The sermons that Spurgeon preached and published, we've reached this 1625th sermon in the sequence. We're reading this week from 1620 to 1626. You can follow that progress on X at Reading Spurgeon. The featured sermons, and this one is this week's featured sermon, are available from Mediagratiae at mediagratiae.org slash podcasts. So then, without me, you can do nothing. Words that must fall from the lips of the incarnate God. It is quite true, says Spurgeon, that unregenerate men being without Christ can do no spiritual action whatever, and could do nothing which is acceptable in the sight of God. But our Lord was not speaking to unregenerate men at all, nor speaking about them in this text. He was surrounded by his apostles, the eleven out of whom Judas had been weeded, and it is to them as branches of the true vine that he says, without me you can do nothing. The statement refers to such as are in the vine, and even to such as have been pruned and have for a little while been found abiding in the stem, which is Christ. Even in such there is an utter incapacity for holy produce if separated from Christ. So Spurgeon recasts the phrase for us. Apart from me you can produce nothing, make nothing, create nothing, bring forth nothing. The reference is to doing that which may be set forth by the fruit of the vine branch, and therefore to those good works and graces of the Spirit which are expected from men who are spiritually united to Christ. It is of these that he says, without me you can do nothing. So we are just recasting the fourth verse, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. And so says Spurgeon having put it in its context, I am therefore going to address myself to you who profess to know and love the Lord and are anxious to glorify his name. and I have to remind you that union to Christ is essential, for only as you are one with Him and continue to be so, can you bring forth the fruits which prove you to be truly His. In other words, while it is true that apart from Christ there is no life in men, this word is given to men who have life in Christ, and the emphasis is still that apart from Jesus Christ you can do nothing. And first of all, Sir Spurgeon, that excites in me an aspiration of hope. There is something to be done. Our religion is to have a grand practical outcome. So it's not merely theoretical. There's something that works out in true Christianity. The word do has music in it. Yes, brothers, Jesus went about doing good and being in him, we shall do good. Everything about Him is efficient, practical, in a word, fruit-bearing, and being joined to Him much will yet be done by us. We have been saved by the almighty grace of God apart from all doings of our own, and now that we are saved we long to do something in return. We feel a high ambition to be of some use and service to our great Lord and Master. So true Christianity then breeds in us an appetite for service, for endeavor, for accomplishment. There is then the ambition and hope before us of doing something in the way of glorifying God by bringing forth the fruits of holiness, peace and love. We would, says Spurgeon, adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. By pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by love unfeigned, by every good and holy work, we would show forth the praises of our God. Apart from the Lord Jesus we know we cannot be holy, but joined unto Him we overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, and walk with garments unspotted from the world. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and all manner of holy conversation. For none of these things are we equal in and of ourselves, and yet by faith we say with Paul, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. We may be adorned with plentiful clusters, we may cause the Savior to have joy in us that our joy may be full. Great possibilities are before us. Fruit in the conversion of others is also a prospect, just as Paul desired concerning the Romans that he might have fruit among them. Being united to Christ, we bring forth increase unto the Lord, though we can do nothing in ourselves. Then my soul takes fire of hope, and I say to myself, if it be so, all these branches and all alive, how much fruit of further blessing will ripen for this poor world? Men shall be blessed in us because we are blessed in Christ. What must be the influence of ten thousand godly examples? What must be the influence upon our country of thousands of Christian men and women practically advancing love, peace, justice, virtue, holiness? And if each one is seeking to bring others to Christ, what numerous conversions there must be, and how largely must the church of God be increased. See how positive he is at the beginning. See these thousands of branches, proceeding from such a stem as Christ Jesus, and with such sap as the Holy Ghost flowing through them. Why, surely this vine must soon clothe the mountains with its verdure, and there shall not remain a single barren rock unadorned with the blessed foliage. Then shall the mountains drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. Not because of any natural fertility in the branches, but because of their glorious root and stem and sap, each one shall bear full clusters, and each fruitful bough shall run over the wall. Spurgeon says, and I hope he speaks for you as for me, our souls pine to see the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea. It is glad tidings to us that, joined unto Christ, we can do something in this great business, something upon which the Lord will smile, something which shall redound to the glory of his name. We are not condemned to inaction. We are not denied the joy of service, the superior blessedness of giving and of doing. The Lord has chosen us and ordained us to go and bring forth fruit, fruit that shall remain. So this prospect of doing something because Christ is with us is an aspiration of hope. Spurgeon, I think, begins here because he wants to start off on the right foot and to give us a positive expectation. And he'll sort of come back to that by the time we get to the end. But he also wants to tell us that the same words should bring forth a shudder of fear, because although he might glow and burn with strong desire and rise upon the wing of a mighty ambition to do something great for Christ, yet he reads the text and a sudden trembling takes hold upon him. without me. It is possible, then, that I may be without Christ and so utterly incapacitated for all good. And so, what if you are a visible member of the visible Church of Christ, but not so in Christ as to bring forth fruit? Evidently there are branches which are, in a certain sense, in the vine, and yet bring forth no fruit. It is written, Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away. So, says Spurgeon, you are a member, perhaps an elder, perhaps a deacon, possibly a minister, and so you are in the vine, but are you bringing forth the fruits of holiness? Are you consecrated? Are you endeavoring to bring others to Jesus Christ? or is your profession a thing apart from a holy life and devoid of all influence upon others? Does it give you a name among the people of God and nothing more? Say, is it a mere natural association with the church, or is it a living supernatural union with Christ? Let the thought go through you and prostrate you before Him who looks down from heaven upon you and lifts His pierced hand and cries, Without me you can do nothing. My friend, if you are without Christ, what is the use of carrying on that Bible class, for you can do nothing? What is the use of my coming to the pulpit if I am without Christ? What is the use of your going down into the Sunday school this afternoon if, after all, you are without Christ? Unless we have the Lord Jesus ourselves, we cannot take Him to others. Unless within us we have the living water springing up unto eternal life, we cannot overflow so that out of our midst shall flow rivers of living water. Or what if you should be in Christ and not so in Him as to abide in Him, to be cast forth and withered? My hearer, says Spurgeon, what if it should happen that you are only in Christ on a Sunday, but in the world all the week? What if you are only in Christ at the communion table, or at the prayer meeting, or at certain periods of devotion? What if you are off and on with Christ? What if you play fast and loose with the Lord? What if you are an outside saint and an inside devil? Ah me, what will come of such conduct as this? And yet some persist in attempting to hold an intermittent communion with Christ, in Christ today because it is the Sabbath, out of Christ tomorrow because it is the market, and obedience to Christ might be inconvenient when they buy and sell. This will not do. We must be so in Christ as to be always in Him, or else we are not living branches of the living vine, and we cannot produce fruit. If there were such a thing as a vine branch that was only occasionally joined to the stem, would you expect it to yield a cluster to the husbandman? So neither can you if you are off and on with Christ. You can do nothing if there be not constant union. So again, here's an apparent union, but not a true union. He uses a little illustration that caused him much terror, seeing somebody in France burning some dried vine branches. Our end without Christ will be terrible indeed. First no fruit, then no life, and at last no place among the saints, no existence in the church of God. Without Christ we do nothing, we are nothing, we are worse than nothing, says Spurgeon. And that brings him to his third heading, a vision of total failure. And you see how he's building then this argument. And it's well constructed because he starts off with that aspiration of hope to say, this is what you could look forward to. But then he introduces this shudder of fear. And then on top of that, this vision of total failure, you can produce nothing. A visible church of Christ trying this experiment a great many times already, and always with the same result. Separated from Christ, his church can do nothing which she was formed to do. So he says, what if you had a ministry without Christ in its doctrine? Many a young minister has given up his whole mind to this," says Spurgeon, to try and be exceedingly refined and intellectual. And what has he done with these showy means? The sum total is expressed in the text, nothing. Without me you can do nothing. What emptiness this folly has created! When the pulpit is without Christ, the pews are soon without people. So he says, and I've heard friends who have expressed this in churches that are thoroughly orthodox. Listen to what he says. I fear that many modern sermons might just as fairly have been delivered in a Mohammedan mosque as in a Christian church. We have too many preachers of whom we might complain. They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." Christianity without Christ is a strange thing indeed. If you could have preached your sermon in a mosque or in a synagogue, then something has gone wrong, because the centrality and the exclusivity of Jesus Christ has been missing. A sermon without Christ as its beginning and middle and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution," says our preacher. However grand the language, it will be merely much ado about nothing if Christ be not there. Aye, and I mean by Christ not merely His example and the ethical precepts of His teaching, but His atoning blood, His wondrous satisfaction made for human sin, and the grand doctrine of believe and live. If life for a look at the crucified one be obscured, all is dark. If justification by faith be not set in the very forefront, in the full blaze of light, nothing can be accomplished. Without Christ in the doctrine you shall do nothing. Then, without acknowledging always the absolute supremacy of Christ, we shall do nothing. Jesus is much complimented nowadays, but he is not submitted to as absolute Lord. I hear many pretty things about Christ from men who reject his gospel. And most of the pretty things about Jesus which I read nowadays seem to have been written by persons who've seen him through a telescope at a great distance and know him according to Matthew, but not according to personal fellowship. There's a distance between this man and this Jesus. Answer, Spurgeon, for at the present time the wise ones tolerate Jesus, but there is no telling what is to come. The progress of this age is so astonishing that it is just possible we shall before long leave Christ and Christianity behind. Now what will come of this foolish wisdom? Nothing but delusions, mischief, infidelity, anarchy, and all manner of imaginable and unimaginable ills. So we must simply keep to this, says Spurgeon. The Lord has said it, and we care not who approves or disapproves. Jesus is God and head of the church, and we must do what he bids us and say what he tells us. If we fail in this, nothing of good will come of it. If the church gets back to her loyalty, she shall see what her Lord will do. But without Christ as absolute Lord, infallible Teacher, and honored King, all must be failure, even to the end. What about lacking Christ in your spirit?" Again says Spurgeon, I have known all the doctrines of grace to be unmistakably preached, and yet there have been no conversions, for this reason that they were not expected and scarcely desired. In former years many orthodox preachers thought it to be their sole duty to comfort and confirm the godly few who by dint of great perseverance found out the holes and corners in which they prophesied. These brothers spoke of sinners as of people whom God might possibly gather in if He thought fit to do so, but they did not care much whether He did so or not. As to weeping over sinners as Christ wept over Jerusalem, as to venturing to invite them to Christ as the Lord did when He stretched out His hands all the day long, as to lamenting with Jeremiah over a perishing people, they had no sympathy with such emotions, and feared that they savoured of Arminianism. Both preacher and congregation were cased in a hard shell, and lived as if their own salvation was the sole design of their existence. If anybody did grow zealous and seek conversions, straightway they said he was indiscreet or conceited. When a church falls into this condition, it is, as to its spirit, without Christ. He's speaking here primarily of Hyper-Calvinism. And the problem, I think, is that many Reformed churches can point at some Hyper-Calvinists and say, you are wrong. But practically, we have fallen into Hyper-Calvinism ourselves. We're functioning in the same mode. We've got the same low expectations and the same disdain for those who are outside. The comfortable corporation exists and grows for a little while under such circumstances, says Spurgeon, but it comes to nothing in the long run, and so it must. There can be no fruit bearing where there is not the Spirit of Christ as well as the doctrine of Christ. Except the Spirit of the Lord rests upon you, causing you to agonize for the salvation of men even as Jesus did, you can do nothing. What then of his actual presence? Do we always think of this, without me you can do nothing? We're going out this afternoon to teach the young, shall we take Christ with us? Or on the road shall we suddenly stop and say, I am without my master and I must not dare to go another step. The abiding consciousness of the love of Christ in our soul is the essential element of our strength. Now, this is true religion. This is religion known and felt. This is not just the assertion that Jesus Christ is with his people because he promised he would be. This is a desire to know Christ with us in a way that fills our hearts with joy and with strength. The power, you see, lies with the master, not with the servant. The might is in the hand, not in the weapon. We must have Christ in these pews, and in these aisles, and in this pulpit, and Christ down in our Sunday school, and Christ at the street corner when we stand up there to talk of Him, and we must feel that He is with us even to the end of the world, or we shall do nothing. So says Spurgeon, here's this vision of total failure if we attempt in any way to do without Christ. Without me you can do nothing and, says Spurgeon, it's in the doing that the failure will be most conspicuous. Or you can talk a great deal, you can lay your plans and arrange your machinery and start your schemes, but without the Lord you will do nothing. ministers, evangelists, churches, salvation armies, the world dies for want of you, and yet you can do nothing if your Lord is away. The age shall advance in discovery, and men of science shall do their little best, but you shall do nothing without Christ, absolutely nothing. You shall not proceed a single inch upon your toilsome way, though you row till the oars snap with the strain. You shall be drifted back by the winds and currents, unless you take Jesus into the ship. and what then must become of you who produce nothing?" asks our preacher. It makes one's very soul to curdle within him, to think that we should live to do nothing. Yet I fear that thousands of Christians get no further than this. They are not immoral, dishonest, or profane, but they do nothing. They think of what they would like to do, and they plan and they propose, but they do nothing. There are buds in plenty, but not a single grape is produced, and all because they do not get into that vital, overflowing, effectual communion with Christ which would fill them with life and constrain them to bring forth fruit unto the glory of God. Without Christ then, a vision of failure all along the line. The fourth thing, though, that this text brings us is a voice of wisdom, saying to us who are in Christ, let us acknowledge this. Down on your knees, bow your mouths in the dust and say, Lord, it is true, without you we can do nothing, nothing whatever that is good and acceptable in the sight of God. We have not ability of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our ability is of God. So we say, Lord, I'm a good-for-nothing do-nothing, a fruitless, barren, dry, rotten branch without you. And this I feel in my inmost soul. Be not far from me, but quicken me by your presence. Do we understand that? Have we acknowledged that, again not in cold, dry words, not as a mere declaration of orthodoxy, but as felt truth that without Jesus Christ I accomplish nothing of any present or lasting spiritual value? Well, if that's true, says Spurgeon, let us pray. If without Christ we can do nothing, let us cry to Him that we may never be without Him. Let us with strong crying and tears entreat His abiding presence. He comes to those who seek Him. Let us never cease seeking. In conscious fellowship with Him, let us plead that the fellowship should be unbroken evermore. Let us pray that we might be so knit and joined to Jesus that we may be one spirit with Him, never to be separated from Him again. Master and Lord, let the life floods of Thy grace never cease to flow into us, for we know that we must be thus supplied or we can produce nothing. Brothers, let us have much more prayer than has been usual among us. Prayer is appointed to convey the blessings God ordains to give. Let us constantly use the appointed means, and may the result be ever increasing from day to day. Oh, if we know that we need Jesus Christ, where are our prayers? Where are our longing desires for the blessing that He alone can supply? So next then, let us cleave personally, cling personally, cling to Jesus. May you never be in such a state that you would be a do-nothing with opportunities afforded and yet without strength to utilize them. If you are divided from Christ, you are divided from the possibility of doing good. Cling, therefore, to the Savior with your whole might and let nothing take you off from Him. No, not for an hour. Oh, if you couldn't defend yourself against enemies or be of service to your Lord. If someone should come to you in distress of mind, says Spurgeon, what a sad perplexity it would be to be given an opportunity to do something for the Lord Christ. and yet have no strength for it because you were not close to Him yourself. So heartily submit yourselves to the Lord's headship and leadership, and ask to do everything in His style and way, for He will not be with you unless you accept Him as your Master. Let all be done according to His will. Wonderful things will the Lord perform through you once He is your All in all. and then joyfully believe in Him, because though without Him you can do nothing, yet with Him all things are possible. Omnipotence is in that man who has Christ in him. Weakness itself you may be, but you shall learn to glory in that weakness, because the power of Christ does rest upon you if your union and communion with Christ are continually kept up. Oh, for a grand confidence in Christ! We have not believed in Him yet up to the measure of the hem of His garment, for even that faith made the sick woman whole. Oh, to believe up to the measure of His infinite Deity! Oh, for the splendor of the faith which measures itself by the Christ in whom it trusts! And so, lastly, Spurgeon says, if you listen to this text like a child puts a shell to its ear and listens till it hears the deep sea rolling in its windings, I hear within my text a song of content. My heart said, Lord, what is there that I want to do without you? There is no pain in this thought to me. If I can do without you, I am sorry to possess so dangerous a power. I am happy to be deprived of all strength except that which comes from you. It charms, it