Author: Sherry

Pray the Word

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

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” – John 16:13,14

Dear friends, whenever you want to understand a text of Scripture, try to read the original. Consult anybody who has studied what the original means; but remember that the quickest way into a text is praying in the Holy Ghost. Pray the chapter over. I do not hesitate to say that, if a chapter is read upon one’s knees, looking up at every word to Him that gave it, the meaning will come to you with infinitely more light than by any other method of studying it. “He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine and shall shew it unto you.” He shall re-deliver the Master’s message to you in the fullness of its meaning. take the words, and never dispute over them. Still, into their soul-fullness of meaning you cannot come until the Holy Ghost shall lead you into them. They that wrote them for you did not fully understand what they wrote in many instances. There were some of them who enquired and searched diligently to know what manner of things those were whereof the Holy Ghost had spoken to them, and of which He had made them speak. And you to whom the words come will have to do the same. You must go and say, “Great Master, we thank Thee for the Book with all our hearts; and we thank Thee for putting the Book into words; but now, good Master, we will not cavil over the letter, as did the Jews and the rabbis and the scribes of old, and so miss Thy meaning. Open wide the door of the words, that we may enter into the secret closet of the meaning; and teach us this, we pray Thee. Thou hast the key. Lead us in.”

Here is a text for us-“The things of Christ.” Christ speaks as if He had not any things just then which were specially His own, for He had not died then; He had not risen then; He was not pleading then as the great Intercessor in heaven. All that was to come. But still, He says, “Even now all things that the Father hath are Mine: all His attributes, all His glory, all His rest, all His happiness, all His blessedness. All that is Mine, and the Holy Ghost shall show that to you.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm

The Lord Leading; David Following

Sherry sermon Leave a comment

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

Inseparable

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

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. _ 2 Timothy 3:16,17

Let us never allow anybody to divide between the word of the apostles and the word of Christ. Our Savior has joined them together. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word.” And if any begin rejecting the apostolic word, they will be outside the number for whom Christ prays; they shut themselves out by that very fact. I wish that they would solemnly recollect that the word of the apostles is the word of Christ. He tarried not long enough, after He had risen from the dead, to give us a further exposition of His mind and will; and He could not have given it before His death, because it would have been unsuitable. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” After the descent of the Holy Ghost, the disciples were prepared to receive that which Christ spoke by His servants Paul and Peter, and James and John. Certain doctrines which we are sometimes taunted about as being not revealed by Christ, but by His apostles, were all revealed by Christ, every one of them. They can all be found in His teaching; but they are very much in the parabolic form. It is after He has gone up into glory and has prepared a people by His Spirit to understand the truth more fully, that He sends His apostles, and says, “Go forth, and open up to those whom I have chosen out of the world the meaning of all I said.” The meaning is all there, just as all the New Testament is in the Old; and sometimes I have thought that, instead of the Old being less inspired than the New, it is more inspired. Things are packed away more tightly in the Old Testament than in the New, if possible. There are worlds of meaning in one pregnant line in the Old Testament; and in Christ’s words it is just so. He is the Old Testament to which the Epistles come in as a kind of New Testament; but they are all one and indivisible; they cannot be separated. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm

The Holy Spirit’s Condescension

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

“He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” – John 16:14

What does the Holy Ghost do? Why, He deals with feeble men, yea, He dwells with us poor creatures. I can understand the Holy Ghost taking the things of Christ, and rejoicing therein; but the marvel is, that He should glorify Christ by coming and showing these things to us. And yet, brethren, it is among us that Christ is to get His glory. Our eyes must see Him. An unseen Christ is little glorious; and the things of Christ unknown, the things of Christ untasted and unloved seem to have lost their brilliance to a high degree. The Holy Spirit, therefore, feeling that to show a sinner the salvation of Christ glorifies Him, spends His time, and has been spending these centuries, in taking of the things of Christ, and showing them to us. Ah! it is a great condescension on His part to show them to us; but it is a miracle, too. I never could make up my mind which to admire most as an act of condescension, the incarnation of Christ, or the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. The incarnation of Christ is marvellous-that He should dwell in human nature; but observe, the Holy Ghost dwells in human nature in its sinfulness; not in perfect human nature, but in imperfect human nature; and He continues to dwell, not in one body, which was fashioned strangely for Himself, and was pure and without taint; but He dwells in our body. Know ye not that they are the temples of the Holy Ghost, which were defiled by nature, and in which a measure of defilement still remains, despite His indwelling? And this He has done these multitudes of years, not in one instance, nor in thousands of instances only, but in a number that no man can number. He continues still to come into contact with sinful humanity. Not to the angels, nor to the seraphim, nor to the cherubim, nor to the host who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, does He show the things of Christ; but He shall show them unto us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm

