Author: Sherry

God Hears Prayer

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

O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come. – Psalm 65:2

Observe, here, that God hears prayer. It is, in some aspects, the lowest form of worship, and yet He accepts it. It is not the worship of heaven, and it is, in a measure, selfish. Praise is superior worship, for it is elevating; it is the utterance of a soul that has received good from God and is returning its love to Him in acknowledgment. Praise has a sublime aspect. Now, observe, if prayer is heard, then praise will be heard too. If the lower form, on weaker wing as it were, reaches the throne of the majesty on high, how much more shall the seraphic wing of praise bear itself into the divine presence. Prayer is heard of God: therefore, our praises and vows will be. And this is a very great encouragement, because it seems terrible to pray when you are not heard, and discouraging to praise God if He will not accept it. What would be the use of it? But if prayer and yet more praise be most surely heard, ah, brethren, then let us continue and abide in thanksgiving. “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me, saith the Lord.”

Observe too according to the text, that all prayer, if it be true prayer, is heard of God, for so it is put-“Unto Thee shall all flesh come.” Oh, how glad I am at that word. My poor prayer-shall God reject it? Yes, I might have feared so if He had said, “Unto Thee shall all spirits come.” Behold, my brethren, He takes the grosser part as it were, and looks at prayer in His infinite compassion, perceiving it to be what it is-a feeble thing-a cry coming from poor fallen flesh, and yet He puts it, “Unto Thee shall all flesh come. My broken prayer, my groaning prayer shall get to Thee, though it seems to me a thing of flesh, it is nevertheless wrought in me by Thy Spirit. And O my God, my song, though my voice be hoarse and oftentimes my notes most feeble, shall reach Thee. Though I groan because it is so imperfect, yet even that shall come to Thee. Prayer, if true, shall be received of God, notwithstanding all its faultiness, through Jesus Christ. Then so it will be with our praises and our vows. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Perform Your Vows

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

…unto thee shall the vow be performed. – Psalm 65:1

It has been the habit of godly men to make vows occasionally, in times of pain, and losses, and affliction…You said, “If I am ever raised up, and my life is prolonged, it shall be better spent.” You said, also, “If I am delivered out of this great trouble, I hope to consecrate my substance more to God.” Another time you said, “If the Lord will return to me the light of His countenance, and bring me out of this depressed state of mind, I will praise Him more than ever before.” Have you remembered all this? Coming here myself so lately from a sick bed, I at this time preach to myself. I only wish I had a better hearer; I would preach to myself in this respect, and say, “I charge thee, my heart, to perform thy vow.” Some of us, dear friends, have made vows in time of joy, the season of the birth of the first-born child, the recovery of the wife from sickness, the merciful restoration that we have ourselves received, times of increasing goods, or seasons when the splendor of God’s face has been unveiled before our wondering eye. Have we not made vows, like Jacob when he woke up from his wondrous dream, and took the stone which had been his pillow, and poured oil on its top, and made a vow unto the Most High? We have all had our Bethels. Let us remember that God has heard us and let us perform unto Him our vow which our soul made in her time of joy. But I will not try to open the secret pages of your private note-books. You have had tender passages, which you would not desire me to read aloud: the tears start at their memory. If your life were written, you would say, “Let these not be told; they were only between God and my soul”-some chaste and blessed love passages between you and Christ, which must not be revealed to men. Have you forgotten how then you said, “I am my Beloved’s, and He is mine,” and what you promised when you saw all His goodness made to pass before you. I have now to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance and bid you present unto the Lord the double offering of your heart’s praise and of your performed vow. “O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Vowed Unto Christ

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

…unto Thee shall the vow be performed. – Psalm 65:1

We are not given to vow-making in these days. Time was when it was far oftener done. It may be that had we been better men we should have made more vows; it may possibly be that had we been more foolish men we should have done the same. The practice was so abused by superstition, that devotion has grown half-ashamed of it. But we have, at any rate, most of us bound ourselves with occasional vows. I do confess to-day a vow I have not kept as I should desire; the vow made on my first conversion. I surrendered myself, body, soul, and spirit, to Him that bought me with a price, and the vow was not made by way of excess of devotion or supererogation, it was but my reasonable service. You have done that. Do you remember the love of your espousal, the time when Jesus was very precious, and you had just entered into the marriage bond with Him? You gave yourselves up to Him, to be His for ever and for ever. O brethren and sisters, it is a part of worship to perform that vow. Renew it, make another surrender of yourselves to Him whose you are and whom you serve.

Beloved, many of us did, in effect, make a most solemn vow at the time of our baptism. We were buried with Christ in baptism unto death, and, unless we were greatly dissembling, we avowed that we were dead in Christ and buried with Him; wherein, also, we professed that we were risen with Him. Now, shall the world live in those who are dead to it, and shall Christ’s life be absent from those who are risen with Him? We gave ourselves up there and then, in that solemn act of mystic burial. Recall that scene, I pray you; and as you do it blush, and ask God that your vow may yet be performed, as Doddridge well expresses it:-

“Baptised into your Saviour’s death
Your souls to sin must die;
With Christ your Lord ye live anew,
With Christ ascend on high.”
~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

The Gift Unspeakable

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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

Praise Him for This!

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

Praise waiteth for Thee, O God…Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, Thou shalt purge them away. -Psalm 65:1,3

Infinite love has made us clean every whit! -though we were black and filthy. We are washed -washed in priceless blood. Praise Him for this! Go on with the passage, “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest and causest to approach unto Thee.” Is not the blessing of access to God an exceeding choice one? Is it a light thing to feel that, though once far off, we are made nigh through the blood of Christ; and this because of electing love! “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest.” Ye subjects of eternal choice, can you be silent? Has God favored you above others, and can your lips refuse to sing? No, you will magnify the Lord exceedingly, because He hath chosen Jacob unto Himself, and Israel for His peculiar treasure. Let us read on, and praise God that we have an abiding place among His people-“That we may dwell in Thy courts.”-Blessed be God we are not to be cast forth and driven out after a while, but we have an entailed inheritance amongst the sons of God. We praise Him that we have the satisfaction of dwelling in His house as children. “We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple.” But I close the psalm, and simply say to you, there are ten thousand reasons for taking down the harp from the willows; and I know no reason for permitting it to hang there idle. There are ten thousand times ten thousand reasons for speaking well of “Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.” “The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad.” I remember hearing in a prayer-meeting this delightful verse mutilated in prayer, “The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we desire to be glad.” Oh, brethren, I dislike mauling, and mangling, and adding to a text of Scripture. If we are to have the Scriptures revised, let it be by scholars, and not by every ignoramus. “Desire to be glad,” indeed! This is fine gratitude to God when He hath done great things for us.” If these great things have been done, our souls must be glad and cannot help it; they must overflow with gratitude to God for all His goodness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Heart-felt Silent Praise

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

“Praise is silent unto Thee”… – Psalm 65:1

There is praise for God in Zion, and it is often spoken; but there is often praise for God in Zion, and it is silence. There are some who cannot sing vocally, but perhaps, before God, they sing best. There are some, I know, who sing very harshly and inharmoniously-that is to say, to our ears; and yet God may accept them rather than the noise of stringed instruments carefully touched. There is a story told of Rowland Hill’s being much troubled by a good old lady who would sit near him and sing with a most horrible voice, and very loudly- as those people generally do who sing badly-and he at last begged her not to sing so loudly. But when she said, “It comes from my heart,” the honest man of God retracted his rebuke, and said, “Sing away, I should be sorry to stop you.” When praise comes from the heart, who would wish to restrain it. Even the shouts of the old Methodists, their “hallelujahs” and “glorys,” when uttered in fervor, were not to be forbidden; for if these should hold their peace, even the stones would cry out. But there are times when those who sing, and sing well, have too much praise in their soul for it to enclose itself in words. Like some strong liquors which cannot use a little vent, but foam and swell until they burst each hoop that binds the barrel; so, sometimes, we want a larger channel for our soul than that of mouth and tongue, and we long to have all our nerves and sinews made into harp strings, and all the pores of our body made mouths of thankfulness. Oh, that we could praise with our whole nature, with not one single hair of our heads, or drop of blood in our veins, keeping back from adoring the Most High! When this desire for praise is most vehement, we fall back upon silence, and quiver with the adoration which we cannot speak. Silence becomes our praise…Let us, then, by our silence, praise God, and let us always confess that our praise, compared with God’s deserving, is but silence. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Our Highest Praise is but Silence Before God

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

Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion… – Psalm 65:1

Perhaps, you are aware, dear friends, that there are other translations of this verse. “Praise waiteth for Thee,” may be read, “Praise is silent unto Thee”-“is silent before Thee.” One of the oldest Latin commentators reads it, “Praise and silence belong unto Thee;” and Dr. Gill tells us, that in the King of Spain’s Bible, it runs “The praise of angels is only silence before Thee, O Jehovah,” so that when we do our best our highest praise is but silence before God, and we must praise Him with confession of shortcomings. Oh, that we too, as our poet puts it, might,

“Loud as His thunders speak His praise,
And sound it lofty as His throne!”

But we cannot do that, and when our notes are most uplifted, and our hearts most joyous, we have not spoken all His praise. Compared to what His nature and glory deserve, our most earnest praise has been little more than silence. Oh, brethren, have you not often felt it to be so? Those who are satisfied with formal worship, think that they have done well when the music has been correctly sung; but those who worship God in spirit, feel that they cannot magnify Him enough. They blush over the hymns they sing and retire from the assembly of the saints mourning that they have fallen far short of His glory. O for an enlarged mind, rightly to conceive the divine majesty; next for the gift of utterance to clothe the thought in fitting language; and then for a voice like many waters, to sound forth the noble strain. Alas! as yet, we are humbled at our failures to praise the Lord as we would…How, then, shall we proclaim to men God’s glory? When we have done our best, our praise is but silence before the merit of His goodness, and the grandeur of His greatness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm