11 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.” (1 Timothy 1:11 (ESV)
The following message is from Pastor Charles H. Spurgeon entitled THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL OF THE BLESSED GOD. Spurgeon preached this sermon on June 30, 1867 at Camden Road Chapel. The biblical text is I Timothy 1:11.
Second, the apostle says, “The glorious gospel of the blessed God, which is committed to my trust.” DO YOU RECOGNIZE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY?
“Paul speaks not here of himself alone. He might have said, “which is committed to the trust of every believer in Christ.” The Gospel is a priceless treasure and the saints are the bankers of it. It is committed to our trust as men commit business to their agents.”
“First, we are bound to believe it all. Take heed of receiving a divided and maimed Gospel. It has been said that “Only half the truth is a lie,” and so it is. Most of the ill reports which distress the world have truth at the foundation of them, but they become false through the exaggeration of one part and the omission of the next.”
“It should be the duty of every enlightened Christian to labor to master the whole compass of truth so far as possible. I suppose none but the Infinite mind can know all the lengths and breadths of truth, but still we should not be warped by education, nor be kept from receiving truth by prejudice. We should strive against all partiality, and it should be, whenever we open this Book, one of our prayers, “Open thou my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”
“To have a mind like molten metal, ready to be run into the mold of the truth, to have a soul like the photographer’s sensitive plate, ready to receive the light-writing of God at once, so that the truth may be there in its entirety, to be willing to give up the most cherished dogma, the most flesh-pleasing form of teaching, when we find it to be contrary to Scripture, this is to be a true disciple. To sit at Jesus’ feet and learn of Him, is the life-business of the Christian in this house of his pilgrimage. The Gospel is in this sense, committed to our trust, for we are to lay it up in our hearts.”
“But someone demands, “How am I to know which is the Gospel?” You may know it by searching the Scriptures. “But one sect says this, and another sect says the opposite.” What have you to do with the sects? Read the Book of God for yourself. “But some men do read it and arrive at one opinion, and some maintain the opposite, and thus they contradict themselves, and yet are equally right. Who told you that? That is impossible. Men cannot be equally right when they contradict each other. There is a truth and there is a falsehood. If yes be true, no is false. It may be true that good men have held different opinions, but are you responsible for what they may have held, or are you to gather that because they were good personally, therefore everything they believed was true?”
“No, but this Book is plain enough. It is no nose of wax that everybody may shape to what form he likes. There is something taught here plainly and positively, and if a man will but give his mind to it, by God’s grace he may find it out. I do not believe that this Book is so dark and mysterious as some suppose or if it were, the Holy Spirit who wrote it still lives, and the Author always knows His own meaning—you have only to go to Him in prayer and He will tell you what it means.”
“Seek to carry out the sacred trust committed to you by believing it, and believing it all. Search the Word to find out what the Gospel is, and endeavor to receive it into your inmost heart that it may be in your heart’s core forever.”
“Next, as good stewards we must maintain the cause of truth against all comers. “Never get into religious controversies,” says one—that is to say, being interpreted, be a Christian soldier, but let your sword rust in its scabbard and sneak into heaven like a coward. Such advice I cannot endorse. If God has called you by the truth, maintain the truth which has been the means of your salvation.”
“Now we can each of us in our station do that. We are not all called to preach in these boxes called pulpits, but we may preach more conveniently and much more powerfully behind the counter or in the drawing room, or in the parlor, or in the field, or wherever else providence may have placed us. Let us endeavor to make men mark what kind of Gospel we believe.”
More to come. May the Lord’s truth and grace be found here. Have a blessed day in the Lord.
Soli deo Gloria!
His Word Today 