Sovereign Grace Church

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word

(EPHESIANS 5:25-26)

[Beloved], we have CHRIST as our Husband; and he does not take his bride as we are in the habit of taking ours, for better or for worse. O no! He knew she would have no better about her; it would be all worse: therefore he took her with all her sin and guilt, and stood answerable for all her debts.

Cannot some of you recollect a time when you were without Christ? Up to the time that I was nearly eighteen years of age, I was without Christ; but before I was eighteen, Christ, in distinguishing love, revealed himself to me. I am now within a few weeks of 70; and I feel up to this moment as much necessity of Christ as ever. I have not gained a bit of ground here. Since that time I have preached many thousands of sermons about Christ, I have travelled many thousands of miles to preach about him; and in this respect I think I may say I have labored more abundantly than many. But, if you would take away Christ, I would as soon trust the devil as all my doings; and the devil would have as good a hope as I should have; for all my hope comes from, and is centered in, a precious Christ. If we are without Christ, we have nothing but sin and wretchedness; nothing but what will lead us to ruin.

“Having no hope.” That is, having no real good hope. All people have a hope of some sort. What sort of a hope have you? “O,” says one, “I have a hope of getting to heaven.” And what do you ground it upon? “Why, I think God is too merciful to send any body to hell.” If that be true, you think God is too merciful to tell the truth? for he says, “The wicked shall be turned into hell.” [EPHESIANS 2:12, PSALM 9:17]

Another says, “I have some hope that I shall be saved, for I am as good as my neighbors and better than many of them; and though I am a sinner, I am but a little sinner after all; and so I hope I shall go to heaven.” Now, I will tell you this; if you ever committed one sin, and God were to take you to heaven, he would not be true; for God says, “whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” “He that believeth not shall be damned.” So that being what you call a little sinner is only a delusion. [JAMES 2:10, GALATIANS 3:10, MARK 16:16]

Another says, “I have a hope, because I really am decidedly pious; I lay by a certain sum every week for Tract Societies and Missionary Societies; and I have heard men say, on public occasions, that God would reward these pious deeds, and that he would be sure not to forget such acts of charity and love.” Well, it is all very well to lay a part of our substance for the Lord; but I tell you what, poor sinner, if you rest here, if you make a Saviour of it, you insult God, and do as much as you can to damn your own soul; you do indeed.

“Without God in the world.” If we are without God, we have no God to go to in trouble, in storms, and in tempests; no God to carry our grievances to. We may have our tens of thousands of riches; our knowledge may be wonderful; we may cultivate our intellects, store up a great treasure of useful knowledge; but to be without God; O what an awful thing! By and by we shall have to stretch ourselves upon a dying bed and to drop into eternity. What will become of us then, if we are without God as our God? Without God. This is the state we are all in by nature. Sinner, are you without Christ? Where art thou? O may the Lord God omnipotent send a dart into your conscience, if it be his blessed will, and lead you to a sight and sense of your condition before him, as being without God in the world! [EPHESIANS 2:12, GENESIS 3:9]