Christian Life

The Portion of the Imitators of the Crucified

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

I am crucified with Christ…  – Galatians 2:20

In these soft and silken days any man may be a Christian professor. Oftentimes it pays well to make a profession of godliness. Men think the better of you: it brings customers to the shop. No one knows how many conveniences may attach to the profession of religion: albeit, if it be pretense without pretext, everlasting destruction awaits such violation of truth, for God will surely avenge hypocrisy. But in days of persecution, to profess Christ is very inconvenient. Then to be baptised in water may involve a baptism of blood. Then for the soul to burn with zeal for Christ would probably be followed with the body being burnt at the stake. Then a word for Jesus would bring a word of conviction from the judge’s mouth, and, close at the heels of that word, death. Then they who loved not Christ betook themselves to the other side; the cowards and the spies shrunk away. Demas went, and Judas went, and all of that brood, to their own company, and then only the true and the brave, the regenerate, the elect of God were left. They stood fast and firm-all the stronger for losing such ill company. Then in those days the church was like a heap of golden wheat, all winnowed and clean grain, fit for a burnt offering to the Most High, to be offered up as a meat offering upon His altar. Her martyrs were amongst her noblest sons, the very glory of the church and of the Lord Jesus Christ. So you see persecution is overruled for this great good. It ought never to be, while there are sinners in this world-it ought never to be that the Christian escapes opposition…It should not be that we should think it an easy thing and a light matter to be a follower of Him whose life was sorrow, and whose death was the death of the cross. If we are to be conformed to Him, it cannot be by ease and sloth. Not the downy couch, but the crown of thorns; not the triumph, but the shame, must be the portion of the imitators of the Crucified. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

The Blessed Barriers

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

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. – 2 Timothy 3:12

Beloved, persecution in the church-even when it does not take the form of burning or imprisonment, but of slander, of cruel mockings, jesting, jeering, and venomous spite-in whatever form it is sent, persecution helps to keep up the separation between the church and the world. I fear most the rich when they bring gifts. I loathe the world most when it fawns and flatters…It is no evil to the church, depend upon it, to have a great gulf fixed between her and the world. The worst thing that ever could happen for us is, when affinities are made between the sons of God and the children of Belial. This brought on the Deluge; and if it could ever be carried out thoroughly again, it would bring on judgments terrible to think of. It is ill for the worldly, since “they that are far from God shall perish;” but it is a thousand times worse for the professing when they play foul with their profession, for so it is written, “Thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.” “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters.” This is a text that needs to be thundered in trumpet tone. What says the great King unto the spouse? “Forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him.” “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Too much laxness, giving way to the world, a friendship foil of fascination brings on leanness of spirit, and causes us to be scarcely known as Christians, weakens our testimony, and in every way promotes Satan’s ends. But when persecution breaks forth, barriers are set up, and distinctive colors are worn, so the two camps are kept in open hostility, and when brought to battle with each other, the church is kept pure with armor bright; victory waits her march, and her champions win their laurels. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

Scattered to Spread the Gospel

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

…and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. Therefore, they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word. – Acts 8:1,4

The early persecutions in Judea promoted the spread of the gospel; hence, when after the death of Stephen the disciples were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles, the result is thus given: “Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.” So, too, when Herod stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church, and killed James, the brother of John, with the sword; what came of it? Why Luke tells us in almost the same words that Moses had used: “The word of God grew and multiplied.” Those terrible and bloody persecutions under the Roman Emperor by no means stayed the progress of the gospel; but strangely enough seemed to press forward for the crown of martyrdom. The church probably never increased at a greater ratio than as when her foes were most fierce to assail and most resolute to destroy her… Persecution has evidently aided the increase of the church by the scattering abroad of earnest teachers…  

Christian men are sometimes called to leave positions of great comfort and to occupy stations of great hardship. They may account it a reverse of fortune, while God designs it as an appointment to especial service. If they bear Christ’s gospel with them to a people sitting in darkness, that will be great gain in the long run to the church. Your being sent to a village, though you like it not, may be a lasting blessing to the hamlet. Your residing among strangers, when you would far rather find a more congenial home among your own kindred, may be for the good of that neighborhood. Who knows? Where should lamps be set up but in dark places? Where should we have a guard for Christ’s army, but where the enemy is most likely to make the assault? Be patient, then, my brethren, amidst the persecutions or trials you may be called upon to bear; and be thankful that they are so often overruled for the growth of the church, the spread of the gospel, and the honor of Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

See the Wisdom of God

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

And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children. – Exodus 2:6

The very means which Pharaoh devised for the effectual crushing of the people-the destruction of the male children-became the direct, nay, the divine provision for educating a deliverer for them. Moses had never been, in all probability, trained in the courts of Pharaoh if he had not been put in the basket of bulrushes on the brink of the Nile; and his mother would certainly never have put him there if there had not been a pitiless edict that the male children should be put to death. Moved by maternal instinct to save her child and moved by faith in God not to obey the king’s command, she places her child in the ark. Pharaoh’s daughter finds the child, compassionates its cry, extricates it from peril, loves it fondly, adopts it capriciously, and educates it in the very court of Pharaoh. That child grows up to be the man who should vex the fields of Zoan-the man of God, who with a high hand and an outstretched arm, would lead forth the slaves of Egypt to become a great nation, which God should bless. So you see the Lord in all points meets Pharaoh and foils him. This Pharaoh was the great representative in those days of the power of evil, and he stands still to the Christian church as the type of the seed of the serpent. But the Lord withstands him, despoils him of his purpose, and turns all he does to the very highest and best end. Such the narrative, full of instruction, and charged with portent, that serves as a type of the Lord’s doing when He makes bare His arm for the salvation of His own heritage. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

The Sharp Knife of Affliction

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

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. – Exodus 2:24

It was God’s intention and covenant purpose to give Israel the Land of Canaan, a land that flowed with milk and honey. But it is not very easy to induce a nation, numbering some millions, to leave a country in which they have been born and nourished and found a home. Only some very fearful evil can induce them to expatriate themselves. Had Moses gone to the children of Israel before the time of their bondage, and said, “Up and get you hence unto the land which the Lord swears that He will give it to you,” he would have seemed to them as one that mocked: they would have laughed him to scorn. In order to cut loose the bonds that bound them to Egypt, the sharp knife of affliction must be used; and Pharaoh, though he knew it not, was God’s instrument in weaning them from the Egyptian world and helping them as His church to take up their separate place in the wilderness and receive the portion which God had appointed for them.

Whenever God holds in one hand the rod of affliction, He has a favor in the other hand; He never strikes a child of His, but He has some tender blessing in store. If He visits you with unwonted affliction, you will have unusual delight; the Lord will open new windows for you and show His beauty. As your tribulations abound, so also shall your consolations abound in Christ Jesus…Rejoice, therefore, in your afflictions, if so be you have faith to believe that they shall be blessed for your good. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

This is What the Lord Designed

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And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage…all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour. – Exodus 1:14

The glory of God shines forth conspicuously in the use to which He turned the persecutions Israel endured. The severe treatment they had to bear from the enemy became to them a salutary discipline…They had settled down very quietly in Goshen and thought that it was their rest. They had imbibed much of the manners and customs of the Egyptians…But now their masters treat them cruelly, and they loathe the Egyptians. They are scattered up and down throughout the land, and Goshen is no longer dear to them. They are treated like strangers, and they feel they are strangers. Now that they hear from morning till night the taskmaster’s oath, and the crack of the cruel whip, and are subjected to incessant toil and bondage, they think far less of Egypt than they used to do. This is what the Lord designed. He never intended that His people Israel should be absorbed into any other family. He never meant them to be other than sojourners on that soil. He had some better thing for them than that they should dwell in that land and be as the heathen were. God was thus answering one purpose. And He did more than this. Now they began to remember, as their bondage waxed more and more severe, the God of their fathers whom they had forgotten…and they bethink themselves of the covenant which Jehovah had made with Abraham, and with Isaac and Jacob, and they betook themselves to their knees. In secret, they utter their groanings before the Most High, and when their taskmasters make them smart, they lift their eyes, suffused with bitter tears, and silently appeal to heaven, to the God of their fathers, that He would have mercy upon them. They had forgotten to pray until then. The mass of them had been unused to call upon the name of the Lord; but now the scourge drives them to seek help from above. Their terrors, their pains, their griefs, and their vexations compel them to lift up that cry to heaven which came into the ears of Jehovah, and moved His hand to help them.

Dear brother, dear sister, are you passing through great trials? Very well then, to meet them I pray that God’s grace may give you greater faith; and if your trials increase more and more, so may your strength increase…Do pray the Lord that when the trials multiply you may get faith wherewith to meet them; that out of the eater you may get meat; and out of the strong find strength. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

Israel Rose Superior to All Her Disadvantages

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

“The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.” – Exodus 1:12

It did seem to be a deep-laid plot, very politic and crafty indeed, that as the kings of Egypt, themselves of an alien race, had subdued the Egyptians, they should prevent the other alien race, the Israelites, from conquering them. Instead of murdering them wholesale, it did seem a wise though a cruel thing to make them slaves; to divide them up and down the country; to subject them to toil till their spirits were broken; to appoint them to the most menial work in the land, that they might be crushed down and their spirits become so base that they would not dare to rebel. Thus we may suppose it was hoped that their physical strength would be so relaxed, and their circumstances so reduced, that the clan would soon be insignificant if not utterly extinct. But God met and overruled this policy in various ways. “The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied.” The census proved the error of their calculation. The cause looked likely, but it was not productive of the consequence expected. Had it been another people, the tactics might have been successful; but they were God’s people, endeared to Him by their ancestry, ennobled in His sight by their covenant destiny, and encompassed with His favor as with a shield. No conspiracy formed against them could thrive. And so it came to pass, that like certain herbs which spring up when trodden down, or like certain trees that grow taller if loaded with weights, Israel rose superior to all her disadvantages. “The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.” This cometh of the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.

O friendless one, O Christless sinner! dost thou not want God to be thy helper, and Christ to be thy friend? If thou dost, then on the cross behold the Savior. Turn to Him thine eye: penitently trust Him: rely upon Him, and He is yours, and then henceforth the Lord of Hosts shall be with you, and God of Jacob shall be your refuge, and your afflictions also shall work your good. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm