The elephant and the mouse

Some people think that they are too good to come to Jesus Christ. They never think that they, or their sins are so bad that they need a Saviour. Some people, however, know that they are so bad that they are afraid to come to Jesus. They feel so ashamed that they think that he will reject them and turn them away.

You know what, I preach to both of those types of people every Sunday. And every Sunday I point both groups to Christ crucified, so that both groups will really learn to see how ugly their sin is in God's sight by gazing at the cross, and that both groups will see that there is more grace in Jesus Christ than sin in them.

Preaching on the "grand old text" 1 Timothy 1:15 C. H. Spurgeon used this illustration:

If a bridge is strong enough to bear an elephant, it will certainly bear a mouse. If the greatest sinner who ever lived has entered into Heaven by the bridge of the atoning Sacrifice of Christ, no man who has ever lived may say "My sin is beyond forgiveness." Today no mortal has just pretence to perish in despair.

(More on Spurgeon here and here and here too)

John Owen expressed the same rich truth in this way:

...when the conduit of Christ's humanity is inseparably united to the infinite, inexhaustible fountain of the Deity, who can look into the depths thereof? If, now, there be grace enough for sinners in an all sufficient God, it is in Christ.

And on this ground it is that if all the world should (if I may so say) set themselves to drink free grace, mercy, and pardon, drawing water continually from the wells of salvation; if they should set themselves to draw from one single promise, and angel standing by and crying, "Drink, O friends, yea, drink abundantly, take so much grace and pardon as shall be abundantly sufficient for the world of sin which is in everyone of you;"--they would not be able to sink the grace of the promise one hair's breadth.

And Samuel Rutherford in this way:

If there were ten thousand, thousand millions of worlds, and as many heavens full of men and angels, Christ would not be pinched to supply all our wants, and to fill us all.

Christ is a well of life, but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom?