Inward Piety

“The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.” – Psalm 19:9

“The fear of the Lord is clean.” The doctrine of truth is here described by its spiritual effect—namely, inward piety, or the fear of the Lord; this is clean in itself, and cleanses out the love of sin, sanctifying the heart in which it reigns. Mr. Godly-fear is never satisfied until every street, lane, and alley, yes, and every house and every corner of the town of Mansoul is clean rid of the Diablolonians who lurk therein.

“Enduring for ever.” Filth brings decay, but cleanness is the great foe of corruption. The grace of God in the heart being a pure principle, is also an abiding and incorruptible principle, which may be crushed for a time, but cannot be utterly destroyed. Both in the Word and in the heart, when the Lord writes, He says with Pilate, “What I have written, I have written.” He will make no erasures Himself, much less allow others to do so. The revealed will of God is never changed; even Jesus came not to destroy but to fulfill, and even the ceremonial law was only changed as to its shadow, the substance intended by it is eternal. When the governments of nations are shaken with revolution, and ancient constitutions are being repealed, it is comforting to know that the throne of God is unshaken and His law unaltered.

“The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” Jointly and individually the words of the Lord are true. That which is good in detail, is excellent in the mass. No exception may be taken to a single clause separately, or to the book as a whole. God’s judgments, all of them together, or each of them apart—are manifestly just, and need no laborious excuses to justify them. The judicial decisions of Jehovah, as revealed in the law, or illustrated in the history of His providence, are truth itself, and commend themselves to every truthful mind. Not only is their power invincible, but their justice is unimpeachable. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Your God Is Your Joy

…we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. – 2 Corinthians 5:1

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

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…a city.” A city is a place of genial associations. In a lonely hamlet one has little company. In a city, especially where all the inhabitants shall be united in one glorious brotherhood, the true communism of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity may be realised in the purest sense and highest possible degree.

Do not wonder, those of you who are the children of God, do not wonder if you have discomforts here. If you are what you profess to be, you are strangers: you do not expect men of this world to treat you as members of their community. If they do, be afraid. Dogs don’t bark as a man goes by that they know: they bark at strangers. When people persecute you and slander you, no marvel. If you are a stranger, they naturally bark at you. Do not expect to find the comforts in this world that you crave after, that your flesh would long for. This is our inn, not our home. We tarry for a night: we are away in the morning. We may bear the annoyances of the eventide and the night, for the morning will break so soon. Remember that your greatest joy, while you are a pilgrim, is your God. So the text says, “Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.” Do you want a richer source of consolation than you have? Here is one that can never be diminished, much less exhausted. When the created streams are dry, go to this eternal fountain, and find it ever springing up. Your joy is your God: make your God your joy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1030.cfm

Matchless Condescension This!

…wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God… – Hebrews 11:16

Have you not sometimes heard of a man who has become rich and has risen in the world, who has had some poor brother or some distant relative. When he has seen him in the street, he has been obliged to speak to him and own him. But oh, how reluctantly it was done. I dare say he wished him a long way off, especially if he had some haughty acquaintance with him at the time, who would perhaps turn round, and say, “Why, who is that wretched, seedy-looking fellow you spoke to?” He does not like to say, “That’s my brother;” or “That’s a relative of mine.” Not so our Lord Jesus Christ. However low His people may sink, He is not ashamed to call them brethren. They may look up to Him in all the depths of their degradation. They may call Him a brother. He is in very fact a brother, born for their adversity, able and ready to redress their grievances, He is not ashamed to call them brethren. One reason for this seems to me to be, because He does not judge of them according to their present circumstances, but much rather according to their pleasant prospects. He takes account of what He has prepared for them…You see his outward attire, not his inner self- you see the earthly tabernacle, but the spirit newborn, immortal and divine- you see not that. Howbeit, God does. Or, if you have spiritual discernment to perceive the spiritual creature, you only see it as it is veiled by reason of the flesh and beclouded by the atmosphere of this world; but He sees it as it will appear, when it shall be radiant like unto Christ, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. God sees the poorest, the least proficient disciple as a man in Christ; a perfect man come unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; such indeed as he will be in that day when he shall see Christ, for then he shall be like Him as He is.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/rsv/heb/11/15/s_1144016

We Are Their Spiritual Descendants

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. – Hebrews 11:13

The men of faith to whom the apostle referred in our text were not only strangers and pilgrims, but it is specially observed that they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They were a grand company. From a unit they had multiplied into a countless host. Sprang there not even of one, and him as good as dead, as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable? Now, brethren, you see we have here a very strong reason for not returning. It is because you are the descendants, the spiritual descendants, of the patriarchs… As you have glanced over the scroll of history, or narrowly scanned the records of men’s lives, the pomp of Pharaoh has not dazzled you, but the purity of Joseph has charmed you; the choice of Moses was to your taste, though it did involve leaving a court where he was flattered, for fellowship with enslaved kinsmen by whom he was suspected; and, you would rather have been with Daniel in the lions’ den than with Darius on the throne of his empire. You have transferred their strong will to your own deliberate choice. You have confessed as occasion served before the world, you have professed as duty called before the church, you have accepted the consequences as honesty demanded before angels and men. Therefore, in your heart of hearts you feel that you cannot go back. The vows of God are upon you. It is well they are. Review them often: refresh your memory with them frequently; recur to them and renew them in every time of trial and temptation. Howbeit, repent of them never, or woe betide you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1030.cfm

Grace Has Given Us A Good Desire

But now they desire a better country… _ Hebrews 11:16

It is a great thing to be desirous. “They desire a better country.” And, because we desire this better thing, we cannot go back and be content with things which gratified us once. More than that, if ever the child of God gets entangled for a while, he is uneasy by reason of it…No, no child of God can be content whatever he 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 not any 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 that which is suitable for the children. There is enough in the world for sinners, but 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 identified with citizens of it, they are ill at ease- their citizenship is in heaven, and they cannot rest anywhere but there. After all, we confess, and rejoice in the confession, that our best hopes are for things that are out of sight: our expectations are our largest possessions. The things that we have a title to, that we value, are ours to-day by faith: we do not enjoy them yet. But when our heirship shall be fully manifested, and we shall come to the full ripe age- oh, then shall we come into our inheritance, to our wealth, to the mansions, and to the glory, and to the presence of Jesus Christ our Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1030.cfm

Desires for a Better Country

And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city. – Hebrews 11:15,16

Notice how the text puts it: -“But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly.” Brethren, you 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, and brighter realities, have you been ever contented with earthly things and emptier vanities? Perhaps you have tried to fill your soul with the daintiest provisions the world can offer; to wit-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 gather a rose in this world that was altogether without a thorn? Hare 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 me, with you, with all my kinsfolk in Christ, and with all my yokefellows in His service. All God’s saints would confess that were the Lord 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 reply, “do not put me off with these biding presents; feed me not upon these husks…Give me Thyself, and take these all away, if so it please thee, but do not, my Lord, do not think I can be content with Egypt since I have set forth for Canaan, or that I can settle down in the wilderness now that I am journeying to the land of promise. We desire something better.” C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1030.cfm

Do Not Forsake Your Lord

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

The departures from the faith of those whom we highly esteem are, at least while we are young, very severe trials to us. We keenly suspect whether that religion can be true which was feigned so cunningly and betrayed so wantonly, by one who seemed to be a model, but proved to be a hypocrite. It staggers us: we cannot make it out. Opportunities to return you have now; but ah! may grace be given you so that, if others play the Judas, instead of leading you to do the same, it may only bind you more fast to your Lord, and make you walk more carefully, lest you also prove a son of perdition.

And ah, my brethren and sisters, if some of us were to return, we should have this opportunity-a cordial welcome from our former comrades. None of our old friends would refuse to receive us. There is many a Christian who, if he were to go back to the gaiety of the world, would find the world await him with open arms. He was the favourite of the ballroom once; he was the wit “that set the table in a roar;” he was the man who above all was courted when he moved in the circles of the vain and frivolous: glad enough would they be to see him come back. What a shout of triumph would they raise, and how would they fraternize with 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 for ever forget your kindred and your father’s house, so shall the King greatly desire your beauty, for He is the Lord, and worship you Him. Separation from the world will endear you to the Savior and bring you into conscious enjoyment of His presence; but, of opportunities to return (to the world) there is no lack. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1030.cfm