long; it would send forth its bands and legions, rolling along in one tremendous stream; a new crusade would be preached against the heathen nations, and the sword of the Lord and of Gideon would strike the stoutest of our foes, and Christ would reign, and his unsuffering kingdom would come then. Oh that the church had power with men, and power with God! Dear brothers and sisters, look out and see what you can do, each of you. Do something today. Do not let this Sunday go without each of you trying to be the means of winning a soul to God. Go to your Sunday Schools this afternoon; go to your preaching stations; go to your tract district, each one in his sphere; go to your families, your mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters; go home and do something today. “Fight the Lord’s battles.” You can do nothing by yourselves; but God will be with you. If you have the will to serve him, he will give you the power. Go today, and seek to heal some breach, to put away some enmity, to slay some sin, or to drive out some error; and if God is with you then this shall be a happier day to your soul, and a holier day to the world than you have seen in all your experience before.
39. I will have one blow, and then you may go. Sinner! I remember that you are here this morning as well as the saint. Sinner! you are not Christ’s soldier; you are a soldier of Satan; you will have your pay soon, man, when you have worn your sword out, and worn your arm out in fighting against Christ. You shall have your pay. Look at it and tremble. “The wages of sin is death,” and damnation too. Will you take these two, or will you now renounce the black old tyrant, and enlist under the banner of Christ? Oh that God would give you the deposit of free grace, and enlist you now as a soldier of the cross. Remember, Christ takes the very dregs to be his soldiers. Every man that was in debt, and every man that was discontented, came to David, and he became a captain over them. Now, if you are in debt this morning to God’s law, and cannot pay, if you are discontented with the devil’s service, jaded and worn out with pleasure, come to Christ, and he will receive you, make you a soldier of the cross, and a follower of the Lamb. God be with you and bless you, from this day forth, even for ever!
{a} The Second War of Italian Independence, Franco-Austrian War, Austro-Sardinian War, or Austro-Piedmontese War, was fought by Napoleon III of France and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia against the Austrian Empire in 1859. In respect to the Italian unification process, this war is also known as the Second Independence War. See Explorer “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italian_War_of_Independence”
{b} The fires that Queen Mary (1553-1558) ordered to be lit at Smithfield put to death such Protestant leaders and men of influence as Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper, but also hundreds of lesser men who refused to adopt the Catholic faith.
{c} Puseyism: A name given by opponents to the theological and ecclesiastical principles and doctrines of Dr. Pusey and those with whom he was associated in the “Oxford Movement” for the revival of Catholic doctrine and observance in the Church of England which began about 1833; more formally and courteously called Tractarianism. OED.
The Necessity Of The Spirit’s Work
No. 251-5:209. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, May 8, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
And I will put my Spirit within you. {Ezekiel 36:27}
1. The miracles of Christ are remarkable for one fact, namely that they are all necessary. The pretended miracles of Mohammed, and of the church of Rome, even if they had been miracles, would have been pieces of folly. Suppose that Saint Denis had walked with his head in his hand after it had been cut off, what practical purpose would have been served by it? He would certainly have been quite as well in his grave, for any practical good he would have conferred on men. The miracles of Christ were never unnecessary. They are not freaks of power; they are displays of power it is true, but all of them have a practical end. The same thing may be said of the promises of God. We have not one promise in the Scripture which may be regarded as a mere freak of grace. Just as every miracle was necessary, absolutely necessary, so is every promise that is given in the Word of God. And hence from the text that is before us, I may draw, and I think very conclusively, the argument, that if God in his covenant made with his people has promised to put his Spirit within them, it must be absolutely necessary that this promise should have been made, and it must be absolutely necessary also for our salvation that every one of us should receive the Spirit of God. This shall be the subject of this morning’s discourse. I shall not hope to make it very interesting, except to those who are anxiously longing to know the way of salvation.
2. We start, then, by laying down this proposition — that the work of the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary for us, if we are to be saved.
3. 1. In endeavouring to prove this, I would first of all make the remark that this is very obvious if we remember what man is by nature. Some say that man may by himself attain to salvation — that if he hears the Word, then it is in his power to receive it, to believe it, and to have a saving change worked in him by it. To this we reply, you do not know what man is by nature, otherwise you would never have made such an assertion. Holy Scripture tells us that man by nature is dead in trespasses and sins. It does not say that he is sick, that he is faint, that he has grown callous, and hardened, and seared, but it says he is absolutely dead. Whatever that term “death” means in connection with the body, it means that in connection with man’s soul, viewing it in its relation to spiritual things. When the body is dead it is powerless; it is unable to do any thing for itself; and when the soul of man is dead, in a spiritual sense, it must be, if there is any meaning in the metaphor, utterly and entirely powerless, and unable to do anything by itself or for itself. When you shall see dead men raising themselves from their graves, when you shall see them unwinding their own grave clothes, opening their own coffin lids, and walking down our streets alive and animate, as the result of their own power, then perhaps you may believe that souls which are dead in sin may turn to God, may recreate their own natures, and may make themselves heirs of heaven, though before they were heirs of wrath. But note, not until then. The thrust of the gospel is, that man is dead in sin, and that divine life is God’s gift; and you must go contrary to all of that thrust, before you can suppose a man can be brought to know and love Christ, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit finds men as destitute of spiritual life as Ezekiel’s dry bones; he brings bone to bone, and fits the skeleton together, and then he comes from the four winds and breathes into the slain, and they live, and stand upon their feet, an exceedingly great army, and worship God. But apart from that, apart from the vivifying influence of the Spirit of God, men’s souls must lie in the valley of dry bones, dead, and dead for ever.
4. But Scripture does not only tell us that man is dead in sin; it tells us something worse than this, namely, that he is utterly and entirely averse to everything that is good and right. “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.” — {Romans 8:7} Examine all the Scripture, and you find continually the will of man described as being contrary to the things of God. What did Christ say in that text so often quoted by the Arminian to disprove the very doctrine which it clearly states? What did Christ say to those who imagined that men would come without divine influence? He said, first, “No man can come to me except the Father who has sent me draws him”; but he said something even more strong — “You will not come to me that you might have life.” No man will come. Here lies the deadly mischief; not only that he is powerless to do good, but that he is powerful enough to do that which is wrong, and that his will is desperately set against everything that is right. Go, Armenian, and tell your hearers that they will come if they please, but know that your Redeemer looks you in the face, and tells you that you are uttering a lie. Men will not come. They never will come by themselves. You cannot induce them to come; you cannot force them to come by all your thunders, nor can you entice them to come by all your invitations. They will not come to Christ, so that they may have life. Until the Spirit draws them, they neither will come, nor can they.
5. Hence, then, from the fact that man’s nature is hostile to the divine Spirit, that he hates grace, that he despises the way in which grace is brought to him, that it is contrary to his own proud nature to stoop to receive salvation