I pause once more; for I hear some timid soul say-”But, sir, I am afraid I am
not elect, and if so, Christ did not die for me.” Stop sir! Are you a sinner?
Do you feel it? Has God, the Holy Spirit, made you feel that you are a lost
sinner? Do you want salvation? If you do not want it it is no hardship that
it is not provided for you; but if you really feel that you want it, you are
God’s elect. If you have a desire to be saved, a desire given you by the Holy
Spirit, that desire is a token for good. If you have begun believingly to
pray for salvation, you have therein a sure evidence that you are saved.
Christ was punished for you. And if now you can say,
“Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling.”
you may be as sure you are God’s elect as you are sure of your own existence;
for this is the infallible proof of election-a sense of need and a thirst
after Christ.
III. And now I have just to conclude by noticing the BLESSED EFFECTS of the
Saviour’s death. On this I shall be very brief.
The first effect of the Saviour’s death is, “He shall see his seed.” Men
shall be saved by Christ. Men have offspring by life; Christ had an offspring
by death. Men die and leave their children, and they see not their seed;
Christ lives, and every day sees his seed brought into the unity of the
faith. One effect of Christ’s death is the salvation of multitudes. Mark, not
a chance salvation. When Christ died the angel did not say, as some have
represented him, “Now by his death many may be saved;” the word of prophecy
had quenched all “buts” and “peradventures;” “By his righteousness he shall
justify many. There was not so much as an atom of chance work in the
Saviour’s death. Christ knew what he bought when he died; and what he bought
he will have-that, and no more, and no less. There is no effect of Christ’s
death that is left to peradventure. “Shalls” and “wills” made the covenant
fast: Christ’s bloody death shall effect its solemn purpose. Every heir of
grace shall meet around the throne,
“Shall bless the wonders of his grace,
And make his glories known.”
The second effect of Christ’s death is, “He shall prolong his days.” Yes,
bless his name, when he died he did not end his life. He could not long be
held a prisoner in the tomb. The third morning came, and the conqueror,
rising from his sleep burst the iron bonds of death, and came forth from his
prison house, no more to die. He waited his forty days, and then, with shouts
of sacred song, he “led captivity captive, and ascended up on high.” “In that
he died he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth he liveth unto God,” no
more to die.
“Now by his Father’s side he Sits,
And there triumphant reigns,”
the conqueror over death and hell.
And, last of all, by Christ’s death the Father’s good pleasure was effected
and prospered. God’s good pleasure is, that that this world shall one day be
totally redeemed from sin; God’s good pleasure is, that this poor planet, so
long swathed in darkness, shall soon shine out in brightness, like a new-born
sun. Christ’s death hath done it. The stream that flowed from his side on
Calvary shall cleanse the world from all its blackness. That hour of mid-day
darkness was the rising of a new sun of righteousness, which shall never
cease to shine upon the earth. Yes, the hour is coming when swords and spears
shall be forgotten things-when the harness of war and the pageantry of pomp
shall all be laid aside for the food of the worm or the contemplation of the
curious. The hour approacheth when old Rome shall shake upon her seven hills,
when Mohammed’s crescent shall wane to wax no more, when all the gods of the
heathens shall lose their thrones and be cast out to the moles and the bats;
and then, when from the equator to the poles Christ shall be honored, the
Lord paramount of earth, when from land to land, from the river even to the
ends of the earth, one King shall reign, one shout shall be raised,
“Hallelujah, hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.” Then, my
brethren, shall it be seen what Christ’s death has accomplished, for “the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
