to accomplish a divine work. And more than that, as you will find in Heb. 1 creation is attributed to this blessed One as Son. God rolled these worlds into existence by His Son, made everything by the Son; “By him were all things created.” Look at creation, who could do that? Who could bring worlds into existence? No one but a divine Person; the Son made the worlds, “by whom he made the worlds.” Now mark this. That same One who made the worlds, who, as the God of providence, upholds everything by the word of His power, by whom everything was created and made here, became the purger of sins. It was just as much a divine work to do that on the cross, on the ground of which you and I, as poor, wretched, guilty creatures, could get the forgiveness of our sins, as it was to roll this world into existence, and the One who could do the one was the only One who could do the other. No one but a divine Person could come down here into this world, and become a man, in order that He might make purgation of sins. It was none else than He who made the worlds, who upholds them by the word of His power, who by Himself, having made purgation of our sins, took His seat, and took it as of title, at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, He was entitled to sit down there in virtue of His work, so that we may say He sat down in wondrous right in heaven. The very One who came down here, and emptied cross, and accomplished it all perfectly and fully to the infinite satisfaction of Him who sent Him. He, when He had done it all, and finished it all, and perfected it all, leaving not one single thing that had not stamped upon it the divine mark of the perfection of Him that could impart perfection to His work, as soon as ever He had done it, He took His seat in right there. What a joy to look at Christ seated in right in heaven, not by permission, but in right! And in the right of His saving work, in all the right and efficacy and completeness, measured by the eye of God, as God alone would measure it, Christ has taken His seat at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens.
How blessed to find those two things so intimately connected with the Person of the One who came down here to be the Deliverer and to be the Savior! We first of all see in Him the very Person we need for our hearts; who could do this? None but Christ. And what a rest is that to my poor wretched heart in all its misery. There are my circumstances of guilt and ruin, and here is my poor heart broken within me when I am brought into the sense of it, and I long to know, Is there any one who can take pity upon me? Yes; Christ. And it is not helpless pity, but it is mighty pity, it is powerful pity; it is divine power and divine compassion. The One who came down here as the Savior came to give my poor, wretched heart a sense that He who was in heaven, He who ever was God and with God, the brightness of His glory and the expression of His substance, He Himself came down into this world to give us the sense that there was One, even He, who could feel for us in our wretchedness, look upon us and pity us in our misery and lost estate, and work deliverance and extrication in His marvelous grace for such poor, vile, hell-deserving sinners; that there was not a single motive outside His mercy and the sovereign goodness that was in His heart, to reach a hand of help and extend pity and compassion to poor things like us.
Now this is what you get, beloved friends, in that blessed Person. And it is a wonderful thing when the heart gets personally acquainted with Him in that way in its misery and wretchedness, and says, That is my Savior. You can under- stand well how the apostle, though he was the vessel of inspiration, and God was moving this vessel to communicate His own mind in the various writings that are brought out—yet how suited the vessel was for the special work that God had called him to. For this very one, Saul of Tarsus, was the man to whom that blessed One had spoken on the road to Damascus, a persecutor, an injurious person, a blasphemer, a man that wasted and made havoc of the saints of God, who hated Jesus, who hated Christ in glory, to think of him being arrested by that blessed One, addressed by Him, called by name, that Saul had heard his own name on the lips of that blessed Jesus, you may understand what a vessel he was to bring out the glories of His Person and the perfections of His Saviorship, if I may use the word, to bring out the mercy and compassion of the heart of Christ, as he was divinely inspired to communicate these things; so he says it was “concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, made of the seed of David according to the flesh”—his own nation, for he was a Jew—“but declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection out from among the dead.”
Now this is the first thing in the glad tidings. It concerns Christ. It concerns the work, but it concerns the Person who did this work, and all the blessedness of it. And then the work itself, that work which has perfectly glorified God according to all His own holy, righteous nature, and met the deep needs of the sinner.
Now that is what the apostle says he is not ashamed of; he is not ashamed of the gospel.
And now he tells you why he is not ashamed of it. I am not ashamed of the gospel for this reason—it is God’s power. Now this is a day in which every kind of contrivance is put into force to benefit and ameliorate the condition men are found in; but man cannot do it. You have got every kind of thing developed, but what are they being developed into? Every conceivable kind of moral corruption. Is the condition of things better, the moral state of society better? The circumstances of men, are they better? Let us fairly and fearlessly look at it. You have an age of invention, science extended, marvelous manifestations of man’s reason and powers, education advancing, making vast strides on every hand, discovery after discovery; but look at the condition of man morally, is man better? Are his social relationships better? Is man himself better? Beloved friends, it is a development that is almost too black to look at, a development into every sort of wickedness as marked as it was in the days of the flood. And those days immediately preceding the flood, though they were not of course up to and equal to the progress of the present day, yet they were remarkable days, days of discovery, though they were infantine days, “there were giants in the earth in those days.” But what was the earth when God looked at it? Filled with violence and filled with corruption. The two great principles that overlapped each other on this earth, which necessitated the divine bringing in of the first great judgment that swept that generation away from God’s eye, they are just the principles you find abroad in the world to-day—violence and corruption. That is what the earth witnessed in those days, and that is what the world witnesses in this day—violence and corruption.
Well now, you may try and bring in every kind of remedial measure—and I do not question the social good for a moment, the social advantage resulting from certain machinery and certain expedients that have been put in force, but you cannot reach the root of the disease which is there. God has but one thing for fallen man, and that is His gospel, that is all. You cannot change the condition of fallen man as such, you may lop off one vice and another, but you have not changed the root principle which is there. Thank God for all the civilization and government of the world, though the foundations are being fast loosened at present, still there is the principle of government accepted and owned by the world as such. And hence, evil doers, lawless men, are shut up in prisons and reformatories, which is right enough in govern- ment, but this does not change the nature of the man that is thus sentenced. A man undergoes a sentence of imprisonment because of crime, and he is shut up for life it may be, or for a term of years, but unless God intervene in His grace, that man for the manifestation of sin are taken away from him, he has not in prison the opportunity to sin; if he had, he would sin as before; he comes out unchanged, unaltered; shut up it may be for years, if the occasion comes in his way, that which he is, declares itself, he is unchanged in nature: “that which is born of the flesh, is flesh.”
Now the gospel is God’s power; and a power is not a remedy. There are no words that I more dislike in my very inmost heart than to speak of the gospel as a remedy. A remedy? I hold it to be a miserable word to apply to God’s gospel. Remedy? No, beloved friends, but power; it is the power of God. And what is the power of God? The gospel. And what is the gospel? The gospel is concerning His Son Jesus Christ; first of all as to His Person, and secondly as to His work.
Now look at one scripture for a moment in connection with that work of His, where you find the same thought presented by the Spirit of God, and mark the words of the Holy Ghost in these verses (1 Cor. 1:1818For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18))—“For the preaching of the cross”—which has to do with the work of the Lord Jesus Christ—“is to them that perish foolishness.” Is it foolishness to any one of you here this evening? Do you consider it a foolish thing? Do you look at it as a vain thing for a man to stand up and speak of these things? Then you are perishing; God says you are perishing; “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.” How solemn the word of God is, how it finds us out, how it detects us as to where we are. “To them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved it is the power of God.” “The preaching of the cross,” the shameful part of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, that part that man gave Him, for man nailed Him on that tree, man nailed Him on a gibbet between two thieves, the very shame and opprobrium connected with that cross; “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved it is the power of God.” And mark, more than that, beloved friends; because he says in verse 22, “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” The gospel is the power of God, the preaching of the cross is the power of God, Christ is the power of God. Here you get the gospel, the subject of the gospel, and that part of it too, the cross, the shame of it, the opprobrium of it, everything that could make it contemptible in the eyes of man, all linked up with God’s power. Says the apostle, I am not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power of God to extricate poor, wretched, ruined, lost, hell-deserving sinners from their misery and their guilt; and God can reach them in this estate by that gospel concerning His Son Jesus Christ and His finished work on that cross.
But more, beloved brethren; it is the power of God unto what? Because there will be a power of God in judgment. There is a day coming when the power of God will be manifested in destruction. There is a day coming for this world when God will judge it in righteousness; He is saving sinners in grace out of it now. But I tell you tonight, sinner, the day of judgment is appointed, and the judge is ordained. “He has appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained.” That day is coming, and that day will be the witness, the marvelous witness, of the power of God to destruction, when the besom of judgment shall sweep this earth of those who have rejected Christ and refused God’s great salvation, and there will not be a solitary ray of mercy in that blackness, not a solitary ray of light in that darkness. That day is coming. And oh! if that day should overtake you, sinner, in your sins, if that day should find you an unwashed and unforgiven criminal in your sins, if it shall find you out of Christ in your sins, and out of Christ, as the result of having refused, despised, rejected, neglected God’s great salvation! What then? How solemn to think of these things! God has appointed the day; He has ordained the judge. And who is the judge? That Jesus whom you, sinner, are rejecting this night; that Jesus whom you refuse, it may be, in your heart of hearts this moment, that Savior in whose face you see no beauty to desire Him, a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness, despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; you hide your face from Him; He was despised and you esteemed Him not, though He was the bearer of our griefs and our sorrows. And it will be He, it will be that same Jesus. Oh think of that, beloved friends. There will be the power of God in destruction, the power of God in judgment.
This world has often seen the power of God in judgment. Was it not so in the deluge? Was it not so when the springs of the earth beneath and the windows of heaven above were opened, death had no mandate to stay its force, but reigned triumphant round and round the world. Was not that the power of God to destruction? And the coming day will be His power in destruction and in judgment; but now, blessed be His name, and thank God for it, in the marvels of His grace, now He is sending forth through the silver trumpet of His gospel, the tidings of the power of God to what? The power of God to Salvation. I do long to interest your hearts in it. We find here power connected with salvation—the Lord be praised for it. We could all connect power with judgment, with destruction, but how blessed to connect it with salvation. “It is the power of God unto salvation,” the power of God to set a poor, wretched, hell-bound slave of Satan free from his sins and misery, the power of God to wash your soul, sinner, from all its crimson stains tonight, the power of God unto salvation to extricate you, to deliver you, to take you out of that bondage, to set you free from that thralldom, to take away the slavery from off your conscience, to take away the fear of death. Yes, there is upon the hearts of men, if they are exercised in conscience, the fear of death. I remember well myself when I was afraid of death, when I could not look at death. And I know right well it is so, for I see strong men who are afraid to look at death, they do not like to see death, would go any distance rather than see a man dead, rather than see all that is left when the last great enemy has done his awful work. I know people cannot bear to look at it; they shrink from it. Why? What is the reason?
There is a terror and fear no doubt, but why? To look into sightless eyes, to see a cold marble brow, and a tongue silenced for ever, what is there in that? Nothing in the mere physical part of it; but it is this—“after death the judgment.” And men and women in their consciences know that. You know perfectly well, however the devil may try to steel that poor heart of yours, however he may try to rock you to sleep in his awful cradle, you know there is a hereafter, you know there is a day of reckoning, you know the moment is coming when everything will be brought to light, every secret thing brought out, when God will hold high inquest. Oh! you know that. There are lucid moments of conscience in the hearts of men, and they fear and quake as they think of eternity. Yes, this is true, even though they go to what just suits their will, and their passion, and their pleasure, and their lusts, they give themselves over to the devil to lull them with his soporifics and drug them with his drains; they give themselves over to the devil because they wish to have the world and its pleasures and the lusts of their own heart, but for all that, they have wretched moments, moments of misery—may God grant such may come upon some of your consciences here tonight, these waking moments.
There are waking moments, when man suddenly, as it were, wakes up to this; yes, eternity, hereafter; there is a hereafter, there is a day of reckoning coming, there is a moment at hand when God will have something to say, when I shall have to give account of myself to God, when I shall have to stand before God. “As I live, saith Jehovah, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” Such are the thoughts of these moments, friends. These are the lucid intervals in the moral madness that men are found in, lucid intervals when conscience asserts its prerogatives in men. Oh, how solemn to think of it; as one looks at the stream of human beings passing along, where, oh where, are they going? I confess to you, I never walk the streets of this great city without feeling a heavy depression over my heart as the multitude passes before my eyes, the millions of this great London with its sins and sorrows. Where are they all going to? What is to be the end, the issue of it all? What will eternity be for all these men and women? What road are they traveling? What will be the goal of all this? Where will they be found? Ah! beloved friends, it is very easy to trifle, but I do not believe that any person in his sound, calm mind as men even—I do not believe for one moment that any man is such a fool as to believe that when a man dies, he just dies like a brute-beast, that he dies like a dog, and there is the end of him.
I know perfectly well people may adopt such views, in order to steel their hearts, and in order to get over the uneasy convictions of conscience, but I believe there is in the bosom of man a conviction which is implanted there, and which asserts itself. There is a day of reckoning coming, there is another time at hand, there is a day of judgment impending, a day of assize, when God will bring everything into light, the secrets of hearts, the counsels of hearts, the things that are hidden there in your hearts, men and women, the secret things you have buried, as you think, deep down there, that you think nobody knows; God will bring every secret thing out, He will make manifest all the hidden things of darkness.
But now, beloved friends, thank God that while that day still tarries, there is at this present moment a power of God unto salvation, and that the gospel is God’s power to set persons free from their sins, to give them the knowledge of the forgiveness of their sins, and to know this as a present reality, the purging of their consciences from every spot and stain of sin now, so that they can have and enjoy the forgiveness of their sins, have peace with God now in their souls, and have heaven begun now on earth. The gospel is indeed “the power of God unto salvation.”
Now mark this other word a moment here. To whom is it the power of God? Who are they for whom this gospel is intended? Is not that a very interesting subject for all our hearts? Who, again let me inquire? How can I get it? says one. I would give everything to get it, says another. You cannot get it for anything. The wealth of empires, the wealth of worlds, would not buy it. No money on earth could purchase it, it is priceless, as far as value is concerned, nothing in that way can secure it. I know very well God is pleased to raise that question in hearts, Whom is this for? how does this reach a sinner? You say to me, You have told us of God’s power to salvation, you have told us God has got but one power to reach poor, wretched, lost men, one power, and that is His gospel; that His gospel can come down to where we are in our misery and ruin and lost estate, and reach us there, and take us out of it, but how are we to get this? Now listen to the word a moment, a deeply interesting and most precious word it is. “It is the power of God unto salvation”—to whom?
I remember when I was young I was taught, and I suppose most people here tonight were taught in their youth, beloved friends, that which I know I found clinging very hard to my poor, wretched heart many a day afterward; I was indoctrinated, trained, taught, educated in the idea, that if I conducted myself properly, if I was a good child, God would love me. There never was a more thorough denial of the gospel of the grace of God than that. And, beloved friends, look at the form that has taken. It may seem a very small thing in the nursery to have been taught at one’s mother’s knee and to have been trained up in that kind of thing, but the strength of early impressions is marvellous, it is wonderful what a hold they have over the heart, and how long they last. In proof look at the religious shape, the theological shape, that doctrine has taken, look what that simple instruction, false as it is in root and principle, has developed into in theology and religion and so-called Christian teaching, that a poor sinner is so to comport himself, so to carry himself in his conduct and in his ways, as to secure the love and goodness of God. And that idea, beloved friends, is spread abroad on every hand, and it is that which a great many people are really affected by, so that they refer to their conduct for their acceptance and for their interest in Christ. And I feel assured there are some here tonight who are in that condition.
A person told me not many days ago, whom I believe to be really safe, through the precious blood of Christ, that they were very happy in the knowledge of Christ’s salvation when they were walking well, but that they were exceedingly uncertain about their soul’s salvation when they were walking badly. Well now, if they had said they were very happy in communion and fellowship with God when they were walking well, and that they had lost communion and lost the sense of His presence when they were walking ill, they would have said what was quite true and right. But to say they had lost the sense of their acceptance, that they were not sure that their souls were saved when they were walking badly, but they were sure their souls were saved when they were walking well, was to attribute the salvation of their souls in some wise to their conduct. Now this is utterly false, beloved friends, and a perversion of God’s gospel, it is a destructive denial of the truth of God, and I will say, never was there a more destructive denial than this.
Observe how the truth is here in a nutshell. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, not to every one that merits it, not to every one that makes good a title to it, but “to every one that believeth.” Is there any priority in order? There is; and most precious and beautiful is the priority in order—“to the Jew first,” and then to the Greek, but the principle of blessing is the same for both. The ground upon which a Jew receives eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ and forgiveness of his sins to-day, is the same as that upon which the Gentile receives eternal life and the forgiveness of his sins. There is not one way of salvation for the Jew and another for the Gentile. The testimony goes to the Jew first, and rightly, because that was the order of God’s ways; the Jew first in the order of testimony, and the Gentile afterwards; but the ground or basis of blessing is the same. And in this epistle the apostle brings home the great double ground upon which this dealing of God with men, whether Jews or Gentiles, in this world, takes place, he looks at all men in the same common plight, all guilty sinners before God, guilty and alive in their sins before God, short of the glory of God, covered all over with filth and corruption, and he says, There is “no difference.” He looks at the Jew, and he says, as it were, You belong to the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, your nationality is all right, it is true Jewish blood you have in your veins, like Saul of Tarsus it may be, a Jew both on father’s and mother’s side, we might say not a drop of Gentile blood in your veins; and then he, as it were, looks at the Gentile, and he says, “There is no difference,” all are alike before God; “They are all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not one.” Though the Jew has marvelous privileges as belonging to that ancient people, beloved for the fathers’ sakes, still, morally before God, there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. And, beloved friends, how blessed this is. There is this wonderful “no difference” principle—both guilty, both in their sins.
