Christian Life

This Life of the Spirit

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And I will put My spirit within you… – Ezekiel 36:27

One of the first effects of the Spirit of God being put within us is quickening. We are dead by nature to all heavenly and spiritual things; but when the Spirit of God comes, then we begin to live. The man visited of the Spirit begins to feel; the terrors of God make him tremble, the love of Christ makes him weep. He begins to fear, and he begins to hope: a great deal of the first and a very little of the second, it may be. He learns spiritually to sorrow: he is grieved that he has sinned, and that he cannot cease from sinning. He begins to desire that which once he despised: he specially desires to find the way of pardon, and reconciliation with God. Ah, dear hearers! I cannot make you feel, I cannot make you sorrow for sin, I cannot make you desire eternal life; but it is all done as soon as this is fulfilled by the Lord, “I will put My spirit within you.” The quickening Spirit brings life to the dead in trespasses and sins.

This life of the Spirit shows itself by causing the man to pray. The cry is the distinctive mark of the living child. He begins to cry in broken accents, “God be merciful to me.” At the same time that he pleads, he feels the soft relentings of repentance. He has a new mind towards sin, and he grieves that he should have grieved his God. With this comes faith; perhaps feeble and trembling, only a touch of the hem of the Saviour’s robe; but still Jesus is his only hope and his sole trust. To Him he looks for pardon and salvation. He dares to believe that Christ can save even him. Then has life come into the soul when trust in Jesus spring up in the heart. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

In the Midst of You

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And I will put My spirit within you… Ezekiel 36:27

It is an instructive symbol when the Lord teaches us our death with Christ by burial in baptism: it is to our great profit that He ordains bread and wine to be tokens of our communion in the body and blood of His dear Son; but these are only outward things, and if they are unattended with the Holy Spirit they fail of their design. There is something infinitely greater in this promise-“I will put My spirit within you.” I cannot give you the whole force of the Hebrew, as to the words “within you,” unless I paraphrase them a little, and read “I will put My spirit in the midst of you.” The sacred deposit is put deep down in our life’s secret place. God puts His Spirit not upon the surface of the man, but into the centre of his being. The promise means-“I will put My spirit in your bowels, in your hearts, in the very soul of you.” This is an intensely spiritual matter, without admixturing of anything material and visible. It is spiritual, you see, because it is the Spirit that is given; and He is given internally within our spirit. It is true the Spirit operates upon the external life, but it is through the secret and internal life, and of that inward operation our text speaks. This is what we so greatly require… The good Spirit fires your heart; He penetrates your mind; He saturates your soul; He touches the secret and vital springs of your existence. Blessed Word! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

The Holy Spirit Bows Himself to Dwell in Sinful Men

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you… – Ezekiel 36:26

God in our nature is a very wonderful conception! God in the babe at Bethlehem, God in the carpenter of Nazareth, God in the “Man of sorrows,” God in the Crucified, God in Him who was buried in the tomb-this is all marvellous. The incarnation is an infinite mystery of love; but we believe it. Yet, if it were possible to compare one illimitable wonder with another, I should say that God’s dwelling in His people and that repeated ten thousand times over, is more marvellous. That the Holy Ghost should dwell in millions of redeemed men and women, is a miracle not surpassed by that of our Lord’s espousal of human nature. For our Lord’s body was perfectly pure, and the Godhead, while it dwells with His holy manhood, does at least dwell with a perfect and sinless nature; but the Holy Spirit bows Himself to dwell in sinful men; to dwell in men who, after their conversion, still find the flesh warring against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; men who are not perfect, though they strive to be so; men who have to lament their shortcomings, and even to confess with shame a measure of unbelief.

Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have the Spirit of God, for “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” You could not bear the suspicion that you are not His; and therefore, as surely as you are Christ’s, you have His Spirit abiding in you. The Saviour has gone away on purpose that the Comforter might be given to dwell in you, and He does dwell in you. Is it not so? If it be so, admire this condescending God, and worship and praise His name. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

By the Spirit of God

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

And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them. – Ezekiel 36:27

Now when God’s own Spirit comes to reside within our mortal bodies, how near akin we are to the Most High! “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?” Does not this make a man sublime? Have you never stood in awe of your own selves, O ye believers? Have you enough regarded even this poor body, as being sanctified and dedicated, and elevated into a sacred condition, by being set apart to be the temple of the Holy Ghost? Thus are we brought into the closest union with God that we can well conceive of. Thus is the Lord our light and our life; while our spirit is subordinated to the divine Spirit. “I will put My spirit within you”-then God Himself dwelleth in you. The Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead is in you. With Christ in God your life is hid, and the Spirit seals you, anoints you, and abides in you. By the Spirit we have access to the Father; by the Spirit we perceive our adoption, and learn to cry, “Abba, Father”; by the Spirit we are made partakers of the divine nature, and have communion with the thrice holy Lord.

I cannot help adding here that it is a very condescending word- “I will put My spirit within you.” Is it really so, that the Spirit of God who displays the power and energetic force of God, by whom God’s Word is carried into effect- that the Spirit who of old moved upon the face of the waters, and brought order and life from chaos and death- can it be so that He will deign to sojourn in men?

“A sinner is a sacred thing,
The Holy Ghost hath made him so.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

An Ever-widening Gulf

Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

And I will put My spirit within you… – Ezekiel 36:27

…because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. – John 15:19

The Spirit of God, wherever He comes, doth speedily make and reveal the difference between Israel and Egypt; and in proportion as His active energy is felt, there will be an ever-widening gulf between those who are led of the Spirit and those who are under the dominion of the flesh. The possession of the Spirit will make you, my hearer, quite another sort of man from what you now are, and then you will be actuated by motives which the world will not appreciate; for the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Then you will act, and speak, and think, and feel in such a way, that this evil world will misunderstand and condemn you. Since the carnal mind knoweth not the things that are of God -for those things are spiritually discerned- it will not approve your objects and designs. Do not expect it to be your friend. The spirit which makes you to be the seed of the woman is not the spirit of the world. The seed of the serpent will hiss at you, and bruise your heel. Your Master said, “Because ye are not of this world, but I have chosen you out of the world; therefore the world hateth you.” It is a separating word this. Has it separated you? Has the Holy Spirit called you alone and blessed you? Do you differ from your old companions? Have you a life they do not understand? If not, may God in mercy put into you that most heavenly deposit, of which He speaks in our text: “I will put My spirit within you”! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

A Separating Word

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

And I will put My spirit within you… – Ezekiel 36:27

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you… – 2 Corinthians 6:17

Men by nature are of another spirit from that of God, and they are under subjection to that evil spirit, the Prince of the power of the air. When the Lord comes to gather out His own, fetching them out from among the heathen, He effects the separation by doing according to this word, “I will put My spirit within you.” This done, the individual becomes a new man. Those who have the Spirit are not of the world, nor like the world; and they soon have to come out from among the ungodly, and to be separate; for difference of nature creates conflict. God’s Spirit will not dwell with the evil spirit: you cannot have fellowship with Christ and with Belial; with the kingdom of heaven and with this world. I wish that the people of God would again wake up to the truth that to gather out a people from among men is the great purpose of the present dispensation. It is still true, as James said at the Jerusalem Council, “Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name.” We are not to remain clinging to the old wreck with the expectation that we shall pump the water out of her and get her safe into port. No; the cry is very different-“Take to the lifeboat! Take to the lifeboat!” You are to quit the wreck, and then you are to carry away from the sinking mass that which God will save. You must be separate from the old wreck, lest it suck you down to sure destruction. Your only hope of doing good to the world is by yourselves being “not of the world,” even as Christ was not of the world. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

An Individual and Personal Word

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

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. – Ezekiel 36:26

To me there is much charm in the thought that this text is an individual and personal word. The Lord means, “I will put My spirit within you”: that is to say, within you, as individuals. “I will put My spirit within you” one by one. This must be so since the connection requires it. Now, a new heart can only be given to one person. Each man needs a heart of his own, and each man must have a new heart for himself… “And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” -these are all personal, individual operations of grace. God deals with men one by one in the solemn matters of eternity, sin, and salvation. We are born one by one, and we die one by one: even so we must be born again one by one, and each one for himself must receive the Spirit of God. Without this a man has nothing. He cannot be caused to walk in God’s statutes except by the infusion of grace into him as an individual.

My dear hearers, you who have long been seeking salvation, but have not known the power of the Spirit-this is what you need. You have been striving in the energy of the flesh, but you have not understood where your true strength lieth. God saith to you, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord”; and again, “I will put My spirit within you.” …Lift up your heart in prayer to God, and ask Him to pour upon you the Spirit of grace and of supplications. Plead with the Lord, saying, “Let Thy good Spirit lead me. Even me.” Cry, “Pass me not, my gracious Father; but in me fulfil this wondrous word of thine, ‘I will put My spirit within you.'” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm