Drawn From Hell Into Heaven

Drawn from Hell into Heaven

Excerpted from “Christ Lifted Up”

Sermon #139

Delivered on Sabbath morning, July 5, 1857, at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

If we’re to escape the fires of Hell, who will get the credit? In this sermon, Spurgeon appeals to people to repent and turn to Christ, but he clearly affirms God’s drawing and empowering grace, without which no sinner can come to the Savior.

[Jesus said,] “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 12:32

Spurgeon • I would prefer that the most prominent feature in my ministry should be the preaching of Christ Jesus. Christ should be most prominent, not Hell and damnation.

God’s ministers must preach God’s terrors as well as God’s mercies. We are to preach the thunder of God’s law. If men will sin, we are to tell them that they must be punished for it. If they will transgress, woe to the watchman (Ezekiel 33:6-8) who is ashamed to say, “The Lord comes, he who takes vengeance.”

Does God say, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17, KJV)? It is our business to say so. Did the loving Savior talk of the pit that burns, of the worm that never dies, and of the fire that can never be extinguished? It is ours to speak as he spoke and not to mince words.

It is no mercy to men to hide their doom. But my brothers, terrors never ought to be the prominent feature of a minister’s preaching. Many old preachers thought they would do a great deal of good by speaking like this. I do not believe it. Some souls are awakened and terrified by such preaching. However, they are but few.

Sometimes, solemnly, the sacred mysteries of eternal wrath must be preached, but far more often let us preach the wondrous love of God. There are more souls won by wooing than by threatening. It is not Hell but Christ we desire to preach. Oh sinners, we are not afraid to tell you of your doom, but we do not choose to be forever dwelling on that doleful theme. We rather love to tell you of Christ, and him crucified. We want to have our preaching rather full of the frankincense of the merits of Christ than of the smoke and fire and terrors of Mount Sinai. We are not come to Mount Sinai but to Mount Zion—where milder words declare the will of God and rivers of salvation are abundantly flowing.

Again, the theme of a minister should be Christ Jesus in opposition to mere doctrine. Some of my good brothers are always preaching doctrine. Well, they are right in so doing, but I would not care myself to have as the characteristic of my preaching doctrine only. I would rather have it said, “He dwelled much upon the person of Christ and seemed best pleased when he began to tell about the atonement and the sacrifice. He was not ashamed of the doctrines; he was not afraid of threatening. But he seemed as if he preached the threatening with tears in his eyes, and the doctrine solemnly as God’s own Word. But when he preached of Jesus, his tongue was loosened, and his heart was at liberty.”

Brothers, there are some men who preach the doctrine only, who are an injury, I believe, to God’s church rather than a benefit. I know of men who have set themselves up as umpires over all spirits. Wisdom will die with them. If they were once taken away, the great standard of truth would be removed.

If you want to be made drunkards, if you want to be made dishonest, if you want to be taught every vice in the world, go and hear a moral preacher. These gentlemen, in their attempts to reform and make people moral, are the men that lead them from morality. Hear the testimony of holy Bishop Lavington:^a “We have long been attempting to reform the nation by moral preaching. With what effect? None. On the contrary, we have skillfully preached the people into downright infidelity. We must change our voice. We must preach Christ and him crucified. Nothing but the gospel is the power of God for salvation.”

“I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Then Christ Jesus will draw all his people to Heaven. He is in Heaven; then Christ is the chariot in which souls are drawn to Heaven. The people of the Lord are on their way to Heaven—they are carried in everlasting arms, and those arms are the arms of Christ.

Christ is carrying them up to his own house, to his own throne. By and by his prayer—“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am” ( John 17:24)—shall be wholly fulfilled. And it is being fulfilled now, for he is like a strong, swift horse drawing his children to himself in the chariot of the covenant of grace.

Oh, blessed be God, the cross is the plank we hold to as we swim to Heaven. The cross is the great covenant ship which will weather out the storms and reach its desired Heaven.

And now, poor sinner, I desire before God that Christ would pardon you. Remember his death on Calvary; remember his agonies and bloody sweat. All this he did for you, if you feel yourself to be a sinner. Does not this draw you to him?

Though you are guilty he is good, He’ll wash your soul in Jesus’ blood.

You have rebelled against him and revolted, but he says, “Return, backsliding children.” Will not his love draw you? I pray that you may be drawn to Christ now and at last be drawn to Heaven.

Alcorn • Spurgeon says, “It is not Hell but Christ we desire to preach.” He sometimes speaks of Christ without speaking of Hell, but he never speaks of Hell without speaking of Christ.

As a young Christian I recited memory verses printed on small cards. One of them said, “Him who comes to me I will not cast out” (John 6:37, RSV). But the first part of the same verse apparently didn’t fit someone’s theology, since it wasn’t on the card: “All that the Father gives me will come to me.”

Jesus makes an obvious case that God calls souls to him. He goes on to say, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (verse 44). And if we still don’t get the message, he adds, “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (verse 65).

Spurgeon, who loved the doctrine of election, continually called upon sinners to choose Christ, to yield to him as Savior and Lord, to turn from sin and Hell to Christ and Heaven. The hyper-Calvinists of his day were severely critical of Spurgeon’s pulpit evangelism. Yet he continued to make his pleas, following the biblical model of preaching to saints and sinners alike. He believed people can make a meaningful choice to turn to Christ because God empowers us to do so. He saw it as his job to implore sinners to make the good choice. Sovereignty and free will may remain mysterious to us, but when we compare all the Scriptures, discarding none, we are plainly instructed to ask God to save people and also to tell people of their need for salvation. Spurgeon did both, since he was less concerned about reconciling doctrines than about believing and acting on them.

God calls us spiritually dead without Christ (Ephesians 2:1). We did not, by acts of our will, make ourselves alive. Lazarus serves as an illustration of what it means to be dead, then made alive. Who’s more helpless than a dead man? When Jesus said, “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43), the dead man lacked the capacity to obey until Jesus made him alive.

Still, God extends a genuine invitation to people to come to him. They can do so as he sovereignly empowers them.

Sometimes as Christians we assume we have a full capacity to respond to God. But this doesn’t square with any number of Scriptures, including this one: “Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it” (John 5:21, NIV). It appears that a person doesn’t simply choose life; Jesus gives it to him.

Romans 8:7 tells us the sinful mind “does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (NIV, emphasis added). In our sinful state, we have no innate ability to follow God. People who lack the Spirit cannot begin to understand spiritual things (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Our problem is both our unwillingness to understand and our incapacity to turn our wills toward God. Without acknowledging those truths, we might imagine ourselves in Heaven congratulating one another that we had the savvy and strength of will to turn to Christ. But God leaves no room for such boasting (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5).

God’s amazing grace doesn’t end at our conversion. Even the regenerated human will depends upon the divine will to live as it should. Philippians 2:12-13 corrects those who understate and those who overstate the role of the human will: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (NIV). We must will and work, and God must will and work.

Sinners should choose to repent, yet only God grants saving repentance. God calls upon us not only to surrender and lay down our arms but to switch sides. Without God’s empowerment, no sinner could ever do this. Thank God for his sovereign grace!

^a Bishop Lavington was a chaplain to King George I and was appointed Bishop of Exeter in 1746.