Things That Accompany Salvation - Part 1

REV. C. H. Spurgeon, September 20, 1857

"Things that accompany Salvation."—Hebrews 6:9.

I am not quite certain that my text will warrant all I shall say upon it this day if read and understood in its connection. But I have taken the words rather by accommodation than otherwise, and shall make use of them as a kind of heading to the discourse which I hope to be enabled to deliver. I sat myself down, and I meditated on this subject—"Things that accompany Salvation." And after some period of rumination, my thoughts assumed the form of an allegory; in which I hope to present them to you this morning. I compared Salvation to a rich and costly treasure, which God in his infinite love and mercy had determined to send into the world, and I remembered that our Lord Jesus was so much interested in the bringing of this Salvation to this earth, that he did send all that he had, and came himself to attend and to accompany this Salvation. I then pictured to myself a great march of bright ones through this land, carrying in their midst the sacred jewel of Salvation. I looked forward, and I saw a mighty van-guard, who already had attained the shores of Eternity. I looked around Salvation, and I saw it always in every case attended with divers graces and virtues which seemed to be like troops and soldiers to guard it in the van, about its flanks, and in the rear.

Before we begin, however, let us just make this caution. When the Apostle speaks of virtues and of graces, he calls them "things that accompany Salvation," not things which cause it. Our faith does not cause Salvation, nor our hope, nor our love, nor our good works; they are things which attend it as its guard of honor. The origin of Salvation lies alone in the sovereign will of God the Father; in the infinite efficacy of the blood of Jesus—God the Son, and in the divine influence of God the Holy Spirit. There are, however, "things that accompany Salvation." Picture then to yourselves the march of some ancient monarch through his territory. We read stories of eastern monarchs in the olden time, that seem more like romance than reality; when they marched with thousands of flying banners and with all kinds of riches borne with them. Now you are to take that as the basis of my figure and suppose Salvation to be the sacred treasure which is being carried through the world, with guards before and guards behind, to accompany it on its journey.

We will begin, then, with the advance-guard that has accompanied Salvation or rather gone before it. We shall then come to those who immediately precede it, and then we shall notice those who accompany it by its side, and conclude by noticing the rear guard attending upon this Salvation of our God.

I. First, then, IN THE MARCHES OF TROOPS AND ARMIES, THERE ARE SOME THAT ARE OUTRIDERS, AND GO FAR AHEAD OF THE OTHER TROOPS. So in the march of Salvation, which have far preceded it to clear the way. I will tell you the names of these stupendous Titans who have gone before. The first is Election, the second is Predestination, the third is Redemption and the Covenant is the captain of them all. Before Salvation came into this world, Election marched in the very forefront, and it had for its work the billeting of Salvation. Election went through the world and marked the houses to which Salvation should come and the hearts in which the treasure should be deposited. Election looked through all the race of man, from Adam down to the last, and marked with sacred stamp those for whom Salvation was designed. 

"He must needs go through Samaria," said Election; and Salvation must go there. Then came Predestination. Predestination did not merely mark the house, but it mapped the road in which Salvation should travel to that house, Predestination ordained every step of the great army of Salvation, it ordained the time when the sinner should be brought to Christ, the manner how he should be saved, the means that should be employed; it marked the exact hour and moment, when God the Spirit should quicken the dead in sin, and when peace and pardon should be spoken through the blood of Jesus. 

Predestination marked the way so completely, that Salvation doth never overstep the bounds, and it is never at a loss for the road. In the everlasting decree of the Sovereign God, the footsteps of Mercy were every one of them ordained. As nothing in this world revolves by chance—as even the foreknown station of a rush by the river is as fixed as the station of a king—it was not meet that Salvation should be left to chance; and therefore God has mapped the place where it should pitch its tent, the manner of its footsteps to that tent, and the time when it should arrive there. Then came Redemption. 

The way was rough; and though Election had marked the house, and Predestination had mapped the road, the way was so impeded that Salvation could not travel it until it had been cleared. Forth came Redemption, it had but one weapon; that weapon was the all-victorious cross of Christ. There stood the mountains of our sins; Redemption smote them, and they split in halves and left a valley for the Lord's redeemed to march through. There was the great gulph of God's offended wrath; Redemption bridged it with the cross, and so left an everlasting passage by which the armies of the Lord may cross. Redemption has tunnelled every mountain; it has dried up every sea, cut down every forest; it has levelled every high hill, and filled up the valleys, so that the road of Salvation is now plain and simple. God can be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly.

Now, this sacred advance-guard carry for their banner the Eternal Covenant. Election, Predestination, and Redemption—the things that have gone before, beyond the sight, are all rallied to the battle by this standard—the Covenant, the Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure. We know and believe that before the morning star startled the shades of darkness, God had covenanted with his Son that he should die and pay a ransom price, and that, on God the Father's part, he would give to Jesus "a number whom no man could number," who should be purchased by his blood, and through that blood should be most securely saved. Now, when Election marches forward, it carries the Covenant. These are chosen in the Covenant of grace. When Predestination marcheth, and when it marketh out the way of Salvation, it proclaims the Covenant. "He marked out the places of the people according to the tribes of Israel." And Redemption also, pointing to the precious blood of Christ, claims Salvation for the blood-bought ones, because the Covenant hath decreed it to be theirs.

My Weird Morning With God!

This Morning I had the weirdest time with God, I nagged about everything and He had an answer every time I opposed Him. God being God, I found out in the end, He had a purpose in mind, so this weird time with Him was needed.

I have been feeling like a mess lately and in my mind there is so much clutters about my walk with Him, I felt so tired and basically drained of all my energy. I attributed the whole thing to the fact that I was so sick with this bad flu that I am just getting over and the throat and ear infection that I did not take any antibiotic on purpose for various reasons.  The past few weeks I was able to post on my blog because I did not really have to think since I only wrote about things that I lived out with Him, but I was always aware of being light headed and not being able to think properly at all.

So, I was reading October 16^th Oswald Chambers devotion, the Holy Spirit told me to write my post on the subject. I got upset because I know from experience that today’s devotion would be very cumbersome to write about for two reasons. First, it took God years to walk me through the process to acquire the mind and the attitude that Oswald Chambers is talking about in this devotion. Secondly, I had such a hard time letting go of what I thought was so noble and used to bring me so much satisfaction and joy, to embrace Christ’s point of view when it comes to mission and works done in His name. I fought Him every step of the way and He put a lot of work in me to teach me what Oswald put into few words on a page. So I told God that I was tired of writing what He has done in my life, I said it seems like I am making it about me, so how can that be right in your sight? His answer was “why do you think I went through the process of teaching you everything step by step through experiencing me? Why do you think you cannot express yourself unless you go through things step by step?

When I realized I was not going to win this argument with God, I said what about Oswald Chambers, I can tell you put Him through the same training, why is it you are okay with the fact that he wrote only for other Christians who are on this path with you, couldn’t you entrust him to write things step by step as well? He said to me, never mind Oswald Chambers he is not your business, and it is not up to you to question me. I said God I am so tired, overwhelmed and drained that I feel if I do not get out of it I am going to be depressed and useless to you.  

During that time, my Bible was opened on my lap, I glanced at it and saw something I wrote on June 2008  it goes this way “Lord teach me how to be like Paul living each day as a new day with anticipation forgetting yesterday and moving forward toward the goal.”  When I read that, I said to God, I can’t believe I was this person in 2008 and now I am failing you. Strangely, I admitted to Him that I have lived the past few weeks on “past grace” instead of fresh grace every day so that my mind could be renewed. Yet, I still did not realize that God was leading me to an examination process that I have been avoiding.

I said to God, “so much for me wanting to be like Paul.” I not only feel I have let you down but after fifteen years of Christianity I am nowhere to being like Paul. God answer to me was “you are a human being it is normal that you go through this phase once in a while and I fully expect that, He continued with, Paul felt this way too, I had to get him out of those depressed times, yet, he is the same man who later on wrote Philippians 3 that you love so much.”.