The Limited Holy Spirit

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

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come” – John 16:13

All things that Christ had heard from His Father He made known to us. He kept to them. And now the Spirit takes of the things of Christ, and of nothing else. Do not let us strain at anything new. The Holy Ghost could deal with anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneath-the story of the ages past, the story of the ages to come, the inward secrets of the earth. He could do it all. Like the Master, He could handle any topic He chose; but He confines Himself to the things of Christ, and therein finds unutterable liberty and boundless freedom. Do you think, dear friend, that you can be wiser than the Holy Spirit? …The Holy Spirit still exists, and works, and teaches in the church; but we have a test by which to know whether what people claim to be revelation is revelation or not: “He shall receive of Mine.” The Holy Ghost will never go farther than the cross, and the coming of the Lord. He will go no farther than that which concerns Christ.

Beloved friends, I scarcely need say to you, do keep the existence of the Trinity prominent in your ministry. Remember, you cannot pray without the Trinity. If the full work of salvation requires a Trinity, so does that very breath by which we live. You cannot draw near to the Father except through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit. There is a trinity in nature undoubtedly. There certainly constantly turns up the need of a Trinity in the realm of grace; and when we get to heaven we shall understand, perhaps, more fully what is meant by the Trinity in unity. But if that is a thing never to be understood, we shall at least apprehend it more lovingly; and we shall rejoice more completely as the three tones of our music shall rise up in perfect harmony unto Him who is one and indivisible, and yet is three, for ever blessed, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm

The Honey of Grace

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

“He (the Holy Spirit) shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore, said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you.”-John 16:14, 15

Ralph Erskine, in his preface to a sermon upon the fifteenth verse, has a notable piece. He speaks of grace as honey-honey for the cheering of the saints, for the sweetening of their mouths and hearts; but he says that in the Father “the honey is in the flower, which is at such a distance from us that we could never extract it.” In the Son “the honey is in the comb, prepared for us in our Immanuel, God-Man, Redeemer, the Word that was made flesh, saying, ‘All things that the Father hath are Mine; and Mine for your use and behoof’: it is in the comb. But then, next, we have honey in the mouth; the Spirit taking all things, and making application thereof, by showing them unto us, and making us to eat and drink with Christ, and share of these ‘all things’; yea, not only eat the honey, but the honeycomb with the honey; not only His benefits, but Himself.” It is a very beautiful division of the subject. Honey in the flower in God, as in mystery; really there. There never will be any more honey than there is in the flower. There it is. But how shall you and I get at it? We have not wisdom to extract the sweetness. We are not as the bees that are able to find it out. It is bee-honey, but not man-honey. Yet you see in Christ it becomes the honey in the honeycomb, and hence He is sweet to our taste as honey dropping from the comb. Sometimes we are so faint that we cannot reach out a hand to grasp that honeycomb; and alas! there was a time when our palates were so depraved that we preferred bitter things and thought them sweet. But now the Holy Ghost has come, we have got the honey in the mouth, and the taste that enjoys it; yea, we have now so long enjoyed it, that the honey of grace has entered into our constitution, and we have become sweet unto God; His sweetness having been conveyed by this strange method unto us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm

Our Holy Confidence

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

And he answered, “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them”…and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. – 2 Kings 6:16,17

Elisha’s young attendant, when his eyes were opened, saw that God’s people are safe. He perceived that there were more with Elisha, after all, than could possibly be against him, and he felt that he himself was safe as the servant of the servant of God. Thus, he believed in his master’s God, and found a shelter from his own fears. The invaders were flesh and blood, but the defenders were of fire, and thus were able to consume the adversaries at once. He saw, and saw it so joyfully, that God’s horses of fire, and chariots of fire, were more than a match for all the forces of evil. I pray that the eyes of every Christian person here may be so opened that they shall never doubt that the powers on the side of truth and righteousness and God are, after all, mightier than the hosts of evil. It may be that you live among those who scoff at your faith, and despise all that you hold dear; indeed, it seems that, wherever you turn, everybody is against you in this day of doubt. I think I hear you cry with David, “My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.” Courage, my comrade, God is near thee! His angels are keeping watch and ward about thee! We are not alone, for the Father is with us. Oh, that our eyes may be so opened as to see that more are they that are with us than all that are against us! Indeed, “if God be for us, who can be against us?” Let us be strangers to fear. In holy confidence, let us be “stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” Never allow a doubt as to the ultimate issue. Is God Himself your shield, and your exceeding great reward? Then, what can man do unto you? …Hold fast your integrity. Believe the truth of God even to the end, for the Lord Jesus will not fail, nor be discouraged, till all His foes are beneath His feet. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2215.cfm