sinners.'" Just so. The law is for the self-righteous, to humble
their pride: the gospel is for the lost, to remove their despair.
If you are not lost, what do you want with a Saviour? Should
the shepherd go after those who never went astray? Why should the
woman sweep her house for the bits of money that were never out
of her purse? No, the medicine is for the diseased; the
quickening is for the dead; the pardon is for the guilty;
liberation is for those who are bound: the opening of eyes is for
those who are blind. How can the Saviour, and His death upon the
cross, and the gospel of pardon, be accounted for, unless it be
upon the supposition that men are guilty and worthy of
condemnation? The sinner is the gospel's reason for existence.
You, my friend, to whom this word now comes, if you are
undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving, you are the sort of
man for whom the gospel is ordained, and arranged, and
proclaimed. God justifieth the ungodly.
I would like to make this very plain. I hope that I have
done so already; but still, plain as it is, it is only the Lord
that can make a man see it. It does at first seem most amazing to
an awakened man that salvation should really be for him as a lost
and guilty one. He thinks that it must be for him as a penitent
man, forgetting that his penitence is a part of his salvation.
"Oh," says he, "but I must be this and that,"--all of which is
true, for he shall be this and that as the result of salvation;
but salvation comes to him before he has any of the results of
salvation. It comes to him, in fact, while he deserves only this
bare, beggarly, base, abominable description, "ungodly." That is
all he is when God's gospel comes to justify him.
May I, therefore, urge upon any who have no good thing about
them--who fear that they have not even a good feeling, or
anything whatever that can recommend them to God--that they will
firmly believe that our gracious God is able and willing to take
them without anything to recommend them, and to forgive them
spontaneously, not because they are good, but because He is good.
Does He not make His sun to shine on the evil as well as on the
good? Does He not give fruitful seasons, and send the rain and
the sunshine in their time upon the most ungodly nations? Ay,
even Sodom had its sun, and Gomorrah had its dew. Oh friend, the
great grace of God surpasses my conception and your conception,
and I would have you think worthily of it! As high as the heavens
are above the earth; so high are God's thoughts above our
thoughts. He can abundantly pardon. Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners: forgiveness is for the guilty.
Do not attempt to touch yourself up and make yourself
something other than you really are; but come as you are to Him
who justifies the ungodly. A great artist some short time ago had
painted a part of the corporation of the city in which he lived,
and he wanted, for historic purposes, to include in his picture
certain characters well known in the town. A crossing-sweeper,
unkempt, ragged, filthy, was known to everybody, and there was a
suitable place for him in the picture. The artist said to this
ragged and rugged individual, "I will pay you well if you will
come down to my studio and let me take your likeness." He came
round in the morning, but he was soon sent about his business;