Christian Life

The Path of Sorrow

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 1 Comment

…In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. – John 16:33

When a Christian is richest in grace he is poorest in himself. The way to grow rich in grace is to feel your poverty. Whenever you think you have stored up a little strength, a little comfort, a little provision against a rainy day, you are pretty sure to have the trouble you bargained for, and to miss the resources you counted on. Estimate your true wealth before God by your entire dependence on Him. The more you have, the less you have, and the less you have, the more you have. When you have nothing at all in yourself, then Christ is all in all to you. The perpetual condition of every child of God in himself is that of a needy and a poor and a helpless one-on the high mountains with his Lord, rejoicing in His love, yet is he even there in himself less than nothing and vanity-still poor and needy.

There have been times when we felt this very powerfully, perhaps, very painfully. Has Satan ever beset you, my brethren, with his fierce temptations? No doubt many of you have had to feel the ferocity of his attacks. Perhaps, blasphemous thoughts have been injected into your mind-dark forebodings, such as these, “God has forsaken me.” Perhaps, he has said, “He has sinned himself out of the covenant-he is a castaway,” and your poor little faith has tried to hold on to Christ, but it seemed as if she must be driven from her hold. While others found it as you thought easy to get to heaven, you realised the truth of the text-“The righteous scarcely are saved.” You have had to fight for every inch of ground, and it seemed to you often as though you had not a spark of grace in you, not a ray of hope, and not so much as a single grain of the grace of God within your heart. Ah! and at such times you have been poor and needy, and you have had no helper. And, perhaps, at such seasons, too, temporal trouble may have come in. Whoever may go through the world without trouble, but God’s people never do.

“The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the place where sorrow is unknown.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1037.cfm

He Will Become Our Helper and Our Salvation.

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

He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. -Psalm 72:13

We are very needy and very poor, though we did not always think so. When the discovery was first made to us, we felt the smart as those do “who have seen better days.” Once we fancied ourselves able to do our work and sure to get our wages; we did hope to merit a reward for our good conduct; and we thought it was only for us to add a little piety to our decent morals in order to be well pleasing to God and our own conscience. Ah, sirs! when we woke from these foolish dreams, and faced our own abject poverty, how ashamed we were; how we shunned the light; how we sat alone and avoided company; how fear preyed on our heart; with what anguish we chattered to ourselves, saying, “What shall I do? What shall I do?” Poor indeed we are and we know it.

Our eyes are up towards the hills whence cometh our help, and as to all earthly things, we see no help in them. “Cursed is he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm.” “He shall be like the heath in the desert-he shall not see when good cometh.”The Lord grant us all to be reduced to this-that we have no helper, because when we have no helper here, He will become our helper and our salvation.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1037.cfm

We Are Needy

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

For He shall deliver the needy when he crieth…He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. – Psalm 72:12,13

We are never a moment without need. We wake up, and our first glance might reveal our needs to us, and when we fall asleep it is upon a poor man’s pillow, for we need that God should preserve us through the night. We have needs when we are on our knees, else where would be the energy of our prayers? We have needs when we try to sing, else how should our uncircumcised lips praise Him aright? We have needs when we are relieving the needs of others, lest we become proud of our alms giving. We have need in preaching, need in hearing; we have need in working, need in suffering, need in resting. What is our life but one long need? All men are full of needs. But God’s peculiar people feel this need-they not only confess it is so, but they know it experimentally. They are full of needs. Once they thought that they were rich and increased in goods, and had need of nothing, but now, through the enlightenment of God’s Spirit, they feel themselves to be naked, and poor, and miserable. Their needs were great before, but they appear now to be incalculable, more in number than the hairs of their heads. They have need of a covering for the sin of the past; they have need of help against the temptation of the present; they have need of perseverance as to the entire future. If there are any people under heaven who could claim the title of “needy,” above all others, it is not the pauper in the workhouse, nor the mendicant who asks alms in the streets, but it is the child of God, for he feels himself to be so dependent that the more he gets from his great Benefactor the more he requires, and the more he must have to satisfy the enlarged desires of a heart that begins to know the will of God concerning us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1037.cfm

His Poor Needy Ones Are Blessed

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

“For He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.”-Psalm 72:12.

This is a royal Psalm. In it you see predictions of Christ, not upon the cross, but upon the throne. In reference to His manhood as well as to His godhead, He is exalted and extolled and very high. He is the king-the king’s son, truly with absolute sway, stretching His scepter from sea to sea, and “from the river even unto the ends of the earth.” It is remarkable that in this psalm which so fully celebrates the extent of His realm and the sovereignty of His government, there is so much attention drawn to the minuteness of His care for the lowly, His personal sympathy with the poor, and the large benefits they are to enjoy from His kingdom. Where Christ is highest and we are lowest, and the two meet, there is “glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men.” I might almost raise the question whether this psalm is more a tribute of homage to the Messiah, or a treasury of comfort for His poor subjects. We will compound the controversy by saying that as Christ here is highly exalted, so His poor needy ones are highly blessed, and while it is a blessing to them that He is exalted, it is an exaltation to Him that they are blessed.

Turning to our text without further preface, we shall note in it the special objects of great grace. “He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper;” then, the special blessings which are allotted to them. Here it is said that He shall deliver them, but all through the psalms there are scattered promises full of instruction and consolation all meant for them. And, lastly, the special season which God has appointed for the dispensing of these favors. “He shall deliver the needy when he crieth.” That shall be God’s time. When it is our time to cry, it shall be God’s time to deliver.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1037.cfm

A Fit Object for Thy Compassion

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

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men – Titus 2:11

Are any of you sad and lonely? Have any of you been cruelly wronged? Have you lost the goodwill of some you esteemed? Do you seem as if you had the cold shoulder even from good people? Do not say, in the anguish of your spirit, “I am lost,” and give up. He hath compassion on you. Nay, poor fallen woman, seek not the dark river and the cold stream-He has compassion. He who looks down with the bright eyes of yonder stars and watches thee is thy friend. He yet can help thee. Though thou hast gone so far from the path of virtue, throw not thyself away in blank despair, for He hath compassion. And thou, broken down in health and broken down in fortune, scarcely with shoe to thy feet, thou art welcome in the house of God, welcome as the most honoured guest in the assembly of the saints. Let not the weighty grief that overhangs thy soul tempt thee to think that hopeless darkness has settled thy fate and foreclosed thy doom. Though thy sin may have beggared thee, Christ can enrich thee with better riches. He hath compassion….He is a friend of publicans and sinners. He is never happier than when He is relieving and retrieving the forlorn, the abject, and the outcast. He despises not any that confess their sins and seek His mercy. No pride nestles in His dear heart, no sarcastic word rolls off His gracious tongue, no bitter expression falls from His blessed lips. He still receives the guilty. Pray to Him now. Now let the silent prayer go up, “My Saviour, have pity upon me; be moved with compassion towards me, for if misery be any qualification for mercy, I am a fit object for Thy compassion. Oh! save me for Thy mercy’s sake!” Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3438.cfm

In the Sympathy of Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 3 Comments

Uphold me according unto Thy word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope. – Psalm 119:116

Have not you noticed, some of you, that after doing your best to serve the Lord, when somebody has sneered at you, or you have met with such a rebuff as made you half- inclined to give up the work, an unexpected success has been given you, so that you have not played the Jonah and run away to Tarshish, but kept to your work? Ah! how many times in your life, if you could read it all, you would have to stop and write between the lines, “He was moved with compassion.” Many and many a time, when no other compassion could help, when all the sympathy of friends would be unavailing, He has been moved with compassion towards us, has said to us, “Be of good cheer,” banished our fears with His voice, and filled our souls to overflowing with gratitude. When we have been misrepresented, traduced, and slandered, we have found in the sympathy of Christ our richest support, till we could sing with rapture the verse-I cannot help quoting it now, though I have often quoted it before:-

“If on my face for Thy dear name
Shame and reproach shall be,
I’ll hail reproach and welcome shame,
Since Thou rememberest me.”

The compassion of the Master making up for all the abuses of His enemies. And, believe me, there is nothing sweeter to a forlorn and broken spirit than the fact that Jesus has compassion. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3438.cfm

I Looked to Him and Was Lightened

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 1 Comment

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up. – James 4:10

I do well remember when I was under conviction of sin, and smarted bitterly under the rod of God, that when I was most heavy and depressed there would sometimes come something like hope across my spirit. I knew what it was to say, “My soul chooseth strangling rather than life,” yet when I was at the lowest ebb and most ready to despair, though I could not quite lay hold of Christ, I used to get a touch of the promise now and then, till I half hoped that, after all, I might prove to be God’s prisoner, and He might yet set me free. I do remember well, when my sins compassed me about like bees, and I thought it was all over with me, and I must be destroyed by them, it was at that moment when Jesus revealed Himself to me. Had He waited a little longer, I’d have died of despair, but that was no desire of His. On swift wings of love He came and manifested His dear wounded self to my heart. I looked to Him and was lightened, and my peace flowed like a river. I rejoiced in Him. Yes, He was moved with compassion. He would not let the pangs of conviction be too severe; neither would He suffer them to be protracted too long for the spirit of man to fail before Him. It is not His wont to break a leaf that is driven by the tempest. “He will not quench the smoking flax.” Yea, and I do remember since I first saw Him and began to love Him, many sharp and severe troubles, dark and heavy trials, yet have I noted this, that they have never reached that pitch of severity which I was unable to bear. When all gates seemed closed, there has still been with the trial a way of escape, and I have noted again that in deeper depressions of spirits through which I have passed, and horrible despondencies that have crushed me down, I have had some gleams of love, and hope, and faith at the last moment; for He was moved with compassion. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3438.cfm