Charles Spurgeon
1857
“Nevertheless He saved them for his name’s sake.” — Psalm 106:8.
The text is an answer to the two great questions concerning salvation: Who saved men and why are they saved? “He saved them for his name’s sake.”
First, then, here is A GLORIOUS SAVIOR — “He saved them.” Who is to be understood by that pronoun “he?” Possibly many of my hearers may answer “Why, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior of men.” Right, my friends; but not all the truth. Jesus Christ is the Savior; but not more so than God the Father, or God the Holy Ghost. Some persons who are ignorant of the system of divine truth think of God the Father as being a great Being full of wrath, and anger, and justice, but having no love, they think of God the Spirit perhaps as a mere influence proceeding from the Father and the Son. Now, nothing can be more incorrect than such opinions. It is true the Son redeems me, but then the Father gave the Son to die for me, and the Father chose me in the everlasting election of his grace. The Father blots out my sin, the Father accepts me and adopts me into his family through Christ. The Son could not save without the Father any more than the Father without the Son, and as for the Holy Spirit, if the Son redeems, know ye not that the Holy Ghost regenerates? It is he that makes us new creatures in Christ, who begets us again unto a lively hope, who purifies our soul, who sanctifies our spirit, and who, at last, presents us spotless and faultless before the throne of the Most High, accepted in the beloved. When thou sayest, “Saviour,” remember there is a Trinity in that word — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, this Savior being three persons under one name. Thou canst not be saved by the Son without the Father, nor by the Father without the Son, nor by Father and Son without the Spirit. But as they are one in creation, so are they one in salvation working together in one God for our salvation, and unto that God be glory everlasting, world without end, Amen.
Brethren, if the work be done at all, it must be done of God for if God do not convert there is nothing done that shall last, and nothing that shall be of any avail for eternity.
But some reply, “Well, sir, but men convert themselves.” Yes, they do, and a fine conversion it is. Very frequently they convert themselves. But then that which man did, man undoes. He who converts himself one day, unconverts himself the next; he tieth a knot which his own fingers can loosen. Remember this — you may convert yourselves a dozen times over, but “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and “cannot see the kingdom of God.” It is only “that which is born of the Spirit” that “is Spirit,” and is therefore able to be gathered at last into the spirit-realm, where only spiritual things can be found before the throne of the Most High.
Now, secondly, THE FAVORED PERSONS — “He saved them.” Who are they? Note, first, that they were a stupid people. God sends his gospel not always to the wise and prudent, but unto fools. Note, again, they were a very ungrateful people, and yet he saved them. And note, once more, they were a provoking people.
I did not say he saved the provoking people, and then let them still provoke him as they had done before; I did not say he saved the wicked people, and then let them sin as they did before.
The word “saved” does not mean merely taking men to heaven, it means more — it means saving them from their sin; it means giving them a new heart, new spirits, new lives; it means making them into new men. Is there anything licentious in saying that Christ takes the worst of men to make them into saints? If there be, I cannot see it. I only wish he would take the worst of this congregation and make them into the saints of the living God, and then there would be far less licentiousness.
Sinner, I comfort thee; not in thy sin, but in thy repentance. Sinner, the saints of heaven were once as bad as thou hast been.
There is nothing in a sinner which can entitle him to salvation, or recommend him to mercy; it must be God’s own heart which must dictate the motive why men are to be saved.
© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible
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