wax to the seal, and fashioned into the image of Jesus Christ.
19. Oh my brethren, what can I say now to enforce my text, but that if you are like Christ on earth, you shall be like him in heaven. If by the power of the Spirit you become followers of Jesus, you shall enter glory. For at heaven’s gate there sits an angel, who admits no one who has not the same features as our adorable Lord. There comes a man with a crown upon his head. “Yes,” he says, “you have a crown it is true, but crowns are not the medium of access here.” Another approaches dressed in robes of state and the gown of learning. “Yes,” says the angel, “it may be good, but gowns and learning are not the marks that shall admit you here.” Another advances, fair, beautiful, and comely. “Yes,” says the angel “that might please on earth, but beauty is not wanted here.” There comes up another, who is heralded by fame, and prefaced by the blast of the clamour of mankind; but the angel says, “It is well with man, but you have no right to enter here.” Then there appears another: poor he may have been; illiterate he may have been, but the angel, as he looks at him, smiles and says, “It is Christ again; a second edition of Jesus Christ is there. Come in, come in. Eternal glory you shall win. You are like Christ; in heaven you shall sit because you are like him.” Oh! to be like Christ is to enter heaven; but to be unlike Christ is to descend to hell. Likes shall be gathered together at last, tares with tares, wheat with wheat. If you have sinned with Adam, and have died, you shall lie with the spiritually dead for ever, unless you rise in Christ to newness of life; then shall we live with him throughout eternity. Wheat with wheat; tares with tares. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatever a man sows that he shall also reap.” Go away with this one thought, then, my brethren, that you can test yourselves by Christ. If you are like Christ you are of Christ and shall be with Christ. If you are unlike him, you have no portion in the great inheritance. May my poor discourse help to fan the floor and reveal the chaff; yes, may it lead many of you to seek to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, to the praise of his grace. To him be all honour given! Amen.
A Caution To The Presumptuous
No. 22-1:165. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, May 13, 1855, By C. H. Spurgeon, At Exeter Hall, Strand.
Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. {1 Corinthians 10:12}
1. It is a singular fact, but nevertheless most certain, that the vices are the counterfeits of virtues. Whenever God sends from the mint of heaven a precious coin of genuine metal, Satan will imitate the impress, and utter a vile production of no value. God gives love, it is his nature and his essence. Satan also fashions a thing which he calls love, but it is lust. God bestows courage; and it is a good thing to be able to look one’s fellow in the face, fearless of all men in doing our duty. Satan inspires foolhardiness, styles it courage, and bids the man rush to the cannon’s mouth for “bubble reputation.” God creates in man holy fear. Satan gives him unbelief, and we often mistake the one for the other. So with the best of virtues, the saving grace of faith, when it comes to its perfection it ripens into confidence, and there is nothing so comfortable and so desirable to the Christian, as the full assurance of faith. Hence, we find Satan, when he sees this good coin, at once takes the metal of the bottomless pit, imitates the heavenly image and superscription of assurance, and palms up on us the vice of presumption.
2. We are astonished, perhaps, as Calvinistic Christians, to find Paul saying, “Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall”; but we need not be astonished for though we have a great right to believe that we stand, if we think we stand through the power of God — though we cannot be too confident of the might of the Most High, there is a thing so near akin to true confidence, that unless you use the greatest discernment you cannot tell the difference. Unholy presumption — it is against that which I am to speak this morning. Let me not be misunderstood. I shall not utter one word against the strongest faith. I wish all Little-Faiths were Strong-Faiths, that all Fearings were made Valiants-for-Truth, and the Ready-to-Halts Asahel’s Nimble-of-Foot, that they might all run in their Master’s work. I speak not against strong faith or full assurance; God gives it to us; it is the holiest happiest thing that a Christian can have, and there is no state so desirable as that of being able to say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him.” It is not against that I speak, but I warn you against that evil thing, a false confidence and presumption which creeps over a Christian, like the cold death sleep on the mountain top, from which, if he is not awakened, as God will see that he shall be, death will be the inevitable consequence. “Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
3. I shall this morning attempt first, to find out the character; secondly, to show the danger; and thirdly to give the counsel. The character is, the man who thinks he stands; the danger is, that he may fall; and the counsel is, “let him take heed.”
4. I. My first business shall be to FIND OUT THE CHARACTER intended by the presumptuous man, the man who thinks he stands. I could find a multitude of such if I might search the wide world o’er. I could find men in business filled with an arrogant hardihood, who, because they have in one speculation been successful will wade far out into the stormy sea of this contending life, risk their all — and lose it too. I might mention others who, presuming upon their health, are spending their years in sin and their lives in iniquity, because they think their bones iron and their nerves steel, and “all men mortal but themselves.” I might speak of men who will venture into the midst of temptation, confident in their boasted power, exclaiming with self-complacency, “Do you think I am so weak as to sin? Oh! no; I shall stand. Give me the glass; I shall never be a drunkard. Give me the song; you will not find me a midnight reveller. I can drink a little and then I can stop.” Such are presumptuous men. But I am not about to find them there; my business this morning is with God’s church. The fanning must begin with the floor; the winnowing must try the wheat. So we are to winnow the church this morning to discover the presumptuous. We need not go far to find them. There are in every Christian church men who think they stand, men who vaunt themselves in fancied might and power, children of nature finely dressed, but not the living children of the living God; they have not been humbled or broken in spirit, or if they have, they have fostered carnal security until it has grown to a giant and trampled the sweet flower of humility under its foot. They think they stand. I speak now of real Christians, who, notwithstanding, have grown presumptuous, and indulge in a fleshly security. May my Master arouse such, while in preaching I endeavour to go to the core and root of the matter. For a little while I will expatiate upon the frequent causes of presumption in a Christian.
5. 1. And first a very common cause, is continued worldly prosperity. Moab is settled on his lees, {Jeremiah 48:11} he has not been emptied from vessel to vessel. Give a man wealth; let his ships bring home continually rich freights; let the winds and waves appear to be his servants to bear his vessels across the bosom of the mighty deep; let his lands yield abundantly; let the weather be propitious to his crops, and the skies smile pleasantly upon his enterprise; let the bands of Orion be loosed for him; let the sweet influence of the Pleiades descend upon him; let uninterrupted success attend him; let him stand among men as a successful merchant, as a princely Dives as a man who is heaping up riches to a large extent, who is always prospering: or, if not wealth, let him enjoy continued health; let him know no sickness; allow him with braced nerve and brilliant eye, to march through the world, and live happily; give him the buoyant spirit; let him have the song perpetually on his lips, and his eye be ever sparkling with joy: — the happy, happy man who laughs at care, and cries, “Begone, dull care, I pray you begone from me.” I say the consequence of such a state to a man, let him be the best Christian who ever breathed, will be presumption; and he will say, “I stand.” “In my prosperity,” says David, “I said, I shall never be moved.” And we are not much better than David, nor half as good. If God should always rock us in the cradle of prosperity — if we were always candled on the knees of fortune — if we had not some stain on the alabaster pillar, if there were not a few clouds in the sky, some specks in our sunshine — if we had not some bitter drops in the wine of this life, we should become intoxicated with pleasure, we should dream “we stand”; and stand we should, but it would be upon a pinnacle; stand we might, but like the man asleep upon the mast,