Mt Sinai Precedes Mt. Calvary

Earlier in the week, I referred to a sermon preached by Charles H. Spurgeon on the "new birth."

I wanted today to mention another sermon by Spurgeon, preached in 1883 that I think reveals a problem in many contemporary evangelistic efforts today. That is, until a person understands, embraces, and believes the "bad news" that we are condemned and guilty before a holy God, he/she will never understand and embrace the "good news" of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hear it better from Spurgeon: In the beginning, the preacher's business is not to convert men, but the very reverse. It is idle to attempt to heal those who are not wounded, to attempt to clothe those who have never been stripped, and to make those rich who have never realized their poverty (The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 44, p. 421).

In other words, a person has to be brought to Mt. Sinai before he/she can be brought to Mt. Calvary. Sinai represents the law that condemns us as law breakers. This is the picture of the Prodigal Son who was brought to know "that he was a sinner, that his very nature was vile and filthy."

Indeed, to add to this thought, Martyn Lloyd Jones asserts until you experience that, you know nothing; that is the first thing a man or woman can ever really "know." What is more, unless you have experienced that, unless you have known that, you are not a Christian, you do not believe in Christ as your personal Saviour. Until you realize that, you cannot possibly have felt the need of Christ; you may have felt the need of help and advice and comfort, but until you awake to the face that your nature itself is evil, until you realize that your trouble is not that you do this and that which is wrong, but that you yourself are wrong, and that your whole nature is wrong, until you realize that, you will never have felt the need of a Savior. Christ cannot help or advise or comfort you until He has first of all saved you, until He has changed your nature. Oh, my friends, have you yet felt this? God have mercy upon you if you haven't. You need not be a rotter or a scamp to be a sinner. It makes no difference who you are or what you are, it makes no difference how good you may appear to be or how much good work you may do. You may have been inside the church all your life and actively engaged in its work, but still I say that unless you have at some time or other felt that your nature itself is sinful, that you are..."dead in sins", then you have never known Jesus Christ as a Saviour, and if you do not know Him as a Saviour you do not know Him at all (Sermon on Luke 15, preached June 19, 1927; cited in D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years 1899-1939, by Iain Murray, p. 208-09).