Christian Life

Travailing Prayer Brings Amazing Blessings

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

Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. – Isaiah 66:8

God’s works are not tied by time. The more spiritual a force is the less it lies within the chains of time. The electric current, which has a greater nearness to the spiritual than the grosser forms of materialism, is inconceivably rapid from that very reason, and by it time is all but annihilated. The influences of the Spirit of God are a force most spiritual, and more quick than any thing beneath the sun. As soon as we agonize in soul the Holy Spirit can, if He pleases, convert the person for whom we have pleaded. While we are yet speaking He hears, and before we call He answers… With God’s Spirit our present instrumentalities will suffice to win the world to Jesus; without Him, ten thousand times as much apparent force would be only so much weakness. The spread of truth, moreover, is not reckonable by time…The Spirit of God is able to operate upon the minds of men instantaneously…Oh for the travail that would produce immediate results.

So, in answer to prayer, God not only bestows speedy blessings, but great blessings. There were fervent prayers in that upper room “before the day of Pentecost had fully come,” and what a great answer it was when, after Peter’s sermon, some three thousand were ready to confess their faith in Christ, and to be baptized. Shall we never see such things again? Is the Spirit straitened? Has His arm waxed short? Nay, verily, but we clog and hinder Him. He cannot do any mighty work here because of our unbelief; and, if our unbelief were cast out, and if prayer went up to God with eagerness, and vehemence, and importunity, then would a blessing descend so copious as to amaze us all.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1009.cfm

Lion-like, Lamb-like Men

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

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you… – Galatians 4:19

Usually when God intends greatly to bless a church, it will begin in this way:-Two or three persons in it are distressed at the low state of affairs, and become troubled even to anguish. Perhaps they do not speak to one another, or know of their common grief, but they begin to pray with flaming desire and untiring importunity. The passion to see the church revived rules them. They think of it when they go to rest, they dream of it on their bed, they muse on it in the streets. This one thing eats them up. They suffer great heaviness and continual sorrow in heart for perishing sinners; they travail in birth for souls. I have happened to become the centre of certain brethren in this church; one of them said to me the other day, “O sir, I pray day and night for God to prosper our church; I long to see greater things; God is blessing us, but we want much more.” I saw the deep earnestness of the man’s soul, and I thanked him and thanked God heartily, thinking it to be a sure sign of a coming blessing. Sometime after, another friend, who probably now hears me speak, but who did not know any thing about the other, felt the same yearning, and must needs let me know it; he too is anxious, longing, begging, crying, for a revival; and thus from three or four quarters I have had the same message, and I feel hopeful because of these tokens for good. When the sun rises the mountain tops first catch the light, and those who constantly live near to God will be the first to feel the influence of the coming refreshing. The Lord give me a dozen importunate pleaders and lovers of souls, and by His grace we will shake all London from end to end yet. The work would go on without the mass of you, Christians; many of you only hinder the march of the army; but give us a dozen lion-like, lamb-like men, burning with intense love to Christ and souls, and nothing will be impossible to their faith. The most of us are not worthy to unloose the shoe-latches of ardent saints. I often feel I am not so myself, but I aspire and long to be reckoned among them. Oh, may God give us this first sign of the travail in the earnest ones and twos.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1009.cfm

Hard Hearts Broken by Tender Hearts

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. – Ecclesiastes 3:10

If souls were given us without any effort, anxiety or prayer it would be our loss to have it so, because the anxieties which throb within a compassionate spirit exercise his graces; they produce grateful love to God; they try his faith in the power of God to save others; they drive him to the mercy-seat; they strengthen his patience and perseverance, and every grace within the man is educated and increased by his travail for souls. As labor is now a blessing, so also is soul-travail; men are fashioned more fully into the likeness of Christ thereby, and the whole church is by the same emotion quickened into energy. The fire of our own spiritual life is fanned by that same breath which our prayers invite to come from the four winds to breath upon the slain. Besides, dear friends, the zeal that God excites within us is often the means of effecting the purpose which we desire. After all, God does not give conversions to eloquence, but to heart. The power in the hand of God’s Spirit for conversions is heart coming in contact with heart. This is God’s battle-axe and weapons of war in His crusade. He is pleased to use the yearnings, longings, and sympathies of Christian men, as the means of compelling the careless to think, constraining the hardened to feel, and driving the unbelieving to consider. I have little confidence in elaborate speech and polished sentences, as the means of reaching men’s hearts; but I have great faith in that simple-minded Christian woman, who must have souls converted or she will weep her eyes out over them; and in that humble Christian who prays day and night in secret, and then avails himself of every opportunity to address a loving word to sinners. The emotion we feel, and the affection we bear, are the most powerful implements of soul-winning. God the Holy Ghost usually breaks hard hearts by tender hearts. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1009.cfm

In Earnest Pleading with God

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

…for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. – Isaiah 66:8

I have heard of a young man who had grown up and left the parental roof, and through evil influences, had been enticed into holding skeptical views. His father and mother were both earnest Christians, and it almost broke their hearts to see their son so opposed to the Redeemer. On one occasion they induced him to go with them to hear a celebrated minister. He accompanied them simply to please them, and for no higher motive. The sermon happened to be upon the glories of heaven. It was a very extraordinary sermon, and was calculated to make every Christian in the audience to leap for joy. The young man was much gratified with the eloquence of the preacher, but nothing more; he gave him credit for superior oratorical ability, and was interested in the sermon, but felt none of its power. He chanced to look at his father and mother during the discourse, and was surprised to see them weeping. He could not imagine why they, being Christian people, should sit and weep under a sermon which was most jubilant in its strain. When he reached home, he said, “Father, we have had a capital sermon, but I could not understand what could make you sit there and cry, and my mother too?” His father said, “My dear son, I certainly had no reason to weep concerning myself, nor your mother, but I could not help thinking all through the sermon about you, for alas, I have no hope that you will be a partaker in the bright joys which await the righteous. It breaks my heart to think that you will be shut out of heaven.” His mother said, “The very same thoughts crossed my mind, and the more the preacher spoke of the joys of the saved, the more I sorrowed for my dear boy that he should never know what they were.” That touched the young man’s heart, led him to seek his father’s God, and before long he was at the same communion table, rejoicing in the God and Saviour whom his parents worshiped. The travail comes before the bringing forth; the earnest anxiety, the deep emotion within, precede our being made the instruments of the salvation of others.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1009.cfm

Travailing for Souls

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

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. – John 17:3

The like living zeal and vehement desire have always been perceptible in the Church of God before any season of refreshing. Think not that Luther was the only man that wrought the Reformation. There were hundreds who sighed and cried in secret in the cottages of the Black Forest, in the homes of Germany, and on the hills of Switzerland. There were hearts breaking for the Lord’s appearing in strange places, they might have been found in the palaces of Spain, in the dungeons of the Inquisition, among the canals of Holland, and the green lanes of England. Women, as they hid their Bibles, lest their lives should be forfeited, cried out in spirit, “O God, how long?” There were pains as of a woman in travail, in secret places there were tears and bitter lamentations, on the high places of the field there were mighty strivings of spirit, and so at length there came that grand revulsion which made the Vatican to rock and reel from its foundation to its pinnacle. There has been evermore in the history of the church, the travail before there has been the result.

Even Christ went not forth to preach until He had spent nights in intercessory prayer, and uttered strong cryings and tears for the salvation of His hearers. His ministering servants who have been most useful, have always been eagerly desirous to be so. If any minister can be satisfied without conversions, he shall have no conversions. God will not force usefulness on any man. It is only when our heart breaks to see men saved, that we shall be likely to see sinners’ hearts broken. The secret of success lies in all-consuming zeal, all-subduing travail for souls.

“The love of Christ doth me constrain
To seek the wandering souls of men;
With cries, entreaties, tears, to save,
To snatch them from the fiery wave.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1009.cfm

From Sighs and Cries to Blessings

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

“As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.”- Isaiah 66:8

Israel had fallen into the lowest condition, but an inward yearning of heart was felt in the midst of God’s people for the return of the divine blessing; and no sooner had this anxious desire become intense, than God heard the voice of its cry, and the blessing came…Before there has fallen a great benediction upon God’s people, it has been preceded by great searchings of heart. Israel was so oppressed in Egypt, that it would have been very easy, and almost a natural thing, for the people to become so utterly crushed in spirit as to submit to be hereditary bond-slaves, making the best they could of their miserable lot; but God would not have it so; He meant to bring them out “with a high hand and an outstretched arm.” Before, however, He began to work, He made them begin to cry. Their sighs and cries came up into the ears of God, and He stretched out his hand to deliver them. Doubtless, many a heart-rending appeal was made to heaven by mothers when their babes were torn from their breasts to be cast into the river. With what bitterness did they ask God to look upon His poor people Israel, and avenge them of their oppressors. The young men bowed under the cruel yoke and groaned, while hoary sires, smarting under ignominious lashes from the taskmaster, sighed and wept before the God of Israel. The whole nation cried, “O God visit us; God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, remember thy covenant, and deliver us.” This travail brought its result; for the Lord smote the field of Zoan with mighty plagues, and forth from under the bondage of the sons of Misraim, the children of Israel marched with joy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1009.cfm

A Gift of Free Grace

Sherry Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. – Acts 16:31

The readiness of God to pardon is to be seen in the fact that He makes no hard conditions with sinners. He does not say, “I will pardon if you suffer this or endure that penance; I will pardon if you perform this act of heroism or that deed of consecration.” No, He himself says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Receive what is freely given-that is the gospel precept, and nothing else. Only confess thy transgressions, or, in other words, own thine emptiness, and then trust thy Savior, and thou art saved.

That He is ready to forgive appears in this yet more glorious fact, that what God demands of man by the gospel He also works in him by His spirit; as for confession of sin He puts the words into the sinner’s mouth, repentance He works in the sinner’s heart, and saving faith His own Spirit creates in the sinner’s soul. Is He not ready to forgive when even what might be called the condition of pardon in one light is under another aspect a gift of free grace?

The sinner’s plea on his lip is, “for Jesus’ sake,” the sinner’s hope in his heart is “for Christ’s sake,”-and it is this that the Father looks at; when He sees that the poor trembling soul has embraced Jesus, His own dear Son, the Father puts the sin away at once without a word, and says, “Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1272.cfm