Christian Life

Like Their Master

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life 3 Comments

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. – 2 Corinthians 8:9

A poor man is the image of Jesus Christ, if he be a Christian. All Christians are the image of Jesus Christ, for the sanctifying influence of Christ exerted on them has made them in some degree like their Master. But the poor man is like his Master, not only in His character, but in His circumstances too. When you look on a poor saint, you have a better picture of Jesus than you have in a rich saint. The rich saint is a member of Christ; he has the image of his Master stamped upon him, and that image shall be perfected when he shall arrive in heaven; but the poor saint has something else; he has not only the most prominent feature, but the back-ground, and the fore-ground, and all in the picture. He has the circumstances of it. Look at his brown hands, hardened by toil; such were his Saviour’s once; look at his weary feet, blistered with his journeyings; such were his-Saviour’s many a time. He sits upon a well from weariness, as did his Lord once; he hath nowhere to rest, nor had his Master; foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, but he had not where to lay his head He is fed by charity, so was his Master; others supplied His wants. See! he sits down at an invited table, so did his Master; He had not one of His own. Thou seest Christ, then; thou seest as much of Christ as thou wilt see just yet, until thou art taken up where thou shalt be like Him, and see Him as He is. He would have us always remember the Saviour’s poverty: “How He was rich, and yet for our sakes became poor.” And just as, on some memorable day, they strike medals which bear the impress of its hero, so I look upon every poor saint as being a medal struck from the mint divine, to be a memento of the existence of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is to make me remember my Lord, to bid me meditate upon that wondrous depth of poverty into which He stooped, that He might lift me up to light and glory. Oh! blessed Jesus, this is wise, for we oft forget Thee-wise that Thou hast given us some opportunity to remember Thee.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm

Testing the Lord’s Work

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises 3 Comments

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. – Romans 8:27

God often allows His people to be a tried and a poor people, just to plague the devil. The devil was never more plagued in his life, I think, than he was with Job. As long as Job was rich, Job caused much envy in Satan, but he never made him so angry as when he was poor. It was then that Satan was the most incensed against him because, after all his trials, he would not curse God and die. You know, if a man thinks he can do a thing, he will always wrap himself up in his self-complacency till he tries to do it and then fails. So Satan thinks he may overthrow one or other of God’s children. “Now, Satan,” says God, “I will give thee an opportunity of trying thy skill: one of my children is very poor; I will cut off his bread and water, I will give him the water of affliction to drink, and the bread of bitterness to eat; he shall be exceedingly tried; take him, Satan, drag him through fire and water, and see what thou canst do with him.” So Satan tries to starve out the divine life from his soul; but he cannot do it, and he finds, after all he has done, that he is defeated, and he goes away plagued and vexed, and feeling another hell within himself, though miserable enough before, because he was foiled in all his attempts to tread out the spark of life in the heart of God’s child. God often allows Satan to test the Lord’s work. It is marvelous that the crafty devil should continue to work when it all tends to the glory of God after all, but he is a devil all over, and will ever continue so. He always will keep on meddling with God’s children; he will persevere even to the last moment; till every saint is safe across the Jordan, he will still be plaguing and vexing God’s beloved. Ah! then let us rejoice, God will deliver us, and bring us off safe at last, yea, “more than conquerors, through Him that loved us.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm

The Master-Works of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life 3 Comments

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. – Romans 8:28

(G)race is tested in the poverty of believers-that they are still in a great degree an uncomplaining and unmurmuring race-that they bear up under every discouragement, believing that all things work together for their good, and that out of all their apparent evils some good shall ultimately spring-that their God will either work a deliverance for them speedily, or most assuredly support them in the trouble, as long as He is pleased to keep them there; beloved, this is no doubt one reason why God puts His people in poor circumstances. “There,” says the architect, “this building is strong.” Ay, sir, but it must be tested! Let the wind blow against it. There is a lighthouse out at sea: it is a calm night-I cannot tell whether the edifice is firm; the tempest must howl about it, and then I shall know whether it will stand. So with religion, if it were not on many occasions surrounded with tempestuous waters, we should not know that the ship was staunch and strong. If the winds did not blow upon it, as they do on our poor tried brethren, we should not know how firm and secure it is. The master-works of God are those that stand in the midst of difficulties-when all things oppose them, yet maintain their stand; these are His all-glorious works. And so His best children, those who honor Him most, are those who have grace to sustain them amidst the heaviest load of tribulations and trials. God puts His people into such circumstances, then, to show us the power of His grace.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm

The Sovereignty of God Displayed

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, salvation 4 Comments

The LORD makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory. – 1 Samuel 2:7-8