Now look at the other for a moment. In Rom. 10, when he speaks again of Jew and Gentile, there is a magnificent unfolding of God’s grace. He says there is no difference in their own estate between Jew and Gentile, they are both guilty and both polluted in their sins; but he goes to the divine side, and says, There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. Oh, how blessed to think of Him carrying that “no difference” principle up to the heart of God! He carries it down to my corruption, and He carries it up to the throne of God in the heavens. He brings that “no difference” principle to put us all in one common plight of guilt; and He brings that “no difference’s principle to wake up our hearts in confidence; “The same Lord over all is rich”—it is not a little bit of mercy, a little bit of salvation, a little trickling bit of love and forgiveness, but “rich (oh that you might get the sense of it); “the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him”—how simple that is—“for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Have you ever called upon Him? Have you ever shut yourself up in your own room, in the dire distress of your heart, with the thought of the judgment day that is coming, with the thought of your sins, both staring you in the face, and you having to meet God, have you ever thus shut yourself up to call upon that name? “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” “Whosoever,” high or low, rich or poor, black or white, good or bad, great sinner or little sinner, “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Oh, beloved friends, how blessed that gospel is which comes down like that to where we are! How blessed is the power of God unto salvation that meets us just as we are! It is God’s power unto salvation to every one that believeth; and you know calling upon the name of the Lord is believing. “How shall they call on him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?” And, thank God, He has sent and does send out preachers of His grace. Thank God, He also says of those He sends, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace”; they are as beautiful, says God, in my eyes as the Messiah’s; for it is the very passage that is referred to Messiah in Isaiah; in ch. 52, speaking of Him as the introducer of blessing to His people Israel, it says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.”
And in the New Testament, these very words that are applied to that blessed One are applied to the ones whom He has sent as the messengers of His heart and His love to a world lying steeped in its iniquity and in its sins, to bless them by His gospel, which is His “power . . . unto salvation unto every one that believeth.” Oh, beloved friends, may the Lord in wonderful grace give your hearts to seize hold of the preciousness of this rich and great salvation of God tonight. Have you found it? that is the question. Do you desire to have it? Should you like to have the forgiveness of your sins? Should you like to have that weight from off your conscience and that burden from off your soul? You may say, I do not know how to get it; but should you like to have it? Oh, believe me, that is the way God puts it; the devil tries to get you to connect it with power in you, but God has connected it with wilt. Think of the Lord, how He wept over the city; oh, how touching! Bear with me a moment, if I am importunate with earnestness of heart, beloved friends. I look at the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Missionary, Servant and Prophet in the midst of Israel, the Messiah of that people, beloved for the fathers’ sakes; when He was down here upon earth, and came to the city, it is said, “When he beheld the city, he wept over it.” To look upon it thus, that city as it were, broke the heart of Jesus. “He wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day”—and this may be just “thy day,” sinner, tonight—“the things that belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes.” Oh, how solemn those words! Ah! says the Savior, it is too late now, the day is past, the hours are fled, too late now; oh, if thou hadst only known in thy day! Think of it, beloved friends, His heart as it were broken, when He surveyed the condition of His people, the state of the nation. “If thou hadst known”—known what? “The things that belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes.”
Beloved Friends, I would plead with you earnestly tonight: I would plead with you affectionately. You have tonight; you have this moment. Do you desire to be saved? If you are not saved, will you come and be saved tonight? Come and trust that living, loving, precious Savior tonight. Come and cast yourself upon the fulness of that redeeming love to night; come now. Yea, come and listen to His own words. Hearken, He pleads with you as He entreats you to come, as He says to you, “Come.” How often those words were upon His lips! How often He said, “Come”; as He stood in the highways and byways of this world: “Come, come.” And ere the books of this precious scripture were closed, ere the last words of revelation and inspiration passed from the vessels, you remember well what expression that word gives to that loving longing in the heart of Jesus when you read those precious words in Rev. 21, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come;” and then, because the church always has the heart of Christ, though, alas! some of His people have not, but the bride has the heart of the Bridegroom, she turns in the affection of the Bridegroom’s heart to a poor, thirsty, dying, starving, perishing world, and she says, as it were, Is there one thirsty soul here, let him come, “let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Will you be that one tonight? Come now; if you have never come before, come tonight; come and trust Him; come and be a receiver at His hands; come and hear the words of life from His own lips this night; come and cast yourself upon that precious Savior and that finished work. I plead with you earnestly and affectionately. It may be the last opportunity you may ever have; you may never hear it again. Before another Lord’s day, before another morn comes round, before another hour, it may be all passed away, and the life that now beats within your breast may be fled; therefore I plead with you earnestly, affectionately, and urgently, and entreat you to come; come now; come this night; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
“Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is that you have need of Him.”