Christian Life

Where Will Our Immortal Natures Be?

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

Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. – Isaiah 38:1

Set your house in order, for your great Landlord may serve an ejectment notice upon you, and there will be no hope of resisting it, though the wisest of physicians should seek to bar the door…We cling with dreadful tenacity to this poor life and the little which we foolishly call our all. It were well if we could cling with such fast hold to the life that is to come, for that alone is worth clinging to, since it is forever—whereas this life is to be but for a little time even at the longest. What a reflection it is that within a hundred years, every one in our most crowded audiences (unless the Lord shall come), will be soundly sleeping amid the clods of the valley—and not one of all the present armies of men that populate our cities will be in possession of his house and lands, or will know aught of anything that is done under the sun! We shall have gone over to “the great majority.” We shall be, perhaps, remembered, perhaps forgotten, but at any rate, we ourselves shall mingle no more with our fellows in the mart, the street, the places of worship, or the haunts of pleasure. We shall depart from sea and land, from city and village, from earth and all that is thereon.

Where will our immortal natures be? Where will our spirits be? Shall we be communing among the blessed harpers whose every note is bliss, or shall we be forever gnashing our teeth in remorse among the castaways who would not receive the mercy of God? We hold our house, then, on no firmer tenure than from moment to moment. Remember this, you dwellers in these houses of clay! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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For What is Your Life?

Sherry Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever… – Psalm 49:11

How many live as if their tenant rights of this mortal life, and all its goods, were a fixed tenure and entailed upon themselves irrespective of assigns, or heirs, or superior lord of the manor or freeholder of the soil. “Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue forever and their dwelling places to all generations. They call their lands after their own names.” To such people as these, the words of the apostle James are very applicable, “Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such-and-such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” Yet how often we fall into the same error! Have not some of you, my friends, been laying out your plans for months and even years to come? You have considered where you will spend the summer and where you will live when you retire from your business. Ah, boast not yourselves of tomorrow, much less of summer or of autumn, for you know not what a day, or even an hour, may bring forth. O man of dying woman born, ask of God to give you day by day your daily bread and let your living and your planning be after the fashion of day by day, for when you begin to reckon for far-off time, it looks as if you had never prayed, “So teach me to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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What Is Man’s Lease?

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. – Psalm 90:3

One would imagine, from the way in which some men talk, that we were freeholders, or at least had a lease for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. The truth is, we are but tenants at will. We may possess the tenement, in which our soul now finds a house for itself, together with its appurtenances and outhouses, for the term of seventy years, and the tenure may even be prolonged to fourscore years, or even to a longer period in rare cases. But at no one time is the tenure altered. We always occupy from moment to moment. Our lease is not for three, seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, nor is it even from day to day, or from hour to hour—but from second to second we hold precarious possession. We are tenants at the absolute will of God. The commencement of a day never secures the ending of it to us alive, and the striking of the clock, as the commencement of the hour, is no guarantee that we shall hear it strike again. Every second, we hold our lives, and goods, and chattels upon the sole tenure of the divine will. God has but to say to us, “Return, ye children of men,” and we return to the dust. Flowers are not more frail, moths more fragile, bubbles more unsubstantial, or meteors more fleeting than man’s life. What transient things we are! I said, We are, but I made a mistake—we are not. We but begin to be, and ere we are, we are not. It is God alone who can say, “I AM.” None of the human race should dare to pronounce those words. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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The Rights of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. – Isaiah 1:2

It is most useful for each of us to know what are the rights of God towards us. Even if we do not acknowledge them, yet candor demands that at least we hear them defined. Sad is the reflection, however, that when we learn these rights, if we resist them, we become willful robbers and so increase our guilt. If we will not have God to reign over us, if, in our spirits we say, like Pharaoh, “Who is the LORD, that we should obey His voice?” it will go harder with us at the last than if we had never heard the claims of God proclaimed. Men and women, how is it that God has made you and yet so many of you never think of Him? Shall I bring against you the accusation which the prophet of old brought against his people? “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know; My people doth not consider.” Who among you would retain in your house a tool or a piece of furniture which was of no use or value to you? Who among you would keep so much as an ox or an ass if it rendered you no service? How much less would you nurture it if, instead thereof, it did you harm—if it had a spite against you and lifted up its heels against you? And yet, are there not some here who have been forgetful of their obligations to their Maker, who have never been of any service to Him, have never praised Him, have never desired to advance His glory? But who, on the contrary, have even spoken high and haughty thingy things against Him, and it may be words of profanity and blasphemy? O God, how are You ill-treated in the very world which is full of Your goodness! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Who Is the Landlord?

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. – Isaiah 38:1

This mortal life and its surroundings are likened to a house and the first point of the similitude will be seen if we inquire, WHO IS THE LANDLORD? The first answer is that certainly we are not. To all men, it may be truthfully said, “Ye are not your own.” We are tenants, but not freeholders. We are mere tenants at will without a lease. The earthly house of this tabernacle belongs to Him who built it. He who sustains it keeps the title deed in His own possession. Our house belongs to God. Dear friend, do you ever think of this? Do you remember, as a matter of fact, that you and yours are God’s property? He created you and created you for His own glory. Your soul was spoken into existence by Him. Your bodily powers were all bestowed by His hand. You are the creature of the Almighty. In every vein, sinew, and nerve of your body, there are traces of the Divine Embroiderer’s skill. You are God’s in all the most secret goings and issues of your life, for to Him you owe every day the continued possession of your existence… Day by day you are a commoner at the table of divine bounty, a pensioner, hour by hour, upon the infinite mercy of God. You have nothing and are nothing but as God pleases. You owe all you have and all you are to Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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A Thoughtful Walk in the Cemetery

Sherry Christian Life 2 Comments

“Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.” – Isaiah 38:1

Notwithstanding that a thousand voices proclaim our mortality, we are all too apt to put aside the contemplation of it. Since we cannot escape from death, we endeavor to shut our eyes to it, although there is no subject whose consideration would be more beneficial to us. Altering one word of the poet’s line, I may say,—

“’ Tis greatly wise to talk with our last hours.”

To be familiar with the grave is prudence. To prepare for death, it is well to commune with death. A thoughtful walk in the cemetery is good for our soul’s health. As Jeremy Taylor well observes, “Since a man stands perpetually at the door of eternity, and as did John the Almoner, every day is building his sepulchre, and every night one day of our life is gone and passed into the possession of death, it will concern us to take care that the door leading to hell does not open upon us, that we are not crushed to ruin by the stones of our grave, and that our death become not a consignation of us to a sad eternity.” The most of men prefer to cultivate less fruitful fields and turn their thoughts and meditations to subjects trivial for the present—and useless for the future. “O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!”

“Look to thy soul, O man, for none can be surety for his brother: Behold, for heaven—or for hell—thou canst not escape from Immortality!” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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God Gives His Grace Freely

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

How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the LORD God of your fathers hath given you? – Joshua 18:3

All that any child of God was, you may be; all the joy, and bliss, and holiness ever enjoyed on earth, you may enjoy. The land is before you; go in to possess it. Do not be without the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord, for in Him is “joy unspeakable, and full of glory.” Some of our dear friends hear a doctrine which is gospel and water; and they really do not know what the undiluted gospel is. The doctrines of grace are the cream which many cautious preachers skim from the milk of the Word lest it should prove too rich for the stomachs of their hearers. A solid portion of Calvinistic doctrine is like a joint of nourishing meat, and the people of this generation are such babes that they cannot digest it. It is too rich for me!” cries one. I know it, I know it. But I pray the Lord to make you grow into men, who can enjoy the fat things full of marrow, and the wines on the lees well refined. There are glorious truths of which beginners know nothing, and through not knowing of them they miss much joy. Full many a child of God goes fretting and worrying when he ought to be singing and rejoicing, and would be so if he knew what God has provided for him. God gives His grace freely; freely take it. God bless you, for Christ’s sake! Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2086.cfm