When God Comes into the Camp

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. – Psalm 16:11

Whoever preaches the gospel, when God has come into the camp, speaks with power. He may have little eloquence, and less learning; but if God is with him, and if his heart is all aglow with divine love, he will speak with power, and the people will say, “Surely, God is in this place, and we know it.”

When God comes into the camp, new life is put into prayer. Instead of the repetition of holy phrases in a cold, feeble, lifeless fashion, the soul empties itself out before the Lord, like water flowing from a fountain; and men and women cry mightily unto Him, laying hold upon the horns of the altar; and they come away with both hands full of heaven’s own blessing, for they have prevailed with God in mighty wrestling.

By the presence of God in the camp fresh energy is thrown into service...He shakes men up and awakens the slumberers from their dreams! What a quickening, what a vivifying, the presence of God gives!..When the Lord comes to us with power, He makes us alive all over; every part of the man is quickened with a divine energy; then men really work for Jesus, and work successfully, too.

When God comes into the camp, His presence convinces unbelievers. Sinners turn to the Lord on the right hand, and on the left, in so marvellous a way that our weak faith is often quite astonished. The last persons in the world that we expected to be converted, come to our services, and there find Christ. When God comes into the camp, the Holy Ghost convinces men “of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment;” the arrows of conviction fly fast and far and pierce the hearts of the foemen of the King, and the slain of the Lord are many.

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

Except a Man be Born Again

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

And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again…God has come into the camp. – 1 Samuel 4:5,7

We fall into the same blunder that the Israelites and the Philistines made when we consider orthodoxy to be salvation. We have secured much that is worth keeping when we have, intellectually and intelligently, laid hold on that divinely revealed truth, “the gospel of the grace of God”; but we have not obtained everything even then. O sirs, if it were possible for you to believe every word of Christ’s teaching, if it were possible to hold with only an intellectual faith the teaching of the apostles, rejecting all besides, and to hold it with an accuracy so great that in no jot or tittle you had made a mistake, it would profit you nothing; for “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He may understand these things so as to be a theologian, but he must have them wrought into his soul by the Holy Ghost so as to make him a saint, or else he has not really understood them at all. Unless these are thy meat and thy drink, they are nothing to thee; unless thou findest Christ in them, thou wilt find in them thy ruin, they shall be the “savor of death” unto thee. Remember, it was a beautiful tomb in which the dead Christ was laid; but He left it, and there was nothing there but grave-clothes after He had gone; and, in like manner, the best-constructed system of theology, if it has not Christ in it, and if he who holds it be not himself spiritually alive, it is nothing more than a tomb in which are trappings for the dead. It is nothing better than a gilded ark, without the presence of God; and although you may shout, and say, “God is come into the camp,” it will not be so.

Thus, like the Israelites, we may shout as we see the ark of the covenant, although our sins have driven the Lord far from us; or, like the Philistines, we may say, “God has come into the camp,” and yet He may not be there at all in the sense in which they meant…Though what the Philistines said, and what the Israelites thought, on this occasion, was false, it is often true that God does come to the camp of His people, and His presence is the great power of His Church. O Brethren, what joy comes to us at such a time!

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

True Spiritual Worship 

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit

God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth. – John 4:24

Every form of religion has its ritual. The Quaker, who sits still, and does not say a word, has a ritual so far; and he that has a thousand rites and ceremonies has a ritual so much farther. But if I have gone through the general routine of the worship of my church and then think that I have done something acceptable to God while yet my heart has not communed with Him in humble repentance, or faith, or love, or joy, or consecration, I make a great mistake. You may keep on with your religious performances for seventy years or more; you may never miss what our Scotch friends call “a diet of worship”; you may not neglect a single rubric in the whole ritual; but it is all nothing unless the soul has fellowship with God. Godliness is a spiritual thing; for “God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” So far as our forms or worship help us towards this spiritual communion, they are good, but no farther. “Oh, well!” says one, “I never worship beneath a cathedral roof; I am quite content to meet with a few friends in a barn.” Do not suppose, my friend, that the meagerness of your accessories has necessarily secured true worship. If thou hast met God in the barn, it is well; and if thy brother has met God in the right spirit, I care but little for thy barn, and I care even less for his cathedral. What does it signify how thou hast garnished thine offering if it be not a living sacrifice, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ? A dead thing must not be brought to the altar of God. Remember that, under the Jewish law, they never offered fish upon the altar, because they could not bring it there alive. Everything brought to God as a sacrifice must be alive. Its blood must be poured out warm at the altar’s foot. Oh, that you and I might feel that lifting of the soul to God, and that buoyancy of heart, which true spiritual worship alone can bring to us! May our ritual, whether we have much or little, be our guide to God, and not our chain to hold us back from God!

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

Newer is Not Truer

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

And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. – 1 Samuel 4:7

“The Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! For there hath not been such a thing heretofore.” The Israelites probably made the same mistake, fixing their hope on this new method of fighting the Philistines, which they hoped would bring them victory. We are all so apt to think that the new plan of going to work will be much more effective than those that have become familiar; but it is not so. It is generally a mistake to exchange old lamps for new. “There hath not been such a thing heretofore.” There is a glamour about the novelty which misleads us and we are liable to think the newer is the truer. If there has not been such a thing heretofore, some people will take to it at once for that very reason. “Oh,” says the man who is given up to change, “that is the thing for me!” But it is probably not the thing for a true-hearted and intelligent Christian, for if, “there hath not been such a thing heretofore,” it is difficult to explain, if the thing be a good one, why the Holy Ghost, who has been with the people of God since Pentecost, and who came to lead us into all truth, has not led the Church of God to this before. If your new discovery is the mind of God, where has the Holy Scriptures been all these centuries? Believing in the infallible Word and the abiding Spirit, I rather suspect your novelty; at least I cannot say that I endorse it until I have tested it by the Word of God. Philistines may like a thing that has not been heretofore; but we like the thing that has been since the days of Pentecost, the things that come from Him who is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever”: the workings of that God who changes not, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Let Him work His blessed will; and if He chooses to send a new thing on the earth, we will glorify His name; but because there are new things in the world, we will not ascribe them to Him for they may come from quite another quarter. We remember that “Lo, here is Christ, or there!” was the cry against which our Lord warned His disciples. Concerning such a cry the Saviour said, “Believe it not.”

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

Do Not Confound Enthusiasm with Faith

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit

And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. – 1 Samuel 4:5

Anyone who had passed the camp of Israel that day might have said that they had “a bright, cheerful, happy service; just the kind of service the people like, you know, nothing dull about it.” Hark! How the glad sound rises! Surely these people must have great faith! No, they had not a scrap of the real article. They were under a mistake all the time; and shout as they might, they had very little to shout about; for in a short time their carcasses strewed the plain. The Philistines put an end to their shouting. Now, beloved, when you are worshipping God, shout if you are filled with holy gladness. If the ejaculation comes from your heart, I would not ask you to restrain it. God forbid that we should judge any man’s worship! But do not be so foolish as to suppose that because there is loud noise there must also be faith. Faith is a still water, it floweth deep. True faith in God may express itself with leaping and shouting and it is a happy thing when it does: but it also sits still before the Lord, and that perhaps is a happier thing still. Praise can sit silent on the lip and yet be heard in heaven. There is a passion of the heart too deep for words. There are feelings that break the backs of words; the mind staggers and trembles beneath the weight of them. Frost of the mouth often comes with thaw of the soul; and when the heart’s great deeps are breaking up, it sometimes happens that the mouth is not large enough to let the torrents flow, and so it has to be comparatively silent. Do not, therefore, make the mistake of confounding enthusiasm with faith in judging the externals of worship, else you may fall into a thousand blunders. He may worship God who shouts till the earth rings again, and God may accept him; but he may worship God as truly who sits in silence before the Most High and says not even a word. It is the spiritual worship which is most acceptable to God, not the external in any form or shape. It is the heart that has fellowship with the Lord, and it needs little in the way of expressing itself, neither has God tied it down to this way or that. It may find its own methods of utterance so long as it is truly “moved by the Holy Ghost.”

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

The Jewel of Peace

Sherry sermon

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

Sermon Text

Superstitious Reverence

Sherry Christian Life, prayer, salvation, Sovereignty of God

So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubims: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. – 1 Samuel 4:4

These Israelites…preferred office to character. In their distress, instead of calling upon God, they sent for Hophni and Phinehas. Why did their hearts turn to them? Simply because they were priests, and the people had come to hold the sacred office in such superstitious reverence that they thought that was everything. But these young men were sinners against the Lord exceedingly; they were not even moral men; much less were they spiritual men. They made the house of God to be abhorred and dishonored the Lord before all Israel. Yet, because they happened to hold the office of the priesthood, they were put in the place of God. Dear friends, this is a kind of feeling which many indulge. They think they shall be saved if they have a Levite for their priest. They imagine that the worship of God must be conducted properly, because the man who conducts it is in the apostolic succession, and has been duly ordained. You shall see a man eminent for the holiness of his life, for the disinterestedness of his character, for the fidelity of his preaching, for his power in prayer, for the blessing that rests upon his ministry in the conversion of sinners; but he is counted a mere nobody, because he lacks the superstitious qualification which deluded men think is so necessary.

Now, God forbid that we should say a word against the house of Aaron, or against any who speak the name of the Lord, whom God has truly called unto His work! But, beloved, this work is not a mere matter of pedigree; it is a question of the abiding presence of God with man and in a man. Unless God be with the minister whom you hear, to what purpose do you listen? If the leader of the church be not one who walks with God, where will he lead you? “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” The blind man may wear a badge on his arm to show that he is a certified guide; but will you be saved from the ditch simply because he belongs to the order of guides, and has his certification with him? Be not led away by any such vain notion. Yet this is the error into which many have fallen in all ages of the Church.

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon