“Do I Love The Lord Or Not?” | Charles Spurgeon Sermon | Doubting My Faith | Assurance of Salvation

“Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Do you love Me?” – John 21:17 🔊 Charles Spurgeon Sermons – Playlist 📖    • Charles Spurgeon Sermons | Historic Homilies   🔊 D. L. Moody Sermons – Playlist    • D. L. Moody Sermons | Historic Homilies   🔊 Historic Homilies – All Uploads    • Historic Homilies | All Uploads   If you feel led to donate to the work of this channel, feel free to do so through Venmo: https://www.venmo.com/u/historichomilies “Do I Love The Lord Or Not?,” a sermon by C. H. Spurgeon, delivered on an unknown date. Read by: Joel Griffis Joel is a pastor at Grace Fellowship Church:    / @gracefellowshipchurch1948   https://www.gfcbaker.org Joel’s Other Channels: HeartStore Music – Bible memory songs    / @heartstore   JoelGriffis – Song performances, mostly covers, some originals    / @joelgriffis   Musings Under The Sun – Discussion/podcast channel, various topics    / @musingsunderthesun196   (On some occasions, certain words or phrases may be modernized or adapted to aid understanding.) From The Sermon: This is a pointed question which demands a personal answer and should, therefore, stir up full and frequent selfexamination. “Do you love Me?” It is a probing question that is likely to excite much grief when pressed home to the sensitive, tender-hearted disciple, even as Peter was grieved because the Lord said unto him the third time, “Do you love Me?” Yet it is a pleasing and profitable question to as many of us as can give a like solemn and satisfactory response to that of Simon Peter, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” I. IT IS VERY NECESSARY THAT ALL DISCIPLES, EVEN THE MOST PRIVILEGED, THE MOST TALENTED AND THE MOST FAMOUS, SHOULD OFTEN BE ASKED THE QUESTION–HEAR IT IN THEIR SOULS AND FEEL ITS THRILLING INTENSITY–“SIMON, SON OF JONAS, DO YOU LOVE ME?” It must have been momentous, indeed, or the Savior would not have repeated it to Peter three times at one interview. He tarried on earth but 40 days after His Resurrection. The opportunities for conferences, therefore, with His disciples would be few. On what subjects, then, should He speak to them but those which appeared to Him of the weightiest import? Of the times or the seasons that must presently transpire, He refrains to divulge a secret. With the fulfillment of ancient predictions that prompted the curiosity of the Jew, or the solution of metaphysical problems that harassed the minds of Gentile philosophers, He did not meddle. I neither find Him interpreting obscure prophecy, nor expounding mystic Doctrine–but instead, thereof, I find Him inculcating personal piety! The question He propounds is of such vital importance that all other questions may be set aside till this one question is positively settled, “Do you love Me?” Hence, Beloved, I infer that it is of infinitely more consequence for me to know that I love Christ than it is to know the meaning of the little horn, or the ten toes, or the four great beasts! All Scripture is profitable to those who have Grace to profit by it, but would you both save yourself and those who hear you, you must know Him and love Him to whom Patriarchs, Prophets and Apostles all bear witness that there is salvation in none other, and no other name given under Heaven whereby we must be saved! You may whet your appetite for logic, but you cannot, with your heart, believe unto righteousness while you occupy your thoughts, your tongues, or your pens wrangling about Calvinism and Arminianism, sublapsarianism and supra-lapsarianism, or any of the endless controversies of the schoolmen and sectarians! “Do you love Me?” that is the central point! Can you give an affirmative answer? Will your conscience, your life, your God, attest the verity of your love to Him? Then, though you are no doctor of divinity, though you cannot decipher the niceties of systematic theology, though you are unable to rebut one in a thousand of the subtleties of the adversary, yet you have an unction from the Holy One! Your love approves you, your faith has saved you and He whom your soul loves will keep you for time and for eternity–you are blessed! To my mind, I say, the gravity of the question is palpable from the time at which it was put. During the few days of our risen Lord’s sojourn, He would not have given it such distinct prominence had it not been, in Peter’s case, the evidence of his repentance, his restoration and the full recognition he received. But, Brothers and Sisters, what question can more closely appeal to ourselves, to each one of us? Love is one of themost vital of the Christian Graces. If faith is the eye of the soul, without which we cannot see our Lord savingly, surely love is the very heart of the soul and there is no spiritual life if love is absent! . . .