prayer

Loved to Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16

“Venture on Him: venture wholly.
Let no other trust intrude.
None but Jesus
Can do helpless sinners good.”

But, Sinner, it is not a venture! As surely as you cast yourself upon Him, He will be sure to save you! I will not multiply words, but I would, if I thought words would draw you. I pray the blessed and eternal Spirit to sweetly influence your minds, young people, and old people, too, and middle-aged people, too—that you may have done with trying to do anything, or to be anything in order to your own salvation, and know that it was all done when Jesus bled and died, all finished when He cried, “It is finished!” You have only to take believingly what He presents to you and accept Him as your All in All. God help you to do it!

Dear Brothers and Sisters, if you really feel yourselves to have been outcasts and yet have been received into the Divine family—and are now on the road to Heaven—I ask you to pay every attention to any whom you meet with who are now what you once were! If you meet with any in great despair of soul, say, “Ah, I must be a comforter here, for I have gone through this. I will never let this poor soul go till, by God’s help, I have cheered him.” If you meet with one who is an open sinner, perhaps you will have to say to yourself, “I was an open sinner, too.” But if not, say, “My sins were more secret, but still they were as bad as his and, therefore, I have hope of this poor soul and will try whether he cannot be loved to Christ by me.” Mark my expression— “loved to Christ,” for that is the power we must use—sinners are to be loved to Christ!  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1302.cfm

Outcasts, Jesus Christ Can Lift You Up!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

The LORD upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down. – Psalm 145:14

He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. The LORD lifteth up the meek… – Psalm 147:2,6

It is a great joy to me to know that our Lord Jesus Christ can save the most wicked of the wicked, the most fallen of the fallen, the most depraved of the depraved! If you have sunk so low that there is not much to choose between you and a devil—and some men and women do get as low as that—yet Jesus Christ can lift you up! If your life story is such that it would be a pity it should ever be told and most grievous that it should ever have been enacted, yet Jesus can wash all the stains of your life away and save you, even you!..Is there no helper on earth? Yet is there One in Heaven! Is there no friend below? Yet is there One above! Is there nothing that can save you? Do you contemplate suicide? Stop, stop your hand, for Jesus is “able to save to the uttermost”—to the uttermost— “them that come unto God by Him.” Let the prayer go up, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” and go your way with hope in your soul, for “He gathers together the outcasts of Israel.” Come, then, Outcast! Come to your Redeemer and find pardon! “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as snow! Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool!” Jesus is able to wash away every transgression from those who are steeped in guilt. Countless iniquities dissolve and disappear before the presence of His mighty love, for He, even Jesus, gathers together the outcasts of Israel! You who have shut yourself out as an outcast, you shall be gathered! For whereas they call you an outcast, whom no man seeks after, you shall be called Hephzibah, for the Lord’s delight is in you! Only believe in Jesus Christ and cast yourself upon Him! Outcasts of this sort are the people who most gladly welcome Christ. People who have nowhere else to go but to Him—people so cast down, so full of sin, so everything but what they ought to be—these are the people to whom Christ is very precious! O outcast Soul, trust in Jesus and He will save you! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1302.cfm

Glorious Sights to See

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

“…He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me…” – John 16:13,14

May the Holy Spirit show unto you Gethsemane, and Gabbatha, and Golgotha! and then, may it please Him to give you a sight of what our Lord is now doing! Oh, how it would cheer you up at any time when you were depressed, only to see Him standing and pleading for you! Do you not think that if your wife is ill, and your child is sick, and there is scant food in the cupboard; if you were to go out at the back door, and you saw Him with the breastplate on, and all the stones glittering, and your name there, and Him pleading for you, you would go in and say, “There, wife, it is all right. He is praying for us”? Oh, it would be a comfort if the Holy Ghost showed you a pleading Christ!

Best of all, may the Holy Spirit give you a clear view of His coming. This is our most brilliant hope: “Lo, He cometh!” The more the adversary waxes bold, and the less of faith there is, and when zeal seems almost extinct, these are the tokens of His coming. The Lord always said so; and that He would not come unless there was a falling away first; and so, the darker the night grows, and the fiercer the storm becomes, the better will we remember that He of the lake of Galilee came to them upon the waves in the night when the storm was wildest. Oh, what will His enemies say when He comes? When they behold the nail-prints of the Glorified, and the Man with the thorn Crown-when they see Him really come-they that have despised His word, and His ever-blessed blood, how will they flee before that face of injured love! And we, on the contrary, through His infinite mercy, will say, “This is what the Holy Ghost showed us; and now we behold it literally. We thank Him for the foresights which He gave us of the beatific vision.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm

Pray the Word

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

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” – John 16:13,14

Dear friends, whenever you want to understand a text of Scripture, try to read the original. Consult anybody who has studied what the original means; but remember that the quickest way into a text is praying in the Holy Ghost. Pray the chapter over. I do not hesitate to say that, if a chapter is read upon one’s knees, looking up at every word to Him that gave it, the meaning will come to you with infinitely more light than by any other method of studying it. “He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine and shall shew it unto you.” He shall re-deliver the Master’s message to you in the fullness of its meaning. take the words, and never dispute over them. Still, into their soul-fullness of meaning you cannot come until the Holy Ghost shall lead you into them. They that wrote them for you did not fully understand what they wrote in many instances. There were some of them who enquired and searched diligently to know what manner of things those were whereof the Holy Ghost had spoken to them, and of which He had made them speak. And you to whom the words come will have to do the same. You must go and say, “Great Master, we thank Thee for the Book with all our hearts; and we thank Thee for putting the Book into words; but now, good Master, we will not cavil over the letter, as did the Jews and the rabbis and the scribes of old, and so miss Thy meaning. Open wide the door of the words, that we may enter into the secret closet of the meaning; and teach us this, we pray Thee. Thou hast the key. Lead us in.”

Here is a text for us-“The things of Christ.” Christ speaks as if He had not any things just then which were specially His own, for He had not died then; He had not risen then; He was not pleading then as the great Intercessor in heaven. All that was to come. But still, He says, “Even now all things that the Father hath are Mine: all His attributes, all His glory, all His rest, all His happiness, all His blessedness. All that is Mine, and the Holy Ghost shall show that to you.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm

Seeing the Most Real Things

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

“Lord, open the young man’s eyes, that he may see!” – 2 Kings 6:17

Elisha, no doubt, felt that the answer to his prayer would be precisely what it really was. “The Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” We want men’s eyes to be opened, that they may know that spiritual forces really exist. The things which we see are not the only real things, nor even the most real things. The things that are seen are temporal; they are, in truth, but shadows of the unseen…Faith teaches us to believe in the existence of that most glorious of all spirits, the great God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Faith reveals to the heart the existence of that divine and ever-adorable Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is at this hour with His Church, and will abide with her to the end of the world. Faith also makes us know the existence, and power, and presence of the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth with believers, and is in them, working out the eternal purpose of God in their sanctification. No knowledge is more sublime than to know the Trinity in Unity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one Jehovah. When we come to realize that the Lord God is the source of all things; that our Lord hath made us, and not we ourselves, and that all things come into being by His sovereign will and power; then we come to recognize His presence, to consult His will, and to lean upon His might. God becomes real in our thought and apprehension. Since He whom we cannot see nevertheless supporteth all things that are, we feel that the invisible is the basis of all things. Oh, that we could get men’s minds out of these time-worn ruts of things seen, these narrow bounds of space, and time, and seeing, and handling! Oh, that they could rise into the region where the dim faculties, which are bounded by so small a circle, would give place to perceptions which know the infinite, the eternal, the true the divine! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2215.cfm

Pray for the Youth

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

And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. – 2Kings 6:17

Think of Saul of Tarsus, how he harassed the church of Christ; but when the scales fell from his eyes, the Lord had no better servant under heaven than that once-furious persecutor. With both hands diligently he built up the church which once he labored to cast down. Pray, therefore, O my brethren, for our young men, who have sinned, that they may be restored; and for those who are as yet ignorant, that they may be enlightened; for the cause of God has need of these, and in these the church shall find her champions! Little know we the wealth of comfort for the faithful which may lie in one young life. Surely, we ought to pile on our prayers and make our intercession flame like some great beacon-light for the rising youth of our time. A blind man in the midst of such a world as this, what can he do? He cannot help other travelers, for he has to seek aid for himself. You wish to give rather than to take, do you not? Some here have great abilities, and I want them to use them aright. I am persuaded that I am speaking to young people whom God has ordained to be of great service to their age. That youth yonder does not as yet know what is in him. He is playing with himself; he is making a fool of himself; he is throwing his pearls before swine: he is wasting his strength. If the Lord should open his eyes, he would see what he is doing. What a man he would make if he were but right with God! We should pray for the blinded one, since he may terribly sin if not soon made to see. How capable of doing mischief is a man blinded by ignorance, by passion, by ambition, or by any other form of sin! Who knows the capacities for evil that lie within a single soul? Lord, open their eyes, that they may see! Lord, cause them to start back from the beginnings of sin, which are as the breaking out of the water-floods! O Savior, quench in them the spark of evil ere it grows into a fire, and rages to a conflagration! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2215.cfm

Only By His Power

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

And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. – 2 Kings 6:17

Only by His power can men be made to see. This we found in our own experience. In vain we struggled to behold the salvation of God; in vain we sought the help of godly people; no sight came to our souls, nor were the eyes of our understanding enlightened, until the Lord Himself laved our eyes in the waters that go softly. Then we came seeing. And this we also discover when we try to lead others to the light. We speak to them of the glories we ourselves behold and set before them the truth of God; but we cannot make them see. To bestow spiritual vision is as great a wonder as to make a world and requires the same fiat of omnipotence. Only He who created the eye can give this second sight. “Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind?” What folly, then, to attempt the greater task of bestowing the sight of the heart! How vain the boast of those who attempt to invade God’s prerogative and imagine that human ordinances or observances can open blind eyes! Beloved, let us, after we have done our best to make the people see the glory of the gospel, ever fall back on the God of the gospel, and entreat Him to do His own blessed work. Do not try to hold up your tallow candles to reveal the chariots of fire nor parade your vain philosophy, as if that could clear away the darkness of the soul. Leave room for God to work; and, in a moment, at the touch of His finger, in response to the prayers of His people, the wondrous work shall be accomplished. The very fact that we feel drawn to pray for them, is already a token to us that, ere long, the scales shall fall from their eyes; and through their vision of the splendor and sufficiency of the provision that God hath made for those who trust in Him, the name of the Lord will be greatly glorified. Therefore, with much expectancy, we again utter our prayer, “Lord, open their eyes, that they may see!” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2215.cfm