prayer

Return to Your Lord, Backslider

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

…but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, saith the LORD. – Jeremiah 3:1

It is sadly probable that there are some who once loved God very earnestly, but now they have declined and become grievously indifferent; God’s love to us never changes, but ours too often sinks to a low ebb. Perhaps some of you have become so cold in your affections that it is difficult to be sure that you ever did love God at all. It may be that your life has become lax, so as to deserve the censure of the Church. You are a backslider, and you are in a dangerous condition; yet, if there be indeed spiritual life in you, you will wish to return. You have gone astray like a lost sheep, but your prayer is, “seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments.” Now, note well, that the cause which originated your love is the same which must restore it. You went to Christ as a sinner at first, and your first act was to believe the love of God to you when there was nothing in you that evidenced it. Go the same way again. Do not stop, my dear brother, to pump up love out of the dry well within yourself! Do not think it possible that love will come at your bidding. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Think of the Lord’s unchanging grace, and you will feel the spring-time of love returning to your soul. Still doth the Lord reserve mercy for the sinful, still He waiteth to be gracious; He is as willing to receive you now that you have played the prodigal, as He was to have retained you at home in the bosom of His love. Many considerations ought to aid you, backslider, to believe more in the love of God than ever you did. For think what love it must be that can invite you still to return; you, who after knowing so much have sinned against light and knowledge; you, who after having experienced so much, have given the lie to your profession…But thus saith the Lord, “Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return unto Me.” What matchless love is this. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Life in the Son of God

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

He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. – 1 John 5:12

Not believing in Jesus Christ is the condemnation emphatically. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light.”…If such things were spoken concerning some people in Africa or New Zealand, you ought to be concerned about these miserable souls, though they are so far away; but they are spoken about some of you: some of you are dead. Is not this terrible? Oh, if by some touch of an angel’s wand our bodies should all become as our souls are, how many corpses would fill these aisles, and crowd these pews! John once wished for Gaius, that his body might prosper and be in health even as his soul prospered. Now, suppose our bodies were to prosper just as our souls do! Why, there would sit in one place a living woman, and side by side with her a dead husband; further on, a living child, and then a dead grey headed grandsire. Oh! what a sight this place would be! We should hasten to gather up our skirts, those of us who are alive, and say, “Let us begone! How can we sit side by side with corpses?” The effect would be startling to the last degree, and yet, most probably, the spiritual fact does not disturb us at all; we know it to be true, but we take it as a matter of course, and we go our way with scarce a prayer for our poor dead neighbors.

What I think we should do towards dead souls is this-we should pity them…Ought not this to make us pray for them: “Eternal Spirit, quicken them! They cannot have life unless they have the Son of God. O bring them to receive the Son of God”? Beloved, in connection with such prayer, be diligent to deliver the quickening message, “Believe, and live.” “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0755.cfm

A Very Astounding Crime

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

…and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. – 1 John 5:12

Let me tell you that for a hearer of the gospel not to believe on the Son of God must be, in the judgment of angels, a very astounding crime. How they must marvel when they see that God was made flesh to redeem the sons of men, and yet men do not believe in the incarnate Saviour! The “faithful saying, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” is not depended upon by tens of thousands; though “it is worthy of all acceptation,” yet the mass of mankind give it no acceptation. What must angels think of such men? They no doubt understand the reason of it, that the mind is so perverted and corrupt that manhood is nothing better than a reeking sepulcher. Unbelief of the gospel is the great damning sin of man; the not laying hold of Jesus is the sin of sins.

Thou must have Christ, for He is the life of the soul, and without Him thou art dead in sin. “Oh! but,” perhaps you may say, “I have aways lived a chaste, upright, moral life; I have been attentive to religious duties; I could allege many particulars which might go to prove that I live unto God.” Ay, but all thy particulars, however well they might be alleged, would prove nothing in the teeth of such a text as this, “He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” I tell thee, moralist, what thou art; thou art a corpse well washed and decently laid out, daintily robed in fair white linen, sprinkled plenteously with sweet perfumes, and wrapped in myrrh, and cassia, and aloes, with flowers wreathed about thy brow, and thy bosom bedecked by the hand of affection with sweetly blushing roses; but thou hast no life, and therefore thy destiny is the grave, corruption is thine heritage, and thy place of abode is fixed, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire not quenched,” for, “He that believeth not shall be damned.” Eternal Spirit, quicken them! They cannot have life unless they have the Son of God. O bring them to receive the Son of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0755.cfm

Evidences of Eternal Life

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

He that hath the Son hath life… – 1 John 5:12

Faith in Jesus is good evidence of life, because of the things, which accompany it. Now, no man ever did come to Jesus Christ and receive Him until he had felt his need of a Saviour: no sickness, no physician: no wound, no surgeon. No soul asks for pardon or obtains it till he has felt that sin is an evil for which pardon is necessary; that is to say, repentance always comes with faith. There must be a loathing of sin and a dread of its consequences, or there is no faith. Now, as repentance is an evident sign of life, faith in Jesus must involve spiritual life. What if I say that repentance is like the cry of the new-born babe, which indicates that the child is alive? That cry of “God be merciful to me a sinner!” is as sure a sign of life as the song of cherubim before the throne. There could have been no laying hold of Christ without true repentance of sin, which repentance becomes in its turn a clear proof of the possession of the inner life which springs from incorruptible seed, and therefore liveth and abideth for ever.

No soul believes in Jesus Christ without exercising its faith and its desires in prayer; but prayer is the breath of the soul, and where there is breath there must be life. Can the dead pray unto God? Shall a dead soul cry out for mercy? …He that hath an interest in the Lord Jesus, since his faith is attended by repentance and prayer, and many other holy graces, has a multitude of sure and certain evidences of eternal life within the soul. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0755.cfm

Seeker, He Upbraideth Not

Sherry Attributes of God, prayer, promises, salvation, The Father Leave a comment

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not… – James 1:5

If you help a friend who is in debt, and wants to borrow money, you say, “Remember, I do not like it, you ought not to be in such a state.” Your brother wants some aid; you have helped him many times, and will again, but still, you upbraid him and tell him he is very imprudent; he ought not to get into these messes; he ought to manage his business better.” If you do not tell him so with the mouth, you look at him, and he thinks to himself, “It’s very kind of him to give me the help, but really it is very humiliating to me to have to ask him because I get so severe a lesson.” I suppose we do right to upbraid. I have no doubt we do so with good motives. But God never does upbraid seeking souls. He giveth liberally and does not dim the lustre of His grace by harsh rebukes. He does not say. “Ah! you sinner, how came you to commit such sin; I will forgive you, but —–.” The Father does not talk thus to the returning prodigal. (Luke 15:11-32) One would have supposed that when the prodigal came back, the father would have said, “Well, dear boy, you are forgiven, but never let me see you do that again. How wrong of you to take that portion of my goods and spend it in that way! I shall never be so well off as before; you have wasted half my living; and now think where you have been: what a dishonour you have cast upon your father’s name and character through wasting your living with harlots. I forgive: I cannot forget.” My brethren, it was not so! The prodigal remembered his sins, but his father forgot them all, and exclaimed with joy, “This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” O soul, if thou didst but know the heart of the Saviour, thou wouldst not tarry in sin. If thou couldst but know the overflowing love of the divine Father, thou wouldst not linger in unbelief. “Teach me, O God, to trust Thy dear Son this day.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm

Simply Asking

Sherry Attributes of God, confession of sin, prayer, salvation Leave a comment

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God… – James 1:5

No man will ask wisdom till he knows that he is ignorant. Come, dear hearer, confess your ignorance into the ear of God, who is as present here as you are; say unto Him, “Lord, I have discovered now that I am not so wise as I thought I was; I am foolish and vain. Lord, teach Thou me.” Make a full confession, and this shall be a good beginning for prayer.

Asking has also in it the fact the God is believed in. We cannot ask of a person of whose existence we have any doubt, and we will not ask of a person of whose hearing us we have serious suspicions. Who would stand in the desert of Sahara and cry aloud, where there is no living ear to hear? Now, my dear hearer, thou believest that there is a God. Ask, then!

There is in this method of approaching God by asking a clear sight that salvation is by grace. It does not say, “Let him buy of God, let him demand of God, let him earn from God.” Oh! no-“let him ask of God.” It is the beggar’s word. The beggar asks alms. You are to ask as the beggar asks of you in the street, and God will give to you far more liberally than ye to the poor. You must confess that you have no merit of your own. If you will not acknowledge that, neither will God hear your prayers; but come now with the acknowledgment of ignorance, with the confession of sin, and believing that God is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, and He will even now give you the wisdom which saves the soul. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm

The Holy Spirit Lightens

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

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

There is one blessed person of the divine Unity who makes it His especial office to teach us. If you go to God for wisdom, you only go for that which it is His nature and His office to give. The Holy Ghost is given to this end: “He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” When you go to God, you may say to Him these words, “O Father, you have been pleased to reveal to us the Holy Spirit, who is to lighten our darkness, and to remove our ignorance. Oh, let that Spirit of Thine dwell in me; I am willing to be taught by Thy Spirit, through Thy Word, or through Thy ministers, but I come first to Thee because I know that Thy Word and Thy ministers, apart from Thyself, cannot teach me anything. O Lord, teach Thou me.” I do not mean by any word of mine to make you think little of Scripture-God forbid! -nor little of those who may speak to you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, but I did mean to make you look even at that Book, and at God’s ministers, as being subservient to the Holy Ghost Himself. Go to Him; ask Him: for there in the Book is the letter that killeth; He, He alone can make you to know the living essence and the quickening power of that Word. Without the Holy Ghost, my dear hearer, you must still be as blind with the light as you would have been without it. You will be as foolish after having been taught the gospel in the theory of it, as you were before you knew it. Let the Holy Spirit, however, teach you, and you shall know all things that are necessary for this life and godliness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm