Trip Lee Interview HOT!!

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A long Spurgeon today, but like always a great read!!

Hope of Self-Salvation
How can such vain creatures be admitted among the glorified? Nor is this all; for sloth preys on many, and tempts them to shun God’s service, and especially to shun the cross of Christ. Sloth is a rust which has a sadly defiling power: we gather moth and mildew from inaction. Never is a man pure who is not zealous in the service of God. We rot to corruption if we lie still; how, then, shall we be admitted within the jeweled city? Ah, look within your heart, my brother — look steadily beneath the fair film of the surface, and mark the inward evil which it conceals. Judge not yourself alone when at your best, occupied with your prayers and praises and almsgivings, but look steadily into your soul at other times, and you shall see a loathsome mass of evil life, a seething corruption moving within your heart; for evil remains even in the regenerate; and this cannot enter Heaven. Thank God, it cannot. Even though the word of exclusion staggers me, and sends me back as with a stunning blow, and makes me cry, "You shut me out, my God, by this your decree;" yet I feel that if it be so, the decree is right, and just, and good. "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles." Amen and amen.

Now, I ask you whether this word of exclusion does not, in you who know its meaning, slay all hope of self-salvation? For, first, here are our past sins, and they defile, an make us defiling. How are we to get rid of them? How can we washout these polluting blots? Tears! So much salt water thrown away if looked upon as a bath for sin! Good works performed! They are already due to God . How shall future discharge of debts repay the past? O, my God, if I have ever known what sin means, I have also known that it is impossible that its defiling nature should ever be changed, or that the pollution should ever be removed by any efforts of my own. I spoke with one the other day who said that she was seeking salvation by good works. I knew that she had performed self-denying acts of charity, and I asked her whether she felt nearer to the salvation at which she aimed. I knew that I spoke to a sincere, honest person, and her reply did not surprise me. She answered sadly, “The more I do, the more I feel I ought to do, and I am no nearer to the point I am aiming at.” And so it is; the more a sincere heart does seek to serve God, the more it feels the shortcoming of its service of Him; and the more a person seeks after purity by his own efforts, the further he judges himself to be from it. Our standard rises as we rise towards it; our conscience becomes tender in proportion as we obey it; and so, in the nature of things, rest of heart comes not in that manner. Ah, there remains not beneath Heaven anything that can wash out the defilement of past sin save one only cleansing flood. O sinful man, plunge your hands into the Atlantic and you shall crimson every drop of its tremendous waters and yet the stain shall be as scarlet as before. No, no, no: it is certain that no man can enter Heaven, by reason of his transgression and his sinfulness, except omnipotence shall cleanse him.