Christian Life

Perfume the Axe that Wounds You

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

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you -Matthew 5:44

Pray always, most for those who treat you worst. Make them the constant subjects of your prayer. In your actions prove the sincerity of your prayers by extra kindness towards those who are unkind to you… A Christian woman had often prayed for a very ungodly and unkind husband, but her prayers were not heard. However she did this, she treated him more kindly than she had ever done before. If there was any little thing that she could think of that would please his palate, if she had to deny herself, that would be on the table. She kept the house scrupulously comfortable, and did all she could. And one day someone said to her, “How is it that you, with such a husband can act so towards him?” “Well,” she said, “I hope I shall win his soul yet, but if not”-and then the tears came in her eyes-“all the happiness he will have will be in this life, and so I will let him have all I can possibly give him, since he has no happiness in the life to come.” Do that with the ungodly. Lay yourself out to oblige and serve them. Let it be known of you that the best way to get a good turn out of you is to do you a bad turn. “Oh!” says one, “it is too hard. Tread on a worm, and it will turn.” And is a worm to be an example to a Christian? Christ Jesus, art Thou not better for an exemplar than a poor worm that creeps into the earth? What did our Saviour do but pray for His murderers? The blood they shed redeemed them that shed it. We have heard the old story of the sandal-wood tree that perfumes the axe that cuts it. Do you so, O Christian! Perfume with your love the axe that wounds you…Be patient, be courteous, be kind-in a word, Christ-like; and how know you that these very persons who hate you most to-day will not love you well to-morrow, and come together with you to the communion table, and together rejoice in our blessed Saviour? ~ C.H.Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3512.cfm

Let Them Sneer!

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

Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. -Hebrews 13:13

How ought those who are mocked behave towards those that mock at them? Well, the first thing is, never yield an inch. You young men in the great firms of London, you working men that work in the factories-you are sneered at. Let them sneer. If they can sneer you out of your religion, you have not got any worth having. Remember you can be laughed into hell, but you can never be laughed out of it. A man may, by ridicule, give up what religion he thought he had, but if he cast away his soul, his companions who caused his loss cannot help him in the day of his travail, and anguish, and bitterness, before the throne of the Most High. Why be ashamed? “They called me a saint.” I remember once a person calling me a saint in the street. All I thought was, “I wish he could prove it.” Once a man, passing me in the street, said, “There is John Bunyan.” I think I felt six inches taller at the least. I was delighted to be called by such a name as that. “Oh! but they will point at you.” Cannot you bear to be pointed at? “But they will chaff you.” Chaff-let them chaff you. Can that hurt a man that is a man? If you are a molluscous creature that has no backbone, you may be afraid of jokes, and jeers, and jests; but if God has made you upright, stand upright and be a man. Moreover, there is one thing you should always do when you are ashamed-pray. The next verse in the Psalm is, “Oh! that God would turn the captivity of Zion.” The best refuge for a believer in times of persecution is his secret resort to God. Let him go on his knees and say, “My Lord, I have been counted worthy to be spoken ill of for Thy name’s sake. Help me to bear it. Now is my time of trial. Strengthen me to bear this reproach. Grant that it may be no heavy burden to me, but may I rather rejoice in it for Thy name’s sake.” God will help you, beloved. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3512.cfm

The Unbelieving Dunce

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

Truly, Thou art a God who hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior. -Isaiah 45:15

I have heard of a man who went into a smith’s smithy one day, and he began complaining of the wet weather. “Why,” said he, “smith, you talk about Providence! There is too much wet by half. If there were any Providence, it would manage things a great deal better. There is the wheat nearly all spoilt, and the barley is going. I tell you,” says he, “there is no Providence; things don’t go right.” The smith took no notice of his observations, but after a while walked across the smithy, and took down an odd-looking tool which he used in his craft, and said to him, “Do you know what that is used for?” “No,” said he, I don’t.” “Look at it; look at it, and find out.” He did look, and then he said he did not know. The smith put up that tool, and took down another, an ugly-looking tool, and says he, “Do you know what I use that for?” “No,” says the man, “I cannot conceive what you do with that.” “You can’t? Look at it, and see; perhaps you will find out.” He looked at the thing, and then he said, “No, I really do not know what is the use you put that to.” The smith put it up, and then walked leisurely back and said, “You are a great dunce. You do not know the use of my tools, and I am only a smith; and you set up to judge of the use of God’s tools, and say what is right and what is wrong. You don’t even know about a smithy, and yet, you pretend to know about the whole world.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3512.cfm

The Fool

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

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good. -Psalm 14:1

Let me give you the reasons why the unbeliever usually is an unbeliever. It is principally because he knows not God; and none of us like to trust a person we don’t know. He knows nothing of the Most High, has never communed with Him, nor even seen Him in His works; and, therefore, he cannot trust Him. The unbeliever will also say that he cannot trust God because he cannot see Him, as if everything that is real must, therefore, be the object of sight as if there were not forces in nature about which no doubts can be entertained that are far beyond the ken of sight. They will also say that they cannot trust God because they cannot understand Him. If we could understand God, He would not be God, for it is a part of the nature of God that He should be infinitely greater than any created mind… It is a most unreasonable reason not to believe in God because I cannot understand Him. The reason at the bottom is this-the ungodly man does not trust God, because he is God’s enemy. He knows there is a quarrel between the two. He has broken the law, he has become an enemy to his Maker; and how shall a man trust his enemy? Besides, he knows that God won’t do what he would like God to do. He would like God to give him good health to go on in sin; he would like Him to make him happy in his lusts; he would like Him to let him live a sinner and die a saint; he would like Him to shape the world so that man might take his sinful pleasure and live as he liked, and yet, after all, receive the wages of a righteous life; and as God won’t do that-won’t bring Himself down to the sinner’s taste-therefore, the sinner says, “I cannot trust God,” and then he turns round and laughs at the man who can, just to quiet his own conscience and keep the little sense there is within him from rebelling against him. ~ C.H.Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3512.cfm

 

We Glory in Tribulation

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

In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. -John 16:33

Our God does this for us: that we look upon those troubles as being so much fire that shall purge our silver: so much of the winnowing fan that shall drive away the chaff and leave the corn clean. We glory in tribulation and rejoice in the afflictions which God has laid upon us. Now this is what is the matter of jest for the mockers .I should, like any man who doubts the reality of faith in God, go down to Bristol, and go to Kingsdown and see the orphan-houses there which Mr. George Muller has built. Now there they stand, substantial brick and mortar, and inside there are 2,500 boys and girls. They eat a good deal, want a good deal of clothing, and so on. And how comes the money? All the world knows, and no man can gainsay it, that it comes in answer to prayer, and as the result of Mr. Muller’s faith that has often been tried but has never failed. What God has done for Mr. Muller, He has done for scores of us after our own way, and in our own walk, and we glorify His name. Though that stands as a palpable witness, we are not less able to say than Mr. Muller, there is a God that heareth prayer, and whoever may jest at faith, we continue in it still, and glory in it, and rejoice. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3512.cfm

Superior Wisdom

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

Show Your marvelous lovingkindness by Your right hand, O You who save those who trust in You from those who rise up against them. -Psalm 17:7

The great point at which the ungodly mostly aim their scoffs is the actual faith of the believer. He has made God to be his refuge. And what do they say? Why, “It’s all canting talk.” I do not particularly know what that means, but if ever Christian men are accused of being cants, they can make the retort by saying that the canting is quite as much on one side as the other, for of all cants the cant against cant is the worst cant that ever was canted. But surely if a man shall speak the truth in other things- and you know he does- it is not fair to say he does not speak the truth when he says he puts his trust in God. The man is not insincere.

“Oh!” but they will say, “it is ridiculous-a man trusting in God.” Yes, but you do not think it ridiculous to trust in yourselves. Many of you don’t think it ridiculous to trust in some public man. Half of the world is trusting in its riches, and is there anything ridiculous in leaning upon that arm that bears the earth’s huge pillars up? If so, ridicule on. To trust weakness seems to you to be sense. I say to trust Omnipotence is infinitely superior wisdom, and we will continue to trust in God, for to us it seems to be no absurdity.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3512.cfm

Sneers and Laughter Shall Not Much Affect Us

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, prayer, promises 3 Comments

Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD. -Psalm 14:4

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. -Psalm 46:1

There are some of us who are as sure that God hears our prayers as we are sure that twice two make four. It is to us not a conjecture, no, nor even a belief, but a matter of fact. We are habitually in the custom of going to God and asking for what we want, and receiving it at His hands; and it is no use anybody telling us that prayer is useless. We find it constantly useful. It is of no avail for people to say these are happy coincidences. They are very strange coincidences when they occur again and again, and again, and God continually hears our prayers. The witness that the Christian has to the truth of his religion does not lie in the books of the learned. He is thankful for them, but his chief witness lies here-in his own heart, in his own inward experience. Now we always say that you must speak as you find. The Christian has found God faithful to him, has found His support in the time of trial, has found Him to answer his prayers in the hour of distress; and this is the counsel that he has taken for himself, and he, therefore, for these reasons relies upon God. Well, sneer as some may, I think we will do with our trust in God, my brethren, as the natives of a certain American State are said to have done when they, instead of making a law-book, agreed that the State should be governed by the laws of God, until they had time to make better-we will continue to put our trust in God until somebody shall show us something better; we will still pray, and get answered; we will still bear our troubles before God, and get rid of them; we will still rely upon Christ and find comfort until somebody shall bring us something better, and it won’t be just yet; and, until then, sneers and laughter shall not much affect us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3512.cfm