I tried to go back to the Bible again, suddenly I was craving talking to my friend, the one God had forbidden me to see when I wrote “A melancholic day on April 2^nd and April 18 posts” I know I have craving seeing my friend for the past few weeks, and at times, I had to force myself not to take the phone and call. But, today the whole thing came crashing down, I wanted to see my friend, I wanted to get away from it all, and I needed a break from all those godly stuff in my mind. I could see myself trying to remain seated to avoid going out. I felt like a junkie I need of the next fix. Then God told me, do you see why I need to protect you against yourself?  I said to God, what does that mean? Is that even Biblical what you are saying?

He said well, read 2 Peter 2:7-10. After I finished reading those verses I still did not quite understand and I remained quiet trying by myself to decipher what He was trying to say to me. Of course He knows I was struggling to understand, then He told me, there is a part of me that longs for this ungodly relationship that corrupt my mind and spirit, and it is all against His purpose for any child of His.  

It is so strange when we are not thinking soberly with the Holy Spirit. When I found clarity of mind, I knew it was ridiculous of me to hold myself at such a high standard because when Paul wrote Philippians he was a Christian for few decades where I still have five full years to put in, before I can say I have been a Christian for two decades. But, God was not concerned about that, He was concerned that I was being too hard on myself and needed me to understand what I was going through was part of the path of becoming this person He wants me to be. God is fine with our shortcomings and failures He does not hold them against us nor that He defines us by them, but AS LONG AS WE ARE ON THE RIGHT PATH WITH HIM. Like God taught me, if we are going south and He is going North, while we love calling ourselves work in progress, but in reality, as far as He is concerned, we are not truly work in progress.

Someone I love dearly made a decision a few weeks ago, but when he called me to tell me what he was about to do, I told him, this decision will affect the rest of your life and that he might never recover from it. He said I do understand I am going complete opposite direction from God’s way. But this is what I need to do. This person said something like he is hoping that God will somehow make things right for him and eventually forgive him. He was doing what felt right for him because he could not fathom the idea of trusting God and make a decision that would have been painfully hard now, but over time would pass. This person could not take the pain that we all encounter when we decide to allow Him to work Salvation in and through us. Yet he still somehow hopes that God would follow his footsteps. It is hard to talk to someone who is that far from God, someone who is only counting on God’s goodness and love to make it. While God can still salvage us when we defy Him and chose our own path, but we are playing with fire and saying that we are a work in progress would not do.

I know I am a work in progress because through His grace I maintain the path. Yet I have a long way to go, and yes I hash things out with Him all the time. I do it when I do not understand, I do it when I am overwhelmed with life and tired of the waiting process, and so on. But the frame of mind that I am in, the attitude, my intention, my heart and my disposition are all geared toward following His path, His plan, and His purpose for me. Just like when you read the psalmist, you can see how David hashed things out with God, but in the end, he knew it was about His will for his life and nothing else. It is about maintaining a state of mind where the heart is always open to the Holy Sprit helping us mature spiritually while learning to continually practice His presence as we put away all unchristian habits.

It turns out, after God talked to me about my ungodly relationship that corrupt my mind and spirit, He showed me the reason that I have been so overwhelmed lately, and why I had all the clutters that made me feel I was a prisoner in my own mind, is because in the past, I never dealt with the issue with Him. Instead I chose to use my ungodly friend to feel emptied out and I would come back to Him willing to continue the path. Then He said to me, the reason that you need a break even from your spiritual life with me is because you are not learning to put into practice to find your rest in me when your practical life become cumbersome with all the small things. 

While you have learned to rest in me for the big things, you have to do the same with the small ones as well. I broke down, I dumped the whole load that I was carrying, at His feet and while crying I was able to feel so emptied out, so light that I took a deep breath from deep down, then all of the sudden all clutters disappeared. Now I know what I have been doing wrong and I will be diligent to keep resting in Him for little things as well. But the truth is, I needed God to tell me that because I had no idea what the remedy was and why I felt the need to get away from Him sometimes.

Another thing that God showed me as well, is that unless I learned to rest in Him for little things instead of running to an ungodly friend, I will stunt my spiritual growth and in order to take me further I have to learn to get to that hump that keep me stumbling.   

