All of Grace: Know That God's Gift of Salvation Is Absolutely Free and Available to Everyone (Faith Classics)

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Do not refuse the Lord Jesus who knocks at your door; for He knocks with a hand that was nailed to the cross for such as you.

I have no gospel to preach to the self-righteous, no, not a word of it. Jesus Christ Himself came not to call the righteous, and I am not going to do what He did not do. If I called you, you would not come, and therefore I will not call you. No, I bid you rather look at that righteousness of yours till you see what a delusion it is. It is not half as substantial as a cobweb. Be done with it! Flee from it! Believe that the only people who can need justification are those who are not in themselves just!

The law is for the self-righteous, to humble their pride; the Gospel is for the lost, to remove their despair.

Come as you are. I mean, come to your heavenly Father in all your sin and sinfulness. Come to Jesus just as you are, leprous, filthy, naked, neither fit to live nor fit to die. Come, you who are the very sweepings of creation; come, though you hardly dare to hope for anything but death. Come, though despair is brooding over you, pressing upon your chest like a horrible nightmare. Come and ask the Lord to justify another ungodly one. Why should He not? Come, for this great mercy of God is meant for such as you are.

Dear friend, have you ever seen that? Have you ever understood how God can be just to the full, not remitting penalty nor blunting the edge of the sword, and yet can be infinitely merciful and justify the ungodly who turn to Him? It was because the Son of God, supremely glorious in His matchless person, undertook to vindicate the law by bearing the sentence due to me that God is able to pass by my sin. The law of God was more vindicated by the death of Christ than it would have been if all transgressors had been sent to hell. For the Son of God to suffer for sin was a more glorious establishment of the government of God than for the whole race to suffer.

He came to remove the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and, at last, the presence of sin.

Wherever the grace of God has appeared to a person it has trained him to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world. And, dear reader, it will do the same for you. “I cannot make this change,” says one. Who said you could? The scripture that we have quoted speaks not of what people will do but of what God will do. It is God’s promise, and it is for Him to fulfill His own engagements. Trust in Him to fulfill His Word to you, and it will be done.

You must look away even from your own looking, and see nothing but Jesus and the grace of God revealed in Him.

What is faith? It is made up of three things—knowledge, belief, and trust.

Faith is believing that Christ is what He is said to be, and that He will do what He has promised to do, and then to expect it of Him.

Will you have your sins and go to hell, or will you quit your sins and go to heaven?

Proud self creates unbelief. Submit, O man. Yield to your God, and then you will sweetly believe in your Savior. May the Holy Spirit now work secretly but effectively with you, and bring you at this very moment to believe in the Lord Jesus! Amen.

If you, my reader, will not believe till you can understand all mysteries, you will never be saved at all; and if you allow self-invented difficulties to keep you from accepting pardon through your Lord and Savior, you will perish in a condemnation that will be richly deserved. Do not commit spiritual suicide through a passion for discussing supernatural subtleties.

Jesus endured great humiliation, and therefore there was room for Him to be exalted. By that humiliation He accomplished and endured the Father’s will, and therefore He was rewarded by being raised to glory.

Repentance is to leave The sins we loved before; And show that we in earnest grieve, By doing so no more.

“Blessed Spirit, dwell with me. Make me tender and humble of heart, that I may hate sin and sincerely repent of it.”

Do not sit down and try to pump up repentance from the dry well of corrupt nature. It is contrary to the laws of the mind to suppose that you can force your soul into that gracious state. Take your heart in prayer to Him who understands it and say, “Lord, cleanse it. Lord, renew it. Lord, work repentance in it.” The more you try to produce penitent emotions in yourself, the more you will be disappointed; but if you believingly think of Jesus dying for you, repentance will burst forth.

The Lord is able to not only save us from hell but to keep us from falling. We need not yield to temptation. Is it not written, “Sin shall not have dominion over you” (Romans 6:14)? The Lord is able to keep the feet of His saints; and He will do it if we will trust Him to do so. We need not defile our garments, we may by His grace keep them unstained by the world; we are bound to do this, for without holiness “no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

If you are saved yourself, be on the watch for the souls of others. Your own heart will not prosper unless it is filled with intense concern to bless your fellow man. The life of your soul lies in faith; its health lies in love. He who does not pine to lead others to Jesus has never been under the spell of love himself.

Reader, meet me in heaven! Do not go down to hell. There is no coming back again from that abode of misery. Why do you wish to enter the way of death when heaven’s gate is open before you? Do not refuse the free pardon, the full salvation that Jesus grants to all who trust Him. Do not hesitate and delay. You have had enough of resolving, come to action. Believe in Jesus now, with full and immediate decision. Take with you words and come to your Lord this day, even this day. Remember, O soul, it may be now or never with you. Let it be NOW; it would be horrible if it were never. Again I charge you, meet me in heaven.