Christian Life

Knowing the Love of Jesus

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

And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not… – Revelation 1:17

“He laid His hand upon me.” It is noticeable, that in the great cures which our Savior wrought, He almost always touched the patient. He could with a word have healed, but to prove His fellowship with the sick, He put His hand upon the leper, and upon the blind eye, and touched the deaf ear; thus, manifesting His condescending contact with the infirmities of our nature. The Master could have spoken a word to John and have revived him; but He did not stand at a distance, or guard Himself with a “Touch Me not” but, instead of that, He commenced His care with a touch. No other hand could have revived the apostle, but the hand which was pierced for him had matchless power. There is mighty healing in the royal hand of our Immanuel. When the Holy Spirit inspires us with a sense of the relationship which Christ bears to us, of the sympathy which Christ feels with us, of the kinship and fellow-feeling which reign in Jesus’ breast, then are we comforted. To know that He is not ashamed to call us brethren is a wellspring of comfort to a tried child of God; to feel His presence, to perceive the touch of His hand, and to hear Him say: “I am with thee, be not dismayed, for I am thy God,” this is new life to our waning spirits. Oh! what bliss is this. “In all their afflictions He was afflicted.” He is a brother born for adversity; a sympathetic and tender friend touched with a feeling of our infirmities. “He laid His hand upon me.” “O child of God, pray for a manifestation of the kinsman Christ to thy soul; ask that He would instruct thee as to the fact that He enters into thy grief, having Himself endured the like. Thou art one with Him, and He is one with thee; and as surely as the head feels the pain of the members, so does Jesus share in all the sorrows of His people. Let this be a comfort to thee, thou who art now lying as dead before the risen Lord. He comes near to thee, not to kill thee, but to revive thee by most intimate intercourse, talking with thee as a man speaketh with his friend. O man, greatly beloved, be not so overwhelmed with the greatness of thy Lord as to forget His love, His great love, His familiar love, which at this moment lays its hand upon thee. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

The Best Remedy for Fears

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

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:  I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:17, 18

The knowledge of Jesus is the best remedy for fears: when we are better acquainted with our Lord, we part company with half our doubts-these bats and owls cannot bear the sun. Jesus in His person, work, offices, and relations, is a mine of consolation; every truth which is connected with Him is an argument against fear: when our heart shall be filled with perfect love to Him fear will be cast out, as Satan was cast down from heaven. Study then your Lord. Make it your life’s object to know Him. Seek the Holy Spirit’s illumination, and the choice privilege of fellowship, and your despondency and distress will vanish as night birds fly to hide themselves when the day breaketh. It is folly to walk in sorrow when we might constantly rejoice. We do not read that John was any more afraid after the Lord had discoursed lovingly upon His own glorious person and character. That divine enlightenment which was given to his mind, purged from it any secret mistake and misjudgment which had created excessive fear.

It is an infinite blessing to us to be utterly emptied, stripped, spoiled, and slain before the Lord. Our strength is our weakness, our life is our death, and when both are entirely gone, we begin to be strong and in very deed to live. To lie at Jesus’ feet is a right experience; to lie there as sick and wounded is better, but to lie there as dead is best of all; a man is taught in the mysteries of the kingdom, who comes to that. Moses with dim legal light needs to be told to put off his shoe from off his foot in the presence of the Lord of Hosts, but John is manifestly far in advance of him, because he lies lower, and is like a dead man before the Infinite Majesty. How blessed a death is death in Christ! How divine a thing is life in Him.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

“I saw Him.”

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

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen – Revelation 1:17,18 

I beg you to notice with care this beloved disciple in his fainting fit, and note first, the occasion of it. He says, “I saw Him.” This it was that made him faint with fear. “I saw HIM.” He had seen (Jesus) on earth, but not in His full glory as the first begotten from the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. When our Savior dwelt among men, in order to their redemption, He made Himself of no reputation and took upon Himself the form of a servant; for this reason, He restrained the flashings of His Deity, and the godhead shone through the manhood with occasional and softened rays. But now, Jesus was resplendent as the ancient of days, girt with a golden girdle, with a countenance outshining the sun in its strength, and this even the best beloved apostle could not endure. He could gaze with dauntless eye upon the throne of jasper and the rainbow of emerald, he could view with rapture the sea of glass like unto crystal, and the seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, but the vision of the Lord Himself was too much for him. He who quailed not when the doors of both heaven and hell were opened to him in vision yet fell lifeless when he saw the Lord. None either in earth or heaven can compare with Jesus in glory. Oh, for the day when we shall gaze upon His glory and partake in it. Such is His sacred will concerning us. “Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.” To bear that sight we shall need to be purified and strengthened. God Himself must enlarge and strengthen our faculties, for as yet, like the disciples upon Tabor, we should be bewildered by the brightness…How shall an insect live in the furnace of the sun? How can mortal eye behold unquenched the light of Deity, or mortal ear hear that voice which is as many waters? …The most spiritual and sanctified minds, when they fully perceive the majesty and holiness of God, are so greatly conscious of the great disproportion between themselves and the Lord, that they are humbled and filled with holy awe, and even with dread and alarm.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

