I sometimes think that you can tell how excited Spurgeon is by a text or an occasion by the speed with which he throws himself into his sermon. That's the case in this week's featured sermon, which is 1665 on the exceeding riches of grace. It was delivered on a Lord's Day morning, the 18th of June, this one, 1882, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, from Ephesians 2 and verse 7, that in the ages to come, he, God, might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ. I hope you'll join us as we work our way day by day through these sermons. You can do that on X at Reading Spurgeon. But if one sermon a day is too much, then hopefully one a week is enough and whets your appetite even for more. And you'll join us for these featured sermons, even signing up at mediagratii.org slash podcasts in order to learn more and get a weekly prompt so you know what it is that we're reading. My name is Jeremy Walker. I'm your host for this podcast. And for more resources like this, you can go back to mediagratii.org and you'll find there not just other podcasts of similar tone, but a biographical film on Spurgeon's life and labors. And if you're a regular listener, you'll know that we're studying Spurgeon's sermons not because we idolize Spurgeon, but because we appreciate the graces and gifts that the Lord gave him for the preaching of Jesus Christ. And part of that is this holy enthusiasm and this bubbling over joy when he begins to preach on the exceeding riches of grace. Paul fully expected the gospel of the grace of God to be preached in the ages to come, is Spurgeon's opening assertion. Eternity itself will not improve upon the gospel. When all the saints shall be gathered home, they shall still talk and speak of the wonders of Jehovah's love in Christ Jesus. And in the golden streets, they shall stand up and tell what the Lord has done for them to listening crowds of angels and principalities and powers. Paul expected that throughout the ages to come, this testimony of grace would shine on, would burn on with the self-same brilliance as it did in his own age. So Paul did not at all anticipate any removal of the old landmarks, says Spurgeon. He held it forth that the same results would follow in all ages from the preaching of the gospel with the same power from heaven, and hence he regarded the first converts as pledges and proofs to all succeeding ages of what the gospel could achieve. Hold you, my brothers, to that gospel which has been delivered unto you, which we have received by the Spirit of God through the teaching of Christ and of his apostles, and you shall yet see repeated in your midst the selfsame things which were wrought in those early days. Those who will may drink the new wine of the modern vintage. My conviction is that the old is better. So straight away we've got this bubbling zeal for the gospel of Jesus Christ and this confidence which is not just stated but applied to us. If it was the power of God to salvation in Paul's day, it's the power of God to salvation still. Spurgeon also tells us that Paul's language teaches us that every age is a gainer by those which preceded it. Now, Spurgeon often has a slightly sarcastic dig at his own age. He says here, I have smiled often in this place at the conceit of this 19th century, which holds up its head among the ages as far excelling them all, though if it knew itself, it would sing to a more modest tune. Now I will admoderate my tone, and admit that this century is superior to all the ages that have been before it, but he qualifies that in this one respect, that it is received by the lapse of time the fullest and most repeated evidence of the gospel's power. So we shouldn't have that kind of chronological snobbery that looks back at the past and assumes that we are inherently better than all those who've come before, but there is a sense in which we can look back and say we have yet more proofs, yet further evidences of how much the power of God accomplishes through the gospel that he has given. Surrounded then by evidence that is altogether overwhelming, we behold the gospel of Jesus going forth, conquering and to conquer. We hear from 10,000 times 10,000 voices the cry, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. We cannot cease to proclaim the mercy of God as displayed in the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, for infallible assurances strengthen our confidence and set our hearts on fire. And if you're listening to that today, you've got another two centuries of proofs upon which to build your confidence. In that sense, we have an advantage because we go on seeing the gospel's power be improved and the wisdom of God displayed in it. So these multitudes of converts in pastime make known to us in these ages that there is salvation, nay more, that this salvation is to be had, for they obtained it, nay further, that it is to be had upon the terms that God has laid down of simply believing in Jesus Christ, for they obtained it in that way and in none other. So doubt ought now to be out of the question. Every needy, trembling sinner should hasten away to the refuge supplied by Jesus, because so many have been to him with success, because he has never rejected any, because he has saved to the uttermost all those that have come to him. Therefore, sinful men ought eagerly and unquestioningly to come at once and put their confidence in the Lamb of God." Now, friends, that's his introduction. I want to turn cartwheels and become a Christian all over again just based on what he's already said, and that's his first three paragraphs. And that's what I mean by this sort of bubbling over of zeal and joy, while very conscious of how hard he finds it to speak on such a text. I can't draw out all its supplies, he confesses. I've gone round the walls of this city, text. I've counted its towers and marked well its bulwarks. And I am utterly unable to express myself by reason of joyous astonishment." At which point you're saying, yeah, but you've not done too badly so far, have you? I feel as if I must sit down and lose myself in adoration. I'm a poor dumb dog over such a theme. It's a vast and fruitful country that would bear a year's sermons and then give you fruit for a year's more. A land of hills and valleys, a land of fountains and brooks of water. Who shall spy it out and set the bounds thereof? I shall try to exhibit a cluster from Eshcol, that's a foretaste of these beautiful things, the grapes of Eshcol that were brought back by the spies from the promised land. But the whole land I cannot show you. It behoves you, it does you well, it urges you on to journey there for yourselves. It is a right royal subject, the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Yes, Whitfield and Wesley, and we might add Spurgeon, might preach the gospel better than I do, but they could not preach a better gospel. And so he preaches with the longing desire that others may be enticed to come and taste of the dainties of Christ's marriage feast. To this end, I shall rehearse the loving kindnesses of the Lord. Oh, that the Holy Spirit may help me and draw you. So there's a man taken up with his text, not just intellectually fascinated by it, but spiritually captured by its substance. And so we begin with the kindness of the Lord toward us in Christ Jesus. What kindness He displayed in choosing such sinners as we were, whether that's the Ephesians first or us after them. All the sheep went astray, though each one followed a different way, all took the downward road, and we among them. We, to the utmost of our power, fulfilled the lusts of the flesh and of the mind. We did evil, even as we could. If it had not been for the restraints of education and the checks of our surroundings, I know not into what crimes we should not have plunged. It is a happy circumstance for some of us that God met with us very early, or else we should have been swept away by the torrents of our youthful passions into the worst possible vices. We ever had a strong will and a firm purpose, and a courage equal to any daring. These qualities, under the devil's influence, would soon have forced for us a passage to hell. If we'd been left to sow our wild oats, what a crop we should have had long ere this. Thanks be to God for his preventing love." So he asks, even the children of pious parents? Have some of you fallen into the lusts of the flesh, and followed after the pleasures of sin, and thus defiled yourselves greatly? Do not despair of pardon, for there are some here who tearfully remember how the God of pardons forgave them after they had fallen into like sins. Whatever form your transgression may take, God has saved others who aforetime fell into similar sins, in order that in them he might make known to you his willingness to clasp you to his bosom and to cast your sins behind his back. But not only is your attention called to the persons whom God chose, but the gracious acts which he has done toward them. He made with us in Christ a covenant ordered in all things and sure, which shall stand fast when all created things dissolve. Having done this, He watched over us when we were bond slaves to the tyrant Satan. Graciously He guarded us from going further still into transgression and committing the sin which is unto death. Then he called us, and when we would not come he drew us yet more forcibly by his effectual grace till at last we yielded. Oh, I cannot tell all that he did for us when we at last came to Jesus, but this I know. He washed us, and we were whiter than snow. He brought forth the best robe and put it on us, and made us comely in his sight. He gave us the kiss of sweet acceptance, and He put us among the children, and since then He's given us the children's portion, and has dealt with us as He uses to deal with those that love His name. We've been adopted into the family, and we've lived on the children's