Christian Life

Opportunities to Return

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. – Hebrews 11:15

How often have professors, when they have prospered, found opportunities to return! I sigh to think of many that appeared to be very earnest Christians when they were struggling for bread, who have become very dull and cold now that they have grown rich and increased in goods…Beware of the high places: they are very slippery. There is not all the enjoyment you may think to be gathered in retirement and in ease. On the contrary, luxury often pulleth up, and abundance makes the heart to swell with vanity. If any of you are prospering in this world, oh watch, for you are in imminent danger of being mindful to return to the place whence you came out.

But, the peril is as instant every whit in adversity. Alas, I have had to mourn over Christian men-at least I thought they were such-who have waxed very poor, and when they have grown poor, they hardly felt they could associate with those they knew in better circumstances. I think they were mistaken in the notion that they would be despised. I should lie ashamed of the Christian who would despise his fellow, because God was dealing with him somewhat severely in Providence…It is only God’s grace that can keep your graces alive under such circumstances. You see, whether you grow rich or whether you grow poor, you will have these opportunities to return. 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 and countless. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

But for the Divine Grace of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. Hebrews 11:15

It is a wonder of wonders that we have not gone back to the world, with its sinful pleasures and its idolatrous customs. When I think of the strength of divine grace, I do not marvel that saints should persevere; but, when I remember the weakness of their nature, it seems a miracle of miracles that there should be one Christian in the world who could maintain his steadfastness for a single hour. It is nothing short of Godhead’s utmost stretch of might that keeps the feet of the saints and preserves them from going back to their old unregenerate condition. We have had opportunities to have returned. My brethren, we have such opportunities in our daily calling. Some of you are engaged in the midst of ungodly men, and those engagements supply you with constant opportunities to sin as they do, to fall into their excesses, to lapse into their forgetfulness of God, or even to take part in their blasphemies. Oh, have you not often strong inducements, if it were not for the grace of God, to become as they are? Or, if your occupation keeps you alone, yet, my brethren, there is one who is pretty sure to intrude upon our privacy, to corrupt our thoughts, to kindle strange desires in our breasts, to tantalise us with morbid fancies, and to seek our mischief. The Tempter he is, the Destroyer he would be, if we were not delivered from his snares. Ah, how frequently will solitude have temptations as severe as publicity could possibly bring. There are perils in company, but there are perils likewise in our loneliness. We have many opportunities to return…. Opportunities to return! Ah! Who that knows himself does not find strong, incentives to return. Ah! how often will our imagination paint sin in very glowing colors, and, though we loathe sin and loathe ourselves for thinking of it, yet how many a man might say, “had it not been for divine grace, where should I have been? -for my feet had almost gone, my steps had well-nigh slipped.” C.H. Spurgeon

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

The Proof of Faith

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

“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, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.”-Hebrews 11:15-16.

Abraham left his country at God’s command, and he never went back again. The proof of faith lies in perseverance. There is a sort of faith which does run well, but it is soon hindered, and it doth not obey the truth. That is not the faith to which the promise is given. The faith of God’s elect continues and abides. Being connected with the living and incorruptible seed, it lives and abides forever. Abraham returned not; Isaac returned not; Jacob returned not. The promise was to them as “strangers and sojourners,” and so they continued. The apostle tells us, however, that they were not forced so to continue; they did not remain because they could not return. Had they been mindful of the place from whence they came out, they might have found opportunities to go back. Frequent opportunities came in their way; there was communication kept up between them and the old family house at Padan-Aram: they had news sometimes from the old quarters. More than that, there were messages exchanged, servants were sometimes sent, and you know there was a new relation entered into-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, till at last he stole a march upon Laban and came back into the proper life-the life which he had chosen, the life which God had commanded him, the life of a pilgrim and a stranger in the land of promise. You see, then, they had many opportunities to have returned, to have settled comfortably, and tilled the ground as their fathers did before them; but they continued to follow the uncomfortable shifting life of wanderers of the weary foot, who dwelt in tents, who own no foot of land-they were aliens in the country which God had given them by promise.

As many of us as have believed in Christ have been called out. The very meaning of a church is, “called out by Christ.” We have been separated. 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, no true home for our spirits; our home is beyond the flood; we are looking for it amongst 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/1030.cfm

Sweet, Hearty and Wise Counsel

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

…and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor… – Isaiah 9:6

You have gone to your Master in the day of trouble, and in the secret of your chamber you have poured out your heart before Him. You have laid your case before Him, with all its difficulties, as Hezekiah did Rabshakeh’s letter, and you have felt, that though Christ was not there in flesh and blood, yet He was there in spirit, and He counselled you. You felt that His was counsel that came from the very heart. But He was something better than that. There was such a sweetness coming with His counsel, such a radiance of love, such a fullness of fellowship, that you said, ” Oh that I were in trouble every day, if I might have such sweet counsel as this!” Christ is the Counsellor whom I desire to consult every hour, and I would that I could sit in His secret chamber all day and all night long, because to counsel with Him is to have sweet counsel, hearty counsel, and wise counsel, all at the same time.

Tried child of God, your daughter is sick; your gold has melted in the fire; you are sick yourself, and your heart is sad. Christ counsels you, and He says, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord; He will sustain thee; He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.” Young man, you that are seeking to be great in this world, Christ counsels you this morning. “Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not.” I shall never forget Midsummer Common. I was ambitious; I was seeking to go to college, to leave my poor people in the wilderness that I might become something great; and as I was walking there that text came with power to my heart-“Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not.” “Lord,” said I, “I will follow Thy counsel and not my own devices;” and I have never had cause to regret it. Always take the Lord for thy guide, and thou shalt never go amiss. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0215.cfm

Seek God’s Guidance

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

Seek the LORD, and His strength: seek His face evermore. – Psalm 105:4

Some how or other, brethren, it is not good for man to be alone. A lonely man must be, I think, a miserable man, and a man without a counsellor, I think, must of necessity go wrong. “Where there is no counsellor,” says Solomon, “the people fall.” I think most persons will find it so. A man says, “Well, I’ll have my own way, and I will ask nobody.” Have it, sir, -have it-and you will find that in having your own way you have probably had the worst way you could…Some take counsel of stocks and stones. We know many who counsel at the hands of foolish charms, instead of going to Christ. They shall have to learn that there is but one Christ, who is to be trusted; and that however necessary a counsellor may be, yet none other shall be found to fulfill the necessity, but Jesus Christ the Counsellor.

So sure as we do anything without asking counsel of God, we fall into trouble… You and I will have to learn how necessary it is always to take advice of God. Did you ever seek God’s advice on your knees about a difficulty and then go amiss? Brethren, I can testify for my God that when I have submitted my will to His directing Spirit, I have always had reason to thank Him for His wise counsel. But when I have asked at His hands, having already made up my own mind, I have had my own way, but like as He fed the Israelites with the quails of heaven, while the meat was yet in their mouth, the wrath of God came upon them. Let us take heed always that we never go before the cloud. He that goes before the cloud goes a fool’s errand and will be glad to get back again. An old puritan used to say, “He that carves for himself will cut his fingers. Leave God to carve for you in providence, and all shall be well. Seek God’s guidance and nothing can go amiss.” It is necessary counsel. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0215.cfm

Events Ordained in the Person of Jesus Christ

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

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!.. – Romans 11:33

Do you and I want to know what was said and done in the great council of eternity? Yes, we do. I will defy any man, whoever he may be, not to want to know something about destiny…Beloved, there is only one glass through which you and I can look back to the dim darkness of the shrouded past, and read the counsels of God, and that glass is the person of Jesus Christ. Do I want to know what God ordained with regard to the salvation of man from before the foundation of the world? I look to Christ; I find that it was ordained in Christ that He should be the first elect, and that a people should be chosen in Him. Do you ask the way in which God ordained to save? I answer, He ordained to save by the cross. Do you ask how God ordained to pardon? The answer comes, He ordained to pardon through the sufferings of Christ, and to justify through His resurrection from the dead. Everything that you want to know with regard to what God ordained, everything that you ought to know, you can find out in the person of Jesus Christ. And again, do I long to know the great secret of destiny? I must look to Christ. What mean these wars, this confusion, these garments rolled in blood? I see Christ born of a virgin, and then I read the world’s history backwards, and I see that all this led to Christ’s coming. I see that all these leaned one upon another, as I have sometimes seen clusters of rocks leaning on each other, and Christ the great leading rock bearing up the superincumbent mass of all past history. And if I want to read the future, I look at Christ, and I learn that He who has gone up to heaven, is to come again from heaven in like manner as He went up to heaven. So, all the future is clear enough to me. I do not know whether the Pope of Rome is to obtain universal empire or not; I do not mind whether the Russian empire is to swallow up all the nations of the continent; there is one thing I know, God will overturn, overturn, overturn, till He shall come whose right it is to reign; and I know that though the worms devour my body, yet when He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth, in my flesh shall I see God, and there is enough in that for me…And so modern history is never to be understood except through Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0215.cfm

Our Sympathetic Counsellor

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

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmaties; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. – Hebrews 4:15

There is one thing that is always necessary in a man, before we can rejoice in his being a counsellor. There are some counsellors concerning the legislation of our country in whom you or I could not rejoice much, because we feel that in their counsels the most of us would be forgotten. Our farming friends would probably rejoice in them; they will consult their interests, there is not much doubt; but whoever heard of a counsellor yet who counselled for the poor? or who has these many years heard as much as an inkling of the name of a man who really counselled for economy and for the good of his nation. We have plenty of men who promise us that they will counsel for us- an abundance of men who, if we would but return them to parliament would most assuredly pour forth such wisdom in our behalf that, without doubt, we should be the most happy and enlightened people in the world according to their promise. but alas! when they get into office, they have no hearty sympathy with us; they belong to a different rank from the most of us, they do not sympathize with the wants and the desires of the middle class and of the poor. But, with regard to Christ, we can put every confidence in Him, for we know that in that council from eternity He sympathized with man. He says, “My delights were with the sons of men.” Happy men to have a counsellor who delights in them! Moreover, He then, though He was not man, yet foresaw that He was to be “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,” and therefore in the counsels of eternity He pleaded His own cause when He pleaded our cause, for He well knew that He was to be tempted in all points like as we are and was to suffer our sufferings and to be our covenant head in union with ourselves. Sweet Counsellor! I love to think Thou wast in the everlasting council, my friend, my brother born for adversity! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0215.cfm