Salvation Is Of The Lord
C. H. Spurgeon
...if GOD does require the sinner—dead in sin—that he should
take the first step, then he requireth just that which renders salvation as
impossible under the gospel as ever it was under the law, seeing man is as
unable to believe as he is to obey, and is just as much without power to come to
Christ as he is without power to go to heaven without Christ. The power must be
given to him of the Spirit. He lieth dead in sin: the Spirit must quicken him.
He is bound hand and foot, fettered by transgression; the Spirit must cut his
bonds, and then he will leap to liberty. GOD must come and dash the iron bars
out of their sockets, and then he can escape afterwards, but unless the first
thing be done for him, he must perish as surely under the gospel as he would
have done under the law.
I would cease to preach, if l believed that God, in the
matter of salvation, required anything whatever of man which He Himself had not
also engaged to furnish.. I am the messenger. I tell you the master's message;
if you do not like the message quarrel with the Bible, not with me; so long as I
have Scripture on my side I will dare and defy you to do anything against me.
Salvation is of the Lord. The Lord has to apply it, to make the unwilling
willing, to make the ungodly godly, and bring the vile rebel to the feet of
Jesus, or else salvation will never be accomplished. Leave that one thing
undone, and you have broken the link of the chain, the very link which was just
necessary to its integrity. Take away the fact that God begins the good work,
and that He sends us what the old divines call preventing grace-take that away,
and you have spoilt the whole of salvation; you have just taken the key-stone
out of the arch, and down it tumbles. There is nothing left then.
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