bread. We've been guided, and led, and instructed, and upheld, and sanctified, and the Almighty Savior is still performing for us miracles of mercy. He asks us, what has God done? I answer, what has He not done? What more could He do? Can you suggest a mercy? He has already given it. Can you desire a favor? It is yours already, and was yours from before the foundation of the world. Oh, the goodness then, the manifold goodness, the overflowing, surpassing, inconceivable goodness of God in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Preacher, can you rehearse the blessings of God like that? Now, you might say, I don't have the vocabulary, but do you at least have the substance? Do you have the sense of those things? Do you feel the weight of God's blessings? And do they spill out in these glorious catalogs of testimony about God's kindness and mercy? Spurgeon emphasizes this last word that the kindness is through Christ Jesus. He is the channel through which all blessing comes. Yes, God gives common mercies to men as his creatures, but these riches of his grace, these covenant blessings, all come to us as his chosen through the mediator. You can see the mark of the cross on every spiritual favor which the Father has bestowed. Some drops of bloody sweat have fallen upon every treasured gem of the covenant casket. So I might detain you many a day upon this one word through Christ Jesus, through the incarnate God, through his life, death, and resurrection, and his intercession at the right hand of the throne of the majesty on high. Here again you get this bubbling sense, this is in his soul, it's spilling over. All things come to us through Christ Jesus. He is the golden pipe of the conduit of eternal love, the window through which grace shines, the door by which it enters. Get these two or three words and sit down and turn them over and over and over in your souls and see if there is not the very music of heaven sleeping within them, which your faith may call forth and coin into hallelujahs. That's just beautiful, isn't it? The exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. This is an anthem worthy of the choir celestial. Sing it, O ye chosen of the Lord, while you're waiting to ascend his holy hill. But a step further, get into the soul of the text, says Spurgeon, at which point we ask, where have we been so far? Well, let's consider the exceeding riches of his grace. And again, this is sermonizing of a high degree, not just some kind of sermonic calculation, but a man whose heart's taken up with his text and is spinning out of it the wonders of God's rich grace. This is above all limit. The Lord has as much grace as a whole universe will require, but he has vastly more. He overflows. All the demands that can ever be made on the grace of God will never impoverish him or even diminish his store of mercy. There will remain an incalculably precious mine of mercy as full as when he first began to bless the sons of men. Yes, says Spurgeon, God is so rich in mercy that you cannot tell how rich he is. He is overflowing riches, marvellous riches, exceeding riches. God is excessive in nothing that I know of except in his mercy. He is boundless in all his attributes, but emphatically so in his love, for God is love. Above all limit and above all observation, the little grace which you have seen, you stop me and exclaim, Sir, I've seen great grace. So you have for you. But the little grace you've seen, I say, bears no proportion to the glorious whole. You've only begun to begin to see what God's grace is like, these exceeding riches. and now above all expression. If we knew the language of angels, we could not then declare the grace of God. The most experienced saints bewail the weakness of every form of speech to describe the exceeding riches of the grace of God. Then it's above all our ways of action. So wondrous are His ways of grace that they're past finding out. We cannot follow them and can scarce believe them because they're so unlike ours. His ways are above our ways. His thoughts above our thoughts, as much as the heavens are above the earth. The gentlest, meekest, and most loving minds are left far behind in this race of love. Man is a miser, a holder back of forgiveness, but the Lord is rich in mercy. Our little stream of goodness runs after much pumping and pressure, but the river of divine love flows freely on, these beautiful little illustrations that he drops in. The ways of grace are above our understanding. God raises up every now and then master minds to perceive and reveal His wisdom in nature, but there never was and never shall be a human understanding that can fully grasp the incomprehensible riches of the mercy of God in Christ. I wish I could say something that would make men know how vast is the mercy of God. Oh, that these lips had language. Perhaps my failure may be better than fluency. There's an encouragement for a preacher. If you cannot express what you long to express, that in itself may be the best message that you send. Now then, these exceeding riches of God's grace are above all our sins. You cannot sin so much as God can forgive. If it comes to a pitched battle between sin and grace, you shall not be so bad as God shall be good, and Spurgeon proves it. You can only sin as a man, but God can forgive as a God. You sin as a finite creature, but the Lord forgives as the infinite creator. When I received that thought fairly into my soul last night, I felt like Abraham when he laughed for joy. I sin like a man, that he forgives like a God. We will never sin that grace may abound. That were infamous and detestable. But what a blessed text is that. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Then, God's mercy is greater than his promises. And someone objects, oh no, that won't do. We've read of exceeding great and precious promises. Yes, but the Lord had mercy and grace before he'd spoken a single promise. And it was because his heart was flaming with love that he made a covenant of grace and wrote therein the words of peace. His promises are precious streams that come leaping up in the deserts of our lost and ruined state, but the depth that lies under, which scripture calls the depth that couches beneath, is richer than the fountain which comes out of it. The mercy of God as the source and wellhead is greater than the promises which flow from it. infinitely greater than our straightened interpretations of the promises, which fall far short of their real meaning, and even that meaning, did we know it, cannot set forth all the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. And so we try again. God's mercy is greater than all that all his children ever have received as yet. His redeemed are a multitude that no man can number, and each one draws heavily upon the divine Exchequer, but notwithstanding all the grace he has ever given to them, and he's given to each of them a measureless portion, yet is there more grace in God than he has given forth as yet. The fact is, says Spurgeon, this grace is above all measure, yet we have four measures for it, height, depth, breadth, length, and this mercy of God is so exceeding great that in each of these measures it baffles description. It is higher than our sin, though that be exceedingly heinous and proudly threatens the gates of heaven. It is higher than our thoughts, though our imagination sometimes takes a condor's flight. Oh, the height of divine mercy, it rises to the throne of the eternal. As for the depths of grace, the sea has immense depths, but the mercy of God is altogether unfathomable. Great sins sink into it and are lost, but grace is just as deep after it has swallowed up a world's sin as it was before. There are inconceivably deep places in God's mercy where the blackest sins are lost. Out of these come the choicest pearls of grace. Oh, the depths! As for the breadth of mercy, David says, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. What greater breadth can be conceived? As for the length of it, it is from everlasting to everlasting. Can anybody tell me the length of that? My sins began less than 50 years ago, but the Lord's mercy began? Ah, when did it begin? It was always with him, and his plans of mercy are from everlasting. There's a beginning to man's sin, but there's no beginning to pardoning love. I shall cease to sin, I hope, long before another fifty years are over, and I shall be beyond fear of further fault. But the mercy of the Lord will never end, world without end. Who then can compass a matter which in any one of its measurements far surpasses all human computation? Grace is above all calculation. And so, hasten hither, you great sinners! Come here quickly, great sinners! However much you may have wandered, however black you may be, however defiled, God delights in mercy. It is the joy of His heart to pass by transgression and sin through the precious blood of Christ. Do not do, my Lord, so great a dishonor as to measure your sin and affirm that it outstrips His mercy. It cannot be! You know nothing about the glorious nature of my Lord." And then there's a third point here, as we press toward the close, that these riches of grace deserve to be still further illustrated. And he says, I've only got hints left to offer you. I've only got time and space for just a few trains of thought. What exceeding riches of grace it was on God's part that when we resisted him in the days of our sin, he resolved to overcome our folly. Oh, the exceeding riches of this grace! My master, the Lord Jesus, came along to me, and he said, Soul, will you have pardon and forgiveness? And, fool that I was, I answered, No. So he came again and said, Will you have me and my salvation? I'll take you to heaven with me. And I answered, No. Ah, but he would not take no for an answer. He had a sweet way of getting at my understanding and my will, and he drew me till at last I cried