Our Duty to the Great Commission

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? – Jeremiah 15:12

Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. – Zechariah 4:6

Man’s heart is very hard; it is like the northern iron and the steel. Our preaching—we try to make it forcible, but how powerless is it of itself! The preacher seeks goodly words and illustrations; he brings forth the law of God, he gives forth threatenings in God’s name; he reasons concerning judgment to come, and flinches not from declaring the eternal punishment of sin; he preaches the love of God, and the infinite mercy of Christ Jesus, and he blends all this with an affection which longs for conversion, and he prays for God’s blessing; but in many, many hearts there is no change, the northern iron and the steel remain unmovable…Children of God, you are driven to this, that here is a case in which you are powerless. You might as well reverse the wind, or move a star, or create a world, as soften these hardened hearts. What are you then to do? Certainly, you are to continue the effort; nothing must tempt you to relinquish it, or even to relax your zeal. If you cannot break the heart, truly it is no business of yours to do so; commit that work to Him who is fully equal to the miracle, keep to your work, and fear not that the Lord will work with you. God bids you continue prayer, warning instruction, and invitation. If you knew that every soul you preached to or talked with would be lost, it were no less your duty to preach the gospel; for the duty to tell out the gospel is not influenced by our success, but is based upon the commission of Christ: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon

The Bound Sinner Made Free

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

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? – Jeremiah 15:12

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. – Luke 5:32

Here is a man with the fetters of his transgressions about him, but “he will get them off,” he says: prayer shall be his file; tears shall be the (nitric acid) to dissolve the metal, and his own resolutions shall, like a hammer, dash the links in fragments. But it cannot be: the iron shall never break this northern iron and the steel. Habits of sin yield not to raspings of the unregenerate resolves. You are condemned, and only Christ the Son of God can set you free from the fetters which hold you in the condemned cell. All your efforts apart from Jesus are utterly useless. He must bring liberty—you cannot emancipate yourselves. You say that you will break off the chains of evil habit. There are some you can break off, but can you alter your nature? “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” That were an easy task compared with a man renewing his own heart. Let not thy puny strength be wasted on so futile an effort as that which aims at self-salvation; how shall weakness achieve the labor of omnipotence, or death accomplish the sublime miracle of the Immortal? The imaginations of the thoughts of your heart are evil, only evil, and that continually, and do what you will they will remain so. The dead cannot give themselves life: it needs superior power to hew off the fetters which hold you prisoner in the sepulcher of your natural death…Come, bring thyself, chained as thou art, to Him, or if thou canst not stir an inch, cry out to Him! Ask Him to deliver thee! He can do it. Trust in Him, for trust in His precious blood and reliance upon His perfect sacrifice will make thee a free man in a moment, never to be a bondslave again. 

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon

The Victory of Truth

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

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of Me, saith the LORD. – Isaiah 54:17

My brethren, we may well fear the crafty machinations of the church of Rome, for all the subtlety of the old serpent is within her; but with the wisdom of God to meet it, there can be no alarm. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: there is no device nor counsel against the Lord. We may well be dismayed at the insidious attacks of scepticism; but while there remains a Holy Ghost to create and sustain faith in the world, we need not fear that the faithful will utterly cease out of the land. The thousands will still be reserved whose knees have never bowed to Baal. Infidelity and Socinianism have ready tongues, but every tongue that rises against the Church in judgment she will condemn. The forges of hell are busy in fashioning new weapons with which to assail us, but the Lord will break their bows and cut their spears in sunder. They may and will defeat the dogmas of superstition, but the truths of revelation and the people who believe them they can never overthrow. The iron will never break the northern iron and the steel. The church can bear the blows of Ritualism and Infidelity, and survive them all, and be the better for them too. See what the cause of Christ is. It is truth and therein is victory. Who knows not that the truth must prevail? There is in the church of God, moreover, life, and life is a thing you cannot overcome. A dead thing may be cut in pieces, and strewn to the winds of heaven; but the life in Christ’s Church is that which has defied and overcome Satan a thousand times already…Glory be to God, we have confidence in this, and in the name of God we set up our banner.

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon

Who Can Defeat God?

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Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? – Jeremiah 15:12

Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. – Revelation 18:20

What power, however like to iron, shall suffice to break the kingdom of Jesus, which is comparable to steel? We every now and then hear the babyish talk of persons who say that the gospel will die out in England—that Romanism will return in all its darkness, gospel light will be extinguished, and the candle which Latimer helped to light will be blown out. Atrocious nonsense, if not partial blasphemy. If this thing were of men it would come to nought; but if it be of God, who shall overthrow it? It has sometimes happened that fear has been the father of the thing it feared: let it not be so in this case; let us not court defeat by anticipating it. As surely as the Lord liveth the end of the Romish Anti-Christ will come, and the long-expected angel shall cry with a loud voice, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” “Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.” Other desponding prophets foretell that infidelity will so spread through all the churches and the fabric of society, that at last we shall see this country without a gospel ministry, and perhaps, through the spread of revolutionary principles, bereft of all respect for law and order. We are to go down by way of Paris to the foulness of Sodom, and thence into Pandemonium. Brethren, let those who will believe these evil tidings, I am not greatly moved thereby; for there are eternal principles and immutable decrees which uphold my joyful hopes. Consider for a moment what is involved in these gloomy forebodings. Then the gates of hell are to prevail against the church, are they? Then Christ is to be defeated by anti-Christ, is He? Then the pleasure of the Lord is not to prosper in His hand? Who said that? Who but a lying spirit that would lay low the faith and confidence of the people of God? It is no more possible for the truth of God and the Church of God to be defeated, than for God Himself to be overcome in conflict…Who shall stand against the Lord and prosper? 

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon

What of Nonsuccess?

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And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. – Galatians 6:9

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? – Jeremiah 15:12

When a man succeeds, he continues to succeed, as a rule; he derives encouragement from what God has already done by him and goes from strength to strength. Probably, however, there is more grace exhibited by the Christian, who, without present success, realises the things not seen as yet, and continues still to work on. To labor is not easy, but to labor and to wait is harder far. It is a grand thing to continue patiently in well doing, confident that in the end the reward is sure.

You know the story of the removal of old St. Paul’s by Sir Christopher Wren. A very massive piece of masonry had to be broken down, and the task, by pick and shovel, would have been a very tedious one, so the great architect prepared a battering-ram for its removal, and a large number of workmen were directed to strike with force against the wall with the ram. After several hours of labor, the wall, to all appearances, stood fast and firm. Their many strokes had been apparently lost, but the architect knew that they were gradually communicating motion to the wall, creating an agitation throughout the whole of it, and that, by-and-by, when they had continued long enough, the entire mass would come down beneath a single stroke. The workmen, no doubt, attributed the result to the one crowning concussion, but their master knew that their previous strokes had only culminated in that one tremendous blow and that all the nonresultant work had been necessary to prepare for the stroke which achieved the purpose. O Christian people, do not expect always to see the full outgrowth of your labors! Go on, serve your God, testify of His truth, tell of Jesus’ love, pray for sinners, live a godly life, serve God with might and main, and if no harvest spring up to your joyous sickle, others shall follow you and reap what you have sown, and since God will be glorified, it shall be enough for you.

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon

Driving Out the Canaanites and Their Iron Chariots

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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.

Sermon Text

Wait Upon the Strong One

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

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? – Jeremiah 15:12

Besides persecution, we are called frequently to serve the Lord under great difficulties. There are supreme difficulties connected with the evangelisation of this city. To stand here and preach to such a congregation as this, so large and so eager for the Word, is a pleasure; but every sphere of labor is not equally cheering. Some of you who go to the lodging-houses to speak, or who visit the alleys, or stand up in the low neighbourhoods to preach the word of life, I know full well find it anything but child’s play to serve your Lord under such conditions. Yours is rough hedging and ditching work, with very little in it of rosewater and gentility, and very much of annoyance and disappointment. What, then, is your resolution? I trust it is this: that as much strength is needed, you will wait more than ever upon the strong One till the needed power is given you…If God has called you to do anything, do it, even if you die in doing it. To a man for whom Jesus died, no work should seem hard, no sacrifice grievous. All things are possible to those who burn with the love of God. There is nothing but what you can make a way through if you can find something harder to bore it with. Look at the Mont Cenis Tunnel, made through one of the hardest of known rocks; with a sharp tool, edged with diamond, they have pierced the heart of the Alps, and made a passage for the commerce of nations. As St. Bernard says: “Is thy work hard? set a harder resolution against it; for there is nothing so hard that it cannot be cut by something harder still.” May the Spirit of God work in thee invincible resolution and unconquerable perseverance. Let not the iron break the northern iron and the steel. Under persecutions and difficulties, let God’s people resolve on victory, and by faith they shall have it, for according to our faith so shall it be unto us.

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon