Author: Sherry

Our Perfect Shelter

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

I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. Selah – Psalm 61:4

Birds fly to the trees, and the stork to the fir, the wild goat to the high hills, and the cony to the rocks. There is a shelter for every one of these creatures, great and small. Think a moment, then, if God has made each creature happy, and given a place of refuge to each creature, then, depend upon it, he has not left man’s soul without a shelter. And here is an important truth, for every man is certainly in danger, and every thinking man knows it. My God, dost Thou shield and shelter the cony in the rock, and is there no rock for me to shelter in? Assuredly Thou hast not made man and left him without a refuge; when Thou givest to the rock-rabbit the cleft in which he may hide himself, there must be a shelter for man. This must certainly be true, because you and I, if we have observed our inner life, must have felt conscious that nothing here below can fill an immortal soul. You have prospered in business and have enjoyed good health; but for all that, in quiet moments of reflection, you feel a craving for something not to be found beneath the sun…Beloved, there is a shelter for man from the sense of past guilt. It is because we are guilty that we are fearful: we have broken our Maker’s law, and therefore we are afraid. But our Maker came from heaven to earth; Jesus, the Christ of God, came here, and was made man, and bore that we might never bear His Father’s righteous wrath, and whosoever believeth in Jesus shall find perfect rest in those dear wounds of His. Since Christ suffered for me, my guilt is gone, my punishment was endured by my Substitute, therefore do I hear the voice that saith, “Comfort ye, comfort ye My people! Say unto them, that their warfare is accomplished; for they have received at the Lord’s hand double for all their sins.” And as for future fears, he who believes in Jesus finds a refuge from them in the Fatherhood of God. He who trusts Christ, says: “Now I have no fear about the present, nor about the future. Let catastrophe follow catastrophe, let the world crash, and all the universe go to ruin; beneath the wings of the Eternal God I must be safe. All things must work together for my good, for I love God, and have been called according to His purpose.” What a blessed shelter this is! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

Individuality of Character

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

But now, O LORD, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we all are the work of Thy hand. – Isaiah 64:8

…as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats… – Psalm 104:17,18

Each creature has its appropriate place, and I believe that each constitution is meant, under the power of grace, to be suitable for a man’s position. I might wish to be of a different temperament from what I am-I sometimes think so, but in wiser moments, I would not wish to alter anything in myself but that which is sinful. Martin Luther might have wished that he had been as gentle as Melancthon, but then we might have had no reformation: Melancthon might certainly sometimes have wished that he had been as energetic as Martin Luther, but then Luther might have lacked his most tender comforter, if Melancthon had been as rough as he. Peter might have been improved if he had not been so rough, and John might possibly have been improved if he had been somewhat more firm; but after all, when God makes Peter he is best as Peter, and when He makes John he is best as John, and it is very foolish when Peter wants to be John, and when John pines to be Peter. Dear brethren, the practical matter is, be yourselves in your religion. Never attempt to counterfeit another’s virtues, nor try to square your experience according to another man’s feelings, nor endeavor to mould your character so that you may look as if you were like a certain good man whom you admire. No, ask the Lord, who made a new man of you, to let your manhood come out as He meant it, and whichever grace He meant to be prominent, let it be prominent. If you are meant to play the hero and rush into the thick of the battle, then let courage be developed; or if He designed you to lie in the hospital and suffer, then let patience have its perfect work; but ask the Lord to mould you after His own mind. As He finds a stork for a fir tree and a fir tree for a stork; a hill for a wild goat, and a wild goat for a hill; He will find a place for you, the man, and find for you, the man, the place that He has created for you, There His name shall be most glorified, and you shall be safest. Kick not against the pricks, but take kindly to the yoke, and serve your day and generation till your Master calls you home. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

No Two Alike

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

Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies. – Psalm 104:17,18

God has not made two creatures precisely alike. You shall gather leaves from a tree, and you shall not find two veined in precisely the same way. In Christian experience it is the same. Wherever there is living Christian experience, it is different from everybody else’s experience in some respect. In a family of children each child may be like its father, and yet each child shall be different from each other child; and amongst the children of God, though they all have the likeness of Christ in a measure, yet are they not all exactly the one like the other. You read the other day the life of John Bunyan, and you said, “Oh, if I had experience like John Bunyan, then I should know I was a child of God.” This was foolish. The biographies that are published in our magazines in many cases do some good, but more mischief; for there are Christian people who begin at once to say, “Have I felt precisely thus? Have I felt exactly that? If not, I am lost.” Hast thou felt thyself a sinner and Christ a Savior? Art thou emptied of self and dost thou look to Christ alone? Well, if no other soul hath trod the same path as thou hast done, thou art in a right path; and though thy experience may have eccentricities in it that differ from all others, it is right it should be so. God has not made the wild goat like the cony, nor has He made the stork like any other bird, but He has made each to fit the place it is to occupy, and He makes your experience to be suitable to the bringing out some point of His glory, which could not be brought out otherwise. Some are full of rejoicing, others are often depressed; a few keep the happy medium; many soar aloft, and then dive into the deeps again; let these varied experiences, as they are all equally clear phases of the same divine lovingkindness, be accepted, and let them be rejoiced in. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

Now, and Then

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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.

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Our Providential Position 

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

Where the birds make their nests… – Psalm 104:17

Birds with their nests for the cedars of Lebanon, storks for the fir trees, wild goats for the high hills, and conies for the rocks. Each of these creatures looks most beautiful at home. Go into the Zoological Gardens, and see the poor animals there under artificial conditions, and you can little guess what they are at home. A lion in a cage is a very different creature from a lion in the wilderness. The stork looks wretched in his wire pen, and you would hardly know him as the same creature if you saw him on the housetops or on the fir trees. Each creature looks best in its own place. Take that truth, now, and use it for yourself. Each man has by God a providential position appointed to him, and the position ordained for each Christian is that in which he looks best; it is the best for him and he is the best for that; and if you could change his position, and shift him to another, he would not be half as happy, nor half as useful, nor half so much himself. Put the stork on the high hills, put the wild goat on the fir trees-what monstrosities! Take my dear brother who has been a working-man this last twenty years, and always been a spiritually-minded man, and make him Lord Mayor of London, and you would spoil him altogether. Take a good hearer and set him preaching, and he would make a sorry appearance. A man out of place is not seen to advantage, you see the wrong side of him, the gracious side is hidden. The position in which God has placed me is the best for me. Let me remember this when I am grumbling and complaining. It may be I have got past that foolish discontent which is altogether selfish, but perhaps I repine because I think, if I were in a different position, I could glorify God more. This species of discontent is very insinuating, but let us beware of it. It is foolish to cry, “if I were placed in a different position, I could do so much more for God!” You could not do so much as you can do now. I am sure the goat would not show the wisdom of God so well in a fir tree, as he would up on a high hill; and you would not display the grace of God so well anywhere else as you can do where you are…God knows better than you what is best for you; bow your soul to His sovereign will. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

God’s Children May be Found in Strange Places

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 5 Comments

Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies. – Psalm 104:17,18

There are to be found God’s people in every city. Some of you are going away, it may be, to the ends of the earth, and this word may be comfortable to you. The Lord has an elect people everywhere. The wild goats are on the rocks, and the conies amongst the stones, and the storks in the trees. Go you where you will, you shall find that God has a living people; or if you should be sent to a country where as yet there are no converted men or women, let not that discourage you, but rather say, “I am sent with the purpose of finding out God’s elect, who as yet are hidden in sin. I am to be the instrument of finding out the Lord’s own blood-bought but hidden ones here.” When thou goest into a city that is given to idolatry, thou shalt hear it said to thee, “I have much people in this city;” go, therefore, and labor to find out the much people. Introduce the gospel, tell of the love of Jesus, and you shall soon find that your efforts are rewarded by the discovery of those who shall love your Savior, and delight in the same truth which now charms your heart. Do not believe that there is a rock without its wild goat; do not think that there is a fir-forest without its stork; or that there are to be found trees by the brook without their birds. Expect to find where God dwells that there are some who are sojourners with Him, as all their fathers were. I love to think that the Lord has His hidden ones even in churches that have sadly degenerated from the faith; and, although it is yours and mine to denounce error unsparingly, and with the iconoclastic hammer to go through the land and break the idols of all the churches in pieces as far as God gives us strength, yet there is not a lamb amongst Christ’s flock that we would disdain to feed; there is not the least of all His people, however mistaken in judgment, whom our soul would not embrace an ardent love. God, in nature, has placed life in singular spots, and so has He put spiritual life into strange out-of-the-way places, and has His own chosen where least we should look for them. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

The Tie of Brotherhood

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

The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies. – Psalm 104:18

I know it is the notion of the bigot, that all the truly godly people belong to the denomination which he adorns. Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is anybody else’s doxy who does not agree with me. All the good people go to little Bethel, and nowhere else: they all worship at Zoar, and they sing out of such-and-such a selection, and as for those who cannot say Shibholeth, and lay a pretty good stress on the “h,” but who pronounce it “Sibboleth;”let the fords of the Jordan be taken, and let them be put to death. True, it is not fashionable to roast them alive, but we will condemn their souls to everlasting perdition, which is the next best thing, and may not appear to be quite so uncharitable. Many suppose that because there is grievous error in a church, concerning an ordinance or a doctrine, therefore no living children of God are there. Ah, dear brethren, this severe opinion arises from want of knowing better. A mouse had lived in a box all its life, and one day crawled up to the edge of it and looked round on what it could see. Now the box only stood in a lumber room, but the mouse was surprised at its vastness and exclaimed: “How big the world is!” If some bigots would get out of their box, and only look a little way round them, they would find the realm of grace to be far wider than they dream. It is true that these pastures are a most proper place for sheep, but yet upon yonder hill-tops wild goats are pastured by the Great Shepherd. It is true that yonder plains covered with verdure are best fitted for cattle, but the Lord of all has His beasts in the forest, and His conies among the rocks…You may have to look a long while before you find these living things, but He sees them when you do not, and it is a deal more important to a cony for God to see it, than it is for a man to see it; and so it is an infinitely more weighty matter for a child of God for his Father to know that he is His child, than for his brother to know it. If my brother will not believe me to be a Christian, he cannot help being my brother; he may do what he will in his unkindness, but if I am one of God’s children, and he also is one, the tie of brotherhood cannot be broken between us…God, in nature, has placed life in singular spots, and so has He put spiritual life into strange out-of-the-way places, and has His own chosen where least we should look for them. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm