Sermon Tone Analysis

IN CHRIST ALONE WE ARE SAVED

OUR SIN

IN CHRIST ALONE WE ARE SATISFIED

There was a time when this vast universe with our particular planet, sun, moon, and stars, only existed in the mind of God.

There was a time when the Triune God foreordained this world to be fashioned by his words.

A peculiar planet planned precisely for his prized possession.

He created man in His image bearing His likeness.

Man was created in His image to reflect His glory.

This glory was marred when man decided to be his own god.

However, this action did not thwart God’s plan as he foresaw and therefore planned its restoration.

God’s plans can never be thwarted because God can never be perplexed.

He is not always pleased by our actions but he is never perplexed.

God did not react to man’s sin but responds with His predetermined plan.

Salvation was planned before planets were placed into orbit.

God planned it from first to last.

This Triune God consulted no one outside the Trinity concerning His plan.

He did not seek advice from Gabriel nor did he call for a vote among angels.

This scheme was the Creator’s scheme.

Why was such a scheme schemed?

Only for His glory!

Only for the worship of His name!

This salvific scheme was not crafted like those of ancient mythology.

It did not call for mortals to seek salvation.

It did not call for one to sacrifice all in order to achieve salvation.

God’s scheme stands in stark contrast to all other religions and mythologies.

Fallen mortals cannot and will not seek God therefore God condescends to seek them.

Therefore, God wraps himself in their flesh.

Subjects himself to their temptation, trials, and tribulations.

Yet He remains untainted by their world.

Instead of demanding sacrifice for their sin He becomes the sacrifice for their sin.

God who requires payment for sin becomes the recompense for sinners.

his scheme of salvation was not crafted like those of ancient mythology.

It did not call for those fallen mortals to seek salvation.

It did not call for one to sacrifice all in order to achieve salvation.

God who drew up this scheme

God was all in the drawing up of the scheme, and Christ was all in carrying it out.

There was a dark and doleful night!

Jesus was in the garden, sweating great drops of blood, which fell to the ground; nobody then came to bear the load that had been laid upon him.

An angel stood there to strengthen him, but not to bear the sentence.

The cup was put into his hands, and Jesus said, "Father, must I drink it?"

and his Father replied, "If thou dost not drink, sinners cannot be saved"; and he took the cup and drained it to its very dregs.

No man helped him.

And when he hung upon that accursed tree of Calvary, when his precious hands were pierced, when:—"From his head, his hands, his feet,

now returns to a familiar scene

This story which began in the Garden There in the garden where this story started.

A figure under great distress for He can find no rest.

See Christ illuminated by Jerusalem’s moonlight.God was all in the drawing up of the scheme, and Christ was all in carrying it out.

There was a dark and doleful night!

Jesus was in the garden, sweating great drops of blood, which fell to the ground; nobody then came to bear the load that had been laid upon him.

An angel stood there to strengthen him, but not to bear the sentence.

The cup was put into his hands, and Jesus said, "Father, must I drink it?"

and his Father replied, "If thou dost not drink, sinners cannot be saved"; and he took the cup and drained it to its very dregs.

No man helped him.

And when he hung upon that accursed tree of Calvary, when his precious hands were pierced, when:—"From his head, his hands, his feet,

In the garden Adam did fall

Now Christ returns to undo it all

See Christ vexed

for He knows what is next

A cup full of wrath awaits

this only can propitiate

He hears His Father say . . . .

This is the way.

I hear Him say.

He drank until it was dry

It is finished was His final cry

God drew up this story

who could have seen

for this gives him ultimate glory.

We have been from sin’s penalty

The story of Spurgeon’s conversion is widely known, but it may well be repeated, and it cannot be better told than in the words in which he himself presented it:I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship.

I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist Church.

In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people.

I had heard of the Primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter to me.

I wanted to know how I might be saved....

The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose.

At last a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach.

Now it is well that preachers be instructed, but this man was really stupid.

He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say.

The text was—"LOOK UNTO ME, AND BE YE SAVED, ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH" ()

He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter.

There was, I thought, a glimmer of hope for me in that text.

The preacher began thus: "This is a very simple text indeed.

It says ‘Look.’

Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain.

It aint liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just ‘Look.’

Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look.

You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look.

A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to look.

Anyone can look; even a child can look.

"But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Ay!" he said in broad Essex, "many on ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there.

You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves.

Some say look to God the Father.

No, look to Him by-and-by.

Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’

Some on ye say ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin.’

You have no business with that just now.

Look to Christ.

The text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ "

Then the good man followed up his text in this way: "Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood.

Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross.