The Bad News About Good Works, by Spurgeon
“Now, I dare say we shall offend many here when we tell them what good works are; for in our opinion good works are the rarest things in the world, and we believe we might walk for many a mile before we should see a good work at all.
We use the word good now in its proper sense. There are many works which are good enough between man and man, but we shall use the word good in a higher sense to-day as regards God.
We think we shall be able to show you that there are very few good works anywhere, and that there are none out of the pale of Christ’s church. We think, if we read Scripture rightly, that no work can be good unless it is commanded of God.
How this cuts off a large portion of what men will do in order to win salvation! The Pharisee said he tithed mint, anise, and cummin; could he prove that God commanded him to tithe his mint, his anise, and his cummin? Perhaps not. He said he fasted so many times a week; could he prove that God told him to fast? If not, his fasting was no obedience.
If I do a thing that I am not commanded to do, I do not obey in doing it.Oh how often have I thought to myself, ‘Now, I have laboured to preach God’s word; I have not spared, at all times, before friends or foes, and I hope I have not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God!’
And yet, beloved, how many of those sermons have not been good works at all, because I had not an eye to my Master’s honor at the time, or because there was not faith mixed with them but I preached in a desponding, low, miserable frame; or, perhaps, I had some natural aim, even in the winning of souls; for I have often feared, even when we rejoice to see souls converted, that we may have some evil motive, such as honoring ourselves, that the world may say, ‘See how many souls are brought to God by him!’
And even when the church associates in doing holy works, have you not noticed that something selfish creeps in—a wish to exalt our own church, to glorify our own people, and to make ourselves mighty. I am sure, beloved, if you sit down and pull your good works to pieces, you will find so many bad stitches in them that they need to be all unstitched and done over again. There are so many spots and blurs about them, that you need to have them washed in the blood of Christ to make them good for anything.”
Find the remainder of this sermon here.
If you like this post, see Doing Good Stuff For God
Sermon given March 16, 1856, by the
REV. C. H. Spurgeon
