Christian Life

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

Thy Immutable Counsels of Old

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“…being predestinated according to the purpose of Him that worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.” – Ephesians 1:11

The predestination of everyone of God’s people was arranged at the eternal council, where God’s will sat as the sovereign umpire and undisputed president. There was it said of each redeemed one, “At such an hour I will call him by My grace, for I have loved him with an everlasting love, and by My lovingkindness will I draw him.” There was it originated when the peace-speaking blood shall be laid to that elect one’s conscience, when the Spirit of the living God shall breathe joy and consolation into his heart. There was it settled how that chosen one should be “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation;” and there was it determined and settled by two immutable things, wherein it is impossible for God to lie, that every one of these should be eternally saved, beyond the shadow of a risk of perishing. The apostle Paul was not like some preachers, who are afraid to say a word about the everlasting council, for he says in his epistle to the Hebrews-“God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His council, confirmed it by an oath.” Now, you hear some talk about the immutability of the promise: that is good. But the immutability of God’s counsel, -that is to fathom to the very uttermost the doctrines of grace. The council of God from all eternity is immutable; not one purpose has He ever altered, not one decree has He ever changed, He has nailed His decrees against the pillars of eternity, and though the devils have sought to rend them down from the posts of His magnificent palace, yet, saith He, “have I set My king upon My holy hill of Zion;” the decree shall stand; I will do all My pleasure. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast made the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, Thou hast determined Thy plans and purposes, and they stand fast for ever and ever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

The Wonderful Counsel of Providence

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

And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. – Colossians 1:17

From all eternity, Christ was the Counsellor of His Father with regard to providence…Was it not the Most High who divided to the nations their inheritance? Hath He not appointed the bounds of our habitation? Oh! heir of heaven, in the day of the great council Christ counselled His Father as to the weight of thy trials, as to the number of thy mercies, if they be numerable, and as to the time, the way, and the means whereby thou shouldst be brought to Himself. Remember, there is nothing that happens in your daily life, but what was first of all devised in eternity, and counselled by Jesus Christ for your good and in your behalf; that all things might work together for your lasting benefit and profit. But, my friends, what unfathomable depths of wisdom must have been involved, when God consulted with Himself with regard to the great book of providence!..Ah! Jacob, the Lord is about to provide for thee in Egypt, when there is a famine in Canaan, and He is about to make thy son Joseph great and mighty. Joseph must be sold for a slave; he must be accused wrongfully, he must be put into the pit, and in the round-house prison he must suffer. But God was going straight to His purpose all the while: He was sending Joseph before them into Egypt that they might be provided for, and when the good old patriarch said, “All these things are against me,” he did not perceive the providence of God, for there was not a solitary thing in the whole list that was against him, but everything was ruled for his weal. Let us learn to leave providence in the hand of the Counsellor, let us rest assured that He is too wise to err in His predestination, and too good to be unkind, and that in the council of eternity, the best was ordained that could have been ordained. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Our Counsellor

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

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor.”- Isaiah 9:6

It was by a counsellor that this world was ruined. Did not Satan mask himself in the serpent, and counsel the woman with exceeding craftiness, that she should take unto herself of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in the hope that thereby she should be as God? Was it not that evil counsel which provoked our mother to rebel against her Maker, and did it not as the effect of sin, bring death into this world with all its train of woe? Ah! beloved, it was meet that the world should have a Counsellor to restore it, if it had a counsellor to destroy it. It was by counsel that it fell and certainly, without counsel it never could have arisen. But mark the difficulties that surrounded such a Counsellor. ‘Tis easy to counsel mischief; but how hard to counsel wisely! To cast down is easy, but to build up how hard! To confuse this world and bring upon it all its train of ills was, an easy thing. A woman plucked the fruit, and it was done; but to restore order to this confusion, to sweep away the evils which brooded over this fair earth, this was work indeed, and “Wonderful” was that Christ who came forward to attempt the work, and who in the plentitude of His wisdom hath certainly accomplished it, to His own honor and glory, and to our comfort and safety.

Now, our Lord Jesus Christ is a Counsellor in a three-fold sense. First, he is God’s Counsellor; he sits in the cabinet council of the King of heaven; he has admittance into the privy chamber, and is the Counsellor with God. In the second place, Christ is a Counsellor in the sense which the Septuagint translation appends to this term. Christ is said to be the angel of the great council. He is a Counsellor in that he communicates to us in God’s behalf, what has been done in the great council before the foundation of the world. And thirdly, Christ is a Counsellor to us and with us, because we can consult with him, and he doth counsel and advise us as to the right way and the path of peace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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