Spurgeon on the Gospel

“We testify that Christ is able to change man’s nature, and then good fruits will come as a matter of course. But I am afraid that in many Sunday-schools the children are taught a different doctrine, somewhat after this fashion: ‘Now, dear children, be very good, and obey your parents, and love Jesus, and you will be saved.’ That is not the gospel, and it is not true. Often do I hear it said, ‘Love Jesus, dear children.’ That is not the gospel. It is ‘Trust Him–believe.’ Not love, but faith is the saving grace, and that love of Jesus of a sentimental kind, which does not spring out of faith in Him, is a spurious emotion, a counterfeit of love, not at all the love of God, shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. The root of the matter is, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shalt be saved;’ and that is the gospel for a child of two years of age, and the gospel for a man of a hundred. There is only one gospel for all that are born on the face of the earth–‘Believe in Jesus.’”