The tree is known by its fruit

Saving faith appropriates the finished work of the Lord Jesus, and so saves by itself alone, for we are justified by faith without works; but the faith which is without works cannot bring salvation to any man. We are saved by faith without works, but not by a faith that is without works, for the real faith that saves the soul works by love and purifies the character.

If you can cheat across the counter, your hope of heaven is a cheat too; though you can pray as prettily as anybody, and practice acts of outward piety as well as any other hypocrite, you are deceived if you expect to be right at last. If as a servant you are lazy, lying, and loitering, or if as a master you are hard, tyrannical, and unchristianlike towards your men, your fruit shows that you are a tree of Satan’s own orchard, and bear apples which will suit his tooth. If you can practice tricks of trade, and if you can lie — and how many do lie every day about their neighbors or about their goods — you may talk about being justified by faith as you like, but all liars will have their portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, and amongst the biggest liars you will be, for you are guilty of the lie of saying, “I am a Christian,” whereas you are not. A false profession is one of the worst of lies, since it brings the utmost dishonor upon Christ and his people.

The fruit of the righteous is righteousness: the fig tree will not bring forth thorns, neither shall we gather grapes from thistles. The tree is known by its fruit, and if we cannot judge men’s hearts, and must not try to do so, we can judge their lives, and I pray God we may all be ready to judge our own lives and see if we are bringing forth righteous fruit, for if not, ye are not righteous men.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Soul-Winner," delivered January 20, 1876. Image by Jenny Downing  on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Take Christ as your remedy at once!

May God grant us grace to shake these vipers into the fire; for, oh my brothers, though I have spoken sternly, just now, even as John the Baptist might have done, I also am a man, and would plead with you tenderly. What sin can be worth indulging at the expense of your soul? Young soldier, over yonder, is there any sin which prevents your being a Christian in your regiment? Can any sin repay you for losing your soul? Young woman, over there, tempted by pleasure, can any gaiety be worth losing heaven for?

Whether young or old, I ask you, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” I have spoken roughly to you in love — love to your souls. If the whole host of pleasurable sins could be put together, and gold piled upon them high as the moon, the whole mass would not repay a man for being cast into the fires of hell. Do not run such risks, I pray you. May great grace enable you to cast your sins away and take Christ at once.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Why Men Cannot Believe in Christ." Image by Keven Law on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The false conversion and the true

There is a spurious conversion which is not true conversion to God. A man may have another heart and yet he may not have a new heart. We read of King Saul that he had another heart, but he remained unsaved. A man may change his idols; he may change his sins, but may not be changed in heart. Drunkards have become sober, and renounced their intoxicating cups, which is so far so good, but they have presently become intoxicated with a conceit of their own virtue, and extolled themselves as models of purity. Ah, then! it is a poor gain to change drunkenness for self-righteousness. Both sins are deadly. A man may as easily go to hell by trusting in himself as by resigning himself to a besetting vice.

Hell has many gates, though heaven has but one. We must experience the change, which is according to the word of God, and so the text saith, “I turned my feet unto thy testimonies,” that is, to believe what God has revealed, to accept what God presents, to do what God commands, and to be what God would have us to be. May God give us to experience within and to manifest without such a radical turn as that.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Thinking And Turning," delivered July 5, 1874. Image by Jerry Kirkhart on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

It will all hinge on this!

There is a spot of earth that must be shovelled out for you to be laid into to fill up the vacuum. And your soul shall live: your soul shall never die. Let not those who tell you of annihilation be believed for a moment. It must exist.

Put it to yourself whether it shall be with the worm that never dieth and the fire that never shall be quenched, or with Christ who liveth in his glory, and who shall come a second time to give glory to his people and raise their bodies like his own.

Oh, it will all hinge on this — “Dost thou believe in Jesus?”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Visit To The Tomb." Image by Kevin Dooley on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

He was not disappointed

Our Lord Jesus was not disappointed in his hope. He declared his Father's faithfulness in the words, “thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,” and that faithfulness was proven on the resurrection morning. Among the departed and disembodied Jesus was not left; he had believed in the resurrection, and he received it on the third day, when his body rose in glorious life, according as he had said in joyous confidence, “neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Into the outer prison of the grave his body might go, but into the inner prison of corruption he could not enter. He who in soul and body was pre-eminently God's “Holy One,” was loosed from the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

This is noble encouragement to all the saints; die they must, but rise they shall, and though in their case they shall see corruption, yet they shall rise to everlasting life. Christ's resurrection is the cause, the earnest, the guarantee, and the emblem of the rising of all his people. Let them, therefore, go to their graves as to their beds, resting their flesh among the clods as they now do upon their couches.

From The Treasury of David, exposition of Psalm 16, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Image by vvillamon under Creative Commons License.

Let Us Not Sleep

“Let us not sleep, as do others.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:6

The Savior, as I see him throughout the whole of his ministry, appears to me on his knees pleading, and before his God agonising — laying out his life for the sons of men. But, brethren, do I speak harshly when I say that the disciples asleep are a fit emblem of our usual life? As compared or rather contrasted with our Master, I fear it is so.

Where is our zeal for God? Where is our compassion for men? Do we ever feel the weight of souls as we ought to feel it? Do are ever melt in the presence of the terrors of God which we know to be coming upon others? Have we realised the passing away of an immortal spirit to the judgment bar of God? Have we felt pangs and throes of sympathy when we have remembered that multitudes of our fellow creatures have received, as their eternal sentence, the words — "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire in hell, prepared for the devil and his angels?" Why, if these thoughts really possessed us, we should scarce sleep; if they became as real to us as they were to him, we should wrestle with God for souls as he did, and become willing to lay down our lives, if by any means we might save some.

I see by the eye of faith, at this moment, Jesus pleading at the mercy-seat. “For Zion’s sake,” he saith, “I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest;” and yet, we around him lie asleep, without self-denying activity, and almost without prayer, missing opportunities, or, when opportunities for doing good have been seized, using them with but a slothful hand, and doing the work of the Lord, if not deceitfully, yet most sluggishly. Brethren, “let us not sleep, as do others.” If it be true that the Christian Church is to a great extent asleep, the more reason why we should be awake; and, if it be true, as I fear it is, that we have ourselves slumbered and slept, the more reason now that we should arise and trim our lamps, and go forth to meet the Bridegroom. Let us from this moment begin to serve our Master and his church more nearly after the example which he himself has set us in his consecrated life and blessed death. Let us not sleep then, as did the disciples at Gethsemane.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Sleep Not." Image by Christian Revival Network under Creative Commons License.

The One Who Holds the Keys

“I have the keys of hell and of death.” — Jesus Christ (Revelation 1:18)

Then hell and death, terrible powers as they are, are not left to riot without government. Death is a land of darkness, as darkness itself, without any order, yet a sovereign eye surveyeth it, and a master hand holdeth its key. Hell also is a horrible region, where powers of evil and of terror hold their high court and dread assembly; but hell trembles at the presence of the Lord, and there is a throne higher than the throne of evil.

Let us rejoice that nothing in heaven, or earth, or in places under the earth, is left to itself to engender anarchy. Everywhere, serene above the floods, the Lord sitteth King for ever and ever. No province of the universe is free from the divine rule. Things do not come by chance. Nowhere doth chance and chaos reign, nowhere is evil really and permanently enthroned. Rest assured that the Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all; for if the lowest hell and death own [acknowledge] his government, much more all things that are on this lower world.... he ruleth not only over all sheep and oxen, and all fowl of the air, and fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea, but death and Hades also are committed to the dominion of the glorified man. “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

From a sermon entitled "Christ with the Keys of Death and Hell," delivered October 3, 1869. Image by Francesco Dore under Creative Commons License.

See what He has done!

And see what he has done for us! He has procured our pardon; we who have believed in him are forgiven. He has procured our adoption; we are sons of God in Christ Jesus. He has shut the gates of hell for us; we cannot perish, nor can any pluck us out of his hands. He has opened the gates of heaven for us; we shall be with him where he is. Our very bodies shall feel the power of his death, for they shall rise again at the sound of the trumpet at the last day. He was delivered for us his people, “for us all;” he endured all for all his people, for all who trust him, for every son of Adam that casts himself upon him; for every son and daughter of man that will rely alone upon him for salvation. Was he delivered for you, dear hearer?

From a sermon entitled "The Gospel Of Abraham's Sacrifice Of Isaac," delivered May 2, 1869. Image by Michael under Creative Commons License.

How to carve a permanent memorial

I think it was Michelangelo who once carved certain magnificent statues in snow. They are gone; the material readily compacted by the frost as readily melted in the heat. Far wiser was he when he fashioned the enduring marble, and produced works which will last all down the ages. But even marble itself is consumed and fretted by the tooth of time; and he is wise who selects for his raw material immortal souls, whose existence shall outlast the stars.

If God shall bless us to the winning of souls, our work shall remain when the wood, and hay, and stubble of earth’s art and science shall have gone to the dust from which they sprang. In heaven itself, the soul-winner, blessed of God, shall have memorials of his work preserved for ever in the galleries of the skies. He has selected a wise object, for what can be wiser than to glorify God, and what, next to that, can be wiser than in the highest sense to bless our fellow men; to snatch a soul from the gulf that yawns, to lift it up to the heaven that glorifies; to deliver an immortal from the thraldom of Satan, and to bring him into the liberty of Christ?

From a sermon entitled "Soul Winning." Image by Wouter under Creative Commons License.

Our privilege and our duty

If there be any here who have received the grace of God, it will be natural for them to induce others to listen to the word of life, that so they also may find salvation in our exalted Savior. Thus it is that more and more the kingdom grows, until the strongholds of sin are overthrown and the gates of hell are shaken. The little cloud no bigger than a man’s hand increases till it darkens all the skies, and at last deluges the earth with blessing. Let us take care that we prove not an exception to this blessed rule, never let us by unholy silence rob our Master of one of his best weapons, and the church of her greatest joy. You who are healed should publish abroad in every place the fame of the Friend of Sinners, it is your privilege and your duty.

From a sermon entitled "Crowding To Touch The Savior," delivered November 13, 1868. Image by Jayanta Debnath under Creative Commons License.

The Perils of Idleness

Some men have not enough force of character in them to be downright wicked; they are mere chips in the porridge, with nothing of manhood in them. They are so idle that they are not even good enough to be diligent servants of Satan. There be some who would if they could, I think, lie in bed and rot of slothfulness, to whom it would be their supremest bliss for ever to have nothing to do, and nothing to think of, except it may be a little eating and drinking by way of variety. Because this indolence abounds, many men sleep on and awake not to righteousness and to the service of God. To repent is troublesome; to believe in Jesus Christ requires the exercise of thought; to be a Christian is too laborious; to watch your conduct and conversation is too much to require of them. If heaven could be reached in a sound sleep, and sleeping cars could be run all the way to the Celestial City, they would be among the best of pilgrims; but they cannot rub their eyes even to see Jesus, or leave their couch to win heaven itself.

How will these simpletons wake up one day when they find that their life of trifling has brought them within the fast closed gates of hell! God is not to be trifled with. He does not make immortal beings that they may sport like butterflies from flower to flower. He does not create souls and give them lives to spend in child’s play, fashionable frivolities, and killing of time. Yet in the face of eternity, life, death, heaven, and hell, multitudes upon multitudes are ruined simply because they neglect the great salvation, and are absolutely too idle to concern themselves about eternal matters. They doze into damnation, they sleep into eternal fire! But what a waking! O my
fellow men, run not the risk, run not the risk!

From a sermon entitled "Sins Of Omission," delivered October 25, 1868. Image by joiseyshowaa under Creative Commons License.

Rich and poor alike must come to Him

As the great man will not purchase an escape by all that which he hath stored up, so neither will the man be delivered because of his poverty. There was a rich man in hell, we read: poor men have been there, and are there now. As riches cannot save from hell, so neither can poverty raise to heaven. The grace and justice of God are independent of society, and rank, and state, and condition. What mattereth it to the Lord how much or how little of yellow metal thou hast about thee! he measures no man by his purse, but by his soul; and he whose soul is unpardoned is lost, be he rolling in plenty or pining in want. You must be born again; you must believe in Jesus; you must, in one word, get into the ark, or when the flood comes it will sweep you all away, be you rich as Dives, or poor as Lazarus.

From a sermon entitled "Noah's Flood," delivered March 5, 1868. Image by Duncan Rawlinson under Creative Commons License.

The deceitfulness of head-knowledge

We may learn that a man may know a great deal about true religion, and yet be a total stranger to it. He may know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Most High, and yet he may be possessed of a devil; nay, as in this case, he may be a den for a whole legion of devils. Mere knowledge does nothing for us but puff us up. We may know, and know, and know, and so increase our responsibility, without bringing us at all into a state of hope.