The Key To The Missionary Message - Oswald Chambers

The key to the missionary and all those who are called to preach, evangelize, share and teach any kind of group that God has called you to minister to, all has to be grounded in repentance, remission of sins and Christ Himself is the propitiation for our sins. There is a depth to these few words that grip your soul and open heaven when you truly get hold of this message. God spent more time with me on the subject of repentance than He spent on the subject of Holiness. I understood later on, the importance of it all in my life and the life of other Christians.

It is sad to see how people who professed to be Christians are fighting over whether the true Salvation called for repentance or not. Just the fact there is disagreement over repentance tells you how bad we massacred God’s idea of Salvation to implement our own. If you recall, in one of my posts on faith I shared with you about the family that I know in the background and one of them went for communion with a grudge, hatred, and anger in the heart. What I did not tell you is that the whole family does not believe that repentance is needed in Salvation. We cannot separate the two and when true Salvation enters your heart, you can be sure, repentance will not be far off.

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The truth is, without the gift of repentance in your heart there is a chain reaction in your so called Christian life and one of them is that you will never have a spiritual relationship with God let alone spiritual growth. Without repentance you live the kind of Salvation like a woman with false pregnancy, clinically termed pseudocyesis, which is the belief that you are expecting a baby when in reality you are not carrying a child. God has taught me how Salvation and repentance are two links that are attached together and they carry the weight of everything else that accompany Salvation, such as brokenness, holiness, sanctification, etc. He taught me that as long as you do not know what true repentance means, there is no true belief in your heart, there is no humility, no need to surrender, and there will never be boldness that comes from God either. One of the reasons He took God so long to teach me about repentance it is because He needed to teach me how they all relate together. And before He even taught me about the numerous pastors out there who were not called or prepared by Him (hence the Gospel with no repentance being preached) and the avalanche of Christian following this kind of teaching, He made sure I could see the forest in my own eyes first before seeing others planks.

Before my wilderness, I had evangelism training, and I used to love telling people how they needed God. And yes I learned to tell them that Christ died for their sins, salvation is free so that no one can boast etc. If you ever get involved in evangelism you know the drill and we all have those verses written down to invite people to Christ. While I was content with myself and all the work I was involved in, after I learned the right way from God, I lost my man made boldness and could not say a word to anyone about Salvation until God felt it was time to give me the gift of boldness. Imagine, I was a Christian for seven years, yet I knew nothing of repentance and I had no idea that I needed it. Through my wilderness time, during the brokenness process and before regeneration and holiness, God had to deal with my repentance first.

While I was elated when God gave me the gift of boldness, but I had a sharp pain in my heart because as I compared my man made boldness that I possessed in my arrogance and the one given to me by God that was grounded in humility, Agape love and also because I could see I was spiritually bankrupt without Him, my heart was weeping. I did more harm than good in sharing the Gospel because man helped forge a path for me to create my own footprint. One thing I used to love doing was without having God’s righteous judgement in my heart, I pinpointed which group was wrong and of course MY group was right. I had no idea that not only God put all of us in the same basket, but it was not how God goes about it. I was shocked to find out how all Churches are God’s Church but no Church is God’s Church. While each one of us is fighting about which group is right and we are so adamant about building “A BUILDING” for God, He is at work gathering His own Church.

Oswald Chambers said “the missionary’s message is the limitless importance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is someone who is immersed in the truth of that revelation.”  Well, you do not get immersed in the truth of that revelation without having experienced the gift of repentance coming directly from God. This truth will be your breakfast, your dinner, your supper, your snack, the water you bathe in, the water you drink, the life you live and the walk you walk etc. Yet, you are never saturated enough. When God brought the gift of repentance in my heart where I came face to face with my own bankruptcy and who He is, I bowed down and wept for weeks. With true repentance in your heart, you know and compute that there is a God and it is not you.

There is a song by By Caroline Bonnett & Sue Rinaldi called “ I will follow you to the cross and lay myself down” I recall singing this song for hours because I was in need of God to saturate and purify me with what I found through the gift of repentance. The truth is, most Christians live life completely disconnected from God? Before the gift of repentance I had no idea that my life was disconnected. I still remember my lack of victory over sin and I had no idea what the victorious life was about. I was tired of being in love with God for a few days and be my own self for a few months like a yo-yo. It turns out all of it is anchored in the gift of repentance. Through this gift, my eyes opened to what the word of God means by “victory over sin”, and I found out “my daily life, Christ, the Holy Spirit, God, and the cross are one in the same”. All of the sudden I found out that I have been living a life disconnected from Him, and at the same time I knew how to connect the dot and the circle was formed because all the links were in place.

Until you learn true repentance from God, Salvation will be that disconnected thing you acquire piece by piece and you decide which piece is important to you. Another thing God taught me is that every one of us true Christian is a missionary working with Him. The day that He taught me about being on mission with Him, I woke up like a crazy person on a mission. I could not do anything except getting in the car and drove miles away where I bypassed the same store chain and I landed exactly where He wanted me to go. As I walked through the doors of this store, I found the book sitting right there and it was in the bin because they did not have more of it so they reduced the price. It was right before the wilderness got really bad and I still had my car. The book is called on mission with God written by Henry Blackaby.  God not only talked to me through the book, He wrote things in there just for me. Like an idiot I had no idea these things were written just for me, I sent email to my Bible study group telling them the pages where I learned all that I learned. God taught me from this book for a whole month so that I could understand and cooperate with Him in the work He was about to do in me. Later on, I wanted to revisit certain things that I read, I opened the book and strangely I could not certain things that I knew I learned from the book. I went back to my email to see which pages I referenced before. To make a long story short, when I talked to a friend who is kind of sampling Christianity and not interested in making a commitment to God yet, surprisingly the person said to me “sometimes, God writes things just for us and it is just another way of teaching us His word.” Suddenly, I felt like God talked to me through a donkey.

God has taught me so much about repentance that I could write a book on it, but the truth is God has not directed me there yet and I sense that most Christians are not ready to digest what I have learned. But the good news is, whether you are a pastor who has never acquired the gift of repentance or whether you are a Christian who has managed to butcher what you have received from Him, no matter where you are at, there is hope, there is forgiveness, and there is life in Him. Satan has done a great job with Adam and Eve in taking away and adding to the word of God until they lost their position and died spiritually. Even in your spiritual blindness you know something is wrong in your relationship with Him, and often time what we do, we learned to shut up the spirit with verses about God’s love and goodness to keep us exactly where we are, which is really, “nowhere.” Those verses that we are claiming at the wrong time in our lives help us to ignore this little nagging voice that is so deep down inside. You should know the reason the voice is almost unrecognizable and so faint, it is because your lamp is running out of fuel. There is time to go to Him and beg Him to bring repentance in your heart, beg Him to teach you how to turn around and make your life about Him.  Pray and never cease to pray until He answers you. Stop taking this life for granted and stop shutting His voice down. Pray for God to lead you in a path that is pleasing to Him, pray that He opens your heart to the truth, and pray that He would help you to drop everything that you think you know at His feet and to give you a blank mind to start over with Him. Most of all, pray that He gives you the proper attitude toward Him. Pray that He would put His humility in your heart, pray that He would teach you how to get rid of all fear to take up your cross and follow Him. Pray that you learn to heed to His word while there is time. Pray that you stop being scared of the word “surrender” and pray that He drills in your heart a need to go forward in confidence, because we serve a high priest who has been there too. PRAY, PRAY, AND PRAY.

I will follow You to the cross (Lay myself down)

By Caroline Bonnett / Sue Rinaldi

I WILL FOLLOW YOU TO THE CROSS,
And lay myself down, lay myself down.
I will follow You to the cross
And lay myself down, lay myself down.

Rid me of these dirty clothes,
Cleanse me from all this pollution.
I choose to walk in purity,
Oh, purify me, purify me.

Kiss me with Your healing touch,
Take me to the heat of the fire;
Bathe me in Your liquid love,
Oh, saturate me, saturate me.

Humbly I stand, humbly I kneel,
Humbly I fall at Your throne.
With a craving for You
That no words can describe:

Saturate me, saturate me;
Saturate me, saturate me;
Purify me, purify me;
Purify me, purify me;
Purify me, purify me

Oswald Chambers Message of October 15

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