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The sermon presents salvation as received by faith rather than earned through feelings or works. Spurgeon distinguishes the objective pardon granted by God from the subjective sense of peace and joy that may fluctuate, while insisting that assurance is grounded in Scripture. Those who are justified are also adopted as God’s children and therefore experience fatherly discipline rather than condemnation. Genuine pardon necessarily produces hatred of sin and a holy life, while persistent love of sin exposes a false profession. The hearer is urgently called to trust Christ immediately and seek the joy of salvation.
Theological center: Justification and assurance rest on God’s gracious pardon received through faith in Christ, and this pardon brings adoption, joy, and transformed conduct.
Applications: Come to Christ by faith · Reject persistent sin · Make salvation certain · Distinguish faith from feeling
Primary texts: Isaiah 38:17 · Romans 4:8 · Romans 5:1
“Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” Isaiah 38:17 HEZEKIAH here speaks positively on a matter concerning which he had not the remotest shadow of a doubt. He had trusted his God, he had cast himself upon the merit of the promised Messiah, and as the result of that faith assurance had been granted to him, and he now sings with unfaltering tongue, “Thou,” even Thou, O God, Most High and Most Just, “Thou hast cast all my sins,” great and innumerable though they be, Thou hast cast them all “behind thy back.” Oh, what a joyous thing it is to have a ray of heavenly sunlight in the soul, and to hear the very voice of God as He walks in the garden of our souls in the cool of the day, saying to us, “Son, thy sins which are many, are all forgiven thee.” The whisper of that heavenly voice may raise our heart to bliss almost divine, it confers a joy that is not to be equaled by all the corn and the wine, and all the pleasures which the riches and the enjoyments of this world can afford. To have the divine kiss of acceptance, to be robed in the best robe, to have the ring on the hand and the shoes on the feet, to hear the heavenly music and dancing with which the returning prodigals are welcomed to their Father’s house—this indeed is a bliss worth worlds. My dear brethren, there are some who choose to dwell to a very large degree in their ministry upon such enjoyments as these, which concern the experience of the child of God, but I fear they make it the main object of their preaching, to advance a system of frames and feelings. On the other hand there are other brethren who constantly insist upon the doctrine of salvation by faith, and by faith alone, but almost forget to testify to the experience which is the result of faith. Now, both of these men err, doubtless, but nevertheless, their error is founded upon a conscientious desire to advance the truth. The brother who preaches experience, and insists upon it, is afraid lest any should possess a fictitious faith which is not the faith of God’s elect. He therefore preaches experience as a test and a touchstone by which he may try the spirits whether they be of God. On the other hand, our other brother who deals with faith and not with experience, is afraid lest men should make a God of their feelings, and lest they should rest in their experience and not in the cross of Christ. He is anxious to maintain in its clearness the fact that we are saved by what Christ felt, and not by what we feel, the great truth that we are redeemed by Christ’s most precious blood, and not by any experience of our own, that perh…