Christian Life

Our Influence

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

That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. -Galatians 3:14

None of us can bless others unless God has first blessed us. We need divine workmanship. “I will make them a blessing by helping them, and by constraining them.” God makes His people a blessing by helping them. What can we do without God’s help? I stand and preach to thousands, or it may be hundreds; what have I done, unless a greater than man has been in the pulpit with me? I work in the Sabbath Schools; what can I do, unless the Master is there, teaching the children with me? We want God’s aid in every position; and once give us that assistance, and there is no telling with how little labor we may become a blessing. Ah! a few words sometimes will be more of a blessing than a whole sermon. You take some little prattler on your knee; and some few words that you say to him he remembers, and makes use of in after years. I knew a gray-headed old man, who was in the habit of doing this. He once took a boy to a certain tree, and said, “Now, John, you kneel down at that tree, and I will kneel down with you.” He knelt down and prayed, and asked God to convert him and save his soul. “Now,” said he, “perhaps you will come to this tree again; and if you are not converted, you will remember that I asked under this tree that God would save your soul.” That young man went away, and forgot the old man’s prayer; but it chanced as God would have it that he walked down that field again, and saw a tree. It seemed as if the old man’s name was cut in the bark. He recollected what he prayed for, and that the prayer was not fulfilled; but he dare not pass the tree without kneeling down to pray himself; and there was his spiritual birthplace. The simplest observation of the Christian shall be made a blessing, if God help him. “His leaf also shall not wither”-the simplest word he speaks shall be treasured up; “and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0028.cfm

Blessed to Be a Blessing

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

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing -Genesis 12:2

 The object of God, in choosing a people before all worlds, was not only to save that people, but through them to confer essential benefits upon the whole human race. When He chose Abraham, He did not elect Him simply to be God’s friend, and the recipient of peculiar privileges; but He chose Him to make Him, as it were, the conservator of truth. He was to be the ark in which the truth should be hidden. He was to be the keeper of the covenant in behalf of the whole world; and when God chooses any men by His sovereign, electing grace, and makes them Christ’s, He does it not only for their own sake, that they may be saved, but for the world’s sake. For, know ye not that “ye are the light of the world;”-“A city set upon a hill, which cannot be hid?” “Ye are the salt of the earth;” and when God makes you salt, it is not only that ye may have salt in yourselves, but that like salt ye may preserve the whole mass. If He makes you leaven, it is that, like the little leaven, you may leaven the whole lump. Salvation is not a selfish thing; God does not give it for us to keep to ourselves, but that we may thereby be made the means of blessing to others; and the great day shall declare that there is not a man living on the surface of the earth but has received a blessing in some way or other through God’s gift of the gospel. The very keeping of the wicked in life, and granting of the reprieve, was purchased with the death of Jesus; and through His sufferings and death, the temporal blessings which both we and they enjoy are bestowed on us. The gospel was sent that it might first bless those that embrace it, and then expand, so as to make them a blessing to the whole human race.

In thus speaking of the church as a blessing, we shall notice three things. First, here is divinity-“I will make them a blessing;” secondly, here is personality of religion-“I will make them a blessing;” and thirdly, here is the development of religion“-“and the places round about my hill.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0028.cfm

Showers of Blessing

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

“And I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.”- Ezekiel 34:26

I think we do not attach sufficient importance to the restoration of the Jews. We do not think enough of it. But certainly, if there is anything promised in the Bible, it is this. I imagine that you cannot read the Bible without seeing clearly that there is to be an actual restoration of the children of Israel. “Thither they shall go up; they shall come with weeping unto Zion, and with supplications unto Jerusalem.” May that happy day soon come! For when the Jews are restored, then the fulness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in; and as soon as they return, then Jesus will come upon Mount Zion to reign with His ancients gloriously, and the halcyon days of the Millennium shall then dawn; we shall then know every man to be a brother and a friend; Christ shall rule, with universal sway.

This, then, is the meaning of the text; that God would make Jerusalem and the places round about His hill a blessing. (P)erhaps, in a more enlarged sense…it applies to the Church of Jesus Christ, and to this particular church with which you and I stand connected. “I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in its season; there shall be showers of blessing.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0028.cfm

Our Full Acquittal and Discharge

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

He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. Matthew 28:6

Behold His empty tomb, O true believer: it is a sign of thine acquittal, and thy full discharge. If Jesus had not paid the debt, He ne’er had risen from the grave. He would have lain there till this moment if He had not cancelled the entire debt, by satisfying eternal vengeance. O beloved, is not that an overwhelming thought?

“It is finished, it is finished,
Hear the rising Saviour cry.”

The heavenly turnkey came, a bright angel stepped from heaven and rolled away the stone; but he would not have done so if Christ had not done all: he would have kept Him there, he would have said, “Nay,nay, Thou art the sinner now; Thou hast the sins of all Thine elect upon Thy shoulder, and I will not let Thee go free till Thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.” In His going free I see my own discharge.

“My Jesus’ blood’s my full discharge.”

As a justified man, I have not a sin now against me in God’s book. If I were to turn over God’s eternal book, I should see every debt of mine receipted and cancelled.

“Here’s pardon for transgressions past,
It matter not how black their cast,
And O my soul, with wonder view,
For sins to come, here’s pardon too.
Fully discharged by Christ I am,
From Christ’s tremendous curse and blame.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0018.cfm

I Am Nothing but Christ is All

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation Leave a comment

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. -Luke 12:32

“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.” “Yes, but,” another one says, “I am afraid I am not elect.” Oh! dear souls, do not trouble yourselves about that. If you believe in Christ you are elect. Whoever puts himself on the mercy of Jesus is elect; for he would never do it if he had not been elect. Whoever comes to Christ, and looks for mercy through His blood, is elect, and he shall see that he is elect afterwards; but do not expect to read election till you have read repentance. Election is a college to which you little ones will not go till you have been to the school of repentance. Do not begin to read your book backwards, and say Amen before you have said your paternoster. Begin with “Our Father,” and then you will go on to “Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory;” but begin with “the kingdom,” and you will have hard work to go back to “Our Father.” We must begin with faith. We must begin with-

“Nothing in my hands I bring.”

As God made the world out of nothing, He always makes His Christians out of nothing; and he who has nothing at all to-night, shall find grace and mercy, if he will come for it.

Let me close up by telling you what I have heard of some poor woman, who was converted and brought to life, just by passing down a street, and hearing a child, sitting at a door, singing-

“I am nothing at all
But Jesus Christ is all in all.”

That is a blessed song; go home and sing it; and he who can rightly apprehend those little words, who can feel himself vanity without Jesus, but that he has all things in Christ, is not only not far from the kingdom of heaven, but he is there in faith, and shall be there in fruition, when he shall wake up in God’s likeness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0025.cfm

In the Likeness of God

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

I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. -Psalm 17:15b

One thought here ought not to be forgotten; and that is, the Psalmist says we are to wake up in the likeness of God. This may refer to the soul; for the spirit of the righteous will be in the likeness of God as to its happiness holiness, purity, infallability, eternity, and freedom from pain; but specially, I think, it relates to the body because it speaks of the awaking. The body is to be in the likeness of Christ. What a thought! It is-and alas! I have had too many such to-night-a thought too heavy for words. I am to awake up in Christ’s likeness. I do not know what Christ is like, and can scarcely imagine…Oh! what a change it will be, when some of us get to heaven! There is a man who fell in battle with the word of salvation on his lips, his legs had been shot away, and his body had been scarred by sabre thrusts; he wakes in heaven, and finds that he has not a broken body, maimed and cut about, and hacked and injured, but that he is in Christ’s likeness. There is an old matron, who has tottered on her staff for years along her weary way; time has ploughed furrows on her brow; haggard and lame, her body is laid in the grave. But oh! aged woman, thou shalt arise in youth and beauty. Another has been deformed in his life-time, but when he wakes, he wakes in the likeness of Christ.

Whatever may have been the form of our countenance, whatever the contour, the beautiful shall be no more beautiful in heaven than those who were deformed. Those who shone on earth, peerless, among the fairest, who ravished men with looks from their eyes, they shall be no brighter in heaven than those who are now passed by and neglected: for they shall all be like Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0025.cfm

The Faith to Say, I Shall!

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

As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with Your likeness. – Psalm 17:15

“I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake up in Thy likeness.” If some men should say so now, they would be called fanatics, and it would be considered presumption for any man to say, “I will behold Thy face, I shall be satisfied;” and I think there are many now in this world who think it is quite impossible for a man to say to a certainty, “I know, I am sure, I am certain.” But, beloved, there are not one or two, but there are thousands and thousands of God’s people alive in this world who can say with an assured confidence, no more doubting of it than of their very existence, “I will behold Thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake in Thy likeness.” It is possible, though perhaps not very easy, to attain to that high and eminent position wherein we can say no longer do I hope, but I know; no longer do I trust, but I am persuaded; I have a happy confidence; I am sure of it; I an certain; for God has so manifested Himself to me that now it is no longer “if” and “perhaps” but it is positive, eternal, “shall.” “I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness.”

Oh! if ye are talking like that, ye must expect to have trouble, for God never gives strong faith without fiery trial; He will never give a man the power to say that “shall” without trying him; He will not build a strong ship without subjecting it to very mighty storms; He will not make you a mighty warrior, if He does not intend to try your skill in battle. God’s swords must be used; the old Toledo blades of heaven must be smitten against the armor of the evil one, and yet they shall not break, for they are of true Jerusalem metal, which shall never snap. Oh! what a happy thing to have that faith to say “I shall.” Some of you think it quite impossible, I know; but it “is the gift of God,” and whosoever asks it shall obtain it: and the very chief of sinners now present in this place may yet be able to say long before he comes to die, “I shall behold Thy face in righteousness.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0025.cfm