Christian Life

Discovering the Fountains of Joy

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

“Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts,” – Jeremiah 15:16.

Jeremiah was eminently the man that had seen affliction, and yet in the midst of a wilderness of woe he discovered fountains of joy. Like that Blessed One, who was “the man of sorrows” and the acquaintance of grief, he sometimes rejoiced in spirit and blessed the name of the Lord. It will be both interesting and profitable to note the root of the joy which grew up in Jeremiah’s heart, like a lone palm tree in the desert. Here was its substance. It was an intense delight to him to have been chosen to the prophetic office; and when the words of God came to him, he fed upon them as dainty food. They were often very bitter in themselves, for they mainly consisted of denunciations, yet being God’s words, such was the prophet’s love to his God, that he ate every syllable, bitter or not. This also was evermore a consolation to him-that he was known by the people to be a prophet of Jehovah. This distinction, whatever persecution it brought upon him, was his joy “I am called by Thy name.” God’s word received, God’s name named upon him, and God’s work entrusted to him, these were stars which cheered the midnight of his grief. However hard his lot might be, and none seem to have fallen upon worse times, there were secret sweetnesses of which none could deprive him. When he was “filled with bitterness, and drunken with wormwood,” he still drank of that ever-flowing river, the streams whereof make glad the city of our God. The basis of faith’s joy lies deeper than the water-floods of affliction; no torrents of misery can remove the firm foundations of our peace.

My prayer and cry to God for you, beloved friends, is that you may say sincerely, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0980.cfm

The Hereafter of the Lost

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, salvation, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 2 Comments

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” – Revelation 21:8

We believe that those who die in their sins when they pass from this life into the next, shall find that second death to be no extinction of existence, but an eternity of sin and of misery, Ah! how can any of us bear to think of this if we feel that we are morally responsible for any one soul that is damned? Yet are we so, I speak but the bare truth, until we have delivered ourselves from that responsibility by faithful earnestness. Is there a Cain here who says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” I shall not appeal to your most sympathetic soul but leave you to your Judge. But to the Christian I say, “No man liveth to himself.” When you think of a spirit in despair, cast out for ever from the presence of his God and from the glory of his power, may you, friends, be able to say, “Great God, though I understand not Thy ways, for Thy judgments are a great deep; yet I warned the sinner, I admonished him to lay hold on Christ, and if he perished it was not for want of preaching to or for praying over; my warnings and tears were never spared. I did what was in me to prevent his ruin.” Put in that light, we may look at least with some degree of serenity upon the doctrine of divine sovereignty. I must confess that the sovereignty of God is a great mountain whose top we cannot scale. I often marvel at the coldness with which some men talk of the sovereignty of God, as though it were of small concern whether men were lost or saved. They seem to take these things as easily as if they were only talking of blocks of wood, or fields filled with tares. I do not think that we can equitably plead the divine sovereignty as a counterpart to our futile efforts, till we can say, “I have done all that was possible to bring that soul to God, I have prayed over him and wept over him, and now if he perish I must believe that this man wilfully rejected Christ, that his iniquities are upon his own head, and that in him, as a vessel of wrath, God will get glory as well as in vessels of mercy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

For the Sake of a Clear Conscience

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

I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth… – Psalm 40:10 

How awful to remember that every hour there are hundreds of men and women who are dying without Christ. Turn to the bills of mortality of this one city. Be our sentiments ever so charitable, let us judge with the utmost liberality, the dreadful fact fills our mind, and every knell speaks it to our heart, “They go out of this world unforgiven; they go before their Maker’s bar without a hope!” I think our hearts would break with the dread recollection of this if we could not say, “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation; lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth from the great congregation.”

And how many deaths there always are among our hearers! What comfort can any Christian who knows you have if you die unsaved, unless he is able to appeal to God, and say, “My Father, I did all I could to teach that soul the way of salvation; I did all I could to persuade him to accept the Christ of God”?

Dear friends, whenever you see any of your neighbors, your relatives, your acquaintance die, can you forbear to ask yourselves, shall their blood be required at my hands? Are your skirts stained? Are there no blood drops there? Come, look them down, and say if you can ponder with a clear conscience the fact of a sinner dying in a Christless state without your being able to say, “I have done all I could to bring that soul to Christ”? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

Let Us Say It

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, salvation Leave a comment

It ought to be the ambition of every believer here, in a sense more or less extensive, to be able to say,

“I have preached righteousness; I have not refrained my lips; I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation; I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth.” – Psalm 40:10

It is not, perhaps, the man who can stand and talk to thousands, but it may be you in the family-the housewife, the kitchen maid, the serving-man, or the woman who has been bed-ridden for years, whose only audience will be a few poor neighbors, or perhaps, now and then, a generous friend…Though we may feel that we have not preached as earnestly as we could have wished; that we have not done our utmost towards those whom we have taught; that in our house-to-house visitation we have not been so earnest with poor souls as we might have been in this respect, for alas! alas! we are all unprofitable servants; yet we can say, “I have preached righteousness; I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation; I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth.” Fervently do I hope that those of you with the largest opportunities may yet be privileged to make this good profession with all sincerity. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

What Men Must Know of God

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

I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. – Psalm 40:10

Our Lord, with eagle eye, descries what is most important for men to know, and upon that He dwells. Sinners must know of God’s righteousness; they will never know their sinfulness else knowing it they will think it to be a little thing. The righteousness of God comes like a stream of light into the soul and reveals its corruption. God’s salvation, again, must be shown in its true colors. It does not owe its origin, its accomplishment, or its application to our works or our merits, but it proceeds from God’s grace, and redounds to His glory…Jesus Christ preached God’s righteousness, and showed God’s righteousness even in salvation, and then He preached that salvation fully.

Nor, dear friends, did He withhold His testimony of the other attributes of God. Think for an instant of God’s faithfulness. Oh, what a delightful theme! As immutability is a glory that belongs to all His attributes, so faithfulness pertains to all His purposes and promises…Moreover, He will rest in His love, “for the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name’s sake.” He is “the Father of lights, with whom is, no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” His promises and His threatenings abide steadfast. Side by side with the faithfulness of God there is witness of His lovingkindness. Oh, what a glorious revelation! the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the God of pity and of pardon, the God of love…The God whom Jesus preached is full of gentleness and tenderness. May we learn to believe in the God and Father whom His only begotten Son Jesus Christ delighted to make known, and if called to testify of Him may we testify fully and heartily as Jesus did. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

In This Imitate the Master

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life Leave a comment

I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth from the great congregation. – Psalm 40:10 (Jesus speaking, by the Spirit of prophecy)

On the hill-top, where Jesus’ disciples came unto Him and He began with His benediction of “Blessed,” the multitude that gathered together, when He sat down and taught them, was doubtless imposing…With a great assembly He was at home; for His sympathy was mighty in its aggregate and minute in its detail. At the same time, Christ did not want a great congregation to enable Him to preach. The first verse of our text, if I catch the heart of its meaning, seems to me to intimate that He could speak personally to one or to two: “Lo, I have not refrained My lips, O Lord, Thou knowest.” From the court of human conscience to the court of divine omniscience the appeal is carried. Fame hath not heard of this private fidelity. Howbeit He that dwelleth in the heavens takes cognisance of it. “O Lord, Thou knowest, and canst bear witness to it. When there was but one woman at the well’s brink, I refrained not My lips.” When there were but two-His disciples, as He was going to Emmaus-He opened His mouth. Whether they were those whom He had made or would make His disciples, He had a word for all at all times and at all seasons. In this we ought to imitate the Master. Be ready to tell of Christ not only when your heart is prepared for it at a set time, but at all times, whether you have prepared for it or not. Your spirit should be always on the alert; you should always be on the watch for souls…O for a heart that is set on winning souls, that is set on glorifying God, that is set on coming nearer to the model and being more conformed in this matter unto Christ our Head! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

Changed by Grace

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

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God… – Ephesians 2:8

O! thou who art valiant for truth, thou wouldst have been as valiant for the devil if grace had not laid hold of thee. A seat in heaven shall one day be thine; but a chain in hell would have been thine if grace had not changed thee. Thou canst now sing His love; but a licentious song might have been on thy lips if grace had not washed thee in the blood of Jesus. Thou art now sanctified, thou art quickened, thou art justified; but what wouldst thou have been to-day if it had not been for the interposition of the divine hand? There is not a crime thou mightest not have committed; there is not a folly into which thou mightest not have run. Even murder itself thou mightest have committed if grace had not kept thee. Thou shalt be like the angels; but thou wouldst have been like the devil if thou hadst not been changed by grace. Therefore, never be proud; all thy garments thou hast from above; rags were thine only heritage. Be not proud, though thou hast a large estate, a wide domain of grace; thou hadst once not a single thing to call thine own except thy sin and misery. Thou art now wrapped up in the golden righteousness of the Saviour and accepted in the garments of the Beloved; but thou wouldst have been buried under the black mountain of sin, and clothed with the filthy rags of unrighteousness, if He had not changed thee. And art thou proud?…Go, hang thy pride upon the gallows, as high as Haman; hang it there to rot, and stand thou beneath and execrate it to all eternity; for sure of all things most to be cursed and despised is the pride of a Christian. He, of all men, has ten thousand times more reason than any other to be humble, and walk lowly with his God, and kindly and humbly toward his fellow-creatures. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0125.cfm