John’s Unveiled Vision

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

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. – Revelation 1:17

The beloved disciple was favored with an unusual vision of his glorified Lord. In the blaze of that revelation even his eagle eye was dimmed, and his holy soul was overwhelmed. He was overpowered, but not with ecstasy. At first sight it would have seemed certain that excess of delight would have been John’s most prominent feeling; it would appear certain that to see his long lost Master, whom he had so dearly loved, would have caused a rush of joy to John’s soul, and that if overpowered at all, it would have been with ecstatic bliss. That it was not so is clear from the fact that our Lord said to him, “Fear not.” Fear was far more in the ascendant than holy joy. I will not say that John was unhappy, but, certainly, it was not delight which prostrated him at the Savior’s feet; and I gather from this that if we, in our present embodied state, were favored with an unveiled vision of Christ, it would not make a heaven for us; we may think it would, but we know not what spirit we are of. Such new wine, if put into these old bottles, would cause them to burst. Not heaven but deadly faintness would be the result of the beatific vision, if granted to these earthly eyes. We should not say, if we could behold the King in His beauty as we now are, “I gazed upon Him, and my heart leaped for joy,” but like John we should have to confess, “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead.” There is a time for everything, and this period of our sojourn in flesh and blood is not the season for seeing the Redeemer face to face: that vision will be ours when we are fully prepared for it. We are as yet too feeble to bear the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. I do not say but what we are so prepared by His grace that, if now He took us away from this body, we should be able to bear the splendor of His face; but, I do say, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and that when, as an exception to the rule, a mortal man is permitted to behold his Lord, his flesh and blood are made to feel the sentence of death within themselves, and to fall as if slain by the revelation of the Lord. We ought, therefore, to thank God that “He holdeth back the face of His throne, and spreadeth His cloud upon it.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Earth Sinks as Jesus Rises

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

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last… – Revelation 1:10,11

When our thoughts of Jesus are expanded and elevated, we obtain right ideas upon other matters. In the light of His love and atoning sacrifice, we see the depth of the degradation from which such a Redeemer has uplifted us, and we hate, with all our hearts, the sins which pierced such an altogether lovely one, and made it needful for the Lord of life to die. Forming some adequate estimate of what Jesus has done for us, our gratitude grows, and with our gratitude our love-while love compels us to consecration, and consecration suggests heroic self-denying actions. Then are we bold to speak for Him, and ready, if needs be, to suffer for Him while we feel we could give up all we have to increase His glory, without so much as dreaming that we had made a sacrifice.

Let your thoughts of Christ be high, and your delight in Him will be high too; your sense of security will be strong, and with that sense of security will come the sacred joy and peace which always keep the heart which confidently reposes in the Mediator’s hands. If thou wouldst thyself be raised, let thy thoughts of Christ be raised. If thou wouldst rise above these earthly toys, thou must have higher and more elevated thoughts of Him who is high above all things. Earth sinks as Jesus rises. Honor the Son even as thou wouldst honor the Father, and, in so doing, thy soul shall be sanctified and brought into closer fellowship with the great Father of Spirits, whose delight it is to glorify His Son. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Lord, Deliver Us from this Evil!

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

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. – Revelation 1:17-18.

Low thoughts of the Lord Jesus Christ are exceedingly mischievous to believers. If you sink your estimate of Him, you shift everything else in the same proportion. He who thinks lightly of the Savior thinks so much the less of the evil of sin; and, consequently, he becomes callous as to the past, careless as to the present, and venturesome as to the future. He thinks little of the punishment due to sin, because he has small notions of the atonement made for sin. Christian activity for right is also abated, as well as holy horror of wrong. He who thinks lightly of the Lord Jesus renders to Him but small service; he does not estimate the Redeemer’s love at a rate high enough to stir his soul to ardor; if he does not count the blood wherewith he was redeemed an unholy thing, yet he thinks it a small matter, not at all sufficient to claim from him life-long service. Gratitude is weak when favors are undervalued. He serves little who loves little, and he loves little who has no sense of having been greatly beloved. The man who thinks lightly of Christ also has but poor comfort as to his own security. With a little Savior I am still in danger, but if He be the mighty God, able to save unto the uttermost, then am I safe in His protecting hand, and my consolations are rich and abounding. In these, and a thousand other ways, an unworthy estimate of our Lord will prove most solemnly injurious. The Lord deliver us from this evil.

If our conceptions of the Lord Jesus are very enlarged, they will only be His due. We cannot exaggerate here. He deserves higher praise than we can ever render to Him. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high is He above our loftiest conceptions. Even when the angels strike their loudest notes and chant His praises most exultingly on their highest festal days, the music falls far short of His excellence. He is higher than a seraph’s most soaring thought! Rise then, my brethren, as on eagle’s wings, and let your adoring souls magnify and extol the Lord your Savior. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

The Clean Made Unclean to Clean the Unclean

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

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? – Hebrews 9:13,14

Solomon, according to the Jewish tradition, declared that he did not understand why the ashes of the heifer made everybody clean except those who were unclean already. You saw in the reading that the priest, the man who killed the red cow, the person who swept up the ashes and he who mixed the ashes with water and sprinkled them were all rendered unclean by those acts—and yet the ashes purified the unclean! Is not this analogous to the riddle of the bronze serpent? It was by a serpent that the people were bitten—and it was by a serpent of brass that they were healed! Christ’s being regarded as unclean that we become clean and the operation of His Sacrifice is just like that of the ashes, for it both reveals uncleanness and removes it.

If you are clean and you think of Christ’s death, what a sense of sin it brings upon you! You judge of the sin by the Atonement. If you are unclean, drawing near to Christ takes that sin away!—

“Thus while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of Grace,
It seals my pardon, too.”

If we think we are unclean, a sight of the atoning blood makes us see how unclean we are. And if we judge ourselves unclean, then the application of the atoning Sacrifice gives our conscience rest. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm