Character of Jesus

Singing Songs of Deliverance

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 4 Comments

Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place; Thou shalt preserve me from trouble; Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. – Psalm 32:6,7

We ought to praise our Lord Jesus Christ, and sing to our well-beloved a song, particularly when we have had a remarkable deliverance. “Thou shalt compass me about,” says David, “with songs of deliverance.” Were you raised from a bed of sickness? Have you passed through a great pecuniary difficulty? Through God’s help has your character been cleared from slander? Have you been helped in some enterprise, and prospered in the world? Have you seen a child restored from sickness, or a beloved wife once more given back to you from the gates of the grave? Have you just experienced the light of Christ’s countenance in your own soul? Has a snare been broken? Has a temptation been removed? Are you in a joyous frame of mind? “Is any merry? Let him sing psalms.” Oh! give your Well-beloved a song now the sun shines and the flowers bloom. When the year begins to turn and fair weather comes, the birds seem to feel it, and they renew their music. Do so, oh! believer. When the winter is past, and the rain is over and gone, fill the earth with your songs of gratitude. But remember, O believer, that you should sing your Well-beloved a song chiefly when it is not so with you, when sorrows befall. He giveth songs in the night. Perhaps there is no music so sweet as that which comes from the lip and heart of a tried believer. It is real then. When Job blessed God on the dunghill, even the devil himself could not insinuate that Job was a hypocrite. When Job prospered, then the devil said, “Doth Job serve God for naught?” but when he lost his all, and yet said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” then the good man shone like a star when the clouds are gone. Oh! let us be sure to praise God when things go ill with us…I will give to my Well-beloved extra music from my heart. He shall be praised by me now. Though He slay me, yet will I praise Him.” This is the part of a Christian. God help us ever to act it.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

When Our Soul First Perceives the Infinite Love of Jesus

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 4 Comments

Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. – Psalm 57:8; 108:2

The first occasion in which we must sing to His name is when our soul first perceives the infinite love of Jesus to us, when we receive the pardon of sin, when we enter into the marriage relationship with Christ as our bridegroom and our Lord. The song becomes the wedding feast. How should it be a marriage without joyfulness? Oh! do you remember, even years ago, do you not remember now that day when first you looked to Him and were lightened, and when your soul clasped His hands, and you and He were one? Other days I have forgotten, but that day never can I forget. Other days have mingled with their fellows, and, like coins which have been in circulation, the image and superscription have departed from them. That day when first I saw the Saviour is as fresh and distinct in all its outlines as though it were but yesterday coined in the mint of time. How can I forget it-that first moment when Jesus told me I was His, and my Beloved was mine? Were any of you saved last week? Did any of you find Jesus Christ at any of the meetings last week? Have you found Him this morning? Did a blessing come to you this afternoon? Then hallow the occasion, pour out your soul before the Most High. Now, if never before, let your Well-beloved have your choicest music. “Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp; I myself will wake right early. I will praise Thee, for though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is taken away and Thou comfortest me.”

Oh! I wish we often had broken through order and decorum, even, to give to our Lord a song. He well deserves it. Let not cold ingratitude freeze our praises on our lips.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

Do We Sing as Much as the Birds Do?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

“I will sing to my Well-beloved a song.”- Isaiah 5:1

“I will bless the LORD at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” – Psalm 34:1

We don’t sing enough, my brethren. How often do I stir you up about the matter of prayer, but perhaps I might be just as earnest about the matter of praise. Do we sing as much as the birds do? Yet what have birds to sing about, compared with us? Think you, do we sing as much as the angels do? yet were they never redeemed by the blood of Christ. Birds of the air, shall ye excel me? Angels of heaven, shall ye exceed me? Ye have done so, but I do intend to emulate you henceforth, and day by day, and night by night, pour forth my soul in sacred song.

We may sometimes thank God not only by feeling thankfulness and living thankfulness, and speaking our thanks, but by that silent blessing of Him which consists in patient suffering and accepting the evil as well as the good from Jehovah’s hand. That is often better thanksgiving than the noblest psalm that the tongue could utter. To bow down before Him and say, “Not my will, but Thine be done,” is to render Him a homage equal to the Hallelujahs of cherubim and seraphim. To feel not only resigned, but acquiescent, willing to be anything or nothing, according as the Lord would have it-this is, in truth, to sing to our Well-beloved a song.

Now having put this before you, that there are some times when we cannot sing, but that, as a rule, our life should be praise, let me come to the text again by saying that sometimes on choice occasions appointed by providence and grace our soul will be compelled to say, “Now, now if never before, now beyond all other occasions, I will sing to my Well-beloved a song.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

Thankfulness and Thanks-living

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 2 Comments

Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever. – Psalm 106:1

Suppose, my dear brother, you are not rich, be thankful that you have to eat and to drink, and wherewithal you may be clothed. Suppose, even, that you had not a hope of heaven, I might say to a man, “Be thankful that you are not in hell.” But to you, Christian, I would add, “Be thankful that you never will be there, and that, if just now your present joys do not overflow, yet “there remaineth a rest for the people of God”: let that console you. Is there ever a day in the year, or ever a moment in the day, in which the Christian ought not to be grateful? Our answer is not slow to give-there is never such a day, there is never such a moment. Always receiving blessings untold, and incalculably precious, let us always be magnifying the hand that gives them. Always, beloved, as we have been, before the foundations of the world with our names engraved on the Saviour’s hands; always redeemed by the precious blood; always preserved by the power of God which dwells in the Mediator; always secure of the heritage which is given to us in covenant by oath, by the blood of Christ-let us always be grateful, and, if not always singing with our lips, let us always be singing with our hearts.

Then, brethren, we ought to be always thanks-living. I think that is a better thing than thanksgiving-thanks-living. How is this to be done? By a general cheerfulness of manner, by an obedience to the command of Him by whose mercy we live, by a perpetual, constant, delighting ourselves in the Lord, and submission of our desires to His mind. Oh! I wish that our whole life might be a psalm; that every day might be a stanza of a mighty poem; that so from the day of our spiritual birth until we enter heaven we might be pouring forth sacred minstrelsy in every thought, and word, and action of our lives. Let us give Him thankfulness and thanks-living. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

Now Will I Sing to My Well-Beloved

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance 2 Comments

Now will I sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Beloved… – Isaiah 5:1

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. – Psalm 51:15

“Now will I sing.” Does not that imply that there were times when he who spake these words could not sing? “Now,” said he, “will I sing to my Well-beloved.” There were times, then, when his voice, and his heart, and his circumstances were not in such order that he could praise God. My brethren, a little while ago we could not sing to our Well-beloved, for we did not love Him, we did not know Him, we were dead in trespasses and sins. Perhaps we joined in sacred song, but we mocked the Lord. We stood up with His people, and we uttered the same sounds as they did, but our hearts were far from Him. Let us blush for those mock psalms; let us shed many a tear of repentance that we could so insincerely have come before the Lord Most High. After that, we were led to feel our state by nature, and our guilt lay heavy upon us. We could not sing to our Well-beloved then. Our music was set to the deep bass and in the minor key. We could only bring forth sighs and groans…Brethren in Christ Jesus, it is now some years ago since we believed in Christ, but since then there have been times when we could not sing. Alas! for us, there was a time when we watched not our steps, but went astray, when the flatterer led us from the strait road that leads to heaven, and brought us into sin; and then the chastisement of God came upon us, our heart was broken, until we cried out in anguish, as David did in the 51st Psalm. Then if we did sing, we could only bring out penitential odes, but no songs. We laid aside all parts of the book of Psalms that had to do with Hallelujah, and we could only groan forth the notes of repentance. There were no songs for us then, till at last Emmanuel smiled upon us once more, and we were reconciled again, brought back from our wanderings and restored to a sense of the divine favour. It is not always summer weather with the best of us. Though for the most part:

“We can read our title clear,
To mansions in the skies,”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

I Will Sing to My Beloved a Song!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 2 Comments

“Now will I sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Beloved.”- Isaiah 5:1

It was a prophet who wrote this, a prophet inspired of God. An ordinary believer might suffice to sing, but he counts it no stoop for a prophet, and no waste of his important time, to occupy himself with song. There is no engagement under heaven that is more exalting than praising God, and however great may be the work which is committed to the charge of any of us, we shall always do well if we pause awhile to spend a time in sacred praise. I would not wish to prefer one spiritual exercise before another, else I think I would endorse the saying of an old divine who said that a line of praise was better than even a leaf of prayer; that praise was the highest, noblest, best, most satisfying, and most healthful occupation in which a Christian man could be found. If these may be regarded as the words of the Church, the Church of old did well to turn all her thoughts in the direction of praising her God. Though the winning of souls be a great thing, though the edifying of believers be an important matter, though the reclamation of backsliders calls for earnest attention, yet never, never, never may we cease from praising and magnifying the name of the Well-beloved. This is to be our occupation in heaven: let us begin the music here, and make a heaven of the Church, even here below.

Oh! I wish I could bid you all say, “I will sing to my Beloved a song!” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

In Very Deed and Truth, He Shall Come

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen.- Revelation 22:20

Now, brethren, we are to expect, as long as this world lasts, that all things will shake that are to be moved. They will go on shaking. We call the world sometimes “terra firma”; it is not this world, surely, that deserves such a name as that; there is nothing stable beneath the stars; all things else will shake, and as the shaking goes on, Jesus Christ will, to those who know Him, become more and more their desire. I suppose, if the world went on, in some things mending and improving, and were to go up to a point, we should not want Christ to come in a hurry; we would rather that things should be perpetuated; but the shaking will make Christ more and more the desire of the nations…The Church will say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” She will say it with gathering earnestness; she will continue still to say it, though there are intervals in which she will forget her Lord, but still her heart’s desire will be that He will come; and at last He will surely come and bring to this world not only Himself, the desire of all nations, but all that can be desired, for those days of His, when He appeareth, shall be to His people as the days of heaven upon earth, the days of their honour, the days of their rest-the day in which the kingdoms shall belong unto Christ…Here is the great hope of that splendid building, the Church, which is desired. Her glory essentially lies in the Incarnate God, who has come into her midst. Her glory manifestly will lie in the second coming of that Incarnate God, when He shall be revealed from heaven to those that look and are waiting for and hasting unto the coming of the Son of God-looking for Him with gladsome expectation. And this is the joy of the Church…In propria persona-in very deed and truth, He shall come. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3442.cfm