Christian Life

“Draw Me”

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God 8 Comments

Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee. -Song 1:4

How often have we resolved that we would live nearer to Christ! Yet, though we have resolved, and re-resolved, I fear it has all ended with resolving. Peradventure we have prayed over our resolutions, and for a little season we have sought it very earnestly, but our earnestness soon expired, like every other fire that is of human kindling, and we made but little progress. Be not disheartened, my beloved in the Lord: I tell thee, whether thou art able to believe it or not, that if thy heart be this night cold as the centre of an iceberg, yet if Christ shall come to thee, thy soul shall be as coals of juniper, that have a most vehement flame. Though to thy own apprehension thou seemest to be dead as the bones in a cemetery, yet if Jesus come to thee, thou shalt forthwith be as full of life as the seraphs who are as flames of fire. Why think you He will not come to you? Do you not remember how He did melt you when first He manifested Himself to your soul? You were as vile then as you are now; you were certainly as ruined then as you are now; you had no more to merit His esteem then than you have now; you were as far off from Him then as you are now-I might say even further off. But lo! He came to you when you did not seek Him; He came in the sovereignty of His grace and the sweetness of His mercy when you despised Him. Wherefore, then, should He not come to you now? Oh! breathe the prayer, “Draw me,” and you will soon find power to run, and when all your passions and powers are fled, the King will speedily bring you into His chamber.

Do seek fellowship with Him, as one who ignores every thought, feeling, or fact besides. So may it please Him to manifest Himself to you and to me as He doth not to the world.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3480.cfm

At His Table

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 11 Comments

While the king sitteth at his table -Song 1:12

Which in His times He shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords -1 Timothy 6:15

He is called “the King.” I am told that the Hebrew word is very emphatic, as if it said, “The King”-the King of kings, the greatest of all Kings. He must be such to us-absolute Master of our hearts, Lord of our soul’s domain, the unrivalled One in our estimation, to whom we render obedience with alacrity. We must have Him as King, or we shall not have His presence to revive our graces. And when the King communes with His people, it is said to be at “His table,” not at ours. Specially may this apply to the table of communion. It is not the Baptists’ table; it is not my table; it is His table, because if there is anything good on it, remember, He spread it; nay, there is nothing on the table unless He Himself be there. There is no food to the child of God unless Christ’s body be the flesh, and Christ’s blood the wine. We must have Christ. It must be emphatically His table by His being present, by His spreading it, His presiding at it, or else we have not His presence at all. I find the Hebrew word here signifies a “round table.” I do not know whether that is intended which I understand by it-perhaps it is-it suggests to me a blessed equality with all His disciples; sitting at His round table, as if there were scarce a head, but He was one of themselves, so close the communion He holds with them sitting at the table; so dear His fellowship, sitting like one of themselves, made like unto His brethren in all things at His round table.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3480.cfm

Fragrant Graces

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 6 Comments

While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. -Song 1:12

If I understand a Christian aright, he should be a man readily discerned. You do not need to write upon a box that contains spikenard, with the lid open, the word “Spikenard.” You will know it is there; your nostrils would tell you. If a man should fill his pockets with dust, he might walk where he would, and though he should scatter it in the air, few would notice it; but let him go into a room with his pockets full of musk, and let him drop a particle about, he is soon discovered, because the musk speaks for itself. Now true grace, like spikenard or any other perfume, should speak for itself. You know our Saviour compares Christians to lights. There is a crowd of people standing yonder; I cannot see those who are in the shadow, but there is one man whose face I can see well, and that is the man who holds the torch. Its flames light up his face, so that we can catch every feature readily. So, whoever is not discovered, the Christian should be obvious at once. “Thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth, for thy speech betrayeth thee.” Not only should the Christian be perceptible, but grace has been given to him that it might be in exercise. What is faith, unless it is believing? What is love, unless it is embracing? What is patience, unless it is enduring? To what purpose is knowledge, unless it is revealing truth? What are any of those sweet graces which the Master gives us, unless they yield their perfume? I fear we do not enough gaze upon that face covered with the bloody sweat, for if we did, as sure as the King was thus in our thoughts sitting at His table, we should be more like Him; we should love Him better; we should live more passionately for Him, and should spend and be spent, that we might promote His glory. I just note this point that believers’ graces, like spikenard, are meant to give forth their smell. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3480.cfm

The Gift of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 10 Comments

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God -Ephesians 2:8

We say, “nothing is freer than a gift”. Salvation is so purely, so absolutely a gift of God, that nothing can be more free. God gives it because He chooses to give it, according to that grand text which has made many a man bite his lip in wrath, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” You are all guilty and condemned, and the great King pardons whom He wills from among you. This is His royal prerogative. He saves in infinite sovereignty of grace.

When a man pays another his wage, he does what is right; and no one dreams of belauding him for it. But we praise God for salvation because it is not the payment of debt, but the gift of grace. No man enters eternal life on earth, or in heaven, as his due: it is the gift of God. Salvation is the gift of God: that is to say completely so, in opposition to the notion of growth. Salvation is not a natural production from within: it is brought from a foreign zone, and planted within the heart by heavenly hands. Salvation is in its entirety a gift from God. If thou wilt have it, there it is, complete. Wilt thou have it as a perfect gift? “No; I will produce it in my own workshop.” Thou canst not forge a work so rare and costly, upon which even Jesus spent His life’s blood. Here is a garment without seam, woven from the top throughout. It will cover thee and make thee glorious. Wilt thou have it? “No; I will sit at the loom, and I will weave a raiment of my own!” Proud fool that thou art! Thou spinnest cobwebs. Thou weavest a dream. Oh! that thou wouldst freely take what Christ upon the cross declared to be finished. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3479.cfm

The Cause of Our Turning to Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 5 Comments

And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins – Ephesians 2:1

A man ought to believe in Jesus: it is his duty to receive Him whom God has set forth to be a propitiation for sins. But man will not believe in Jesus; he prefers anything to faith in his Redeemer. Unless the Spirit of God convinces the judgment, and constrains the will, man has no heart to believe in Jesus unto eternal life. I ask any saved man to look back upon his own conversion, and explain how it came about. You turned to Christ, and believed in His name: these were your own acts and deeds. But what caused you thus to turn? What sacred force was that which turned you from sin to righteousness? Do you attribute this singular renewal to the existence of a something better in you than has been yet discovered in your unconverted neighbour? No, you confess that you might have been what he now is if it had not been that there was a potent something which touched the spring of your will, enlightened your understanding, and guided you to the foot of the cross. Gratefully we confess the fact; it must be so. Salvation by grace, through faith, is not of ourselves, and none of us would dream of taking any honour to ourselves from our conversion, or from any gracious effect which has flowed from the first divine cause.

If my Lord Jesus gives you salvation at this moment, you have it, and you have it forever. He will never take it back again; and if He does not take it from you, who can? If He saves you now through faith, you are saved-so saved that you shall never perish, neither shall any pluck you out of His hand. May it be so with every one of us! Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3479.cfm

Grace Kills and Makes Alive

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

But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: -Ephesians 2:4-6

No unregenerate person has lived so well that God is bound to give him further grace, and to bestow on him eternal life; else it were no longer of grace, but of debt. Salvation is given to us, not earned by us. Our first life is always a wandering away from God, and our new life of return to God is always a work of undeserved mercy, wrought upon those who greatly need, but never deserve it.

Salvation comes from above; it is never evolved from within. Can eternal life be evolved from the bare ribs of death? Some dare to tell us that faith in Christ, and the new birth, are only the development of good things that lay hidden in us by nature; but in this, like their father, they speak of their own. Sirs, if an heir of wrath is left to be developed, he will become more and more fit for the place prepared for the devil and his angels! You may take the unregenerate man, and educate him to the highest; but he remains, and must forever remain, dead in sin, unless a higher power shall come in and save him from himself. Grace brings into the heart an entirely foreign element. It does not improve and perpetuate; it kills and makes alive.

We are bound to view salvation as being as surely a divine act as creation, or providence, or resurrection. At every point of the process of salvation this word is appropriate-“not of yourselves.” From the first desire after it to the full reception of it by faith, it is evermore of the Lord alone, and not of ourselves. The man believes, but that belief is only one result among many of the implantation of divine life within the man’s soul by God Himself. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3479.cfm

By Faith, Not Feelings

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

But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead – 2 Corinthians 1:9

You cannot lay hold upon salvation by grace through your feelings. The hand of faith is constructed for the grasping of a present salvation by grace. But feeling is not adapted for that end. If you go about to say, “I must feel that I am saved. I must feel so much sorrow and so much joy or else I will not admit that I am saved,” you will find that this method will not answer. As well might you hope to see with your ear, or taste with your eye, or hear with your nose, as to believe by feeling: it is the wrong organ. After you have believed, you can enjoy salvation by feeling its heavenly influences; but to dream of getting a grasp of it by your own feelings is as foolish as to attempt to bear away the sunlight in the palm of your hand, or the breath of heaven between the lashes of your eyes. There is an essential absurdity in the whole affair.

Moreover, the evidence yielded by feeling is singularly fickle. When your feelings are peaceful and delightful, they are soon broken in upon, and become restless and melancholy…Faith receives the statement of God concerning His way of gracious pardon, and thus it brings salvation to the man believing; but feeling, warming under passionate appeals, yielding itself deliriously to a hope which it dares not examine, whirling round and round in a sort of dervish dance of excitement which has become necessary for its own sustaining, is all on a stir, like the troubled sea which cannot rest… The salvation, and the faith, and the whole gracious work together, are not of ourselves. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3479.cfm