Christian Life

Walking Humbly with Thy God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 7 Comments

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?-Micah 6:8

This is the essence of the law, the spiritual side of it; its ten commandments are an enlargement of this verse. The law is spiritual, and touches the thoughts, the intents, the emotions, the words, the actions; but specially God demands the heart. Now it is our great joy that what the law requires the gospel gives. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” In Him we meet the requirements of the law, first, by what He has done for us; and next, by what He works in us. He conforms us to the law of God. He makes us, by His Spirit, not for our righteousness, but for His glory, to render to the law the obedience which we could not present of ourselves. We are weak through the flesh, but when Christ strengthens us, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Only through faith in Christ does a man learn to do righteously, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God; and only by the power of the Holy Spirit sanctifying us to that end do we fulfil these three divine requirements. These we fulfil perfectly in our desire; we would be holy as God is holy, if we could live as our heart aspires to live, we would always do righteously, we would always love mercy; and we would always walk humbly with God. This the Holy Spirit daily aids us to do by working in us to will and to do of God’s good pleasure; and the day will come, and we are pining for it, when, being entirely free from this hampering body, we shall serve Him day and night in His temple, and shall render to Him an absolutely perfect obedience, for “they are without fault before the throne of God.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2328.cfm

The Lord Knoweth Them That Are His

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

These be the heads of their fathers’ houses…these are the heads of the fathers of the Levites according to their families. -Exodus 6:14-25

I greatly admire this chapter. I cannot help admiring the next thing that God did when He told His servant what to do. The Lord began to count the heads of those whom He would redeem out of bondage…God seemed to say, “Pharaoh, let My people go!” “I will not,” said the despot. Straightway the Lord goes right down into the brick-town where the poor slaves are at work, and He makes out a list of all of them, to show that He means to set free. So many there of Simeon. So many here of Reuben. So many here of Levi. The Lord is counting them…for He knows what will be done, because He determines to do it and He is almighty. He knows what is to come of the gospel, and He knows whom He means to bless. And so let Satan rage, and let adversaries do what they will, “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His”; and to prove this, He goes on writing down their names, and taking an account of them. “They shall be Mine, saith the Lord, in that day when I make up My jewels”…Out of the mass of mankind a company shall come to Him, and shall glorify His name, as it is written, “This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise.” Oh, that you had such a mind in you that you would accept His gospel! Will you do so even now? Trust Christ, and you are saved. Look unto Him, and be ye saved The Lord bless you, for His name’s sake. Amen.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2026.cfm

 

Saved With an Everlasting Salvation!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 3 Comments

Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land. -Exodus 7:2

The first thing the Lord did to prove His persevering grace was to commission Moses again. So the Lord God, in everlasting mercy, says to His minister, “You have to preach the gospel again to them. Again proclaim My grace.” It seems a terrible thing to have to pour our souls into deaf ears. Yet I shall not give it up, for I have done it with some here for nearly thirty-three years, and I may as well go on. Why should I lose so much labour? I will try again, like Peter, who, after toiling all night and taking nothing, yet let down the net at the Lord’s bidding. One of these days those dead ears will be made to live. God in mercy says, “Go on with it. As long as there is breath in your body, tell them to believe in My Son, and they shall live. Tell them till you die that ‘He that with his mouth confesseth, and with his heart believeth that God hath raised Christ from the dead shall be saved.'”

I believe that God is saying to His church “You have to do it. You have to gather out Mine elect out of every nation under heaven”…To the eye of reason there is no use in preaching to men dead in sin. I freely admit that; but if it is a commission from God, then it is not ours to raise questions, but to do as we are bidden. God has commissioned His servants to preach the gospel to every creature. Whatever those creatures may be, we are to say to them, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be dammed.” This is our message and our mission, and we are just to tell the truth, and leave God to apply it to the heart. Oh that He may give us grace to tell out the gospel, and to keep on doing it till He has brought His own elect out of the bondage of sin and Satan, and saved them with an everlasting salvation! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2026.cfm

Do Not Yet Despair

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation. -Exodus 15:13

See, O soul, thou’rt yet alive,
Not in torment; not in hell.
Still doth His good Spirit strive,
With the chief of sinners dwell.

Lift up thine eyes, for thou art not yet where the rich man was after his death and burial. Do not yet despair. May be, there awaits thee yet a happy life of joy in God. The sun may yet bring thee brighter days, days of peace, and rest, and usefulness. Did you never hear the story of John Newton, on the coast of Africa? He had got himself into such a state by his sins, his drunkenness, his vice, that at last he was left on the coast of Africa, and virtually became a slave. Did John Newton dream, when he wandered up and down with a hungry belly, full of fever, and at death’s door, that the day would come when he would be the companion and dear friend of Cowper, and when the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, over there in the city, would be crowded every time he stood up to preach of free grace and dying love? He did not think it, but it was so predestined. Something equally gracious may be ordered for you. Blasphemer, you may preach the gospel yet. O thou Magdalene, full of filthiness, thou wilt yet wash His feet with thy tears, and wipe them with the hairs of thy head. Thou black villain, thou mayest yet stand among that white-robed host, of whom the angel asked, “Who are these, and whence came they?” You, even you, will sing more sweet and loud than any of them unto Him that loved you and washed you from your sins in His precious blood. God make it so, and unto His name shall be praise for ever and ever! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2026.cfm

Hope Thou! Hope Thou! Hope Thou!

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation 5 Comments

And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage. -Exodus 6:9

There are some who seem as if they could not lay hold on Christ because their sense of sin has become so intolerable, and the wretchedness which follows upon conviction has become so fearful, that they have grown almost to be continually despairing. I hardly know any condition of mind that is worse than chronic despair, when at last that which seemed alarming enough to drive to madness settles down into a lifeless, sullen moroseness. These Israelites had at last sunk so low that they said, “Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians.” But your lot is terrible. “We know it is, but we shall never get out of it.” But your bondage is horrible. “Yes, but you may make it worse by interfering. You will only aggravate our taskmasters, and bring upon us that last straw which breaks the back. Let us alone. We are doomed to suffer: we are predestined to be bondsmen. Let us go on as quietly as we may in our slavery. It may be that like poor fishes in the cave, we may lose our eyes yet, and then we shall not know that it is dark, for we shall have lost the capacity for light.” Oh, it is a dreadful thing when a heart gets to that-when a man desires that Christ would depart from him, and let him alone to perish…A man who has begun to be numbed with cold, cries to his comrades, “Leave me to sleep myself to death”; and thus do despairing ones ask to be left in their misery. Dear soul, we cannot, we dare not, thus desert you. I will tell you what you shall do, dear soul; do give me a hearing. In the name of God, believe that there is hope yet-that even now Christ Jesus invites men, and especially such as you, to put their trust in Him. O you who are burdened with sin, He calls you to let Him be your Saviour. If there is a man in the world He died for, you are the man.

O troubled heart, Jesus has come to seek and to save you! I am sure it is so. Hope thou! Hope thou! Hope thou! Thou art not beyond hope of salvation.*~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2026.cfm

*What is salvation?

Don’t Throw Away the Next World Because of This Present One

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 4 Comments

And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and to day, as heretofore? -Exodus 5:14

I do not wonder that a great many are unable to receive the gospel in this city of ours, because their struggle for existence is awful. I am afraid that it gets more and more intense, though even now it passes all bounds. If any of you can do anything to help the toil-worn workers, I pray you, do it. The poor workwoman, who sits so many hours with the candle and needle, and does not earn enough, when she has worked all those hours, to more than just pay the rent and keep body and soul together, do you wonder that she thinks that this gospel of ours cannot be for her, and does not care to listen to it? I know that it would be her comfort, but her soul refuseth to be comforted, she is so crushed. The dock labourer, who comes home five days out of the six having earned nothing, and hears his little children crying for bread-is it any wonder that he cannot hear about heavenly things? Why, it is with our white population very much as it was with the negro population of Jamaica. When there was work to be had, and they could get enough to eat and more, our churches were crowded with them…But when everything went badly with them, and they had to work very hard barely to live, there were groups of backsliders, and multitudes who did not feel that they could go to the house of God at all. They said that they had no garments to wear, and no money to spare; and do you wonder at it? Their poverty was so grinding, and their toil so severe, that the services they had once delighted in they had no heart for. It is all very easy to say that it ought not to be so; but it is so; and it is so with multitudes in London. And yet, dear friend, I pray you do not throw away the next world because you have so little of this. This is sheer folly. If I have little here, I would make sure of the more hereafter. May the Holy Ghost come upon you and raise you out of this present evil world into newness of life in Christ Jesus! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2026.cfm

Press On…

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 5 Comments

And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves… Let there more work be laid upon the men, that they may labour therein; and let them not regard vain words. -Exodus 5:6-7,9

Grace may truly and effectually come to a heart, and for a while cause no joy, no peace; but the reverse. I have known many a man coming to this Tabernacle, who has been prospering in business, and so on, and yet he has been going down to hell as fast as ever he could travel. Well, he has come and heard the gospel, and he has made a great many improvements in his conduct, and has become a regular and attentive hearer; and at that very time he has fallen into an affliction the like of which he had never experienced before; and he has consequently complained, “Why, I am worse instead of better. I find my heart grows more rebellious against God than ever it was before.” I do not wonder that it should be so, for I have seen so many examples of it. The discipline of the household of God begins very early. But a present increase of sorrow has nothing to do with what the main result will be, except that it works towards it in a mysterious manner. Perhaps what you at first thought was genuine faith was not faith; and God is going to knock down the false before He builds up the true…Thus the work of grace even makes his bondage seem to be heavier than ever it was; and yet this is all done in wisdom, in love, and in fulfilment of the promise which God has given. Yet I am never very much astonished when I find people ready almost to turn away from the hearing of the gospel; because, after having at first heard it with pleasure, they find that, for the time being, it involves them in even greater sorrow than before. How earnestly would I persuade them to overcome their very natural tendency to a hasty judgment! Press on, dear friend. Be of good courage. Pharaoh will not long be able to make you keep up that enormous number of bricks. Within a very few days he will be glad to get rid of you. Wait hopefully; for the God who begins in darkness will end in light, and before long you will come to understand those ways of mercy, which are now past finding out. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2026.cfm