Character of Jesus

Live for Eternity, Live for Christ’s Glory and Live to Win Souls

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

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. – Philippians 1:21

It is a dreadful thing to see men, who profess to be Christians, unwilling to die. Should it be so that, when we feel ourselves ill, and likely to die, we should have a host of matters to arrange and many regrets to express? Dear brethren, begin your regrets earlier, while there is time to retrieve the past. Regret now, and ask for grace now to do all that is in you for Him who loved you, and bought you with His blood. As for you who have no redeeming blood upon you, I do not marvel that you live to yourselves. O you who despise Christ, I do not wonder if you despise yourselves so much as to be the slaves of pleasure! But you, who are the elect of God, who are bought by the blood of Jesus, who are called by His Spirit, who profess to be His people—you have nobler things to live for. I pray you, make us not to be ashamed of you by living as if you were mere worldlings, who have their portion in this life. Live for eternity. Live for Christ’s glory. Live to win souls. Behave as occupiers under a Royal Owner should behave. With such a Landlord, the best in the whole universe, be also the best of tenants, and evermore be mindful of the time of your removal to another land…

“Gird up your mind to contemplation, trembling inhabitant of the earth; Tenant of a hovel for a day, you are heir of the universe forever! For, neither congealing of the grave, nor gulphing waters of the firmament, nor expansive airs of heaven, nor dissipative fires of Gehenna, nor rust of rest, nor wear, nor waste, nor loss, nor chance, nor change, shall avail to quench or overwhelm the spark of soul within thee!”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Leaving Behind Holy Memories

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life 3 Comments

Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live. – 2 Kings 20:1

Whitefield used to tell a story of a young man who could not live in the house where his old father had dwelt, because he said, “Every chair in it smelt of piety.” He was a wicked, godless, rebellious, Christless man, and he could not stay where his father’s holiness would force itself upon his memory and rebuke him. Oh, I would like to make every chair in my house like that, so that when my boy comes into possession of it, he will think, “Why, there my father sat to study God’s Word, and there he used to kneel in prayer, and now I have his house, I must imitate his ways.” A dear man of God, who has now gone to heaven, took me into his study one day and said to me, “You see that spot?” “Yes.” “Well, that is the place where my dear wife used to kneel to pray and that is where, one morning, when I came to look for her, as she did not come down to breakfast, I found her dead.” “Oh!” said he, “that is holy ground.” And so it was, for she was a very gracious woman. Oh, that we may so live that everything we leave behind us may be like Abel’s blood that cried from the ground! May our habits and manners be such that, after our death, everything associated with us may be perfumed with holy memories! God make it so! God make it so!

Beloved friend in Christ, do try that everything may be in order for your dying, and everything now prepared for your departure, if it should happen tonight. Do it for the church’s sake. So live that when the church misses you, there shall be left behind you your gracious memory and your holy example to inspire those who will mourn your departure. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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House Cleaning

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

“Thus says the LORD: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.’ ” – 2 Kings 20:1

Our body, our property, our family, this present life, and all its surroundings are in the text described as our house. As believers in Jesus Christ, if there is anything deficient in us, if there be anything excessive in us, if there be aught that is contrary to the Lord’s mind and will, may the Holy Spirit come and correct it all, so that our house may be set in order!.. Some of your houses need sweeping. The dust and filth of sin are lying all over the floors. You want the precious blood to be sprinkled, or else if the Lord begins to sweep with the bosom of the law, it will happen, as Bunyan tells us, that the dust will be enough to choke your prayers or blind the eyes of your faith. May the Gospel come and sprinkle the water of grace and then may Christ come in and sweep your house. But you need more than sweeping—your house wants washing. Every floor needs cleansing and there is no one but the Lord Jesus Christ who can do this. Nothing can make you clean but His blood. In many of your houses the windows are very filthy and the light of the glorious Gospel cannot enter, so as to bring with it an intelligent conception of the things of God. Oh, that this may be set right! The very drainage in some men’s houses is neglected. Many a foul thing stagnates, ferments, and pollutes their souls. Ah! what is there that is in order in the unregenerate man? To every one in that state, the text calls loudly, “Set thine house in order.” But sirs, unless Christ comes to help you, it is a hopeless task. Unless Christ and His Holy Spirit come to the rescue, your houses will remain out of order still, everything filthy and everything disarranged, and when the great King shall come and find it so, woe unto you, woe unto you, in the day of His appearing! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Are You Ready for Judgement Day?

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

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. – Hebrews 9:27

Do you ask, “What is God’s order?”You can see, by reading the twentieth chapter of the Book of Exodus what His thought of order was when He wrote the ten commands. You can learn what His order is under the Gospel, for we read that a new commandment has Christ given to us, that we love one another. And yet again, “This is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.” Dear friend, is your house, in this sense, right with God? If, at this moment, you had to surrender possession, is everything ordered as you would wish it to be? If the arrow of death should now fly through this sanctuary and find a target in your heart at this moment, is it all right, is it all right, IS IT ALL RIGHT, as you would wish to have it when God’s eye shall look upon you in the day of judgment? What if in a single moment we should see the heavens on a blaze, and the earth should rock beneath our feet, and the dead should rise from their sepulchres? What if, instead of this Tabernacle and its gathered crowd, we should now suddenly see the King Himself upon the great white throne and hear the archangel’s trumpet ringing out the notes, “Awake, ye dead, and come to judgment,” is everything with us as we should like to have it for the blaze of that tremendous day and the inspection of that awful Judge? Happy is that man who can say, “I have committed all to Christ—my body, soul, and spirit—all my powers and all my affections. I have committed all to Him by faith and prayer, so, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly for it is all right even now.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Our Chief Business

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

Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. – Isaiah 38:1

We are to set our house in order, that is, our own house. Some persons are very busy setting other people’s houses in order and oh, how fast their tongues will go when they are sweeping out their neighbor’s kitchen or dusting out his cupboard! Set your own houses in order, sirs, before you attempt to arrange the affairs of other people. Again, the tenant himself must do it. “Set thine house in order.” You must not leave it to a priest. You must not ask your fellow man to become responsible for you. You must make personal application to Him who can set all in order for you, even to Him who came into the world and died for this very purpose. If you need oil for your lamps, you must go to them that sell and buy for yourselves, for your fellow virgins can give you none of their oil. Set your own house in order. This is the chief business of every living man as a tenant under God…What kind of order is my house to be set in? My conscience will help to tell me that. An enlightened conscience tells us in what kind of order our heart, our family, and our business should be. By its teachings, we may learn how all the departments of the house should be ordered. It cannot be right that the body should be master over the soul—conscience tells us that…Conscience says that the heart is never right till the whole man is in Christ—till, by a living faith, we have embraced Jesus as our full salvation and have received the Holy Spirit as our Sanctifier. We are never right till we are right with conscience, and conscience tells us that we are never right till we are right with God. “Set thine house in order.” Obey the inward monitor, listen to the still small voice, and prepare to meet your God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Willing Slaves

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, the unbelieving life 1 Comment

You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. – Romans 6:16

I am often amazed in my soul at what men will do for that black master, the devil. Why, sirs, the devil will sometimes summon men to one of his conventicles at the street corner, where the gas is flaming, and they will cheerfully obey the summons…These willing slaves drink at their master’s bidding, though the cup makes their brain reel, sets their heart on flame, and makes them unable to keep their feet. Yes, and when he still cries, “Drink, yea, drink abundantly,” these faithful servants swallow down the poison till they lie down like logs, or roar like demons. They will keep putting the cup of death to their lips, till delirium tremens comes upon them and possesses them as with hell itself. Thousands obediently render homage to Satan by drinking away their lives and ruining their souls. How much further they go in serving their master than we do in following ours! Yes, Satan is marvelously well-obeyed by his servants. His rent is regularly paid, and yet he is not the rightful owner, and has no title to the house of manhood. Yes, men will even run after him to offer their homage. They will throw down their lives before his juggernaut car of profligacy and cast themselves beneath its wheels, while the golden chariot of Christ, paved with love for men, traverses their streets, and they have not a word of acclamation or of praise for that Prince of Peace. O come, you servants of Jesus, and be ashamed of this! Come and render to your Lord your full service. Throw your hearts’ enthusiasm into your religion. Be at least as earnest for God as others are for the devil. Be at least as self-denying and self-sacrificing as they are who run the mad career of sin. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Our Great Landlord

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Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Selah – Psalm 68:19

There is this clause in the lease, which I am afraid some have never observed, namely, that the Landlord has at all times the right of ingress and egress over His own property. I thank God that some of us have yielded to the Lord this right, and now our prayer often is that He would come into our house, and search us, and try us, and know our ways, and see if there be any evil way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting. Time was when the last thing we wished for was the presence of God, when we said to Him, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” But now, being renewed by His Spirit, we say to Him, “Abide with us.” Beloved friend, are you always ready to open the door of your heart to God’s inspection? Do you delight in heavenly communion? Do you constantly invite the Lord Jesus to come in and sup with you, and you with Him? If not, you are forgetting one great clause in your lease, and let me also say, you are forgetting the greatest privilege that men can enjoy beneath the stars. It is well for me to recall to your memories that, according to our tenure, our great Landlord permits us to call upon Him to execute all repairs. Our circumstances are apt to grow straitened, and He it is who gives us power to get wealth, He daily loads us with benefits. When our bodily tabernacle is shaken, He it is who heals all our diseases. When our sorrows and wants multiply, He it is who satisfies our mouth with good things, so that our youth is renewed like the eagle’s…Jesus is the beloved Physician. If we had more faith in God and resorted more often to Him by prayer and faith, the prescriptions of the medical man might be more often wise, and his medicines more frequently useful. The Lord, who made our house, best knows how to repair the tenement and He permits us to resort to Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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