What Can We Do?

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

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. – John 15:5

What can we do to obtain the presence of God in our midst?

There is not one among us who does not know that the Holy Ghost is needful to effect any work. We must pray in the Holy Ghost, or else we shall not pray at all; and we must preach under the influence of the Holy Ghost, or else we shall chatter like sparrows on the window-sill in the morning, and nothing will come of the chattering. Only the Holy Ghost can make anything we do to be effectual. Therefore, never begin any work without the Holy Ghost, and do not dare go on with the impetus that you have gained, but cry again for the Holy Spirit. Let all your service for God be in the Spirit, or else it is all good for nothing.

We must confess our helplessness without God and honestly mean the confession. The first thing that is required of us is to bemoan the fact that, by and of ourselves, we can do nothing; even as our Lord said to His disciples, “Without Me ye can do nothing.” We must also be very careful in our lives. God will not come to an unholy church. The sacred Dove will never come to a foul nest. There must be a purging and a cleansing, or else He will not come. there must be a conscientious obedience to His word, a strict adherence to His truth, His doctrine, His precepts, to the whole of Christ’s rule and law. He will not prosper us unless we are careful to follow every step that He has taken. God help us to have this conscientious care, this coming out from those who may not be thus careful; according to His word. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” If we desire this special sense of God’s presence, there must be unbroken union. To crown it all, there must be a hearty reliance upon God, and a childlike confidence in Him. I would recommend you either believe in God up to the hilt, or else not believe at all. Oh, I pray you, do believe in God, and His omnipotence!

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

A Peal of Bells

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

Innumerable Blessings

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

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

The fact of God being in the camp cannot be hidden, for in a delightful way it distills joy into worship. The saints enjoy fellowship with one another; and when Christian people meet each other, and God is in the camp, they have many a happy word to exchange concerning their Master. 

When God comes into the camp, those who are troubled and tried begin to wipe away the tears of sorrow, and feel strengthened to bear their burdens; or, better still, they cast their care on Him who is so manifestly near. Our hearts are also cheered by seeing anxious sinners turn their eyes towards the cross of Christ. Then Jesus reveals His love to them, and they perceive it; they fly into His arms and find salvation there. Oh, what joyful times we have had of late in talking with many who have yielded themselves to Christ, and taken Him to be all their salvation, and all their desire! May God stay in the camp with us till every sinner that comes within our ranks, and many also who are outside, shall come to Jesus, and be saved!

When God is in the camp, His presence infuses daring faith. Feeble men begin to grow vigorous, young men dream dreams and old men see visions. Many begin to plot and plan something for Jesus which, in their timid days, they would never have thought of attempting. Others reach a height of consecration that seems to verge on imprudence. Alabaster boxes get broken, and the precious ointment is poured out upon the Master’s head, even though Judas shakes His money-bag, and cries, “To what purpose is this waste?”…Because God is in the camp, many take up the work which at first only the truly brave believer dared to try. ..I cannot tell you what innumerable blessings come to the camp of the spiritual Israel when God is there. I hope that we know a little of this even now; and I am sure we want to know a great deal more of it.

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

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