Christian Life

Our Faithful Comforter

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

…for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. – Hebrews 13:5

Love sometimes proveth unfaithful. “Oh! sharper than a serpent’s tooth” is an unfaithful friend! Oh! far more bitter than the gall of bitterness, to have a friend turn from me in my distress! Oh! woe of woes, to have one who loves me in my prosperity, forsake me in the dark day of my trouble. Sad indeed; but such is not God’s Spirit. He ever loves, and loves even to the end-a faithful Comforter. Child of God, you are in trouble. A little while ago, you found Him a sweet and loving Comforter; you obtained relief from Him when others were but broken cisterns; He sheltered you in His bosom, and carried you in His arms. Oh, wherefore dost thou distrust Him now? Away with thy fears; for He is a faithful Comforter. “Ah! but,” thou sayest, “I fear I shall be sick, and shall be deprived of His ordinances.” Nevertheless He shall visit thee on thy sick bed, and sit by thy side, to give thee consolation. “Ah! but I have distresses greater than you can conceive of; wave upon wave rolleth over me; deep calleth unto deep, at the noise of the Eternal’s waterspouts.” Nevertheless, He will be faithful to His promise. “Ah! but I have sinned.” So thou hast, but sin cannot sever thee from His love; He loves thee still. Think not, O poor downcast child of God, because the scars of thine old sins have marred thy beauty, that He loves thee less because of that blemish. O no! He loved thee when He foreknew thy sin; He loved thee with the knowledge of what the aggregate of thy wickedness would be; and He does not love thee less now. Come to Him in all boldness of faith; tell Him thou hast grieved Him, and He will forget thy wandering, and will receive thee again; the kisses of His love shall be bestowed upon thee, and the arms of His grace shall embrace thee. He is faithful; trust Him, He will never deceive you; trust Him, He will never leave you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0005.cfm

Our Loving Comforter

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

It is He who remembered us in our low estate, for His steadfast love endures forever. – Psalm 136:23

God the Holy Ghost is a very loving Comforter. I am in distress, and I want consolation. Some passer-by hears of my sorrow, and he steps within, sits down, and essays to cheer me; he speaks soothing words, but he loves me not; he is a stranger; he knows me not at all; he has only come in to try his skill. And what is the consequence? His words run o’er me like oil upon a slab of marble-they are like the pattering rain upon the rock; they do not break my grief; it stands unmoved as adamant, because he has no love for me. But let someone who loves me dear as his own life, come and plead with me, then truly his words are music; they taste like honey; he knows the password of the doors of my heart, and my ear is attentive to every word; I catch the intonation of each syllable as it falls, for it is like the harmony of the harps of heaven. Oh! there is a voice in love, it speaks a language which is its own; it has an idiom and a brogue which none can mimic; wisdom cannot imitate it; oratory cannot attain unto it; it is love alone which can reach the mourning heart; love is the only handkerchief which can wipe the mourner’s tears away. And is not the Holy Ghost a loving comforter? Dost thou know, O saint, how much the Holy Spirit loves thee? Canst thou measure the love of the Spirit? Dost thou know how great is the affection of His soul towards thee? Go measure heaven with thy span; go weigh the mountains in the scales; go take the ocean’s water, and tell each drop; go count the sand upon the sea’s wide shore; and when thou hast accomplished this, thou canst tell how much He loveth thee. He has loved thee long, He has loved thee well, He loved thee ever, and He still shall love thee; surely He is the person to comfort thee, because He loves. Admit Him, then, to your heart, O Christian, that He may comfort you in your distress. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0005.cfm

The Spirit Also Helps in Our Infirmities

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, The Father, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. – Romans 8:26

(T)here is yet another sense in which the Holy Ghost advocates, and that is, He advocates our cause with Jesus Christ, with groanings that cannot be uttered. O my soul! thou art ready to burst within me. O my heart! thou art swelled with grief. The hot tide of my emotion would well-nigh overflood the channels of my veins. I long to speak, but the very desire chains my tongue. I wish to pray, but the fervency of my feeling curbs my language. There is a groaning within that cannot be uttered. Do you know who can utter that groaning? who can understand it, and who can put it into heavenly language, and utter it in a celestial tongue, so that Christ can hear it? O yes; it is God the Holy Spirit; He advocates our cause with Christ, and then Christ advocates it with His Father. He is the advocate who maketh intercession for us, with groanings that cannot be uttered.

“Let cares like a wild deluge come,
And storms of sorrow fall;
May I but safely reach my home,
My God, my heaven, my all.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0005.cfm

Blessed Advocate!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. – John 14:17

(T)he Holy Ghost is the advocate in men’s hearts. Ah! I have known men reject a doctrine until the Holy Ghost began to illuminate them. We, who are the advocates of the truth, are often very poor pleaders; we spoil our cause by the words we use; but it is a mercy that the brief is in the hand of a special pleader, who will advocate successfully, and overcome the sinner’s opposition. Did you ever know Him to fail once? Brethren, I speak to your souls; has not God in old times convinced you of sin? Did not the Holy Ghost come and prove that you were guilty, although no minister could ever get you out of your self-righteousness? Did He not advocate Christ’s righteousness? Did He not stand and tell you that your works were filthy rags? And when you had well-nigh still refused to listen to His voice, did He not fetch hell’s drum and make it sound about your ears; bidding you look through the vista of future years, and see the throne set, and the books open, and the sword brandished, and hell burning, and fiends howling, and the damned shrieking forever? And did He not convince you of the judgment to come? He is a mighty advocate when He pleads in the soul-of sin, of righteousness, and of the judgment to come. Blessed advocate! Plead in my heart; plead with my conscience. When I sin, make conscience bold to tell me of it; when I err, make conscience speak at once; and when I turn aside to crooked ways, then advocate the cause of righteousness, and bid me sit down in confusion, knowing my guiltiness in the sight of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0005.cfm

Our Advocate

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever–John 14:16

Have you ever thought how the Holy Ghost can be said to be an advocate? You know Jesus Christ is called the wonderful, the counsellor, the mighty God; but how can the Holy Ghost be said to be an advocate? I suppose it is thus; He is an advocate on earth to plead against the enemies of the cross. How was it that Paul could so ably plead before Felix and Agrippa? How was it that the Apostles stood unawed before the magistrates, and confessed their Lord? How has it come to pass, that in all times God’s ministers have been made fearless as lions, and their brows have been firmer than brass; their hearts sterner than steel, and their words like the language of God? Why, it was simply for this reason; that it was not the man who pleaded, but it was God the Holy Ghost pleading through him. Have you never seen an earnest minister, with hands uplifted and eyes dropping tears, pleading with the sons of men? Have you never admired that portrait from the hand of old John Bunyan?-a grave person with eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hand, the law of truth written on his lips, the world behind his back, standing as if he pleaded with men, and a crown of gold hanging over his head. Who gave that minister so blessed a manner, and such goodly matter? Whence came his skill? Did he acquire it in the college? Did he learn it in the seminary? Ah, no. He learned it of the God of Jacob; he learned it of the Holy Ghost; for the Holy Ghost is the great counsellor who teaches us how to advocate His cause aright. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0005.cfm

The Great Teacher

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. – John 14:26

“I will send you another teacher.” Jesus Christ had been the official teacher of His saints whilst on earth. They called no man Rabbi except Christ. They sat at no man’s feet to learn their doctrines; but they had them direct from the lips of Him who “spake as never man spake.”…”I am the infallible paraclete, or teacher, and when I am gone, I will send you another teacher, and He shall be the person who is to explain Scripture; He shall be the authoritative oracle of God, who shall make all dark things light, who shall unravel mysteries, who shall untwist all knots of revelation, and shall make you understand what you could not discover, had it not been for His influence.” And, beloved, no man ever learns anything aright, unless He is taught of the Spirit. You may learn election, and you may know it so that you shall be damned by it, if you are not taught of the Holy Ghost; for I have known some who have learned election to their soul’s destruction; they have learned it so that they said they were of the elect, whereas, they had no marks, no evidences, and no works of the Holy Ghost in their souls. There is a way of learning truth in Satan’s college, and holding it in licentiousness; but if so, it shall be to your souls as poison to your veins and prove your everlasting ruin. No man can know Jesus Christ unless he is taught of God. There is no doctrine of the Bible which can be safely, thoroughly, and truly learned, except by the agency of the one authoritative teacher…He is the Teacher; it matters not what this man or that man says; I rest on no man’s boasting authority, nor will you. Ye are not to be carried away with the craftiness of men, nor sleight of words; this is the authoritative oracle-the Holy Ghost resting in the hearts of His children. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0005.cfm

“I will not leave you comfortless”

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”- John 14:26

But now He was about to die. Great prophecies were to be fulfilled; and great purposes were to be answered; and therefore Jesus must go. It behoved Him to suffer, that He might be made a propitiation for our sins… It behoved Him to have a resurrection, that we, who shall one day be the dead in Christ, might rise first, and in glorious bodies stand upon earth. And it behoved Him that He should ascend up on high, that He might lead captivity captive; that He might chain the fiends of hell; that He might lash them to His chariot wheels, and drag them up high heaven’s hill, to make them feel a second overthrow from His right arm, when He should dash them from the pinnacles of heaven down to the deeper depths beneath. “It is right I should go away from you,” said Jesus, “for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come.” Jesus must go. Weep, ye disciples; Jesus must be gone. Mourn, ye poor ones, who are to be left without a Comforter. But hear how kindly Jesus speaks: “I will not leave you comfortless, I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter, who shall be with you, and shall dwell in you forever.” He would not leave those few poor sheep alone in the wilderness; He would not desert His children, and leave them fatherless. Albeit that He had a mighty mission which did fill His heart and hand; albeit He had so much to perform, that we might have thought that even His gigantic intellect would be overburdened; albeit He had so much to suffer, that we might suppose His whole soul to be concentrated upon the thought of the sufferings to be endured. Yet it was not so; before He left, He gave soothing words of comfort; like the good Samaritan, He poured in oil and wine, and we see what He promised: “I will send you another Comforter-one who shall be just what I have been, yea, even more; who shall console you in your sorrows, remove your doubts, comfort you in your afflictions, and stand as My vicar on earth, to do that which I would have done had I tarried with you.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0005.cfm