Author: Sherry
These Two Kindred Spiritual Facts
And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! Luke 15:17
When the prodigal came to himself he was shut up to two thoughts. Two facts were clear to him, that there was plenty in his father’s house, and that he himself was famishing. May the two kindred spiritual facts have absolute power over all your hearts, if you are yet unsaved; for they were most certainly all-important and pressing truths. These are no fancies of one in a dream; no ravings of a maniac; no imaginations of one under fascination: it is most true that there is plenty of all good things in the Father’s house, and that the sinner needs them. No where else can grace be found or pardon gained; but with God there is plenitude of mercy; let none venture to dispute this glorious truth. Equally true is it that the sinner without God is perishing. He is perishing now; he will perish everlastingly. All that is worth having in his existence will be utterly destroyed, and he himself shall only remain as a desolation; the owl and the bittern of misery and anguish shall haunt the ruins of his nature for ever and for ever. If we could shut up unconverted men to those two thoughts, what hopeful congregations we should have. Alas! they forget that there is mercy only with God, and fancy that it is to be found somewhere else; and they try to slip away from the humbling fact of their own lost estate, and imagine that perhaps there may be some back door of escape; that, after all, they are not so bad as the Scripture declares, or that perchance it shall be right with them at the last however wrong it may be with them now. Alas! my brethren, what shall we do with those who wilfully shut their eyes to truths of which the evidence is overwhelming, and the importance overpowering? I earnestly entreat those of you who know how to approach the throne of God in faith, to breathe the prayer that He would now bring into captivity the unconverted heart and put these two strong fetters upon every unregenerate soul; there is abundant grace with God, there is utter destitution with themselves. Bound with such fetters, and led into the presence of Jesus, the captive would soon receive the liberty of the children of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1000.cfm
He Came to Himself
“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!”- Luke 15:17.
“He came to himself.” The word may be applied to one waking out of a deep swoon. He had been unconscious of his true condition, and he had lost all power to deliver himself from it; but now he was coming round again, returning to consciousness and action. The voice which shall awaken the dead aroused him; the visions of his sinful trance all disappeared; his foul but fascinating dreams were gone; he came to himself. Or the word may be applied to one recovering from insanity. The prodigal son had played the madman, for sin is madness of the worst kind. He had been demented, he had put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, darkness for light and light for darkness; he had injured himself and had done for his soul what those possessed of devils in our Savior’s time did for their bodies, when they wounded themselves with stones, and cut themselves with knives. The insane man does not know himself to be insane, but as soon as he comes to himself he painfully perceives the state from which he is escaping. Returning then to true reason and sound judgment, the prodigal came to himself.
There are men here to-day who perhaps are still in this swoon; O God of heaven arouse them! Some here who are morally insane; the Lord recover them, the divine Physician put His cooling hand upon their fevered brow and say to them: “I will; be thou made whole.” Perhaps there are others here who have allowed their animal nature to reign supreme, may He who destroys the works of the devil deliver them from the power of Satan and give them power to become the sons of God. He shall have all the glory! ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1000.cfm
Sinner, Mercy Waits for Thee
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power… – Revelation 20:6
Pray, you dear people of God that are awake, that the sinner may be awakened, for there is this awful danger that he may sleep himself into hell. Spiritual sleep deepens and the slumberer becomes more heavy still, the stupor more dense, till the conscience grows seared, and the soul is unimpressionable; the flesh is turned into stone, the heart is harder than steel. It may be that some of those who hear these words of warning may never wake to think about their souls till in hell they lift up their eyes. What an awful lifting up of the eyes will that be! O you who are now peaceful and secure, what a change awaits you! Hurled from vainglorious security to blank despair in a moment! You took it all so easily: you said, “Let me alone; do not worry me; there’s time enough. The preacher ought not to frighten us with these bugbears; we all have a great deal else to do besides listening to horrible stories of hell and damnation;” and so you wrapped it up, and so you smoothed it over, but the end thereof who shall describe? Some persons on their dying beds just wake up in time to see their danger, but not to escape from it: they are carried right over the cataract of judgement and wrath. They are gone, for ever gone, where mercy is succeeded by justice, and hope forbidden to enter. Let much prayer go up from believing hearts that God would awaken sinners now… Ask for the arm of God to be revealed while the heavenly message is delivered; for His is our message: “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”
Come, thou guilty one, awake! for mercy waits for thee. Come and receive the mercy which Jesus Christ is ready to bestow upon thee! God give thee waking grace and saving grace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0996.cfm
Awake, Unconverted Man!
Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. – 2 Corinthians 6:2
You, you unconverted man, are asleep; a deep and horrible sleep holds you fast. If it were not so, you would perceive your danger, and you would be alarmed. You have broken God’s law; the fact is certain and solemn, though you treat it lightly. Punishment must follow every breach of that law, for God will not be mocked nor suffer His government to be treated with contempt. For every transgression there is an appointed recompense of reward. The retribution which is your lawful due will not long be withheld: it is on its road towards you. The feet of justice are shod with wool: you hear not its coming, but it is as sure as it is silent. Its steps are swift, and its stroke overwhelming.
If you were awakened, O sin-stricken transgressor, you would also perceive that there is a remedy for your disease, a rescue from your present danger. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;” and “Whosoever believeth in Jesus Christ hath everlasting life.” Forgiveness of sin is guaranteed to every one that rests in the work of Jesus…If God would awaken thee, thou wouldst tremble at the jaws of hell which are open to receive thee; thou wouldst turn to Christ, and say, “Jesus, save me! Save me now!” You are asleep, sinner-you are asleep, or you would not take matters so coolly. I am afraid for you and bowed down with amazement and dread. The mercy is that you may be awakened: you are not yet among the slain that go down into the pit. Oh, that that almighty grace would awaken you at this present moment ere your doom is sealed and your damnation executed! Here I offer my fervent prayers for you, believing that He to whom I pray is able to bring to holy sensibility the most stolid of mankind. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0996.cfm
Cherish Your Faithful Preacher
And He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. – Acts 10:42
Faithful preachers are among God’s best gifts. Cherish them and be obedient to their admonitions. I have known persons become offended when a minister is “too personal;” but wise men always prize a ministry in proportion as it is personal to themselves. He who never tells me of my faults, nor makes me feel uneasy, is not likely to be the means of good to my soul. What is the use of a dog that never barks? Why have a doctor, and grow angry with him if he points out the source of your disease? Did God send us, as His messengers, to pander to your taste or flatter your vanity? We seek not your approval if it be not founded on right…Conscience makes men respect the gospel even when their depravity makes them loathe it. They are held fast by the cords which they fain would cast from them. May it often be so that while my plain dealing excites your anger, it may nevertheless have a power over you; and may every man and woman here, whether saved or unsaved, feel that the preaching is the truth of God to his or her soul; and, whether liked or not liked, may it become the permanent means of arousing from sleep, and ultimately bringing to Christ every one of you to whom these words shall come. Be sure and attend an arousing ministry and pray God to make the ministry which you now listen to more and more an arousing ministry to your own soul. Pray for the preacher, for he is in the same danger as yourselves, for he, too, is compassed with infirmity. The minister soon goes to sleep unless God wakens him; and what is more sad than to see the professed messenger of God become a traitor both to his Master and to men’s souls by a lack of zealous affection? It is ill for the sheep if the shepherd himself be asleep. Woe to the camp where the sentry is given to slumber! May God deliver our country from being overrun with preachers whose souls are insensible concerning their grand work, and who love the bread of their office better than the glory of God or the good of their hearers. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0996.cfm
Set a Spiritual Alarum
Wherefore He saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. – Ephesians 5:14
“How can I be kept awake?” No one can give you spiritual power and watchfulness but the Spirit of God. “All my fresh springs are in Thee.” Where life first comes from, there more life must be obtained. Christ has come that we may have life, and that we may have it more abundantly. He who first called us from the dead, must also arouse us from among the slumbering. He who brought us from the grave of our depravity must bring us from the couch of our indolence. Pray about the matter; make it a point with God: ask Him to arouse you. On your knees is the posture in which to conquer sloth.
Act towards yourselves about spiritual wakefulness as you would with natural wakefulness. Set your inventive faculties to work, and devise means for chasing away the sleep dragon. What would you do if you required to be awakened early? Perhaps you would set an alarum; a good thing, no doubt. Take care you set a spiritual alarum. Every Christian ought to keep one, and it should be so well set as to keep exact time, and so powerful as to arouse the most slumbering. A tender conscience, quick as the apple of the eye, is a precious preservative against sinful sleep; but it must never be tampered with, or its usefulness will soon end. When once the hour has come, down runs the alarum, the man starts up all at once, and says, “It is time to rise;” so should my conscience be so well regulated, that when a temptation is near, or a sinner is near me whom I ought about warn, my soul should at once take the alarum and say, “Here is work to do-a sin to be conquered, or a soul to be instructed: now, therefore, perform the doing of it with all thy might! I hear the alarum, and I must bestir myself!” May we always maintain and retain such a special wakefulness that we may be at our post of duty or in our place of conflict with a punctuality which none can gainsay. O for the alarum of a tender conscience! ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0996.cfm
