Let us get back to the simple gospel—Christ died for our sins. We must know Christ at Calvary first, as
OUR SUBSTITUTE,
as our Redeemer; and the moment we accept of Him as our Saviour and our Redeemer, then it is that we become partakers of the gospel. The moment I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as my substitute, as my Saviour, that moment I get light and peace. I know some people say, “Oh, it is not Christ’s death, it is Christ’s life. Do not be preaching so much about the death of Christ, preach about His life.” My friends, that never will save any one. Paul says, “I declare unto you the gospel. Christ died”—not Christ lived—“Christ died for our sins,” “who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” Now, when I accept of Christ as my Saviour, as my Substitute, then I am justified from all things which I could not be by the law of Moses.
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
The reason I like the gospel is, that it has taken out of my path the worst enemies I ever had. My mind rolls back to twenty years ago, before I was converted, and I think very often how dark it used to seem at times as I thought of the future. There was death—what a terrible enemy it seemed! I was brought up in a little village in New England. It was the custom there when a person was buried to toll out the age of the man at his funeral. I used to count the strokes of the bell. Death never entered that village and tore away one of the inhabitants but I always used to count the tolling of the bell. Sometimes it would be away up to seventy, or between seventy and eighty; beyond the life allotted to man, when man seemed living on borrowed time when cut off. Sometimes it would be clear down in the teens, and childhood, and death would take away one of my own age. It used to make a solemn impression on me; I used to be a great coward. When it comes to death, some men say, “I do not fear it.” I feared it, and felt terribly afraid when I thought of the cold hand of death feeling for the cords of life, and being launched out to eternity, to go to an unknown world. I used to have terrible thoughts of God; but they are all gone now. Death has lost its sting. And as I go on through the world I can shout now, when the bell is tolling, “O death, where is thy sting?” And I hear a voice come rolling down from Calvary, “Buried in the bosom of the Son of God.” He robbed death of its sting; He took the sting of death into His own bosom. If you take a wasp, and just take the sting out of that wasp, you will not be afraid of it any more than you would of a little fly. The sting has been taken out. And you need not be afraid of death if you are in Christ. Christ died for your sin. The penalty, the wages of sin is death. Christ received the wages on Calvary, and therefore there is no condemnation. All that death can get now is this old Adam. I do not care how quickly I get rid of it. I will get a better body, a resurrected body, a glorified body, a body much better than this. Yes, my friends, “To die,” says the apostle, “is gain.”
THE FEAR OF DEATH.
If a man is in Christ, let death come. Suppose death should come stealing up into this pulpit, and should lay his cold, icy hand upon my heart, and it should cease to throb; I should rise to another world, and should be present with the King. I should be absent from the body, but present with the Lord. That is not bad news. There is no use in trying to conceal it, death is an enemy to a man’s rest. What a glorious thought to think that when you die you will sink into the arms of Jesus, and that He will carry you away to yon world of light. A little while longer here, a few more tears, and then you can gain an unbroken rest in yon world of light. The gospel turns that enemy into a friend, and you even shout for death. Well, then, I used to go and look into the cold, silent grave, and I used to think of that terrible hour when I would have to be laid down in the grave, and this body would be eaten up with the worm. But now the grave has lost its terror and gloom; I can go and look down into the grave and shout over it, and cry out, “O grave, where is thy victory?” And I hear a shout coming up from the grave; it is the shout of the Conqueror, of Him who has been down and measured the depth of it, of my Lord and Saviour: “Because I live, ye shall live also.” Yes, the grave has lost its victory. The grave has no terror to the man in Christ Jesus. The gospel takes that enemy out of the way.
SIN PUT AWAY.
Again, I thought all my sins would be blazed out before the great white throne; that every sin committed in childhood and in secret, and every secret thought, and every evil desire, would be blazed out before the assembled universe; that every thing done in the dark would be brought to light. But, thanks be to God, the gospel tells me my sins are all put away in Christ. Out of love to my soul, He has taken all my sins and cast them behind His back. That is a safe place to have sin, behind God’s back. God never turns back; He always marches on. He will never see your sins if they are behind His back. That is one of His own illustrations. Out of love to my soul, He has taken all my sins upon Him; not a part. He takes them all out of the way. There is no condemnation to him that is in Christ Jesus. You may just pile up your sins till they rise up like a dark mountain, and then multiply them by ten thousand for those you cannot think of; and after you have tried to enumerate all the sins you have ever committed, just let me bring one verse in, and then that mountain will melt away—“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” The blood covers the sin.