Christian Life

What Happened to Our Zeal?

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

Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me…As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle… – Job 29:2,4

Let me enquire whether there are not many of us whose zeal is almost gone? We once loved the Savior intensely, and His cause we eagerly sought to serve, but now we take matters easily, and do not travail in birth for souls. Some rich men were wont to give most freely to the cause of God, but now covetousness has palsied the hand of generosity. Even poor Christians are not always so ready with their two mites as they were in better days. You were wont to labor, too, but that Sunday School class sees you no longer; no street preaching now; no tract distributing now; all forms of Christ’s service you have renounced, for you fancy you have done enough…Let none of us talk of finality, for we have not yet attained. Till life is over, our zeal should still glow, and our labors for Christ should multiply. Is not brotherly love, in many Christians, very questionable? Have they not forgotten, altogether, the family ties which bind all Christians to one another? And, with brotherly love, has not love to the Gospel gone too, so that now with many, one doctrine is almost as good as another? If a man can talk well, and is an orator, they enjoy his ministry whether he advocates truth or error. Once they could go to the little meeting house, where Christianity was preached faithfully though in an uncouth style, but now they must have the help of organs or they cannot praise God; and there must be millinery and genuflexions, or else they cannot pray to Him; and they must listen to oratory and elocution, or else they cannot accept God’s Word…Might not many of us blush, if we were to think how low our graces are, how weak our faith, how few our good works, and our gracious words with which we should bear testimony to His name. Yes, in thousands of cases, Christians need not be stopped if they were to commence this mournful cry, “Oh that I were as in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

How is it with You?

Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? – 2 Corinthians 13:5

How is it with you as to private prayer? Are there not believers, and we hope true believers too, who are lax in devotion? The morning prayer is brief, but alas! it is not fervent; the evening prayer is too often sleepy; ejaculations are few and far between; communion with heaven is distant, suspended, almost non-existent in many cases. Look ye to this, my brethren; let each man commune with his own heart and be still. Think not of others just now but let each one consider his ways. How is it with your love to the souls of sinners? There was a time when you would have done anything to bring a man to Christ, when any exertion you could have put forth would have been made spontaneously, without the need of incessant exhortations; are you as ready to speak for Jesus now as you once were? Do you watch to bring souls to Him? Does the tear tremble in your eye, now, as it once did for lost souls, perishing without Christ? Alas, upon how many has a hardening influence operated. Ah, and this is true even of us ministers. We have grown professional in our service, and now we preach like automatons, wound up for a sermon, to run down when the discourse is over, and we have little more care for the souls of men than if they were so much dirt. Ah, and how many of God’s people must confess that their conscience is not so tender now as it used be…but now ah, professors hear ye this-some of you can be dishonest and speak words that border on lasciviousness, and be as others are, yet your heart does not smite you. Trifles of criticism, fancies of speculation, or fopperies of oratory, fascinate too many who should be wise to win His smile. God forgive us if we have fallen into so deplorable a state. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

What Is and What Was

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life Leave a comment

Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me… – Job 29:2

How grievously often will the pastor hear this among the other bleatings of the sheep: “Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me.” The commonness of this lamentation may be somewhat accounted for, by the universal tendency to undervalue the present and exaggerate the excellence of the past. Have you never noticed this in natural things, we are prone to cast a partial eye upon some imaginary “good old times?” It is gone, and therefore it was good; it is here, and therefore it is dubious…The Christian, in whatever state he is, feels his own imperfection much, and laments his conscious shortcomings. Looking back, he observes with joy the work of grace in his soul and does not perhaps so readily recollect the then existing deficiencies of nature; hence, he comes to think that the past was better than the present. He is afraid of backsliding, and therefore he jealously fears that he is so; he is so anxious to live nearer to God, so dissatisfied with his present attainments, that he dares not believe that he advances, but fears that he has lost ground.

We are poor judges of our own condition and usually err on one side or the other…We may be deeper in humility if we are not higher in delight. We may not glitter so much, and yet there may be more real gold in us. The leaf may not be so green, but the fruit may be more ripe. The way may be rougher and yet be nearer heaven. Godly anxiety, then, may be the cause of many regrets which are, nevertheless, not warranted by any serious declension. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

The Enemy Most to be Dreaded

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me… – Job 29:2

Are there not many among us who once walked humbly with God, and near to Him, who have fallen into carnal security? Have we not taken it for granted that all is well with us, and are we not settled upon our lees like Moab of old? How little of heart-searching and self-examination are practiced now-a-days! How little enquiry as to whether the root of the matter is really in us! Woe unto those who take their safety for granted, and sit down in God’s house and say, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we.” Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion. Of all enemies, one of the most to be dreaded is presumption. To be secure in a Christ is a blessing, to be secure in ourselves is a curse. Where carnal security reigns, the Spirit of God withdraws. He is with the humble and contrite, but He is not with the proud and self-sufficient. My brethren, are we all clear in this respect? Do not many of God’s people also need to bemoan their worldliness? Once Christ was all with you, brethren; is it so now? Once you despised the world, and contemned alike its pleasures and its frowns; but now, my brethren, are not the chains of worldly custom upon you? Are not many of you enslaved by fashion, and eaten up with frivolity? Do you not, some of you, run as greedily as worldlings after the questionable enjoyments of this present life? Ought these things to be so? Can they remain so, and your souls enjoy the Lord’s smile? “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” “If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” You cannot be Christ’s disciples and be in fellowship with the ungodly. Come ye out from among them; be ye separate; touch not the unclean thing; then shall ye know right joyfully that the Lord is Father to you, and that you are His sons and daughters. But, brethren, have ye gone unto Jesus without the camp, and do ye abide there with Him? Is the line of your separation visible-ay, is it existing? Is there any separation at all? Is it not often the case that the professed people of God are mixed up with the sons of men so that you cannot discern the one from the other? If it be so with any one of us, let him humble himself, and let him cry in bitterness, “Oh that I were as in months past.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

Our Divine Communion

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me…As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle… – Job 29:2,4

Job had lost divine communion: so it seems, for he mourned the days of his youth, when the secret of God was upon his tabernacle. Who shall tell to another what the secret of God is? Believing hearts know it, but they cannot frame to pronounce aright the words that could explain it, nor can they convey by language what the secret is. The Lord manifests Himself unto His people as He doth not unto the world. We could not tell the love passages that there are between believers and their Lord; even when they are set to such sweet music as the Song of Solomon, carnal minds cannot discern their delights. They cannot plough with our heifer, and therefore they read not our riddle. As Paul in heaven saw things which it were unlawful for a man to utter, so the believer sees and enjoys in communion with Christ what it would not only be unlawful but impossible for him to tell to carnal men. Such pearls are not for swine. The spiritual discerneth all things, but he himself is discerned of no man. Now, it is a high privilege, beyond all privileges, to enter into familiar intercourse with the Most High, and the man who has once possessed it, and has lost it, has a bitterer cause for regret than if, being rich, he had lost his wealth; or being famous, he had lost esteem; or being in health, he were suddenly brought to the bed of languishing. No loss can equal the loss of Thee, my God! No eclipse is so black as the hiding of Thy face! No storm is so fierce as the letting forth of Thine indignation! It is grief upon grief to find that Thou art not with me as in the days of old. Wherever, then, these regrets do exist, if the men’s hearts are as they should be, they are not mere hypocritical or superficial expressions, but they express the bitterest experiences of our human existence. “Oh that I were as in months past” is no sentimental sigh, but the voice of the innermost spirit in anguish, as one who has lost his firstborn. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

Desiring His Light

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

Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; When His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness… – Job 29:2,3

The joy of the Lord is our strength, the joy of the Lord is Israel’s excellency; it is the heaven of heaven, it is heaven even upon earth; and, consequently, to lose it, is a calamity indeed. Who that has once been satisfied with favor, and full of the blessing of the Lord, will be content to go into the dry and thirsty land, and live far off from God? Will he not rather cry out with David, “My soul thirsteth for God; when shall I come and appear before God?” Surely his agonising prayer will be, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit.” Love to God will never be content if His face be hidden. Until the curtain be drawn aside and the King’s face be seen through the lattices, the true spouse will spend her life in sighing, mourning like a dove bereaved of its mate.

Job deplored the loss of divine illumination. “By His light,” he says, “I walked through darkness,” that is to say, perplexity ceased to be perplexity; God shed such a light upon the mysteries of providence, that where others missed their path, Job, made wise by heaven, could find it. There have been times when, to our patient faith, all things have been plain. “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine;” but, if we walk far off from God, then, straightway, even the precious truth of God is no more clear to us, and the dealings of God with us in providence appear to be like a maze. He is wise as Solomon who walks with God, but he is a very fool who trusts his own understanding. All the wit that we have gathered by observation and experience will not supply us with sufficiency of common sense if we turn away from God. Israel, without consulting God, made a league with her enemies; she thought the case most plain when she entered into hasty alliance with the Gibeonites, but she was duped by cunning because she asked not counsel of the Lord. In the simplest business we shall err, if we seek not direction from the Lord; yet, where matters are most complicated, we shall walk wisely, if we wait for a voice from the oracle, and seek the good Shepherd’s guidance. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

Bitter Regrets

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

“Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me when His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle.”-Job 29:2,3,4

Job’s soul was depressed; he had lost the light of God’s countenance; his inward comforts were declining, his joy in the Lord was at a low ebb, this he regretted far more than anything besides. No doubt he deplored the departure of those prosperous days when, as he words it, his root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon his branch; but, much more did he bemoan that the lamp of the Lord no more shone upon his head, and the secret of God was not upon his tabernacle…We may, without violence, appropriate Job’s words to ourselves; for I fear that many of us can with great propriety take up our wailing and mourn for the days of our espousals, the happy days of our first love…Regrets such as those expressed in the text are and ought to be very BITTER. If it be the loss of spiritual things that we regret, then may we say from the bottom of our hearts, “Oh that I were as in months past.”

There are days with Christians when they can see God’s hand all around them, checking them in the first approaches of sin, and setting a hedge about all their ways…But when they fall into laxity of spirit, and walk at a distance from God, they are not so preserved. Though kept from final and total apostasy, yet they are not kept from very grievous sin; for, like Peter who followed afar off, they may be left to deny their Master, even with oaths and cursings. If we have lost that conscious preservation of God, which once covered us from every fiery dart; if we no longer abide under the shadow of the Almighty and feel no longer that His truth is our shield and buckler, we have lost a joy worth worlds, and we may well deplore it with anguish of heart… I beseech you be not high minded, lift not up your horn on high, speak not so exceeding proudly, bow before the Christ of God, and ask Him to give you the new life; for even if that new life have declined and become sickly, it is better than the death in which you dwell. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm