The Spurgeon Series 1859 & 1860. Charles H. Spurgeon
of God should operate to change the will, to correct the bias of the heart, to set man in a right track, and then give him strength to run in it. Oh! if you read man and understand him, you cannot help being sound on the point of the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s work. It has been well remarked by a great writer, that he never knew a man who held any great theological error, who did not also hold a doctrine which diminished the depravity of man. The Armenian says man is fallen, it is true, but then he has power of will left, and that will is free; he can raise himself. He diminishes the desperate character of the fall of man. On the other hand, the Antinomian says that man cannot do anything, but that he is not at all responsible, and is not bound to do it, it is not his duty to believe, it is not his duty to repent. Thus, you see, he also diminishes the sinfulness of man; and does not have a proper view of the fall. But once get the correct view, that man is utterly fallen, powerless, guilty, defiled, lost, condemned, and you must be sound on all points of the great gospel of Jesus Christ. Once believe man to be what Scripture he says is — once believe his heart to be depraved, his affections perverted, his understanding darkened, his will perverse, and you must hold that if such a wretch as that is saved, it must be the work of the Spirit of God, and of the Spirit of God alone.
6. 2. I have another proof ready at hand. Salvation must be the work of the Spirit in us, because the means used in salvation are of themselves inadequate for the accomplishment of the work. And what are the means of salvation? Why, first and foremost stands the preaching of the Word of God. More men are brought to Christ by preaching than by anything else; for it is God’s chief and first instrument. This is the sword of the Spirit, quick and powerful, to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. “It pleases God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.” But what is there in preaching, by which souls are saved, that looks as if it would be the means of saving souls? I could point you to various churches and chapels into which you might step, and say, “Here is a learned minister indeed, a man who would instruct and enlighten the intellect”; you sit down, and you say, “Well, if God intends to do a great work, he will use a learned man like this.” But do you know any learned men that are made the means of bringing souls to Christ, to any great degree? Go around your churches, if you please, and look at them, and then answer the question. Do you know any great men — men great in learning and wisdom — who have become spiritual fathers in our Israel? Is it not a fact that stares us in the face, that our fashionable preachers, our eloquent preachers, our learned preachers, are just the most useless men in creation for the winning of souls to Christ? And where are souls born to God? Why, in the house where the jeer and the scoff and the sneer of the world have long gathered. Sinners are converted under the man whose eloquence is rough and homely, and who has nothing to commend him to his fellows, who has daily to fall on his knees and confess his own folly, and when the world speaks badly of him, he feels that he deserves it all, since he is nothing but an earthen vessel, in which God is pleased to put his heavenly treasure. I will dare to say it, that in every age of the world the most despised ministry has been the most useful; and I could find for you at this day poor Primitive Methodist preachers who can scarcely speak correct English, who have been the fathers of more souls, and have brought to Christ more than any one bishop on the bench. Why, the Lord has been pleased always to make it so, that he will clothe with power the weak and the foolish, but he will not clothe with power those who, if good would be done, might be led to ascribe the excellence of the power to their learning, their eloquence, or their position. Like the apostle Paul, it is every minister’s business to glory in his infirmities. The world says, “Pshaw! upon your oratory; it is rough, and rude, and eccentric.” Yes, it is even so, but we are content, for God blesses it. Then so much the better that it has infirmities in it; for now it shall be plainly seen that it is not of man or by man, but the work of God, and of God alone. It is said that once upon a time a man exceedingly curious desired to see the sword with which a mighty hero had fought some desperate battles; casting his eye along the blade, he said, “Well, I do not see much in this sword.” “No,” said the hero, “but you have not examined the arm that wields it.” And so when men come to hear a successful minister, they are apt to say, “I do not see any thing in him.” No, but you have not examined the eternal arm that reaps its harvest with this sword of the Spirit. If you had looked at the jawbone of the donkey in Samson’s hand, you would have said, “What! heaps on heaps with this!” No; bring out some polished blade; bring forth the Damascus steel! No; but God wishes to have all the glory, and, therefore, not with the polished steel, therefore Samson must get the victory with the jawbone. So with ministers; God has usually blessed the weakest to do the most good. Well, now, does it not follow from this, that it must be the work of the Spirit? Because, if there is nothing in the instrument that can lead to it, is it not the work of the Spirit when the thing is accomplished? Let me just ask you this. Under the ministry dead souls are quickened, sinners are made to repent, the vilest of sinners are made holy, men who came determined not to believe are compelled to believe. Now, who does this? If you say the ministry does it, then I say farewell to your reason, because there is nothing in the successful ministry which would result in it. It must be that the Spirit works in man through the ministry or else such deeds would never be accomplished. You might as well expect to raise the dead by whispering in their ears, as hope to save souls by preaching to them, if it were not for the agency of the Spirit. Melancthon went out to preach, you know, without the Spirit of the Lord, and he thought he would convert all the people; but he found out at last that old Adam was too strong for young Melancthon, and he had to go back and ask for the help of the Holy Spirit before he ever saw a soul saved. I say, that the fact that the ministry is blessed, proves, since there is nothing in the ministry, that salvation must be the work of a higher power.
7. Other means, however, are made use of to bless men’s souls. For instance, the two ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. They are both made a rich means of grace. But let me ask you, is there any thing in baptism that can possibly bless anyone? Can immersion in water have the slightest tendency to be blessed to the soul? And then with regard to the eating of bread and the drinking of wine at the Lord’s Supper, can it by any means be conceived by any rational man that there is anything in the mere piece of bread that we eat, or in the wine that we drink? And yet doubtless the grace of God goes with both ordinances for the confirming of the faith of those who receive them, and even for the conversion of those who look upon the ceremony. There must be something, then, beyond the outward ceremony; there must, in fact, be the Spirit of God, witnessing through the water, witnessing through the wine, witnessing through the bread, or otherwise none of these things could be the means of grace to our souls. They could not edify; they could not help us to commune with Christ; they could not tend to the conviction of sinners, or to the establishment of saints. There must then, from these facts, be a higher, unseen, mysterious influence — the influence of the divine Spirit of God.
8. 3. Let me again remind you, in the third place, that the absolute necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart may be clearly seen from this fact, that all which has been done by God the Father, and all that has been done by God the Son must be ineffectual to us, unless the Spirit shall reveal these things to our souls. We believe, in the first place, that God the Father elects his people; from before all worlds he chooses them for himself, but let me ask you — what effect does the doctrine of election have upon any man, until the Spirit of God enters into him? How do I know whether God has chosen me from before the foundation of the world? How can I possibly know? Can I climb to heaven and read the roll? Is it possible for me to force my way through the thick mists which hide eternity, and open the seven seals of the book, and read my name recorded there? Ah! no; election is a dead letter both in my consciousness and in any effect which it can produce upon me, until the Spirit of God calls me out of darkness into marvellous light. And then, through my calling, I see my election, and, knowing myself to be called by God, I know myself to have been chosen by God from before the foundation of the world. It is a precious thing — that doctrine of election — to a child of God. But what makes it precious? Nothing, without the influence of the Spirit. Until the Spirit opens the eye to read, until the Spirit imparts the mystic secret, no heart can know its election. No angel ever revealed to any man that he was chosen by God; but the Spirit does it. He, by his divine workings, bears an infallible witness with our spirits that we are born of God; and then we are enabled to “read our title clear to mansions