Christian Life

God Has Promised Needful Grace

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

…as thy days, so shall thy strength be. -Deuteronomy 33:25

Our journey is a maze, a labyrinth: the Lord leads us up and down in the wilderness, and sometimes we seem further from Canaan than ever. Seldom does our march take us through gardens: often it leads us through deserts. We are always traveling, never long in one stay. Sometimes the fiery cloudy pillar rests for a little, but it is only for a little. “Forward!” is our watchword. We have no abiding city here. We pitch our tent by the wells and palms of Elim, but we strike it in the morning, when the silver bugle sounds, “Up, and away!” and so we march to Marah, or to the place of the fiery serpents. Ever onward; ever forward; ever moving! This is our lot. Be it so. Our equipment betokens it: we have appropriate shoes for this perpetual journey. We are not shod with the skins of beasts, but with metals which will endure all wear and tear. Is it not written, “Thy shoes shall be iron and brass”? However long the way, these shoes will last to the end.

Perhaps I address some friend whose way is especially rough. You seem to be more tried than anybody else. You reckon yourself to be more familiar with sorrow than anyone you know: affliction has marked you for its own. I pray you take home this promise to yourself by faith: the Lord saith to thee, “Thy shoes shall be iron and brass.” This special route of yours, which is beset with so many difficulties-your God has prepared you for it. You are shod as none but the Lord’s chosen are shod. If your way is singular, so are your shoes. You shall be able to traverse this thorny road-to journey along it with profit to yourself and with glory to God. For your traveling days you are well fitted, for your shoes are iron and brass.

“If the sorrows of thy case
Seem peculiar still to thee,
God has promised needful grace,
‘As thy days, thy strength shall be.'”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2062.cfm

The Digger’s Rich Yield

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

Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. –Deuteronomy 33:25

This promise meant that Asher should have treasures under his feet-that there should, in fact, be mines of iron and copper within the boundaries of the tribe. Metals enrich nations, and help their advancement in many ways. Tribes that possess minerals are thereby made rich, what ever metals those may be; but such useful metals as iron and copper would prove of the utmost service to the people of that time if they knew how to use them. Is there any spiritual promise at all in this! Asher is made rich and iron and copper lying beneath his feet. Are saints ever made rich with treasures under their feet? Undoubtedly they are. The Word of God has mines in it. Even the surface of it is rich, and it brings forth food for us; but it is with Scripture as Job saith it is with the earth: “As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire. The stones of it are the place of sapphires: and it hath dust of gold.” There are treasures upon the surface of the Word which we may pick up very readily: even the casual reader will find himself able to understand the simplicities and elements of the gospel of God; but the Word of God yields most to the digger. He that can study hard, and press into the inner meaning-he is the man that shall be enriched with riches current in heavenly places. Every Bible student here will know that God has put under his feet great treasures of precious teaching, and he will by meditation sink shafts into the deep places of revelation. I wish we gave more time to our Bibles. We waste too much time upon the pretentious, poverty-stricken literature of the age; and some, even Christian people, are more taken up with works of fiction than they are with this great Book of everlasting fact. We should prosper much more in heavenly husbandry if we would “dig deep while sluggards sleep.” Remember that God has given to us to have treasures under our feet; but do not so despise His gifts as to leave the mines of revelation unexplored.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2062.cfm

 

When He is Revealed

Sherry Christian Life 2 Comments

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. -1 John 3:2

Whatever Christ shall be, His people shall be, in happiness, riches, and honour, and together they shall take their full share. The Church, His Bride, shall sit on the same throne with Him, and of all the splendours of that eternal triumph she will have her half, for Christ is no miser to His imperial spouse, but she whom He chose before the world began, and bought with blood, and wrapped in His righteousness, and espoused to Himself forever, shall be a full partaker of all the gifts that He poses world without end. And this shall be forever; forever you shall be with Christ, forever coming to Him. When the miser’s wealth has melted; when the honours of the conqueror have been blown away or consumed like chaff in the furnace; when the sun and moon grow dim with age, and the hoary pillars of this earth begin to rock and reel with stern decay; when the angel shall have put one foot on the sea and the other on the land, and shall have sworn by Him that liveth that time shall be no more; when the ocean shall be licked up with tongues of fire, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and all the works that are therein shall be burnt up-then, then shall you be forever with the Lord, eternally resting, eternally feasting, eternally magnifying Him; being filled with all His fullness to the utmost capacity of your enlarged being, world without end. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3509.cfm

We Shall Behold His Glory

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

“Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me…” -John 17:24

What must it be to behold His glory? Some of my brethren think that when they get to heaven they shall like to behold some of the works of God in nature and so on. I must confess myself more satisfied with the idea that I shall behold His glory, the glory of the Crucified, for it seems to me that no kind of heaven but that comes up to the description of the Apostle when he saith, “Eye hath not seen, nor hath ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” But to see the stars has entered into the heart of man, and to behold the works of God in nature has been conceived of man; but the joys we speak of are so spiritual that the Apostle says, “He has revealed them unto us by His Spirit,” and this is what He has revealed, “That they may behold My glory.”…Why, even the distant glimpse which we catch of Him through a glass or a telescope darkly ravishes the soul. Dr. Hawker was once waited upon by a friend, who asked him to go and see a naval review. He said, “No, thank you; I do not want to go.” “You are a loyal man, doctor, and you would like to see the defences of your country.” “Thank you, I do not wish to go.” “But I have got a ticket for you, and you must go.” “No,” he said, “thank you,” and after he had been pressed hard he said, “You have pressed me till I am ashamed, and now I must tell you-mine eyes have seen the King in His beauty, and the land which is very far off, and I have not any taste now for all the pomps that this world could possibly show.” And if such a distant sight of Jesus can do this, what must it be to behold His glory with what the old Scotch divines used to call “a face-to-face view”; when the veil is taken down, when the clouds are blown away, and you see Him face to face? Oh! long-expected day begin, when we shall be to Him coming to dwell with Him.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3509.cfm

 

I Hail the Happy Day!

Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. -Philippians 1:21

We shall soon, very soon, quit this mortal frame. I hope you have learned to think of that without any kind of shudder. Can you not sing:

“Ah! I shall soon be dying,
Time swiftly glides away;
But on my Lord relying
I hail the happy day.”

What is there that we should wait here for? Those who have the most of this world’s goods have found it paltry stuff. It perishes in the using. There is a satiety about it; it cannot satisfy the great heart of an immortal man. It is well for us that there is to be an end of this life, and especially for us to whom that end is glowing with immortality. Well, the hour of death will be to us a coming to Christ, a coming to sit upon His throne. Did you ever think of that? “To him that overcometh will I give to sit upon My throne.” Lord, Lord, we would be well content to sit at Thy feet. ‘Twere all the heaven we would ask if we might but creep behind the door, or stand and be manual servants, or sit, like Mordecai, in the king’s court.’ No; but it must not be. We must sit on His throne, and reign with Him for ever and ever. This is what death will bring you-a glorious participation in the royalties of your ascended Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3509.cfm

To Be Nearest To Jesus

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

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. -Hebrews 10:22

I have often told you, my dear brethren and sisters, that when you get a little above the ground, if it is only an inch, you get too high. When you begin to think that surely you are a saint, and that you have some good thing to trust to, that rotten stuff must all be pulled to pieces. Believe me, God will not let His people wear a rag of their own spinning; they must be clothed with Christ’s righteousness from head to foot. The old heathen said he wrapped himself up in his integrity, but I should think he did not know what holes there were in it, or else he would have looked for something better. But we wrap ourselves in the righteousness of Christ, and there is not a cherub before the throne that wears a vestment so right royal as the poor sinner does when he wears the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Oh! child of God, always live upon your Lord. Hang upon Him, as the pitcher hangs upon the nail. Lean on your Beloved; His arm will never weary of you. Stay yourselves upon Him; wash in the precious fountain always; wear His righteousness continually; and be glad in the Lord, and your gladness need never fail while you simply and wholly lean upon Him.

Oh! happy is that man who gets right into the wounds of Jesus, and, with Thomas, cries, “My Lord and my God!” This is no, fanaticism, but a thing of sober, sound experience with some of us. We can rejoice in Him, having no confidence in the flesh. Oh! to be like that-not to be far away from Jesus Christ, even with all the comforts of this life, but to be near Him, filled with life and sacred activity through the abundance of fellowship and communion with Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3509.cfm

Always Coming to Christ

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

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. -Romans 1:17

The Christian is always coming to Christ. He does not look upon faith as a matter of twenty years ago, and done with, but he comes today and he will come to-morrow. He will come to Jesus Christ afresh to-night before he goes to bed. We come to Jesus daily, for Christ is like the well outside the cottager’s house. The man lets down the bucket and gets the cooling draught, but he goes again to-morrow, and he will have to go again at night if he is to leave a fresh supply. He must constantly go to the same place. Fishes do not live in the water they were in yesterday; they must be in it today. Men do not breathe the air which they breathed a week ago; they must have fresh air into the lungs moment by moment. Nobody thinks that he can be fed upon the fact that he did have a good meal six weeks ago; he has to eat continually. So “the just shall live by faith.” We come to Jesus just as we came at first, and we say to Him:

“Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked come to Thee for dress,
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.”

This is the daily and hourly life of the Christian.

But while we thus come daily, we come more boldly than we used to do. At first we came like cringing slaves; now we come as emancipated men. At first we came as strangers. Now we come as brethren. We still come to the cross, but it is not so much to find pardon for past sins, for these are forgiven, as to find fresh comfort from looking up to Him who wrought out perfect righteousness for us.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3509.cfm