Character of Jesus

The City of an Abiding Happiness

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

…for He hath prepared for them a city. -Hebrews 11:16

I delight to preach a free gospel, and to preach it to every creature under heaven; but we must never forget the speciality-“He hath prepared for them a city.” That is, for such as are strangers and foreigners, for such as have faith, and therefore have left the world and gone out to follow Christ. He hath prepared for them, not for all of you, but only for such as He has prepared for the city, has He prepared the city. But note what it is. It is a city, which indicates, first, an abiding happiness. They dwelt in tents-Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but He has prepared for them a city. Here we are tent-dwellers, but the tent is soon to be taken down. “We know that this earthly house of our tent shall be dissolved, but we have a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.” “He hath prepared for them a city.” A city is a place of social joy. In a lonely hamlet one has little company, but in a city much. There all the inhabitants shall be united in one glorious brotherhood-the true Communism; Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, in the highest possible degree. There shall be delightful intercourse. “He hath prepared for them a city.” It is a city, too, for dignity. To be a burgess of the City of London is thought to be a great honour, and upon princes is it sometimes conferred; but we shall have the highest honour that can be given when we shall be citizens of the city which God has prepared. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3478.cfm

He Calls Himself Their God

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

Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city. -Hebrews 11:16

Because they are strangers, and because they will not go back to their old abode, therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. He might be. What poor people God’s people are-poor many of them in circumstances, but how many of them I might very well call poor as to spiritual things! I do not think if any of us had such a family as God has, we should ever have patience with them. We cannot even have, when we judge ourselves rightly, patience with ourselves; but how is it that God bears with the ill-manners of such a froward, weak, foolish, forgetful people as His people are? He might well be ashamed to be called their God if you look upon them as they are. Own them-how can He own them? Does He not Himself sometimes say of them, “How can I put thee among the children?” and yet He does. Viewed as they are, they are such a rabble in many respects that it is marvelous He is not ashamed of them; and yet He never is; and to prove that He is not ashamed of them we have this fact, that He calls Himself their God, “I will be your God,” and He oftentimes seems to speak of it as a very joyful thing to His own heart. “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” and while He calls Himself their God, He never forbids them to call Him their God; and in the presence of the great ones of the earth they may call Him their God-anywhere. He is not ashamed that it should be so. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3478.cfm

Let Us Keep Our Desires Wide Awake

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 2 Comments

For our citizenship is in heaven… -Philippians 3:20

Whatever we may find in this world, we shall never find a heaven here. We may hunt the world through, and say, ‘This looks like a little paradise,” but there is no paradise this side of the skies-for a child of God at any rate. There is enough out there in the farmyard for the hogs, but there is not for the children. There is enough in the world for sinners, but there is not for saints. They have stronger, sharper, and more vehement desires, for they have a nobler life within them, and they desire a better country; and even if they get entangled for a while in this country, and in a certain measure become citizens of it, they are still uneasy; their citizenship is in heaven, and they cannot rest anywhere but there…Our expectations are our largest possessions. The things that we have, that we value, are ours today by faith. We don’t enjoy them yet, but when our heirship shall be fully manifested, and we shall come to the full ripe age, oh! then we shall come into our wealth, to the mansions and to the glory and to the presence of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let us think of heaven, of Christ, of all the blessings of the covenant, and let us thus keep our desires wide awake. The more they draw us to heaven the more we shall be separated from earth.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3478.cfm

“All is Vanity…Give Me Thyself!”

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

But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly… -Hebrews 11:16

An insatiable desire has been implanted in us by divine grace, which urges us to

“Forget the steps already trod,
And onward press our way.”

Notice how the text puts it, “But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly.” Brethren, we desire something better than this world. Do you not? Has the world ever satisfied you? Perhaps it did when you were dead in sin. A dead world may satisfy a dead heart, but ever since you have known something of better things have you ever been contented with the world? Perhaps you have tried to fill your soul with worldly things. God has prospered you, and you have said, “Oh! this is well!” Your children have been about you; you have had many household joys, and you have said, “I could stay here for ever.” Did not you find very soon that there was a thorn in the flesh? Did you ever get a rose in this world that was altogether without a thorn? Have you not been obliged to say, after you have had all that the world could give you, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”? I am sure it has been so with you. All God’s saints will confess that if the Lord were to say to them, “You shall have all the world, and that shall be your portion,” they would be broken-hearted men. “Nay, my Lord,” they would say, “don’t put me off so, don’t give me these husks, though Thou give mountains of them. Thou art more glorious than all the mountains of praise. Give me Thyself, and take these all away if it so please Thee, but don’t my Lord, don’t think I can fill myself with these things.” We desire something better. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3478.cfm

The Highest, Strongest, Noblest Bond

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

Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him. Hebrews 10:38

There is many a Christian who, if he were to go back to the gaiety of the world, would find the world receive him with open arms. He was the favourite of the ballroom once; he was the wit that set the table on a roar; he was the man who, above all, was courted when he moved in the circle of the vain and frivolous; glad enough would they be to see him come back. What shouts of triumph would they raise, and how would they welcome him! Oh! may the day never come to you, you young people especially, who have lately put on the Lord Jesus Christ and professed His name, when you shall be welcomed by the world; but may you forever forget also your own kindred and your father’s house, so shall the King greatly desire your beauty, for He is your Lord, and worship you Him. Separation from the world shall endear you to the Saviour, and bring you conscious enjoyment of His presence…

These opportunities to return (to the world of sin) are meant to try your faith, and they are sent to you to prove that you are a volunteer soldier. Why, if grace was a sort of chain that manacled you so that you could not leave your Lord, if it had become a physical impossibility for you to forsake your Saviour, there would be no credit in your abiding faithful to Him. He that does not run away because his legs are weak, does not prove himself a hero, but he that could run, but won’t run, that could desert his Lord, but won’t desert Him, has within him a principle of grace stronger than any fetter could be-the highest, strongest, noblest bond that unites a man to the Saviour. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3478.cfm

“Wilt Thou Forsake Me, Too?”

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. -Romans 7:24-25

Ah! how often will our imagination paint sin in very glowing colours, and though we loathe the sin and loathe ourselves for thinking of it, yet how many a man might say, “Had it not been for divine grace, my feet had almost gone, my steps had well-nigh slipped.” How strong is the evil in the best man, how stern is the conflict to keep under the body, lest corruption should prevail! You may be diligent in secret prayer, and perhaps the devil may have been asleep till you begin to pray, and when you are most fervent then will he also become most rampant. When you get nearest to God, Satan will sometimes seem to get nearer to you…Oh! this flesh, this body of this death-wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from it?

If you want to go back to sin, to carnality, to a love of the world, to your old condition, you never need to be prevented from doing so by want of opportunities. It will be something else that will prevent you, for these opportunities are plentiful indeed.
Opportunities to return are often furnished by the examples of others.

“When any turn from Zion’s way,
Alas! what numbers do!
Methinks I hear my Saviour say,
Wilt thou forsake me too?” 

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3478.cfm

In This World We Have No Home

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city. -Hebrews 11:16

Abraham left his country at God’s command and he never went back again. The proof of faith lies in perseverance…The Apostle tells us, however, that the people of God were not forced to continue because they could not return…Frequent opportunities came in their way. There was communication kept up between them and the old family house at Padan-Aram. They had news concerning the family house. More than that, there were messages exchanged; servants were sometimes sent. There was also a natural relationship kept up. Did not Rebekah come from thence? And Jacob, one of the patriarchs, was driven to go down into the land; but he could not stay there; he was always unrestful, until at last he stole a march upon Laban and came back to the proper life, the life that he had chosen-the life that God had commanded him to live-of a pilgrim and stranger in the land of promise. .

Now our position is a very similar one. As many of us as have believed in Christ Jesus have been called out… I trust we know what it is to have gone without the camp bearing Christ’s reproach. Henceforth in this world we have no home…Our home is beyond the flood. We are looking for it among the unseen things. We are strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were; dwellers in this wilderness, passing through it to reach the Canaan which is to be the land of our perpetual inheritance. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3478.cfm