Communion, Sweet Communion!

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. – 2 Corinthians 13:14

Communion! It is the flower of language; it is the honeycomb of words. Communion! You like to talk of corruption best, do you not? Well, if you like that filthy word, you are very willing to meditate upon it. I do so when I am forced to do it; but communion seems to me to be a sweeter word than that. You like to talk a great deal about affliction, don’t you? Well, if you love the black word—ah! you have reason to love it; but if you love to be happy upon it, you may do so; but give me for my constant text and for my constant joy, communion. And I will not choose which kind of communion it shall be. Sweet Master, if You give me communion with You in Your sufferings, if I have to bear reproach and shame for Your name’s sake, I will thank You; if I may have fellowship with You in it, and if You will give me to suffer for Your sake, I will call it honor, that so I can be a partaker of Your sufferings, and if You give me sweet enjoyments, if You raise me up and make me to sit in heavenly places in Christ, I will bless You. I will bless You for ascension communion—communion with Christ in His glories. Do you not say the same? And for communion with Christ in death. Have you died unto the world, as Christ did die unto Himself? And then have you had communion with Him in resurrection? Have you felt that you are raised to newness of life, even as was He? And have you had communion with Him in ascension, so that you could know yourself to be an heir to a throne in Paradise? If so, you have had the best earnest you can receive of the joys of Paradise. To be in heaven is to lean one’s head upon the breast of Jesus. You have done it on earth? Then you know what heaven is. To be in heaven is to talk with Jesus, to sit at His feet, to let our heart beat against His heart. For, remember, it is “Christ in you the hope of glory,” after all, that is your only foretaste of heaven; and the more fully prepared shall you be for the bliss of the joyous ones in the land of the happy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0989.cfm

In That Eternal World of Joy

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 1John 3:2

You look forward to your experience in heaven, you sing—

“Then shall I see, and hear, and know
All I desired or wished below;
And every power find a sweet employ
In that eternal world of joy.”

You are expecting to see His face, and never, never sin. You are longing to know the secrets of His heart. You believe that in that day you shall see Him as He is and shall be like Him in the world of spirits.  Well, beloved, though Christ does not manifest Himself to us as He does to the bright ones there, have not you and I had manifestations even while we have been in this vale of tears? Speak, beloved; let your heart speak; hast thou not had visions of Calvary; has not your Master sometimes touched your eyes with eye-salve, and let you see Him on His cross? Have you not wept for joy and grief when you saw Him bleeding out His life from His heart for you and beheld Him nailed to the tree for your sakes! O yes! I know you have had such manifestations of Him. And have you not seen Him in His risen glories? Have you not beheld Him there exalted on His throne? Have you not by faith beheld Him as the Judge of the quick and the dead, and as the Prince of the kings of the earth? Have you not looked through the dim future, and seen Him with the crown of all the kingdoms on His head, with the diadems of all monarchies beneath His feet, and the scepters of all thrones in His hand? Yes, you have, and therein you have had foretastes of heaven. When Christ has thus revealed Himself to you, you have looked within the vail, and, therefore, you have seen what is there, you have had some glimpses of Jesus while here; those glimpses of Jesus are but the beginning of what shall never end. Those joyous melodies of praise and thanksgiving are but the preludes of the notes of Paradise. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0989.cfm

This is Joy Worth Worlds

…to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. – Ephesians 1:6

I suppose that a great part of the joy of the blessed saints consists in a knowledge that there is nothing in them to which God is hostile; that their peace with God has not any thing to mar it; that they are so completely in union with the principles and thoughts of the Most High; that His love is set on them; that their love is set on Him; that they are one with God in every respect. Well, beloved, and have we not enjoyed a sense of acceptance here below? Blotted and blurred by many doubts and fears, yet there have been moments when we have known ourselves as well accepted as we shall know ourselves to be even when we stand before the throne. There have been bright days with some of us, when we could “set to our seal” that God was true; and, when afterward, feeling that the Lord knoweth them that are His, we could say, “And I know that I am His, too.” We had such a clear view of the perfection of Christ’s righteousness that we felt that God had accepted us, and we could not be otherwise than happy; we had such a sense of the efficacy of the blood of Christ, we felt sure that our sins were all pardoned, and that they never could be mentioned unto us in mercy for ever. And, beloved, though I have spoken of other joys, let me say, this is the cream of all of them, to know ourselves accepted in God’s sight. O! to feel that I, a guilty worm, am now received in my Father’s bosom; that I, a lost prodigal, am now feasting at His table with delight; that I, who once heard the voice of His anger, now listen to the notes of His love. This is joy—this is joy worth worlds. What more can they know up there than that? And were it not that our sense of it were so imperfect, we might bring heaven down to earth and might at least dwell in the suburbs of the celestial city, if we could not be privileged to go within the gates. Seeing that heaven is a state of acceptance, we, too, can know and feel that acceptance, and rejoice in it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0989.cfm

Triumphs Here, Triumphant There!

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. – 1 Corinthians 15:57

This (earthly life) is the battlefield; there (in heaven) is the triumphal procession. This is the land of the sword and the spear; that is the land of the wreath and the crown. This is the land of the garment rolled in blood and of the dust of the fight; that is the land of the trumpet’s joyful sound—that is the place of the white robe and of the shout of conquest. O, what a thrill of joy shall shoot through the hearts of all the blessed when their conquests shall be complete in heaven, when death itself, the last of foes, shall be slain—when Satan shall be dragged captive at the chariot wheels of Christ—when He shall have overthrown sin and trampled corruption as the mire of the streets—when the great shout of universal victory shall rise from the hearts of all the redeemed! What a moment of pleasure shall that be! O, dear brethren, you and I have foretastes of even that. We know what conquests, what souls’ battles we have even here. Did you never struggle against an evil heart, and at last overcome it? O, with what joy did you lift your eyes to heaven, the tears flowing down your cheeks, and say, “Lord, I bless Thee that I have been able to overcome that sin.” Did you ever have a strong temptation, and did you wrestle hard with it, and know what it was to sing with great joy, “My feet slipped; but Thy mercy held me up?” Have you, like Bunyan’s Christian, fought with old Apollyon, and have you seen him flap his dragon-wings and fly away? There you had a foretaste of heaven; you had just a guess of what the ultimate victory will be. In the death of that one Philistine, you had the destruction of the whole army. That Goliath who fell beneath your sling and stone was but one out of the multitude who must yield their bodies to the fowls of heaven. God gives you partial triumphs that they may be the earnest of ultimate and complete victory. Go on and conquer, and let each conquest, though a harder one and more strenuously contested, be to you as a grape of Eshcol, a foretaste of the joys of heaven! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0989.cfm

Our Delightful Service

Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. – Colossians 3:24

Do you know what is the deliciousness of work? For although we must complain when people expect impossibilities of us, it is the highest enjoyment of life to be busily engaged for Christ. Tell me the day I do not preach, I will tell you the day in which I am not happy; but the day in which it is my privilege to preach the Gospel, and labor for God, is generally the day of my peaceful and quiet enjoyment after all. Service is delight. Praising God is pleasure. Laboring for Him is the highest delight a mortal can know. O, how sweet it must be to sing His praises, and never feel that the throat is dry! O, how blessed to flap the wing for ever and never feel it flag! O, what sweet enjoyment to run upon His errands, evermore to circle round the throne of God in heaven while eternity shall last, and never once lay the head on the pillow, never once feel the throbbings of fatigue, never once the pangs that admonish us that we need to cease, but to keep on for ever like eternity’s own self—a broad river rolling on with perpetual floods of labor! O, that must be enjoyment! That must be, indeed, a heaven, to serve God day and night in His temple! But you have served God on earth and have had foretastes of that. I wish some of you knew the sweets of labor a little more, for although labor breedeth sweat, it breedeth sweets too—more especially labor for Christ. There is a satisfaction before the work; there is a satisfaction in the work; there is a satisfaction after the work, and there is a satisfaction in looking for the fruits of the work; and a great satisfaction when we get the fruits. Labor for Christ is, indeed, the robing-room of heaven; if it be not heaven itself, it is one of the most blissful foretastes of it. Thank God, Christian, if you can do any thing for your Master. Thank Him if it is your privilege to do the least thing for Him, for remember in so doing He is giving you a taste of the grapes of Eshcol. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0989.cfm

Heavenly Rest

Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. – Revelation 14:13

Rest, rest, rest—this is what you want. And to me this idea of heaven is exceedingly beautiful…You have said if you could get it, you would lie down and rest; you have toiled after a certain amount of riches, you have said if you could once gain a competence, you would then make yourself at ease. Or, you have been laboring long to gain a certain point of character, and then you have said you would lay down your arms and rest. Ay, but you have not reached it yet; and you love heaven because heaven is the goal to the racer, the target of the arrow of existence; you love heaven because it will be the couch of time, yes, an eternal rest for the poor weary struggler upon earth. You love it as a place of rest; and do we never enjoy a foretaste of heaven upon earth in that sense? O, yes, beloved! blessed be God, “we who have believed do enter into rest.” Our peace is like a river, and our righteousness like the waves of the sea. God may give to His people rest: even the rest that remaineth for the people of God. We have stormy trials and bitter troubles in the world; but we have learned to say, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul! for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.” Did you never, in times of great distress, climb up to your closet, and there on your knees pour out your heart before God? Did you never feel after you had so done that you had bathed yourself in rest, so that you cared not one whit for them? Though wars and tumults were raging around you, you were kept in perfect peace, for you had found a great protecting shield in Christ; you had looked upon the face of God’s Anointed. Ah, Christian, that rest without a billow of disturbance, that rest so placid and serene, which in your deepest troubles you have been enabled to enjoy in the bosom of Christ, is to you a bunch of the mighty vintage of heaven, one grape of the heavenly cluster which you shall soon partake of in the land of the hereafter. Here, again, you see we can have a foretaste of heaven and realize what it is even while here upon earth. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0989.cfm