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Enjoy The Righteousness Of Christ
Our standing as Christians is founded upon the Lord Jesus Christ alone. We say it, we hear it, and nodding affirmatively we agree that it is true. Yet, all too often we fail to grasp the implications of this fact. All too often our actions and our attitudes, our feelings, our hopes and fears are motivated by something quite different. Instead of looking to Christ we look to ourselves. We imagine that if we could better overcome temptation we would be happier, if we could subdue our sin we would find more peace. We suspect that our interest in God’s love is hindered by our lack of faith and wonder if our conviction for sin has been deeply enough felt. So we become pre-occupied with…
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Salvation By Grace
Substance Of A Sermon Preached By John Kershaw At Zoar Chapel, Great Alie Street, London, On Lord's Day Morning, April 12th, 1846. "For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.”—Ephesians 2:8,9 My beloved friends, as we had this precious portion of God's holy Word under consideration last Lord's day, we will come at once to the second part of our subject, that the enjoyment of our interest in the salvation of Christ is by faith. What a blessing, beloved, for us that the work of salvation is finished. The poor sinner is made to feel his lost, ruined and undone state. It is necessary in this…
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The Dark Cellar
Go into a close, dark, damp cellar; you can see nothing. But open the shutters. How frightened you are! Toads, spiders, and reptiles of various sorts are there. So with your hearts. You don't see them as they really are until God lets in his light. In our country there is a weed called cadlock; but it never appears on the surface until the land is ploughed up. So with your hearts. When God puts his plough and turns up the fallow ground, O what weeds appear to your sight!
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The “Almost” Christian
A Sermon Preached By John Booth At Providence Chapel, Croydon, On Sunday Evening, November 29th, 1903. "Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."—Acts 26:28 The charge preferred against Paul was, as we read in Acts 21:28: "This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place (i.e., the Temple): and further brought Greeks also into the Temple, and hath polluted this holy place." So they said he taught against the law, against the Temple, and against the rules of the Temple. It is certain that Paul taught everywhere the received fulfilment of all these things, that Christ was the Substance of them. Paul had been a Pharisee; he had belonged to…
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The Two Deeps
My dear Friend,—I am, more or less, living in the engagement of wading into two great deeps, but cannot fathom either of them, and I often think I am a greater bungling fool in the work than ever; I mean the awful deep of sin and the glorious deep of God's matchless grace. O the horrible springing up and belching forth of sin that my poor soul is obliged to wade in, at times! I once thought that if I should live to be old, I should get rid of some of the branches of the boilings up of sin; but I now live to prove that the decay of nature does not mend the corruption of the heart and that the internal filth of…
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Two Distinct Natures
June 9, 1830 My dear Deborah, I am rejoiced to think that you are so far humbled as to look to Christ alone for the salvation of your soul. You will find if you possess the Spirit of Christ that you will be despised and condemned by all in whose heart Satan reigns. But what does the Scripture say for your consolation? "Rejoice, and leap for joy." "For the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is evil spoken of, but on your part He is glorified." You will doubtless try to justify yourself in holding such offensive doctrines, by appealing to the Bible, Litany, and Articles, but you cannot convince the natural man. Do not be anxious to…
