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The text sets forth three difficulties in the way of a man's salvation.

I. IGNORANCE.

1. Ignorance is the "mother of devotion," according to the Church of Rome; "the mother of error," according to the Word of God.

(1) Men do not know what that righteousness is which God requires. If you want to be saved by your own righteousness, know that it must be perfect. If you have committed but one sin, your hope of perfect righteousness is gone. "He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." If I break one link in a chain of twenty I have broken the chain. Suppose that I should have to give a perfect vase of crystal as a present to the Queen. But it has got chipped a little. What is to be done? I may cement the little pieces in their places; but if it must be perfect before royalty can accept it I must get another vase. Now, while I am talking about a chip here and a chip there in your life, you may be saying, "But we are smashed right up; and as to broken links, why, we have fairly melted the chain." I am glad to hear it. If you have no righteousness of your own, you have got to the half-way house of salvation. When you strip a man you are partly on the way to clothing him.

(2) Men do not know that God has provided a righteousness. God came here in human form, and became "obedient to His own law, even to the death of the cross." And His obedience is ours, if we believe. Christ was "made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Alas! how many there are who do not know that God justifieth the ungodly; that sinners can be regarded as just, through what Christ has done and suffered.

(3) Many are ignorant as to how they are to receive this righteousness. The current notion is, "I must pray so much; I must weep so much; I must feel so much." Ah! this is the common ignorance; whereas men should know that "there is life for a look at the Crucified One."(4) The worst of this terrible ignorance is, that the mass of mankind do not know Him who is our righteousness. "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?"

2. This ignorance —

(1) Is of the facts of the truth. You do not know that in the very midst and heart of London there are tens of thousands who do not know the name of Christ.

(2) Of the excellence of the gospel. They do not know the peace, the joy, the rest it brings.

(3) With many is wilful. Nobody is so blind as the man that does not want to see; nobody so deaf as the man that does not wish to hear.

(4) Some are ignorant despairingly. The devil tells men, first, that they can be saved any day they like; so they may put it off. Then he says, "Salvation is not for such as you." But Christ says that whoever comes to Him He will in no wise cast out.

II. SELF-WILL. Men, ignorant cf God's righteousness, "go about to establish their own."

1. They set up the poor idol of their own righteousness. There is a treasure of gold, and the man says, "No, I will not have that. I think that I could make a sovereign at home out of a bit of brass." If I were at heaven's gate, and a voice should say, "Enter freely," and I replied, "No, I think I prefer the Surrey hills, or a place down by the seaside," what a fool I should be! A human thing at best, how shall that match the Divine righteousness? An imperfect thing at best, how shall I compare that with the perfect righteousness of Christ? A fading, fleeting thing, always apt to be damaged by the next moment's temptation, how can I be so foolish?

2. In what vain efforts they spend their time and strength! You will better understand the text if I read it: "They go about to set up their own righteousness." It is a dead thing. The corpse of our own righteousness has a tendency to fall, and down it goes! "It wants something inside"; for until there is life within, it will not stand. It is like a man trying to patch up an old house which has not been repaired for fifty years. So he puts in a beam there, and a strut there, and another timber there; and, by the time he has spent as much as would have built a house, he has got a very handsome ruin left, and nothing more. Charles the First used to swear, "God mend me." Somebody said it would be an easier job to make a new one of him. When men say, "God mend me," they had better say "God make me new."

3. They "go about" to do this.

(1) They set about it with great zeal. When a man says, "I am going about a thing," he means that he is going to take his coat off. I recollect how I set to work in my shirt-sleeves to make a righteousness of my own; and I did very nicely indeed while it was dark. But when a little light from the Cross broke in I began to see the filthiness of it.

(2) They have various ways of doing it. I have talked with a person, and said, "Can you trust in your own works?" "Oh, no." "Well, can you come to Christ, and take the righteousness of God?" "Well, no; I do not feel enough my own emptiness." Each time you drive him out of his refuge of lies he hastens back to the old ground again — something of himself. There is a ship out at sea, and one of the crew says, "I know that we shall not drift far out of our course." "Why? .... Because we have such a big anchor on board." Why, an anchor on board is no good to anybody! It is when you "let go" the anchor, and lose sight of it, that it is good for something. So you want to have your anchor on board. You do not like it to "enter into that which is within the veil." You want to feel something, to have something of your own. O self-will! God will have salvation to be all of grace, and man will have it of debt.

4. These efforts of men for their own salvation are deadly efforts. God will save them one way, and they want to be saved another. God says, "There is medicine; take it." Man says, "No, I will compound my own physic." Can he ever get well in such a way as that? God says, "I will forgive." Man says, "I will try and deserve to be forgiven" — as if that could be possible.

III. FLAT REBELLION. "They have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God?' This is —

1. A strange word. Here is a criminal who will not submit to be pardoned; a sick man who will not submit to be made well; a poor beggar who will not submit to be made into a gentleman.

2. A searching word. Do I stick out? Am I such a self-willed fool that I will not submit before my Maker — will not yield even to have salvation for nothing?

3. A true word. There is many a sinner who has nothing to be proud of, and yet he is as proud as Lucifer. A dustman can be as proud as my Lord Mayor. The worse the man, the harder he is to bow before the righteousness of God.

4. A suggestive word. They will not own that God is King. When a man denies the rights of the magistrate to condemn him, how can he be pardoned? You must yield. Submit to the fact that God is God, or else you will not submit to God's righteousness.

5. A very word. All I have to do is to submit myself.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

WEB: Brothers, my heart's desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved.