“FOR CHRIST’S SAKE” – Charles Spurgeon
The Boundless Worthiness of Christ Over Sin
What if your sin could stretch from east to west, and from the highest star to the depth of the abyss? Yet the worthiness of Christ is a fullness that fills all in all, and therefore it would cover all your sins! Your sins, like Egypt’s hosts, are many and mighty—Christ’s worthiness is like the flood of the Red Sea—able to drown the whole, so that not one of their host shall be left; they shall sink into the bottom like a stone. Your sins are like Noah’s flood which drowned all mankind; Christ’s worthiness is like Noah’s ark which swims above the tide, and mounts higher as the flood grows deeper. The deeper your sin, the more Christ’s merit is exalted above the heavens when Jehovah forgives you all your iniquities! Think not little of Christ! I would not have you think little of sin—but still, think more of Christ. Sin is finite; it is the creature’s act. Christ is infinite; He is omnipotent. Whatever then your sin may be, Christ is greater than your sin and able to take it away.
Then, brethren, it is a most clear and satisfactory—I was about to say, most reasonable reason—a motive that appeals to your own common sense! Can you not already see how God can be gracious to you for Christ’s sake? We have heard of persons who have given money to beggars, to the poor, not because they deserved it, but because they would commemorate some deserving friend. On a certain day in the year, our Horticultural Gardens are opened free to the public. Why should they be opened free? What has the public done? Nothing. They receive the gift in commemoration of the good Prince Albert. Is not that a sensible reason? Yes. Every day in the year, the gates of heaven are opened free to sinners. Why? For Jesus Christ’s sake! Is this not a most fitting reason?
If God would glorify His Son, how could He do better than by saying, “For the sake of My dear Son, set the pearly gates of heaven wide open, and admit His chosen ones. See these myriads of spirits—they are all admitted to their throne of immortal glory for the sake of My dear Son. They are happy, but they are happy for His sake. They are holy, but they are holy for His sake.” Casting their crowns at His feet, they sing, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.” You perceive at once that this reason appeals to common sense, and therefore I hope, dear Friends, you will lay hold of it.
Let me say, poor sinner, that it is a reason applicable to your case. If you can think of any good and solid reason why God should forgive you, turn them all over. You cannot see one! I know the time when I could not find half a reason why God should save me, but I could find 50,000 reasons why He should damn me! But when I see that, “For Christ’s sake,” Oh, that is a reason; that is a good reason—it is a reason I can get hold of! Suppose me to be the blackest sinner out of hell, how it will glorify Christ if, for Christ’s sake, the blackest sinner that ever lived should be snatched from hell and taken to heaven for His sake! Suppose I have been a blasphemer; unchaste; an adulterer; a murderer—what then? “For Christ’s sake,” the more sin I have, the more glorious will the merit of Christ seem to be when, in opposition to all my unworthiness, it brings me pardon and eternal life, and takes me to the enjoyments of His right hand!
The Believer’s Great Motive for Service
“For Christ’s sake” is the believer’s great motive for service. One of the first things which every Christian should feel bound to do, “For Christ’s sake,” is to avenge His death. “Avenge His death?” asks one. “Upon whom?” Upon His murderers. “And who were they?” Our sins! Our SINS!—“Each of our crimes became a nail, And unbelief the spear.” The very thought of sin having put Jesus to death should make the Christian hate it with a terrible hatred.
Then, next, the Christian is expected to exalt his Master’s name, and to do much to honor His memory, for Christ’s sake. You remember that queen, who, when her husband died, thought she could never honor him too much, and built a tomb so famous that though it was only named for him, it remains, to this day, the name of every splendid memorial—the mausoleum. Now let us feel that we cannot erect anything too famous for the honor of Christ—that our life will be well spent in making His name famous; let us pile up the unhewn stones of goodness, self-denial, kindness, virtue, grace—let us lay these one upon another, and build up a memorial for Jesus Christ so that whoever passes by may know that we have been with Jesus, and have learned of Him!
Should we not, for His sake, care for the growth of His kingdom, and the welfare of His subjects? Ought we not to minister to the needs of His servants, and comfort the sorrows of His friends? If He has a poor brother anywhere, is it not at once an honor and a duty to aid him? As David cherished Mephibosheth, who was lame in his feet, for the sake of Jonathan, so should you and I look after every heavy-laden, faint-hearted Christian, for the sake of Jesus! Should we not be bearing one another’s burdens because Christ bore our burdens; weeping with them who weep because Jesus wept; helping those who ask our help because God has laid help upon one that is mighty, even our Redeemer? And above all, “For Jesus’ sake,” should be a motive to fill us with intense sympathy with Him. He has many sheep, and some of them are wandering—let us go after them, my brethren, for the Shepherd’s sake. He has pieces of money which He has lost—let us sweep the house, and light our candle, and seek diligently till we find them, “For Jesus’ sake.” He has brethren who are playing the prodigal—let us seek to bring them back—“For Christ’s sake.”
Let the soul of the poorest little street Arab; let the soul of the grossest scoundrel, and the most abandoned harlot, be very dear to us for Jesus’ sake—let us care even for the obstinate and rebellious, for Jesus’ sake. As you look at souls, imagine you see Jesus weeping over them; as you look at perishing sinners, imagine you see His blood spattered on them, and you will love them, “For Jesus’ sake.” Oh, brethren, you who are doing nothing for Christ—you who come here and listen to me, who sit at His table and take the bread and wine in remembrance of Him—what will you do when your Master comes, and you have to confess that you did nothing for Him, that your love was of such a sort that you never showed it—you talked of it—but you never gave to His cause, you never worked for His name?
Away with such love as that! What do men think of it—a love that never shows itself in action? Why, they say, “Open rebuke is better than secret love of that kind.” You had better have rebuked Christ than to have had a sneaking, miserable, untrue, unloving love to Him—a love so weak that it was never powerful enough to actuate you to a single deed of self-denial, of generosity, of heroism, or zeal! Oh, brethren, let it not be so with us any longer, but let us seek, by God’s grace, that “For Jesus’ sake,” we may have a sympathy with Him in yearning over the souls of men, and endeavoring to bring them to a knowledge of His salvation!
A Call to Action for Believers
Clear as the sound of a trumpet startling men from slumber, and bewitching as the sound of martial music to the soldier when he marches to the conflict, ought to be the matchless melody of this word, “For Christ’s sake.” It ought to make men perform deeds which should fit them to rank with angels; it ought to bring out of every regenerate man, more than was ever forced from manhood by any other word, let it have what charm it might; it ought to make the least among us valiant as David, and David as the servant of the Lord. Think, my brethren, what mighty wonders other words have worked.
For philosophy’s sake, what have men not suffered? They have wasted their health over unhealthy furnaces, breathing noxious gases; they have worn out their days and their nights burning the midnight oil; they have spent their last farthing to acquire the secrets of nature! They have beggared themselves and their families, to unravel mysteries which have brought no more substantial reward than the honor of learned approval and conscious power. The martyrs of science are innumerable. If someone would write their story, it would make a bright page in human history. Think again of what men have done for discovery’s sake by way of traveling. Take down the books of modern travelers, and you will be astounded at their zeal, their courage, and unselfishness! They have mocked the fever, have laughed at death, have left friends, and kindred, and the comfort of home; they have gone to inhospitable climates among more inhospitable men, have wandered about in weariness, wet with the rain, frozen with the cold, or burnt up with the heat! They have gone hungry, and thirsty, sick and weary—have journeyed on and on to find the source of a river or a passage through a frozen strait! When I think of such expeditions as those of Ross and Franklin, I marvel at, and reverence the endurance of humanity; how these bold men have braved old Boreas in his own ice-palace, and faced grim desolation in its own domain! The text, “Quit you like men,” gets a new emphasis when we think of these conquerors of famine, and cold and peril; and shall the inquisitiveness of mankind prove a stronger motive than God-given love to Jesus? If so, shame upon us!
Think, again, of what men have done for false religion’s sake! In years gone by the scimitar flashed from the Arab’s sheath and the Arab’s eyes flashed fire at the very name of Mohammed! For the one dogma, “God is God, and Mohammed is his Prophet,” blood flowed in rivers, and fields were strewn with the slain, rejoicing to be slain because they dreamed that Paradise was to be found under the shadow of swords! Think how the heathen cast themselves before the car of Juggernaut to be crushed into a hideous mass of mangled flesh, and broken bones, and oozing blood for their god’s sake! Their filthy, horrid god’s sake! How many have given themselves to die by Gunga’s stream? How many a woman has gone up to the funeral pile and thrown herself upon her husband’s dead body, giving herself an offering to her cruel gods? I know not, what men have not suffered for the horrid deities, which they have chosen for themselves! Martyrs to fanaticism and deception are not a few, and shall the truth of God find us unready and unwilling to run risks for its sake?
