Believe and Be Saved: Or, Around the Wicket Gate

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

A sweet sin, harbored in the heart, can prevent a soul from securing Christ by faith. The Lord Jesus has come to save us from sinning, but if we are resolved to continue sinning, Christ and our souls will never agree. If a man takes poison, and a doctor is called in to save his life, he may have a sure antidote ready, but if the patient persists in keeping the poison at his lips and continues to swallow the deadly drops, how can the doctor save him? Salvation includes parting the sinner from his sin, so the very nature of salvation would have to be changed before we could speak of a man’s being saved when he is loving sin and willfully living in it. A man cannot be made white while he continues in black; he cannot be healed and yet remain sick; neither can anyone be saved and still be a lover of evil. A drunkard will be saved by believing in Christ – that is to say, he will be saved from being a drunkard. But if he determines to intoxicate himself, he is not saved from it, and he probably has not truly believed in Jesus. By faith a liar can be saved from falsehood, but then he quits lying and is careful to speak the truth. Anyone can see with half an eye that he cannot be saved from being a liar but will continue in his old style of deceit and untruthfulness. A person who is at enmity with another will be saved from that feeling of enmity by believing in the Lord Jesus, but if he vows that he will still cherish the feeling of hate, it is doubtful that he is saved from it. ...

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