Serving Him Heartily

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD. – Isaiah 66:21

Serve the LORD with gladness: come before His presence with singing. – Psalm 100:2

If the Lord has taken of us to be His priests and Levites, let us serve Him with great thankfulness and joy. If any people should be glad, I am sure it is those people that feel the aboundings of His mercy in forgiveness, having heard those glad tidings, as it were, from the lips of Jesus Himself. “Thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee: go in peace.” They have something always to stimulate their gratitude and regale them with sunshine. “I am very poor,” saith one, “but, never mind, poor as I am, I am not a drunkard or a swearer now; I feel weak and sickly in body, it may be (but) never mind that; I have not the burden of sin upon my soul.” Or “I am unknown, quite unknown. I have nobody to come and see me. Never mind that; I am known to God. I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. My great wounds have been healed in Jesus’ precious blood.” Why, you have always cause to be glad, my dear brother and sister, if you have had your sins forgiven: you have a fountain opened in your soul of love to Christ and joy in God, quite as surely as there is a fountain open for the cleansing of your sin in the side of Jesus. Those that had some good principles instilled into them by early training or some sort of preparation to receive the gospel, may not feel their deep indebtedness to the wonderful working of the Spirit; but those of us who were steeped in sin, and hardened in heart, when we are saved must magnify the power of God, and moved by that feeling we must serve Him heartily with our whole spirit, soul, and body. A man that feels what grace has done for him cannot help throwing his whole soul into it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm

Serve the Lord Humbly and Heartily

Sherry Christian Life, prayer, Character of Jesus, Attributes of God, The Holy Spirit, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD. – Isaiah 66:21

And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. – Revelation 5:10

I address myself to those of you especially, my dear brethren and sisters, whom the grace of God has taken to make priests and Levites unto God. You are near to Him: you serve Him. What effect should this have upon you? First, remember what state you were in before God’s grace took you in hand. Then consider what you are called to be; you are made priests and Levites.. oh, what humility this vocation of God should produce! However high we may be raised, we must remember whence the honor cometh. For this promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west—it is God’s gift. Thou, a blasphemer and injurious; thou, a careless, godless, Christless man, now raised to be a servant of God, to wait in His courts, and honor His name, be thankful that thou art lifted so high, but wonder, and fear and tremble, for all the goodness that God has made to pass before thee. What am I, and what is my father’s house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto; to pray and my prayer to be heard, yet not worthy to lift mine eyes to the place where Thine honor dwelleth; to have Thy holy Spirit dwelling in me, and yet not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof! Be humble brother: it will help you to watch. Watching is done best in a lowly manner. And since He hath taken us for priests and for Levites, let us do every office heartily as unto the Lord. If others in this world can serve God coldly, yet, my brethren and sisters, you and I cannot afford to do so. We were such sinners, that if we have been forgiven, we must love Him. Those that had little sin to be cleansed may not have much love to lavish on their Redeemer. Not so with me or thee. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm

Sheep Among Wolves

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

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God Will Not Forget His Church

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD. – Isaiah 66:21

Suppose it should ever come to this, as some say it will, that the churches, many of them, should desert the old truths, and the ministers become dumb dogs that cannot bark, and one by one their testimony should be silent, and every candlestick should be taken out of its place, and the whole head should be sick, and the whole heart faint, and Zion be under a cloud, and there should be none to help her, and none to lift up the banner for the truth? What then? Why, then God would arise, and take again from the fishermen in their boats new apostles, and from the lowest dens of iniquity, and the worst haunts of vice, from the saloons of frivolity where the rich resort, and from the chambers of commerce and the palaces of merchandise where buyers and sellers make their contracts, He would take a fresh staff of men. Out of the roughest material He can make the finest fabric, out of the newest recruits He can raise the noblest regiment to show forth His praise, to do His work, and to secure victory for His cause. If some were unworthy holders of His vineyard, and brought Him no revenue, He would put aside these wicked men, and send forth fresh laborers, and give His vineyard unto others, for He will get glory unto His name; He “will take of them for priests and for Levites.” Never say it is a dark day; never say God has forgotten His church; never give way to despairing fits, and dream of horrible times coming, that yet are not to come. Verily, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” and the glory of God shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. He shall arise and have mercy upon Zion; He will build up her walls, heal all her breaches, and once again shall she be the joy of the whole earth. Take heart and comfort, God can find His servants anywhere. Omnipotence hath instruments where we see them not. He “will take of them for priests and for Levites.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm

Openly Shaming Satan

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ… – Ephesians 3:8

(One) reason why the Lord takes the vilest of men to make them the saintliest is, that He might openly triumph over Satan. How the devil must feel defeated when such a man as Saul is taken straight away from persecuting to preaching! Surely, it makes Satan bite his chains and gnash his teeth when he loses his servants so. Just when he has trained them up, and got them into fine condition for doing mischief, in comes the officer of divine grace, arrests them, and changes their hearts. You know none ever do the devil so much mischief as those who once did him service…All heaven rings with rapture when a great sinner is saved; and all hell howls with dismay when one of the arch host bows down to kiss the feet of Christ and receive the mercy of God. Glory be to God when He takes those that would have been deepest damned and sets them highest among the saved on earth to be priests and Levites unto Him. By these means also He secures another end: He encourages poor penitents; for when a sinner, under a sense of sin, meets with a brother in Christ, who was like himself once, but is now living near to God and serving Him acceptably, he is much encouraged. “Why,” he thinks to himself, “is this how God receives sinners when they turn to Him? Perhaps He will receive me.” And if he gets into conversation with one of those whom God has made priests and Levites, he says, “Tell me what the Lord has done for thy soul.” And the minister being a man of like passions, and having had like experience, delights to describe the works and ways of God with hardened sinners and old offenders and then the man who is seeking finds in the other a guide who is touched with the feeling of his infirmity, is very helpful to him, and much blessed of God to enter into the secrets of his heart and lead him to the cross. If there be here some great rebel against God, I think he ought to take encouragement thence to turn unto the Lord and live, for surely, when God so treats His most defiant enemies as to make them His most honored ministers, there should be some comfort for the great sinner to seek the Lord while yet He waits to be gracious. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm

The Power of God’s Love

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I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.- Romans 9:15

Men who are tamers of wild beasts, will frequently, when they have subdued a lion, take a delight in showing to the people how obedient that lion will be to them, and how every word that the lion-tamer chooses to say, it will regard and pay attention to. Thus, when the Lord takes a great sinner, after He has tamed him, removed his heart of stone, and given him a heart of flesh, He desires to show how, without the use of the whip, without a threatening look or an angry word, He causes His enemy to become His diligent servant, His earnest friend. O brethren, it shows the power of love on a man when he is so broken down that the things he sneered at he now preaches with all his might. Surely it showed the power of divine grace when Paul avowed Christ openly and vehemently preached—exposing himself to persecution and death—that same gospel which his soul had previously nauseated; yea, which his zeal, full of bitterness, had kindled to exterminate. God takes great sinners and then appoints and qualifies them to be priests and Levites, in order that He might show the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe.

Divine grace, while it comes freely to us, is dispensed freely by God, according to the good pleasure of His will. I should like to hear that text thundered throughout Christendom: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” No man hath any right to the mercy of God. We have all sinned ourselves into outlaw: all the rights we have are the right to be condemned, and the right to be cast into hell; all the rights of man that he can appeal to God for in equity are merged in the wrongs for which he is responsible. If the Lord have mercy, it is His own will to do it: He can withhold it if it pleases Him; so He selects the most degraded, those that have gone farthest from Him, and takes them into His church…He lifteth up the poor from the dunghill, and setteth him among princes, even among the princes of His people. His mercy, power, and sovereignty are displayed when He takes of them to be priests and Levites. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm

Oh, what deep mercy there is in Jesus!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ… – Ephesians 3:8

It is a great grace to be permitted to preach the gospel. I have sometimes said to you that when the prodigal came back to his father, and was received into his father’s house, no earthly parent, though he had quite forgiven him all the wildness of his son’s adventure, could wholly forget the waywardness of his disposition. He might condone the past without confiding in him for the future. If it were needful to send one of the sons to market with a bag of money, the good old father would, in all probability, say to himself, “I will send the elder son with it: he is better to be trusted; I would hardly like to put such a responsibility upon the young lad who has so lately been reclaimed.” I can fancy, without uttering a word to his younger son he would, discreetly (as you would say), trust the other with any weighty concerns. But our heavenly Father—oh, how He forgives us! He leaves no back reckonings, for though we used to be such sinners, some of us, and so injurious, after He forgave us, He committed to our charge not merely silver and gold, the perishable resources of time, but the priceless treasure of the gospel of Jesus Christ: He allowed us to go and tell to others “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” See ye not the impure giving, lessons on chastity, the intemperate teaching chastity? and mark ye not how he who persecuted the disciples in times past, now preacheth the faith he once destroyed? Oh, what deep mercy there is in Jesus! What wonderful grace there is in giving His commissions, that those that cursed Him themselves should intercede with Him for others; that those that despised Him should be permitted to honor Him; that those who broke His Sabbaths should nevertheless be helpful to His people in hallowing the Lord’s-day; that those who despised His word, and put it behind their back, should be the men to open it, and display the sweetness of it to their fellow men! Is not this grace? Methinks every time Paul preached Jesus Christ, he would say to himself: “I used to call Him the Nazarene; I abhorred Him and used opprobrious language, but herein is great mercy, boundless mercy, that He should take me to be His servant, to permit me to labor for His people and suffer for His sake.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0992.cfm