Review, my brethren, the heroic struggles of the Lord’s people, and here we turn to the brightest page of the world’s annals! Think of the suffering of God’s people through the Maccabean war! How marvelous was their courage when Antiochus Epiphanes took the feeblest among the Jews, to force them to break the law, and found himself weak as water, before their dauntless resolve! Aged women and feeble children overcame the tyrant. Their tongues were torn out; they were sawn asunder; they were broiled on the fire; they were pierced with knives—but no kind of torture could subdue the indomitable spirit of God’s chosen people! Think of the Christian heroism of the first centuries; remember Blandina tossed upon the horns of bulls and set in a red-hot iron chair; think of the martyrs given up to the lions in the amphitheatre amidst the reviling of the Roman mob—dragged to their death at the heels of wild horses, or, like Marcus Arethusa, smeared with honey and stung to death by bees; and yet in which case did the enemy triumph? In none! They were more than conquerors through Him who loved them! And why? Because they did it all, “For Christ’s sake,” and Christ’s sake alone! Think of the cruelty which stained the snows of the Switzer’s Alps, and the grass of Piedmont’s Valleys blood-red with the murdered Waldenses and Albigenses, and honor the heroism of those who, in their deaths, counted not their lives dear to them “For Christ’s sake.” Walk this afternoon to your own Smithfield, and stand upon the sacred spot where the martyrs leaped into their chariot of fire, leaving their ashes on the ground, “For Jesus’ sake!” In Edinburgh, stand on the well-known stones consecrated with covenanting gore, where the axe and the hangman set free the spirits of men who rejoiced to suffer for Christ’s sake! Remember those fugitives, for Christ’s sake, “meeting in the glens and crags of Scotia’s every hill.” They were daunted by nothing—they dared everything “For Christ’s sake.” Think, too, of what missionaries have done, “For Christ’s sake.” With no weapon but the Bible, they have landed among cannibals, and have subdued them to the power of the gospel; with no hope of gain except in the reward which the Lord has reserved for every faithful one, they have gone where the most enterprising trader dared not go, passed through barriers impenetrable to the courage of men who sought after gold—but to be pierced by men who sought after souls. Think of the Moravians, first and choicest warriors for God. Think of them selling themselves for slaves that they might teach other slaves the liberty of the gospel—consenting to be confined in leper colonies for life—with the absolute certainty of rotting away piece-meal with leprosy and with diseases still fouler! Why? Only that they might save the leper’s soul, and have an opportunity of teaching the poor diseased one the way by which his spirit might be made whole through Jesus, the great Physician! And what have you and I ever done? Oh, pigmies, dwarfs, sons of nobodies, our names will never be remembered. What have we done? Preached a few times, but with how little fire? Prayed at certain seasons, but with how little passion; talked now and then to sinners, but with what half-heartedness; given to the cause of Christ, but seldom given till we denied ourselves and made a real sacrifice; believed in God at times, but oh with what unbelief mixed with our faith; loved Christ, but with what cold, stolid hearts. “For Christ’s sake.” Do you feel the power of it? Then let it be like a rushing mighty wind to your soul, to sweep out the clouds of your worldliness and clear away the mists of sin! “For Christ’s sake!” Be this the tongue of fire that shall sit on every one of you! “For Christ’s sake!” Be this the divine rapture, the heavenly impulse to bear you aloft from earth, the divine Spirit that shall make us bold as lions and swift as eagles in our Lord’s service! Fixed, fixed on God with a constancy that is not to be shaken, resolve to honor Him with a determination that is not to be turned aside, and pressing on with an ardor never to be wearied.
I cannot preach as I would on such a theme as this, but I leave it with you. How much do you owe to my Lord? Has He ever done anything for you? Has He forgiven your sins? Has He covered you with a robe of righteousness? Has He set your feet upon a rock? Has He established your goings? Has He prepared heaven for you? Has He prepared you for heaven? Has He written your name in His Book of Life? Has He given you countless blessings? Has He a store of mercies which eyes have not seen nor ears heard? Then do something for Christ worthy of His love. Wake up from natural sleepiness and this very day, before the sun goes down, do something in some way by which you shall prove that you feel the power of that divine motive, “For Christ’s sake.” May God accept and bless you, dear friends, “For Jesus’ sake.” Amen.
“See from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down! Did ever such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown? His dying crimson, like a robe, Spreads over His body on the tree; Then am I dead to all the globe, And all the globe is dead to me. Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small! Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all!”