God is pleased always to have a poor people, that He may display His sovereignty in all He does. If there were no poor saints, we should not so strongly believe the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, or, at least, if the saints believed it, as they always must and will, yet the wicked, and those who despise it, would not have so clear an evidence of it, and would not sin against such great light, which shines upon their poor dark, blind eyeballs from evident displays of sovereignty in salvation. Those who deny divine sovereignty, deny it in the face of all testimony certainly in the teeth of Scripture, for it is there positively affirmed, and God, in order that there may be something besides Scripture, has made His providence bear out the written word, and has caused many of His children to be the despised among the people. “I take whom I please,” says God. “Ye would have Me choose kings and queens first; I choose their humble servants in their kitchens before I choose their masters and mistresses in their banqueting halls. Ye would have Me take the counselor and the wise man; I take the fool first, that I may teach you to despise the wisdom of man. I take the poor before the rich, that I may humble all your pride, and teach you there is nothing in man that makes Me choose him, but that it is the sovereign will of God alone which creates men heirs of grace.” I bless God that there are poor saints, for they teach me this lesson, that God will do as He pleases with His own. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm

The Chosen Poor

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

Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? – James 2:5

God hath been pleased for the most part to plant His grace in the soil of poverty. He has not chosen many great, nor many mighty men of this world, but He hath “chosen the poor of this world-rich in faith-to be heirs of the kingdom of God.” We should wonder why, were we not quite sure that God is wise in His choice. We cannot dispute a fact which Scripture teaches, and which our own observation supports, that the Lord’s people are, to a very large extent, the poor of this world. Very few of them wear crowns; very few ride in carriages; only a proportion of them have a competence; a very large multitude of His family are destitute, afflicted, tormented, and are kept leaning, day by day, upon the daily provisions of God, and trusting Him from meal to meal, believing that He will supply their wants out of the riches of His fullness.

Oh! ye would never thank God half so much if ye did not see your cause for thankfulness by marking the needs of others. Oh! ye dainty ones, that can scarcely eat the food that is put before you, it would do you good if you could sit down at the table of the poor. Put you out in the cold some winter’s night, and would you not thank God for the fire afterwards? Make you thirst for a little while, and how grateful would be the cup of water! God gives us a great many mercies we never thank Him for. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm

The Grace of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 5 Comments

And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. – John 1:16

Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons – Acts 10:34

Poverty is no virtue; wealth is no sin. On the other hand, wealth is not morally good, and poverty is not morally evil. A man may be a good man and a rich man; it is quite certain that very frequently good men are poor men. Virtue is a plant which depends not upon the atmosphere which surrounds it, but upon the hand which waters it, and upon the grace which sustains it. We draw no support for grace from our circumstances whether they be good or evil. Our circumstances may sometimes militate against the gracious work in our breast, but it is quite certain that no position in life is a sustaining cause of the life of grace in the soul. That must always be maintained by divine power, which can work as well in poverty as in riches; for we see some of the finest specimens of the full development of Christianity in those who are the very meanest in temporal circumstances; far outshining those whom we should have imagined, from their position in society, would have had many things to assist their virtues and sustain their graces. Grace is a plant which draws no nourishment from the wilderness in which it grows; it finds nothing to feed upon in the heart of man; all it lives upon it receives supernaturally. It sends all its roots upwards, none downwards; it draws no support from poverty, and none from riches. Gold cannot sustain grace; on the other hand, rags cannot make it flourish. Grace is a plant which derives the whole of its support from God the Holy Spirit, and is, therefore, entirely independent of the circumstances of man. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm

The Truth Will Win the Day

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

Our divines, now-a-days, spend a great deal of time in trying to prove Christianity against those who disbelieve it. I should like to have seen Paul trying that! Elymas the sorcerer withstood him: how did our friend Paul treat him? He said “O, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?” That is about the politeness such men ought to have who deny God’s truth. We start with this assumption: we will prove that the Bible is God’s word, but we are not going to prove God’s word. If you do not like to believe it, we will shake hands, and bid you good-by; we will not argue with you. The gospel has gained little by discussion…The truth will win the day. Christianity need not wish for controversy; it is strong enough for it, if it wishes it; but that is not God’s way. God’s direction is, “Preach, teach, dogmatize.” Do not stand disputing; claim a divine mission; tell men that God says it, and there leave it. Say to them, “He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned;” and when you have done that, you have done enough.

O, Christian, instead of disputing, let me tell thee how to prove your religion. Live it out! live it out! Give the external as well as the internal evidence; give the external evidence of your own life. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2558.cfm