God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).
I shall have nothing new to tell you. The message will be as old as the everlasting hills, and so simple that a child can understand. God’s commendation of himself and his love is not in words, but in deeds. Now for that mighty act whereby God commendeth his love. The truth here is twofold.
I. The First Commendation. “Christ died for us.” Note here both the Person and the deed. When men first sinned the angels felt helpless. No one of them could have dreamed that God himself would assume flesh and die. If you would have right ideas of God in splendor, think how he best commended his love for us, in that he gave his Son.
When Christ became man for a while he stripped himself of the glories of the Godhead. He gave us a perfect example by his spotless life. But the commendation of love lies here: He died for us. All that death could mean Christ endured. For as many of you as have not yet believed I pray that you may look to him for the expiation of all your guilt, as the key that opens heaven to all believers.
II. The Second Commendation. He died for us while we were yet sinners. Consider how many of us have been continual sinners, not once, nor twice, but ten thousand times, in our outward acts, the thoughts of our hearts, and the words from our mouths. Again, he has died for us though our sins were aggravated. When you sin against the convictions of your conscience, the warnings of your friends, the admonitions of your minister, you sin more grossly than others do. The Hottentot sinneth not as the Briton doth. But do not despair. Christ died for you.
Reflect again. We were sinners against the very Person who died for us. There is an old tradition that the man who pierced Christ’s side was converted. My master said, “Begin at Jerusalem,” because there lived those who had crucified him, and he wanted them saved.
There is this other commendation of love. Unasked, he died for us. God’s amazing work surpasses thought. Love itself died for hatred. Holiness did crucify itself to save sinful men. Unasked for and unsought, like a fountain in the desert, sparkling spontaneously with its healing waters, Christ came to die for men who would not seek his grace.
Sinner, I commend Christ to thee for this reason: thou needest him. A day is coming when thou wilt feel thy need of him. Dost thou believe there is a hell, and that thou are going thither? Let me tell you how to be saved. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” To believe is to give up trusting in self and to trust in Christ as thy Saviour. “What,” you say, “no good works?” Works will follow after, but first come to Christ, not with good works, but with thy sins.
Remember the striking words of Martin Luther: “Satan once came to me, and said, ‘Thou art lost, for thou art a sinner.’ Then said I, ‘I thank thee for telling me I am a sinner. If Martin Luther is a sinner, Christ died for me’.” Canst thou lay hold on that, by the authority of God? Even if thou be the chief of sinners, thou shalt be saved, if thou believest.
Sermons of the Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon, second series, Sheldon and Co., New York, 1865. The Preface is dated January, 1857. Sermon, “Love’s Commendation” (pp. 410–425).
Liberty, Law And License
CHRIST AND FREEDOM—We owe the entire conception of freedom as a human birthright to the coming of Christ. Until that time “absolutism held unbounded sway,” to use the phrase employed by Lord Action in his study of Freedom in Antiquity. Slavery was the universal condition of the great majority of mankind and was nowhere regarded as an improper social order. Even the Greek civilization, at its finest flowering, was based on slavery. It was the same with the Hebrews, to whom we also owe so much. A formal recognition of slavery introduces the long calendar of minute ordinances listed in Exodus 21, 22, and 23.…
The great problem of politics is how to reconcile the theoretically desirable condition of freedom with the fundamentally essential condition of order. Establishment of Christianity provided the formula whereby this difficult adjustment could be made. The devout Christian ipso facto led a law-abiding life. So laws forbidding offenses which we would not in any case commit were, in his case, superfluous. As the number of Christians multiplied, law enforcement, wherever they concentrated, thus became easier. The moral argument for slavery, resting on the assumption that the common man is untrustworthy, lost its validity, the more so because the particular appeal of Christianity was to the oppressed.…
This thesis that liberty is a human birthright … made headway slowly, and only among people with centuries of organized Christian experience behind them. For the same reason the concept of liberty will weaken, and eventually disappear, wherever and whenever men place their faith in political rulers rather than in God.
Americans are singularly fortunate in having the New Testament as the wellspring of their political thought. On the virgin soil of what is now the United States it was not utopian to plan a governmental system actively conducive to Christian practise.”—FELIX MORLEY, “Freedom and the Laity,” (1961), published by the General Division of Laymen’s Work, National Council of the Episcopal Church.
CONFUSION ON RIGHTS—President Kennedy’s message on protecting consumers drives the last nail in the coffin of the quaint notion, once expressed by Mr. Kennedy, that the citizen should ask, not what his country can do for him, but what he can do for the country.
A quick review does not reveal that the President has as yet proposed that the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Medical Association should be brought under the sheltering wing of the Federal Government. But he has spread Uncle Sam’s umbrella far enough to cover just about every other group in the country—the farmers, the aged, the workers, the students, the urbanites, and now that most comprehensive of all groups, the consumers.
With respect to the latter, Mr. Kennedy wants Congress to get on the ball and do something to protect four consumer rights. These, as he defines them, are the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose and the right to be heard.
We would like to suggest that there should be a fifth right. This right would be for the benefit of those Americans, if any, who would like to know what they can do for the country, as well as for those who merely do not want the Federal Government to take care of everything for them. What we have in mind, simply stated, is the right to be let alone.—Editorial in The Evening Star, Washington, D. C.
SECULAR MATERIALISM—There is the militant atheistic Communist; there is militant Islam; there is a revival of non-Christian religions on a major scale; there is above all—and this is far more dangerous than openly hostile Communism—the secular materialism that has invaded every part of Western life, the subtle, insidious influences that lead to business without principle.—DENIS DUNCAN, Editor of the British Weekly, addressing Scottish Christian Youth Assembly.
FINANCIAL INTEGRITY—Intellectual dishonesty … has characterized the mental attitude in this country for some time toward the national debt. Even were the various administrations able to live up to their perennial pledges of balanced budgets, there would be no hope of getting out of the red.… With an evermounting national debt, we in this country may ultimately find ourselves beyond redemption. Meanwhile, the American taxpayer digs deeper for the money to pay the cost of a government which is directly responsible for the declining value of the dollar.—Editorial, “The Bitter Heritage We Leave our Children,” Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville.
TAX BURDEN—The average American workman currently is paying out some 31 per cent of his income in the form of taxes. About 10 per cent is withheld for income tax. Other taxes, direct and indirect, are estimated at 15 per cent. Social Security takes 6 per cent (while the employer pays half of this item, it is a part of payroll costs and might be available for workers if not taken by taxes). And according to The New York Times of January 19, the fastest growing item in our national budget is the interest which the Federal government must pay on the national debt. This interest will cost American taxpayers over $9 ½ billion in the 1961 fiscal year which begins July 1, 1960. To carry this load and other national government expenditures, the Tax Foundation recently pointed out that the average worker in an 8-hour day spends 2 hours and 16 minutes working for the Federal government.”—Dateline (March, 1960), Clergy-Industrv Relations Department, National Association of Manufacturers.
STILL MUNCHING CANDY—At the Village Church in Kalinovka, Russia, attendance at Sunday school picked up after the priest started handing out candy to the peasant children. One of the most faithful was a pug-nosed, pugnacious lad who recited his scriptures with proper piety, pocketed his reward, then fled into the fields to munch on it. The priest took a liking to the boy, persuaded him to attend church school. This was preferable to doing household chores from which his devout parents excused him. By offering other inducements, the priest managed to teach the boy the four gospels. In fact, he won a special prize for learning all four by heart and reciting them non-stop in church. Now, 60 years later, he still likes to recite scriptures but in a context that would horrify the old priest. For the prize pupil, who memorized so much of the Bible, is Nikita Khrushchev, the Communist czar.—Parade, Feb. 11, 1962.
