Character of Jesus

Have I the Spirit of God?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. -1 John 4:13

Have we ever had the Spirit of God in us? That is one of the most solemn questions I can ask. Many of you know what it is to be excited by religious feeling who never had the Spirit of God. Many of us have great need to tremble lest we should not have received that Spirit. I have tried myself scores of times, in different ways, to see whether I really am a posssessor of the Spirit of God or not. I know that the people of the world scoff at the idea, and say, “It is impossible for any body to have the Spirit of God.” Then it is impossible for any body to go to heaven; for we must have the Spirit of God, we must be born again of the Spirit, before we can enter there. What a serious question is this: “Have I had the Spirit of God in me? True, my soul is at times lifted on high, and I feel I could sing like a seraph. True, sometimes I am melted down by deep devotion, and I could pray in terrible solemnity. But so could hypocrites, perhaps. Have I the Spirit of God? Have you any evidence within you that you have the Spirit? Are you sure that you are not laboring under a delusion and a dream? Have you actually the Spirit of God within you? If so, you dwell in God…

“Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” The confession of our faith in the Saviour is another sign that we live in God. Oh! poor heart, canst thou not come under this sign? Thou mayest have but little boldness, but canst thou say, “I believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?” If so, thou dwellest in God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0046.cfm

 

Always Our Dwelling-Place

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

Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. -Psalm 90″1

God is the believer’s habitation. Sometimes, you know, people get turned out of their houses, or their houses tumble down about their ears. It is never so with ours: God is our dwelling-place throughout all generations. Let us look back in times past, and we shall find that God has been our habitation. Oh, the old house at home! who does not love it, the place of our childhood, the old roof-tree, the old cottage! There is no village in all the world half so good as that particular village where we were born! True, the gates, and stiles, and posts have been altered; but still there is an attachment to those old houses, the old tree in the park, and the old ivy-mantled tower. It is not very picturesque, perhaps, but we love to go to see it. We like to see the haunts of our boyhood. There is something pleasant in those old stairs where the clock used to stand; and in the room where grandmother was wont to bend her knee, and where we had family prayer. There is no place like that house after all! Well, beloved, God has been the habitation of the Christian in years that are gone by. Christian, your house is indeed a venerable house, and you have long dwelt there. You dwelt there in the person of Christ long before you were brought into this sinful world; and it is to be your dwelling-place throughout all generations. You are never to ask for another house; you will always be contented with that one you have; you will never wish to change your habitation. And if you wished it, you could not; for He is your dwelling-place in all generations. God give you to know what it is to take this house in its long lease, and ever to have God for your dwelling-place! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0046.cfm

At Home With God

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

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. -Psalm 46:1

In this pulpit I must somewhat check my words; I deal with men of the world who watch my speech, and are ever on the catch, men who wish to have this or that to retail, I must be on my guard. So you men of business, when you are on the exchange, or in your shops, have to guard yourselves. What does the man do at home? He can lay bare his breast, and do and say as he pleases; it is his own house, his dwelling-place; and is he not master there? Shall he not do as he will with his own? Assuredly; for he feels himself at home. Ah! my beloved, do you ever find yourself in God to be at home? Have you been with Christ, and told your secrets in His ear, and found that you could do so without reserve? We do not generally tell secrets to other people, for if we do, and make them promise that they will never tell them, they will never tell them except to the first person they meet…You must not trust men of the world; but do you know what it is to tell all your secrets to God in prayer, to whisper all your thoughts to Him? You are not ashamed to confess your sins to Him with all their aggravations; you make no apologies to God, but you put in every aggravation, you describe all the depths of your baseness. Then, as for your little wants, you would be ashamed to tell them to another; before God you can tell them all. You can tell Him your grief that you would not whisper to your dearest friend. With God you can be always at home, you need be under no restraint. The Christian at once gives God the key of his heart, and lets Him turn every thing over. He says, “There is the key of every cabinet; it is my desire that Thou wouldst open them all. If there are jewels, they are Thine; and if there be things that should not be there, drive them out. Search me, and try my heart.” The more God lives in the Christian, the better the Christian loves Him; the oftener God comes to see him, the better he loves his God. And God loves His people all the more when they are familiar with Him. Can you say in this sense, “Lord, Thou hast been my dwelling place?”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0046.cfm

Rest in A Land of Journeying

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

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. -Hebrews 4:9

How weary must Israel have been in the wilderness! How tired must have been the soles of their feet with their constant journeyings! They were not in a place of repose, luxury, and rest, but in a land of journeying, and weariness, and trouble. I think I see them traveling, wiping frequently the burning sweat from their brows, and saying, “O that we had a habitation where we might rest! O that we could enter a land of vines and pomegranates, a city where we might enjoy immunity from alarm! God has promised it to us, but we have not found it. There remaineth a rest for the people of God; O that we might find it.” Christian! God is your habitation in this sense. He is your rest; and you will never find rest except in Him. I defy a man who has no God to have a soul at rest. He who has not Jesus for his Saviour, will always be a restless spirit…

There is a holy calm and sweet repose which the Christian only knows, something like the slumbering stars up there in beds of azure; or like the seraphic rest which we may suppose beatified spirits have when they before the throne continually bow; there is a rest so deep and calm, so still and quiet, so profound, that we find no words to describe it. You have tried it, and can rejoice in it.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0046.cfm

Our Habitation

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

“Lord Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.”-Psalm 90:1

(Israel) must have been in a state of great uneasiness. At nightfall, or when the pillar (of fire) stayed its motion, the tents were pitched, and they laid themselves down to rest. Perhaps to-morrow, ere the morning sun had risen, the trumpet sounded, they stirred themselves from their beds and found the ark was in motion, and the fiery pillar was leading the way through the narrow defiles of the mountain up the hillside, or along the arid waste of the wilderness..They must have no attachment to the place, they must have nothing of what we call comfort, ease, and peace; but be always journeying, always traveling…They had little ease; but behold the contrast which Moses, the man of God, discerns with gratitude, “Thou art not our tent, but Thou art our dwelling-place. Though we are uneasy here, though we are tossed from side to side by troubles, though we travel through a wilderness, and find it a rough pathway, though when we sit down here we know not what comfort means…’Lord, Thou art to us comfort, Thou art a house and habitation.'”

Have you ever known what it is to have God for your dwelling-place in the sense of comfort?…Do you know what it is to lie on God, to give up all care, to drive anxiety away, and there-not in a recklessness of spirit, but in a holy carelessness-to be careful for nothing, “but in every thing by supplication to make known your wants unto God?” If so you have gained the first idea; “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place throughout all generations.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0046.cfm

Sinner, Come Now to Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, prayer, promises, salvation 4 Comments

Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. – Matthew 11:28

Some of you are speeding your way to hell blindfolded…I do not deceive you, you are going to perdition as fast as time can carry you. Some of you are deceiving yourselves with the thought that you are righteous, and you are not so. Many of you have had solemn warnings, and have never been moved by them…Hundreds of you are without God, and without Christ, …and may I not plead with you?…Why, poor hearts, do you know your sad condition? Do you know that “God is angry with the wicked every day;” that “the way of transgressors is hard;” that “he that believeth not is condemned already?” Has it never been told you that “he that believeth not shall be damned? “and can you stand damnation? My hearers could you make your bed in hell? Could you lie down in the pit? Do you think it would be an easy portion for your souls to be rocked on waves of flames for ever, and to be tossed about with demons in the place where hope cannot come? You may smile now, but you will not smile soon. God sends me as an ambassador now; but if ye listen not to me, He will not send an ambassador next time, but an executioner. There will be no wooing words of mercy soon: the only exhortation thou wilt hear will be the dull cold voice of death, that shall say, “Come with me.” Then thou wilt not be in the place where we sing God’s praises, and where righteous prayers are daily offered. The only music thou wilt hear will be the sighs of the damned, the shrieks of fiends, and the yellings of the tormented. O may God in His mercy snatch you as brands from the fire, to be trophies of His grace throughout eternity. The way to be saved is to “renounce thy works and ways with grief,” and fly to Jesus…If thou will confess that thou art a sinner, that is all God requires of thee, and even that He gives thee. Jesus Christ says “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Do you hear His wooing words? Will ye turn from His sweet looks of mercy? Has His cross no influence? have His wounds no power to bring you to His feet?

…If thou wilt with thine heart believe, and with thy mouth confess the Lord Jesus, thou shalt be saved, for “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0045.cfm

Backslider, God Loves Thee Still!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father 3 Comments

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. – Luke 15:24

Poor backslider, thou wast once a Christian. Dost thou hope thou wast? “No,” sayest thou, “I believe I deceived myself and others; I was no child of God.” Well, if thou didst, let me tell thee, that if thou wilt acknowledge that, God will forgive thee. Suppose you did deceive the church, thou art not the first that did it. There are some members of this church, I fear, who have done so, and we have not found them out. I tell you your case is not hopeless. That is not the unpardonable sin. Some who have tried to deceive the very elect have yet been delivered; and my Master says He is able to save to the uttermost (and ye have not gone beyond the uttermost) all who come unto Him. Come thou, then, to His feet, cast thyself on His mercy; and though thou didst once enter His (church) as a spy, He will not hang thee up for it, but will be glad to get thee anyhow as a trophy of mercy. But if thou was a child of God, and canst say honestly, “I know I did love Him, and He loved me,” I tell thee He loves thee still. If thou hast gone ever so far astray, thou art as much His child as ever. Though thou hast run away from thy Father, come back, come back, He is thy Father still. Think not He has unsheathed the sword to slay thee. Say not, “He has cast me out of the family.” He has not. His bowels yearn over thee now. My Father loves thee; come then to His feet, and He will not even remind thee of what thou hast done. The prodigal was going to tell his Father all his sins, and to ask him to make him one of his hired servants, but the father stopped his mouth. He let him say that he was not worthy to be called his son, but he would not let him say, “make me as an hired servant.” Come back and thy Father will receive thee gladly; He will put His arms around thee and kiss thee with the kisses of His love, and He will say, “I have found this My son that was lost; I have recovered this sheep that had gone astray.” My Father loved thee without works, He justified thee irrespective of them; thou hast no less merit now than thou hadst then. Come and trust and believe in Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0045.cfm