Beware of resting in head-knowledge. Beware of relying upon orthodoxy, for without love, with all your correctness of doctrine, you will be a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. It is well to be sound in the faith, but the soundness must be in the heart as well as in the head. There is as ready a way to destruction by the road of orthodoxy as by the paths of heterodoxy. Hell has thousands in it who were never heretics. Remember that the devils “believe and tremble.” There are no sounder theoretical believers than devils, and yet their conduct is not affected by what they believe, and consequently they still remain at enmity to the Most High God. A mere head-believer is on a par therefore with fallen angels, and he will have his portion with them forever unless grace shall change his heart.

From a sermon entitled "Plain Words With The Careless," delivered October 13, 1867. Image by Brandon Godfrey under Creative Commons License.

Escape from an awful evil through Christ

It is our full belief as Christians, that, in order to the pardon of human sin, it was necessary that God himself should become incarnate, and that the Son of God should suffer, suffer excruciating pains, to which the dignity of his person added infinite weight. Brethren, if the wrath of God be a mere trifle, there was no need of a Savior to deliver us; it were as well to have let so small a matter take its course; or, if the Savior came merely to save us from a pinch or two, why is so much said in his praise? What need for heaven and earth to ring with the glories of him who would save us from a small mischief?

But mark the word. As the sufferings of the Savior were intense beyond all conception, and as no less a person than God himself must endure these sufferings for us, that must have been an awful, not to say an infinite evil, from which there was no other way for us to escape except by the bleeding and dying of God’s dear Son. Think lightly of hell, and you will think lightly of the cross. Think little of the sufferings of lost souls, and you will soon think little of the Savior who delivers you from them. God grant we may not live to see such a Christ-dishonoring theology dominant in our times.

From a sermon entitled "Future Punishment A Fearful Thing," delivered March 25, 1866. Image by James Marvin Phelps under Creative Commons License.

A chance for mercy

If the Spirit of God once comes in contact with your souls, and shows you that Christ died for you, your enmity towards Christ will be all over then.

Dr. Gifford once went to see a woman in prison who had been a very gross offender. She was such a hardened reprobate, that the doctor began by discoursing with her about the judgments of God, and the punishments of hell, but she only laughed him to scorn, and called him opprobrious names. The doctor burst into tears, and said, “And yet, poor soul, there is mercy for you, even for such as you are, though you have laughed in the face of him who would do you good. Christ is able to forgive you, hard though you are; and I hope that he will yet take you to dwell with him at his right hand.” In a moment the woman stopped her laughing, sat down quietly, burst into tears, and said, “Don’t talk to me in that way; I have always been told that I should be damned, and I made up my mind to be; I knew there was no chance, and so I have gone on from one sin to another: but oh! if there is a hope of mercy for me, that is another thing; if there is a possibility of my being forgiven, that is another thing.”

The doctor at once opened his Bible, and began to read to her these words, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son, cleanseth us from all sin;” the greatest brokenness of heart followed. In subsequent visits the doctor was gratified to find that she was brought to Christ; and though she had to undergo a sentence of transportation for many years at the time, yet in after days the godly man saw her walking honestly and uprightly as a believer in Jesus Christ.

From a sermon entitled "Prevenient Grace." Image by Yuval Haimovits under Creative Commons License.

Christ and Satan

The Lord Jesus is ever in direct and open antagonism to Satan. “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed,” has been most emphatically fulfilled. Christ has never tolerated any truce or parley with the evil one, and never will. Whenever Christ strikes a blow at Satan, it is a real blow, and not a feint, and is meant to destroy, not to amend. He never asks Satan’s help to subdue Satan, never fights evil by evil; he uses the weapons which are not carnal, but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds; and he uses them ever with this intention, not to dally with Satan, but to cut up his empire, root and branch. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”

There is a deadly, implacable, infinite, eternal hatred between Christ and that sin of which Satan is the representative. No compromise can ever be thought of, no quarter will ever be allowed. The Lord will never turn from his purpose to bruise Satan under his feet and to cast him into the lake of fire. Hence there was nothing more libelous than the assertion of certain Pharisees in Christ’s day, that he cast out devils through Beelzebub, the Prince of devils. O base suggestion, that the Lord of glory was in league with the dunghill Deity, the Prince of devils. He never fights the Lord’s battles with the devil’s weapons, he has not the most distant affiance with evil. It is not possible that he should be the friend and patron of that spirit of unhallowed charity which for the sake of peace would give tolerance to error. No, he never allies himself with Satan, to advance the kingdom of God, but he comes against him as a strong man armed, determined to fight until he wins a decisive victory.

From a sermon entitled "The Strong One Driven Out By A Stronger One," delivered February 5, 1865. Image by James Jordan under Creative Commons License.

Flee to the refuge today

A man on board a vessel, when he hears the cry of “Fire!” must not stop to arrange his clothes; he must not he concerned to see that his face is washed, that he has bound together that little bundle of papers, or packed up the portmanteau, or counted over the little purse of gold, or even snatched his little property from the cabin. At once, at once, must he climb the stairs and reach the deck, or he will never have stairs to climb, nor feet to climb with. Now or never. Quick is the word. Waste a moment, and it is all over with you; the fire is upon you, for it tarries not in its march. So is it with you tonight who fear not God. “Escape for thy life,” is a cry for the present moment. Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” Now, now, NOW. This is the only period God has allotted to you, take care that you use it, lest when your todays are past, and you hope to see your to-morrow, you should have to spend your tomorrows in the pit of hell. Procrastination is not only the thief of time, but the thief of souls. Now is the day of salvation; I have never heard of any other day. I do not know, but I think this is one of the most difficult things in the gospel ministry, a matter worthy of the Holy Ghost’s power - to make men
seriously think about their souls at this present.

From a sermon entitled "The Ship On Fire - A Voice Of Warning," delivered November 8, 1863. Flickr photo by Kazuhiko Teramoto; some rights reserved.

Today if you hear His Voice

Remember you are either one or the other; you are either condemned or forgiven. Do not stand between the two. Let it be decided, and remember if you are condemned to-day, yet you are not in hell. There is hope yet. Blessed be God, still is Christ lifted up, and whosover believeth on him shall not perish but have everlasting life. The gate of glory is not closed; the proclamation of mercy is not hushed; the Spirit of God still goeth forth to open blind eyes and to unstop deaf ears, and still is it preached to you, to every creature under heaven — Whosoever believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that be believeth not shall be damned. Believe. God help you to believe. Trust Jesus; trust him now; and may the Lord grant that your name may be written among the some that believe, and not among the some that believe not.

From a sermon entitled "The Minister's Stocktaking." Flickr photo by mike138; some rights reserved.

He shall throw down every foe

The dragon’s head shall be so completely broken, that he can do nothing but bite his iron bonds and growl out his confession that God is stronger than he. The hosts of hell shall have been so utterly routed, that the deep groans of dismay and shrieks of terror shall be the confession that Omnipotence rules their terrible doom. As for Death, when he shall see his captives all loosed before his eyes; as for the grave, when the key shall be rent from her grip, and all her treasures plucked from her grasp — death and the grave shall both acknowledge that their victory is gone for ever; Christ has been the conqueror, the Son of God who in our nature has already taken away the sting.

There may be to-day some who write their names down as Atheists; there may be others who openly avow that they are the adversaries of God; and throughout the universe there are never wanting those who are hopeful that the issue will turn out as they wish — they are hopeful that wrong will master right; that evil shall drive out good, and darkness extinguish light. But there shall not be one such being left on that great day of victory; it shall be acknowledged even by the lip of despair that the Lord God, “with his own right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.” Blazoned across the sky in lightnings such as the eye of terror has never beheld before; thundered out with trumpet louder than even that which startled the sleeping dead, every tongue in earth and hell shall confess, because every ear hath heard, that the Lord reigneth, and is king for ever and ever.

From a sermon entitled "The New Song," delivered December 28, 1862. Flickr photo by Tom Woodward; some rights reserved.

Preaching the wrath to come

The Lord Jesus, though the most loving of spirits, was the most awful¹ of preachers; and in his sermons, while there is everything that could melt and woo, there is no lack of the great and terrible thunderbolt, and the sounding forth of wrath to come, and the judgment which must await the impenitent. But again, you will say to me, wherefore speak you thus? Why not dwell upon more pleasant themes? Because, as the Lord my God liveth, before whom I stand, I would be free of the blood of all men.

¹ - in the old-fashioned sense of awe-inspiring or terrifying

From a sermon entitled "The Portion Of The Ungodly," delivered April 13, 1862. Flickr photo by Joe; some rights reserved.