after him. What a beautiful description of the insistent grace of God. Then no conditions were made with us. He did not stand out for any terms, the Lord Christ, when he met with us. I heard one say the other day, I do not feel enough brokenness of heart nor enough humiliation of spirit. Who said that Christ demanded so much brokenness of heart and so much humbling of spirit before He would give His mercy? He who dared to say it knows not the freeness of the gospel, for the gospel comes to bring you the broken heart and the humbled spirit, and Christ comes to you just as you are, in all your alienation and your enmity, and brings everything in His hands that you can want. This is what we call free grace. Spurgeon talks about a critic who took issue with him. Grace must be free. Free grace is tautology. He responds, but we shall say free grace so that there shall be no mistake about it. For some, I dare say, will not know where we are unless we are even redundant in our expressions upon this point. He wants to hammer it home. Christ paid our debts. He asked not a farthing from us. He saw us lying by the roadside, bruised and broken, And he did not say, come here, poor man, rise up, and I will bind your wounds. No, he came where we were lying, unable to stir, and poured in the wine and the oil, and did it all without our help. There is no condition. It is grace. It must be free, and it is free grace indeed. Then, says Spurgeon, I thought about how his grace works, why he does all this with a word. He speaks a black sinner white. He speaks a dead sinner into life by a word. Live, he says, and he that was dead lives. If you want another proof, think of the power of the blood. Once washed in the crimson fount your every sin is gone, every spot washed out. I am gone, never to return, for he that is once washed in the atoning blood will never be black again. The cleansing is perfected forever. The glorious High Priest made one offering for sin, only one. He did it once, and by that He annihilated all the sins of all His people at a single stroke, once for all. Oh, the exceeding riches of His grace, His word, His blood, have wrought such wondrous mysteries of grace. And don't they keep being marvellous to you, He asks? See how He wants us to enter into the experience that He has enjoyed. Oh, our poor love to Him has been like a spark hiding away in the ashes, yet He has called it love. He has known us better than we have known ourselves, and has loved us, and we has known that we loved him rather notwithstanding the feebleness of our affection. And then the Lord has held onto us. And this is his last point. Yes, we've grieved Him, yes, we've provoked Him, but He has espoused us to Himself, and He never will divorce us. If, when I get to heaven, I shall know what I owed Him here, I shall be in a greater difficulty than ever, says our preacher, for I shall not know what I then owe Him in His glory. It is an enormous debt we owe Him for the blessings of time, and perhaps in eternity we shall begin to calculate their value, But then we shall be sweetly oppressed with a new burden, in a sense of the amazing mercy which He will then be giving us at His right hand. We may give up the endless task, we cannot possibly calculate the sum. Brothers, we're all in an equal difficulty, and shall be so forever, for the Lord will go on to deluge us with mercy, grace, favor, forever and forever, and we shall say to one another when millions of years have gone, Brother, is it not still astonishing? Do you seem to know much more of it than you did in the tabernacle that morning when you heard the poor preacher try to do his best with his subject and he was utterly lost in it? And you will say, I know far more, but I am as far off as ever from knowing all, for now I know more of my ignorance, I know more of the extent of what I do not know. Brothers, if what we do know and what we do not know are added together to make up the total sum of the Lord's grace. What must it be? God only knows the love of God. Oh, that it now were shed abroad in these poor stony hearts. God grant it for Jesus' sake. Amen. And may he grant it to you also because of his great love and mercy in Christ Jesus. Well, I hope that's been an encouragement and a blessing to your soul as it has been to mine. Do take a moment if you haven't otherwise to read that sermon, fill in the gaps that I've had to leave because of the constraints of time, and then ponder for yourself the exceeding riches of God's grace. If you want more of this, then please join us again, God willing, next week, when we look at Sermon 1674, brought up from the horrible pit. So, this week, 1662 to 1668, and our featured sermon is this one, 1665. Next week, 1669 to 1675, and the featured sermon find it at mediagratii.org 1674 brought up from the horrible pit. Again, thank you so much for listening and may God bless you indeed in accordance with that grace which is his in Christ Jesus.