Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1592
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, April 10, 1881
“The common salvation.” Jude 1:3.
JUDE says, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was necessary for me to write unto you.” The Apostle did not write for writing’s sake and in this he sets us an example—we are not to speak for speaking’s sake, nor even to preach for preaching’s sake. When we take upon ourselves to write concerning Divine things, it ought to be because it is necessary for us to write. And when we speak in the name of God, it should be because we have something to say which is necessary to be said. Unless a man feels an imperative necessity to speak, he will not speak as an ambassador of God.
I think that Jude would not have given all diligence to write if he had not, first, felt that necessity was laid upon him to do so. Before you instruct others, endeavor to feel the obligation which rests upon you to impart the Light of God which you have received, for if you have been called of God unto this ministry, woe is unto you if you preach not the Gospel! The souls of others require the Truth of God which you have been commissioned to teach—but you, also, require to teach it to them, for, if you do not warn them, their blood may stain your skirts. “That the soul is without knowledge is not good.” Neither is it good to any that he should withhold what he knows. That men should live and die in ignorance of Christ is terrible to conceive of, therefore when you speak or write, do it because it is necessary to be done and necessary that you should do it.
You know how it behooved Christ to suffer and, even so, it behooves us to hold forth the Word of Life. The necessity in the present case was that he should write of the common salvation. If it was common—commonly understood and commonly received—why should he need to write about it? Surely a common subject has enough written upon it, already, and it affords no room for freshness and novelty which are so much desired by readers. Yet experience and observation prove that it is more necessary to preach the common Doctrines of the Gospel than any other Truths of God and that just those things which appear to be the most elementary and the most generally received are those upon which it is most important to lay stress again and again.
If there are certain high doctrines, speculative theories and dogmas which are rather outgrowths of the Gospel than the Gospel, itself, let them be preached in due proportion. But if they are not preached, the risk and danger will not be extreme. As for the root facts, the fundamental Doctrines, the primary Truths of Scripture, we must, from day to day, insist upon them. We must never say of them, “Everybody knows them,” for, alas, everybody forgets them! We must not cease from proclaiming them from fear of being charged with uttering mere platitudes—that which is revealed of the Holy Spirit must not be spoken of so reproachfully. Let men call the Doctrines of the Gospel platitudes if they will—we will only answer that on such platitudes our salvation rests!
After all, on certain grand, wide, well-known Truths of universal acceptance, the Church of God is built—her basis is not a difficult philosophy, but a plain Revelation of God. Let us not strain after matters of ultra refinement, theories of cultured intellects, but let as obey the necessity which calls upon as to write and to speak of the common salvation. The Gospel message is full of world-wide truisms and well-known facts. What did Paul say?—“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” If worthy of all acceptation, it is surely worthy of all proclamation! It is worthwhile for the whole Church to continually rehearse that Jesus came to save sinners, for common Truth as it is, there is a necessity that we should perpetually and diligently make it known.
The common salvation should be commonly spoken of, but I fear it is uncommonly neglected in these days. The immediate necessity to write of the common salvation arose out of certain men who had crept into the Church unawares. Some of these attacked the Gospel on its practical side with Antinomian subtlety. They cried up the Grace of God, but
said little of the holy living which it produces. They made light of sin under pretense of magnifying the Grace of God! They called careful watchfulness a legal spirit They derided humble self-examination and claimed, as children of God, they were, in no sense, bound by the precepts of the Moral Law. The Apostle calls it, “turning the Grace of our God into lasciviousness.”
Side by side with these, there crept in another gang of evil ones, “who denied the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” They robbed Christ of His Divine Glory and so denied His Atonement and Sovereignty as to dethrone Him from being either the Savior or the King of His Church. This was the essence of Arianism. They said that Jesus Christ was an admirable example, that He was one of a number of persons who have discovered important truths and that He is, therefore, to be greatly admired, but they asserted that still higher truth would yet be discovered as the race proceeded in its progress and so forth. These “men of thought” crept into the Church and stabbed at the heart of the common salvation.