exhilarates and delights my soul to think that you are my all. You have made me penniless as to all wealth of my own, that I might dip my hand into your treasury. You have taken all power away from every sinew and muscle of mine, that I may rest on your bosom. So, says Spurgeon, the goodly fellowship of the apostles, the noble army of martyrs, and the triumphant host of the redeemed by blood, all put together, can do nothing without Jesus. Let Him be crowned with majesty who works in us both the will and to do of His own good pleasure. For our own sakes, for our Lord's sake, we are glad it is so. All things are more ours by being his, and if our fruit is his rather than our own, it is nonetheless, but all the more, ours. Now for conclusion here, I'm just gonna read the last two paragraphs of Spurgeon's sermon. Sometimes you just get to a point where you think, this is good stuff, and we need to hear it, and I hope hear it with something of the rhythm and the force of Spurgeon. God willing, next week we'll get to Sermon 1629 on two good things. So if you're reading along, it will be Sermon 1627 to 1633. But before we get to next week, let's conclude this week. Here are these last two paragraphs. Without me, nothing. I feel so glad that without Christ we can do nothing, because I fear that if the church could do something without Christ she would try to live without Him. If she could teach the school and bring the children to salvation without Christ, I am afraid Christ would never go into a Sunday school again. If we could preach successfully without Jesus, I suspect that the Lord Jesus Christ would seldom stand on high among the people again. If our Christian literature could bless men without Christ, I am afraid we should set the printing press going and never think about the crucified one in the matter. If there could be work done by the church without Jesus, there would be rooms into which he would never be invited, and these would soon become a sort of blue-beards chambers full of horror. A something that we could do without Christ? Why, the mass of the church would get to working that machinery tremendously, and all the rest would be neglected, and so it is a blessed thing for the whole church that she must have Christ everywhere. Without me you can do nothing. As I listened to the song within these words I began to laugh. I wonder if you will laugh too. It was to myself I laughed, like Abraham of old. I thought of those who were going to destroy the orthodox doctrine from off the face of the earth. How they boast of the decline and death of old-fashioned evangelism! I have read once or twice that I am the last of the Puritans, the race is all dying out. To this I demur. I am willing to be esteemed last in merit, but not last as ending the race. There are many others who are steadfast in the faith. They say our old theology is decaying and that nobody believes it. It is all a lie, but wise men say so, and therefore we are bound to consider ourselves obsolete and extinct. We are, in their esteem, as much out of date as antediluvians would be could they walk down our streets. Antediluvians are people from before the flood. Yes, they are going to quench our coal and blot us out from Israel. Newspapers and reviews and the general intelligence of the age all join to dance upon our graves. Put on your nightcaps, you good people of the evangelical order, and go home to bed and sleep the sleep of the righteous, for the end of you is come. Thus say the Philistines, but the armies of the Lord think not so. The adversaries exult exceedingly, but Christ is not with them. They know very little about Him. They do not work in His Spirit, nor cry Him up, nor extol the gospel of His precious blood, and so I believe that when they have done their little best it will come to nothing. Without Me you can do nothing. If this be true of apostles, much more of opposers. If his friends can do nothing without him, I am sure his foes can do nothing against him. If they that follow his steps and lie in his bosom can do nothing without him, I am sure his adversaries cannot. And so I laughed at their laughter and smiled at their confusion. I laughed, too, because I recollected a story of a New England service, when the pastor one afternoon was preaching in his own solemn way, and the good people were listening or sleeping as their minds inclined. It was a substantial edifice wherein they assembled, fit to outlive an earthquake. All went on peacefully in the meeting-house that afternoon, till suddenly a lunatic started up, denounced the minister, and declared that he would at once pull down the meeting-house about their ears. Taking hold of one of the pillars of the gallery, this newly announced Samson repeated his threatening. Everybody rose, the women were ready to faint, the men began to rush to the door, and there was danger that the people would be trodden on as they rushed down the aisles. There was about to be a great tumult, no one could see the end of it, when suddenly one cool brother sitting near the pulpit produced a calm by a single sentence. Let him try, was the stern sarcasm which hushed the tempest. Even so today the enemy is about to disprove the gospel and crush out the doctrines of grace. Are you distressed, alarmed, astounded? So far from that. My reply to the adversary's boast that he will pull down the pillars of our Zion is this only. Let him try. Amen.