Christian Life

Be Careful in Your Prosperity

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life Leave a comment

…and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it. – Jeremiah 33:9

We have hundreds of us perceived the benefits of the dark lines and shadings of life’s picture, and we see how fit and proper it is that trembling should mingle with transport. As the fruit of experience, I have learned to look for a hurricane soon after an unusually delightful calm. When the wind blows hard, and the tempest lowers, I hope that before long there will be a lull; but when the sea-birds sit on the wave, and the sail hangs idly, I wonder when a gale will come. To my mind there is no temptation so bad as not being tempted at all. The worst devil in the world is when you cannot see the devil at all, because the villain has hidden himself away within the heart and is preparing to give you a fatal stab.

Mr. Jonathan George made use of this text in a little speech that he made: “It would be well for us all to remember, when God blesses us with any measure of prosperity, that prosperity is very hard to bear. How is that? Cannot Christianity or the grace of God bear it? No, it is because of the extreme carnality and pride of our hearts. Here is a portion of Scripture we should all recollect: ‘They shall fear and tremble for all the prosperity that I send.’ It is a blessing when God has succeeded our poor efforts, and poured out a blessing upon us, if we are jealous of our own hearts, and fear and tremble. Oh God, how rich, how beneficent thou art! Let us not lose thy full blessing by our own pride; by pointing to some second cause, and saying, ‘It was I; it was ourselves; it was our ministers.’” Such holy jealousy, if faith be also active, will help to keep us right. Evils may be prevented by the foresight of them. Through grace, by our fear of falling, we may be helped to stand. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Chastened Happiness

Be Watchful, Saint

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

Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. – 1 Corinthians 10:12

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. – 2 Corinthians 13:5

One thought may occur to the most joyous believer. He will say, “What if after rejoicing in all this blessedness I should lose it?” “What,” cries one, “do you not believe in the final perseverance of the saints?” Assuredly I do, but are we saints? There’s the question. Moreover, many a believer who has not lost his soul has, nevertheless, lost his present joy and prosperity, and why may not we? The good man has shone as a star of the first magnitude, but suddenly he has dwindled into darkness: he has been unwatchful, and in consequence by the dozen years together he has had to go softly in the bitterness of his soul. We have known fathers in Israel who have stepped aside, and though they have by deep repentance found their way to heaven, they have gone sorrowing thither. Look at David’s history. Note that one sin with Bathsheba, and ask who was more tried and troubled than David throughout the rest of his pilgrimage? The doctrine of final perseverance was never intended for the comfort of any who are afraid of self-examination, or who are not watchful; for it is by no means at variance with the other doctrine that many who made sure of heaven in their own minds will never enter there, because Jesus never knew them. Great joy may be only a meteor, great excitement may be a mirage of the desert, great confidence may be a will-o’-the-wisp luring to destruction. The highest seats in the synagogue do not secure for their occupants a place among the shilling ones above. Many rejoicing professors will yet discover that their spot was not the spot of God’s people, and their song was not the new song which God doth put into the mouth. And what if that should be your case and mine? So, when I stand upon my high mountain, let me pray, “Lord, hold thou me up.” Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall, for he is the man who is most in danger. He who is fullest of holy delight is still to watch, for did not Jesus say, “What I say unto you I say unto all, watch”? God grant that we may be helped to watch against the arrow which flieth by day as much as against the pestilence which walketh in darkness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Chastened Happiness

Banished Vainglory

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

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless indeed you are disqualified. – 2 Corinthians 13:5

Grace never makes a man vain. When a soul is adorned with glory and beauty and made to shine like the star of the morning, it owns its borrowed comeliness and brightness, and is mildly radiant with reflected rays. When raised up by the special favour of our God into communion with Himself, we are afraid of trespassing against the decorum of almighty love, fearful of violating the propriety of sovereign grace. The Lord our God is a jealous God; and He will be had in reverence of those who are round about Him. This fact has made us feel like those apostles who were filled with fear as well as with great joy. To know how to behave ourselves in the house of God has been our anxiety. We have felt like a poor countryman, bred and born in the wilds, who finds himself in a court, and feels strange in such a place. Thus, have we been clothed with humility as we have worn the garments of praise. Exalted to be kings and priests, our kingdom and priesthood have called forth our careful thought, and vainglory has thus been banished.

He who has never questioned his own condition had better make an immediate enquiry. He who has never felt great searchings of heart needs to be searched with candles. It is idle to take things for granted, for all of us must be tried by fire, and even “the righteous scarcely are saved.” No man’s hell shall be more terrible than that of the self-confident one who made so sure of heaven that he would not take the ordinary precaution to ask whether his title-deeds were genuine or no. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Chastened Happiness

His Overflowing Goodness Toward Us

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

Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? – Romans 2:4

There rises up in the mind of every favoured Christian a deep repentance for past sin. He asks himself this question, “How could I have lived as I have done when God has entertained such love towards me?” When I discovered the election of God’s grace, and when I saw at what a price I had been redeemed by our Lord Jesus, I was ashamed of all my evil ways. When I read my name inscribed on the palms of Jesus’ hands, when I understood that I was united to Him by a union that never could be broken, I said to myself, “What a thousand fools I have been to have lived forgetful of my highest glory, unmindful of my dearest friend!” To have lived year after year in open enmity against my Lord seemed like a grim and ghastly dream, almost too horrible to be true. Have you not felt the same? Have you not felt ashamed and confounded at the memory of your former life? Have you not felt as if you could never open your mouth anymore because of all your unkindness to your heavenly friend? Such penitent reflections keep the Lord’s people right, by creating a fear and trembling in the presence of His overflowing goodness.

Has not your deepest sense of unworthiness come upon you when you have been conscious of superlative mercy? When the Lord has scourged and chastened you, you have seen your sins in your sorrows, and have been ashamed: but, by the memory of His great goodness, you have been far more corrected and humbled. When our secret sins are set in the light of God’s countenance, it is a light indeed! Love makes the crimson of sin more red than ever. Blood-bought pardon makes sin look black as sackcloth of hair. I tell you, sirs, it is not the flames of hell, but the glories of heaven, that most of all fills us with trembling before the Lord. Nothing touches the heart like undeserved and unexpected love. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Chastened Happiness

Why Fear and Tremble?

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

“They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.” – Jeremiah 33:9

Why fear and tremble? Is not this in part a holy awe of God’s presence? Remember that text, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” The argument for fear and trembling is the work of God in the soul. Because God is working in you there must be no trifling. If the eternal Deity deigns to make a workshop of my nature, I too must work, but it must be with fear and trembling.

     So, then, the blessed presence of God in the believer’s joy, and the very fact that He has worked it in him, is a cause for the fear and trembling which comes over the spirit of the joyous believer, and that I think is the first meaning of our text. God has been very good to me, unspeakably good to me, and I have plainly seen the traces of His fatherly hand in my life. Yea, I have so seen them that I have cried out with adoring amazement in many a Bethel, “How dreadful is this place! It is none other than the house of God and the very gate of heaven.” So has it been with you, dear friends. When God has come very near to you in a blaze of mercy, when He has done things that you looked not for; when your mouth has been filled with laughter, and your tongue with singing because of His goodness, have you not at the same time felt overcome by the excess of His favour? Have you not been able to sympathize with Peter when, at the sight of his boat full of fish, he cried “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Have you not felt a solemn trembling like Manoah when he feared that he must die, because he had seen an angel of the Lord? I know it has been so with you. A little mercy would have made you sing, but a great mercy has made you sit in silence before the Lord or fall on your knees in adoration. A common providence would have charmed you, but an extraordinary providence has overwhelmed you; you have lain in the dust at Jesus’ feet, feeling yourself to be but dust and ashes, and yet every particle of dust has been full of wondering love to God. This is one way in which God keeps His people right in the days of their joy: where a shallow drink might have intoxicated, He gives so deep a draught that the danger is past, and holy wonder takes the place of unholy pride. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Chastened Happiness

Longing for Heaven

Sherry Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. – Romans 8:23

We are not in heaven yet, and perfect bliss lives not beneath these cloudy skies, nor within the pale sway of the moon. While we are in this body we groan, though we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, for we are in a creation which groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. Our years must have their winters while the world revolves. When the Dutch had the trade of the East in their hands they were accustomed to sell birds of paradise to the untraveled people of these realms. These specimen birds had no feet, for they had craftily removed them, and the merchants declared that the species lived on the wing and never alighted. There was so much of truth in the fable that had they been really and veritably “birds of paradise” they would not have found a place for their feet upon this globe. Truly, birds of paradise do come and go, and flit from heaven to earth, but we see them not, neither can we build tabernacles to detain them. While you are here expect reminders of the fact that this is not your rest. If you could attain to perfect joy on earth you might be justified in saying, “I have no longing for heaven; I am perfectly clear of sin, and care, and trouble; I may as well stay where I am. What need to go further if I can fare no better?” Let no man dream that things will ever come to this with him. Ah, ye lovely flowers of spring, this year ye have looked forth too soon. It is strangely mild weather for December, but spring has not yet arrived. Possibly it is so with some of my hearers: because the Lord is smiling upon you, it is very mild weather with your souls, and you dream that the winter of trouble is ended and that your heaven has begun. Be not deceived, you are not yet

“Where everlasting spring abides
And never-withering flowers.”

Perhaps a touch of frost may do you good by preventing your getting into an unnatural and unsound condition. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Chastened Happiness

Our Streams of Joy Blend with Currents of Fear

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

Therefore, take careful heed to yourselves, that you love the LORD your God. – Joshua 23:11

If a man should become perfectly contented with the things of this world, it would be the result of a false view of things…Oh man, if thou didst but know thyself, much more thy God, thou wouldst be assured those visible things can never satisfy the desires of a spiritual being. As to spiritual joy, I say that in no man’s experience can it be long without admixture and yet be true. Never at any moment can a Christian be in such a position that he has not some cause either for dissatisfaction with himself, or fear of the tempter, or anxiety to be faithful in service. Our streams of joy blend with currents of fear. Blessed be God, my sin is forgiven me: this joy calls up its balancing thought, — Oh that the Spirit of God may help me not to sin again. Again, I sing, — Blessed be God, I have gotten the victory over an evil habit: but my song is followed by the prayer— Lord, enable me to conquer all evils, even those which as yet I know not. Thus, joy and fear hang like the two scales of a balance, — I mean not the fear which love casts out, but the filial fear which love fosters. If God has preserved his servant in the day of battle, he has no room to boast, for here comes another enemy. Temptations come wave after wave, and, having breasted one, we prepare for another. We cannot yet shout the victory, for, lo, the foes advance squadron upon squadron; their routed battalions are succeeded by new armies, and it behooves us to quit ourselves like men. We dwell where, in our God, we have the utmost reason for delight, but where, in all things, we perceive the most weighty arguments for solemnity. Rejoice evermore but cease not to fear and tremble for all the goodness and all the prosperity that the Lord has procured for you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Chastened Happiness