Christian Life
The Promise
And I will give you rest. – Matthew 11:28
Notice the promise spoken, “I will give you rest.” “I will give.” It is a rest that is a gift; not a rest found in our experience by degrees but given at once…We come to Jesus; we put out the empty hand of faith, and rest is given us at once most freely. We possess it at once, and it is ours forever. It is a present rest, rest now; not rest after death; not rest after a time of probation and growth and advancement; but it is rest given when we come to Jesus, given there and then. And it is perfect rest too; for it is not said, nor is it implied, that the rest is incomplete. We do not read, “I will give you partial rest,” but “rest,” as much as if there were no other form of it. It is perfect and complete in itself. In the blood and righteousness of Jesus our peace is perfect.
Jesus promises and Jesus performs. Did not all your rest, when first your sin was forgiven, come from Him? The load was gone, but who took it? The yoke was removed, but who lifted it from off the shoulder? Do you not give to Jesus, this day, the glory of all your rest from the burden of guilt? Do you not praise His name with all your soul? Yes, I know you do. And you know how that rest came to you. It was by His substitution and your faith in that substitution. Your sin was not pardoned by a violation of divine justice; justice was satisfied in Jesus; He gave you rest. The fact that He has made full atonement is the rest of your spirit. I know that deep down in your conscience, the calm which blesses you springs from a belief in your Lord’s vicarious sacrifice. He bore the unrest that you might have the rest, and you receive rest this day as a free gift from Him. You have done now with servile toils and hopeless burdens, you have entered into rest through believing; but all the rest and deliverance still comes to you as a gift from His dear hands, who purchased with a price this blessing for your souls. I earnestly wish that many who have never felt that rest, would come and have it; it is all they have to do to obtain it- to come for it; just where they now are, if God enables them to exercise a simple act of faith in Jesus, He will give them rest from all their past sins, from all their efforts to save themselves, a rest which shall be to His glory and to their joy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0969.cfm
A Tried and Blessed People
But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: He is their strength in the time of trouble. – Psalm 37:39
I think I hear some saying, “Ah, I see these believers are a very tried people, who would wish to be one of them?” Hearken, friend, and I will tell thee something. Joseph was not the only person in prison, and the righteous are not the only people who are afflicted. The chief butler was in prison, and the chief baker, too…There is this difference between them and Joseph, that the Lord is not with them, but He is with Joseph, and that makes a vast difference. If God is in the prison with Joseph, Joseph is happy, but it is not so with you tried worldlings. I wonder, O butler and baker, whether you have had any dream; I wonder what has passed through your minds this morning. Wherefore look you so sadly to-day? I am no interpreter of dreams, but perhaps I can unriddle yours. Was a vine before you in your dream? That true and living vine? Did it bud and blossom, and bring forth fruit before your eyes, and did you take of its clusters, and present its pure blood to the King? If so, you will be set free, your dream means salvation: for there is a vine of the Lord’s own planting whose wine maketh glad the heart of man, and he who takes of its living fruit is accepted. Dost thou know how to take those clusters and to squeeze them out? If so, the King will rejoice in thee, for nothing is so dear to Him as the fruit of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. But hast thou dreamed of cakes which thou hast made by thine own skill? Not fruits from a vine, living and full, but mere cakes, sweetened with thine own self-righteousness, baked in the oven of thine own zeal and industry, and dost thou hope to set these before the King? The birds of the air already peck at them, thou beginnest now to feel that thy works are not altogether what thou thoughtest them to be. Oh, if this be thy dream I tremble for thee, for thou wilt come to an ill end.
Salvation is of the Lord; whether for butler, or baker, or Joseph, redemption is by Jesus only. Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength, and they that trust in Him shall never be ashamed or confounded, world without end. Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1277.cfm
Wait for God’s Appointed Time
Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people and let him go free. _ Psalm 105:19. 20
The time was in God’s hands, and it was very wisely ordered. Suppose that the butler had thought of Joseph, and had spoken to Pharaoh about the interpretation of his dream, the probabilities are that when the courtiers of Pharaoh’s court heard it they would have made the halls of the palace ring with laughter; and the magicians would especially have poured scorn on the idea that a slave boy who had been imprisoned for scandalous behavior knew more about interpreting dreams than the wise men of Egypt who had been brought up to the art and had gained high degrees in the profession. It would have been a theme of ridicule all over the land. It was the wrong time, and God would not let the butler recollect, because that recollection would have marred the plot and spoiled the whole business: but God’s “until” came at the nick of time when Joseph was ready for court, and when Pharaoh was ready to appreciate Joseph. The hour needed its man, and here was the hour for the man. The straight way from the dungeon to the throne was not open until Pharaoh dreamed his dream, then must Joseph come forth and not before. Oh, brother, sit still and wait. The deliverance you are craving for is not ripe yet; wait while the word tries you, for that same word will in due time set you free.
You see, brethren, there is a time of deliverance, and the time is fixed of God, and it is a right time: therefore, we have quietly to wait for it…Bear on, young man, bear on. Ay, and grey-headed man, bear on, bear on. The anvil breaks the hammers in the long run; bear on, bear on. The rock breaks the billows and is not itself broken. Bear the trials which come to you from God and from His word with joy and patience, for the end is not yet, but when it cometh it shall be everlasting joy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1277.cfm
The Divine “Until”
Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. – Psalm 105:19
Trials do not last forever. Cheer up; the tide ebbs out, but the flood will return again. Note the word “until.” He who counts the stars also numbers your sorrows, and if He ordains the number ten your trials will never be eleven. The text says, “until”; for the Lord appoints the bounds of the proud waters, and they shall no more go over your soul when they reach the boundary of the divine “until.” “Until the time that his word came”-the same word which tried Joseph in due time set him free. If the Lord gives the turnkey permission to keep us in prison there we must remain, until He sends a warrant for our liberation, and then all the devils in hell cannot hold us in bondage for an instant longer. My dear brother, I want you in your trouble to look entirely to God, whose word is a word of power. He speaks, and it is done. He has spoken trouble to you, but He can just as readily speak comfort to you. Never mind what the butler’s word is. Do not entreat him, saying, “When it is well with thee speak a word for me.” The butler’s word will not avail, it is Jehovah’s word you need, for “where the word of a king is, there is power.” It is a blessed thing to know that trouble comes direct from God, whatever the secondary agent may be. You must not say, “I could have borne it if it had not been for that wicked woman.” Never mind the wicked woman, look to God as overruling her malice and everything else. He sends the trial, and therefore look to Him to deliver you from it.
“‘Tis He that lifts our comforts high,
Or sinks them in the grave.”
He shuts us up in prison, and He brings us out again. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1277.cfm
Tried by the Word of the Lord
Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. – Psalm 105:35
“The word of the Lord tried him.” How was that? There was no Bible then; Moses had not lived, there was not even the book of Genesis, -what word of God had he? His dreams were to him the word of God, for they were communications from heaven; the instruction he received from his father was also the word of God to him, his knowledge of the covenant which God had made with Abraham and Isaac, and his father Jacob, was God’s word to him…How did it try him? It tried him thus: the word said to him in his conscience, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Without that word he would not have been tried, for nature suggested compliance with his mistress’s desires…The test, however, he could bear: grace enabled him to flee youthful lusts and to cry, “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” …What problems were put before him-“Is there a moral governor of the universe? If so, why does He allow the innocent to suffer? Why am I in fetters, and the lewd woman in favor? Could not an omnipotent God deliver me? Why then does he leave me here?” Could Joseph in the face of such questions still cling to the faithful word? He could, and he did; but the word tried him, and proved his constancy, his faith, and his integrity.
Now I may be addressing some young men who are getting into all sorts of trouble through being Christians. I congratulate you! Thus does the Lord train his bravest soldiers…Rejoice ye in this day and leap for joy, for you are only enduring trials which have fallen to the lot of better men than yourselves…I congratulate you, my brethren, and pray the Lord to bear you up and bear you through, that like Joseph you may be of great service to Israel and bring glory to God.~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1277.cfm
Sanctified Trials
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. – Genesis 41:41
Great riches and high positions are not to be desired. Agur’s prayer is a wise one: “Give me neither poverty nor riches.” Joseph was in great peril when he came to be lord over the land of Egypt, but during his time in prison he had been learning to spell out a mystery and answer a riddle. Practically, his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream was what he had been learning in prison, namely, that it is idle to boast of the fat kine, since the lean kine can soon eat them up, and it is unwise to be proud of the full ears, because the withered ears can soon devour them. Pharaoh saw in the dream the lean devouring the full-fleshed, but Joseph alone understood it. He saw his fat kine when he was in his father’s house eaten up when he was sold as a slave; he saw his full ears when he was in Potiphar’s house devoured by the withered ears when he was thrown into prison, and he now knew that there was nothing here below worth our relying upon, since on the chariot of all earthly good there rides a Nemesis, and every day is followed by a night. He was tutored to be a ruler for he had learned the prisoner’s side of politics and felt how hard it was for men to be unjustly condemned without trial. He foresaw that this could not be forever endured, and that one day the long-suffering lean kine would be goaded to fury and would eat up the fat ones that oppressed them. Hence Joseph’s rule would be just and generous, for in this he would see the elements which would preserve law and order and prevent the poorer sort from overturning everything.
Joseph believed the word of the Lord, and he spoke with the accent of conviction, and Pharaoh believed also. Whence came this simple-minded courage? Whence this boldness? It was the right royal velour which doth hedge about a virtuous soul-or rather the fearlessness which follows from the fear of God. He stood forth and delivered his message, and the Lord established his word. He had been preparing for this in the day of his sorrow: like a good sword-blade, he had been passed through the fire and through the fire again, that now he might not fail in the day of battle. Oh, dear brothers and sisters, may you gain as much from tribulation as Joseph did, and you will do so if the Holy Spirit sanctifies them to you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1277.cfm
He Hath Said 