ALL OR NONE—OR, COMPROMISES REFUSED – Charles Spurgeon
ALL OR NONE—OR, COMPROMISES REFUSED
A SERMON WITH FIVE TEXTS
I shall have five texts—one of them a good one, the other four bad. The first text is good. It is God’s text.
“There shall not an hoof be left behind.”
Exodus 10:26. That is God’s text, and the whole sermon will illustrate it by exposing the compromises with which it was met. The other four are Pharaoh’s texts, or, if you like, the devil’s, for that is exactly what the devil says to men.
Pharaoh’s First Compromise
Exodus 8:25—“Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go you, sacrifice to your God in the land.”
That is his first proposal. Then we find him saying, at the 28th verse, “I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only you shall not go very far away.”
That is the second of his compromises. In the 10th chapter, at the 8th verse, you have the third. He said to them, “Go, serve the Lord your God: but who are they that shall go?” Adding, “Go now, you that are men, and serve the Lord.” And Pharaoh’s fourth and last proposal is in the 24th verse of that same 10th chapter—“Pharaoh called unto Moses, and said, Only let your flocks and your herds be stayed.”
Satan is very loath to give up his hold on men. He is quite as loath as Pharaoh, and he must be driven to it by force of arms—I mean by force of Divine Grace—before he will let God’s people go. Having once got them under his power through the Fall, through their sin, and through their hardness of heart, he will not lose his subjects if he can help it. He will put forth all his craft and all his strength, if possible, to hold them in his accursed sway!
Many of Satan’s slaves altogether disregard the voice of God. For them, there are no Sabbaths, no Bibles, no religion. Practically, they say, “Who is Jehovah that we should obey His voice?” Now, when God means to save men—when the eternal purpose so runs and the Divine determination is to be accomplished, He soon puts an end to this. For some reason quite unknown to the man—it may be quite unthought of by him—he feels uneasy. He is disturbed. He thinks, one morning, that he will go up to a place of worship—not that he cares much about it—but he thinks that he shall, perhaps, be a little easier there. He takes his Bible—he begins to read a chapter. A very striking passage comes before his eyes. He is not more easy, for the text has fixed upon him. Like a barbed shaft, it has stuck into his soul, and he cannot possibly draw it out. He is more troubled than ever! He begins to enquire a little about the things of God—there is now some outward respect to religion—the man is considerably changed. But do not imagine that the work is accomplished! Our blessed Master has to fight for every inch of ground which He wins in human hearts. With the matchless artillery of His love, He drives the enemy back farther and farther, till, at last, He conquers! But it is often a long and slow process and, were He not possessed with infinite patience, He would give it up. But where it is His resolve that a man shall come out of the world and shall be saved, that resolve must and will be carried into effect!
The Process of Conversion
And the man, though he is only brought so far that he begins to think a little about Divine and eternal matters, he will have to go a great deal farther than that. You see him sitting under the Word of God, and perhaps Satan now says, “Well, you are a fine fellow! You are beginning to occupy a seat Sunday after Sunday in the house of prayer. You have given up your evil habits to a large extent. You are quite a different man. Now that you have done something very pleasing to God, you may rest content with this.” And it is a very sad thing when men do rest content with such a paltry hope as can have come out of poor performances like these! But still, they will stop just there if they can, for Satan does not mind where he makes men stop so long as they will stay under the dominion of sin and refuse to come to Christ. Now the Lord begins to deal with the man, perhaps, in a way of affliction and trouble. His wife sickens. A child dies. He is, himself, unhealthy—he fears he is about to die and his fancied righteousness evaporates before his eyes and he thinks that now, surely, he must seek after something better.
Then will Satan come in and say, “There is time enough! Do not be in too much of a hurry.” If the Lord drives a man from that, by the solemn movements of the Spirit upon his soul, then the devil will say to him, “How do you know that this is all true?” And he has not to go far before he finds infidels to help his unbelief. I am sorry to say that he can find them in the pulpit pretty plentifully, preaching their infidelities as “advanced thought!” And so poor souls get bewildered and scarcely know their right hand from their left! They begin, again, to relapse into a condition of indifference and remain where they were. Blessed be God, if He means to save such, He will, by push of pike and point of bayonet, carry the day! They shall not rest where they are. The right hand of the Lord is still stretched out and He will make the Pharaoh of evil yet know that Jehovah is stronger than he! Grace is mightier than nature and the eternal purpose more sure of fulfillment than all the resolves of case-hardened consciences!
The Devil’s Four Compromises
And so, at last, it comes to this—that the man is driven to yield to God and when he is driven to that point, Satan comes in again with his promises. We are going to speak about these four compromises tonight. The first compromise is found in the 8th chapter at the 25th verse. “Sacrifice to your God in the land.” “Yes,” says the devil, “you must be a Christian, that is evident. You cannot hold out any longer, for you are too uneasy in your sins. You will have to be a Christian.” “But,” he says, “stay in the world and be a Christian. Remain where you are. ‘Sacrifice to your God in the land’”—by which he sometimes means this—live in sin and be a Believer. Trust yourself with Christ and then indulge yourself in whatever your heart desires. Do you not know that he is a Savior of sinners? Therefore stay in your sin and yet trust in Him.
Refusing the Compromise
Oh, I charge you, by the living God, never be duped by such a treacherous lie as this, for it is not possible that you can find any rest or salvation while you live in sin! My dear Hearers, Christ came to save us from our sins, but not in our sins! He has built a hospital of mercy into which He receives the worst possible cases. All are welcome, but He does not receive them that they may continue to be sick! He heals them and makes sound men of them. When the Lord Jesus Christ takes hold upon a thief, the man is a thief no longer! His inmost heart becomes honest. When the Lord meets with the harlot, He blots out her iniquity and she is affected with deep repentance for her crimes—and she turns to her Savior, desiring, from that time on, to walk in purity all her days. It is impossible that you should serve God and yet continue to indulge in known sin! What a fool that man is who thinks that he may drink and be a Christian! That he may cheat in his business and be a Christian! That he may act like the ungodly world in all respects and yet be a Christian! It cannot be. Mark Anthony yoked two lions together and drove them through the streets of Rome—but he could never have yoked together the lion of the Pit and the lion of the tribe named Judah! There is a deadly hate between these two. The principle of good, if it is yielded to, will destroy the mastery of evil. There cannot be a compromise between them. No man can serve two masters. He may serve two, but not two when each determines to be master! Satan will be master if he can, and Christ will be master and, therefore, you cannot serve the two! It must be one or the other.
The Second Compromise
If you are to have your sin forgiven you, you must leave your sin. Remember that voice which came to Master John Bunyan when he was playing tip cat on Elstow Green on Sunday morning? He thought that he heard a voice say, “Will you leave your sins and go to Heaven, or will you have your sins and go to Hell?” That problem is proposed to you if you are unconverted and undecided. But as to the idea of keeping your sins and going to Heaven, shut that out of the question, for it must not, cannot and shall not be! It is a compromise proposed by Satan, but the Lord will not have it.
Yes, but then Satan, retreating a little, says, “Well, now, of course I did not mean that you were not to give up your grosser sins, but I mean to tell you of something better. Love the world and live with worldlings—and find your company and your joy among them—and yet be a Christian. Surely you are not going to throw up everybody, are you? You know you must not be singular. You must not make yourself altogether an oddity! You have many merry companions—stay with them. They do not, perhaps, do you much good, but you must not be too particular and precise.” So he says, “Continue in the world and be a Christian!” Shall I tell you God’s Word about that? “If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” That is short, though not sweet. A man says, “Well, I shall be a Christian, but I shall find my chief pleasure and my amusement where the world finds theirs.” Will you? “I shall be a Christian, but I shall hold with the hare and run with the hounds. I shall be with the church on Sunday, but nobody shall know that I am not the best worldling on the week-day. Can I not put my hymn book in one pocket and a pack of cards in the other, and so go to Heaven and stay friends with the world?” No, it is not possible. “Let My people go, that they may serve Me,” is God’s Word. Not, “Let them stay in the land and still serve you and serve Me, too.” It cannot be! “Know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” That text is another sharp, drawn sword cutting to the quick and there are professors who ought to feel it go to their very hearts, for they are trying all that they possibly can to go as near as ever they can to the border and yet to keep up a hope.
The Third Compromise
What would you think of a man who went as near as he could to burning his house down, just to test how much fire it would stand? Or of one who cut himself with a knife to see how deep he could go without mortally wounding himself? Or of another who experimented as to how large a quantity of poison he could drink? Why, these are extreme follies! But not so great as that of a man who tries how much sin he may indulge in and yet be saved! I pray you, do not attempt such perilous experiments. “Come you out from among them; be you separate, and touch not the unclean thing.” Shun with horror Satan’s old compromise—dream not that you can love the world and yet have the love of the Father in you.
The Fourth Compromise
When the enemy cannot get on with that, he draws back a little and cries, “That is very proper; you are hearing very faithful teaching this time, but listen to me—you can live for yourself and be a Christian! Do not go out into worldly company, but enjoy yourself at home. You see, you need to have your own soul saved. Well, live for that.” This is only a subtler and uglier form of selfishness. It is nothing better. “Look,” says Satan, “I do not ask you to be profligate with your money, be penurious with it—be very thrifty. Everybody will pat you on the back and say, ‘He is taking care of number one and he is doing the right thing.’ Come, now, and make a good thing of religion. Believe in Jesus Christ, of course, in order that you, yourself, may be saved, and then live all the rest of your life trying to hear sermons that will feed you and read books that will comfort you—and become a great man among religious folks.” Hateful advice!
Do you not know, dear Friends, that the very essence of Christianity is for a man to deny himself? Self can never properly be the end-all and be-all of a man’s existence. Self is to religion, in fact, nothing but the flesh in a pretended spiritual form! If a man lives to himself, he is under the dominion of an evil spirit just as much as if he went out into open sin. So you must come out of that. Selfishness will not do. You must love the Lord with all your heart, and you must love your fellow men. There must be an obedience to that command that you “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself,” or else there is no coming out into safety. Thus the first compromise will not hold at all. Pushed back from the first compromise, Pharaoh proposes a second, and this is found in the 28th verse of the 8th chapter—“Only you shall not go very far away.”
Pharaoh’s Last Compromise
Satan says, “Yes, I see your conscience tells you that you must come out from the world and come out from sin, but do not go very far away, for you may want to come back again.”
Conclusion: Standing Firm for God
Therefore defeat him—come out boldly! Take up your cross and follow Jesus. “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.”
The Tempter also says, “Do not be so very precise and exact. The Puritan saints—well, people point the finger at them. You need not be quite so particular.” By which he means this—that you may sin as much as you like so long as you do not violate propriety and that, after all, you are not to obey God thoroughly, but only to obey Him when it pleases you. This is flat rebellion against God! This will never do!
“Let My people go!”
Charles Spurgeon