prayer

Lord, Be Among Us!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit 9 Comments

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. -John 1:14

If the Lord be among us the consequences will be, first, the conservation of true doctrine. The true God is not with a lie: He will not give His countenance to falsehood. Those who preach other than according to His word abide not under His blessing; but are in great danger of His curse. If any man speak another gospel (which is not another, but there be some that trouble us), God is not with him, and any transient prosperity which he may enjoy, will be blown away as the chaff. God is with those who speak the truth faithfully, hold it devoutly, believe it firmly, and live upon it as their daily bread. May it always, be said of this church, “the Lord is there,” and therefore they are sound in the faith, reverent towards Holy Scripture, and zealous for the honor of Christ! Trust-deeds and confessions of faith are useful in their way, even as laws are useful to society; but as laws cannot secure obedience to themselves, so articles of belief cannot create faith, or secure honesty; and to men without conscience, they are not worth the paper they are written upon…Truth must be written on the heart as well as in the book. If the Lord be among His people, they will cling to the eternal verities, and love the doctrine of the cross, not by force of law, but because divine truth is the life of their souls.

If the Lord should depart from us, as He has gone from churches which are now apostate, what an abyss opens before us! If He should take His Holy Spirit from us, even as the glory departed from the temple at Jerusalem, then our ruin would become a thing to mention with dread, a case to be quoted for a warning to future generations. O Lord, our God, take not Thy flight! Abide with us, we pray Thee! Our only hope lies in Thy making the place of Thy feet glorious among us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Pray The Lord Keeps His Church

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

Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. -Psalm 121:4

A dead church is a reeking Golgotha, a breeding-place of evils, a home of devils. The tombs may be newly whitewashed, but they are none the less open sepulchres, haunts of unclean spirits. A church all alive is a little heaven, the resort of angels, the temple of the Holy Ghost. In some of our churches everybody seems to be a little colder than everybody else. The members are holy icicles. A general frost has paralyzed everybody; and though some are colder than others, yet all are below zero. There are no flowing rills of refreshment, but everything is bound hard and fast with the frost of indifference. Oh, that the Lord would send forth His wind, and melt the glaciers! Oh, that the Spirit of God would chase winter out of every heart and every church! No human power can keep a church from the frostbite which numbs and kills. Except the Lord be there, growth, life, warmth-are all impossible. Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest, but cry day and night to Him! O Lord, abide with us. Go forth with our armies. Make us to be the living children of the living God!”

Who is to keep the church pure? None but God Himself. If the Lord is there, holiness will abound, and fruits of the Spirit will be seen on all sides; but if the Lord be once withdrawn, then flesh and blood will rule, and gender towards corruption after its own manner; and the church will become a synagogue of formalists. Pray, my brethren, continually, that the Lord may dwell in our Zion, to maintain us in all holy obedience and purity of life.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Empowered Saints

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

Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. -Ephesians 6:10

With God there is power in the ministry, power in prayer, power in all holy work. We may do a vast deal of work, and yet nothing may come of it; and, on the other hand, we may only be able to do comparatively little, and yet great results may flow therefrom: for results depend not on the quantity of the machinery, but on the presence of the Lord.

Do you not all know persons who are not peculiarly gifted, and yet are eminently useful? You do not remark anything about them that is specially noticeable, and yet their whole career enlists attention by its power. Their words tell, for there is character behind them. A consistent life gives force to a plain testimony. It is not so much what is said as who says it. But that is not all: God Himself is at the back of the man who is living for Him. He causes him to speak in His name, so that none of his words fall to the ground. Is it not said of the godly, “His leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”? This is so with every church where the Lord abides. His presence makes it a power with its children and adherents, a power with the neighborhood, and a power with the age. Its example, its testimony, its effort tells. God uses it, and therefore it answers its end. The power is with God; but the church is the instrument by which that power exercises itself. He uses a living people for the display of living power, and He gives to them both life and power, more and more abundantly. As we desire power with which to labor for God, we must pray that the God of power will remain in our midst. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Friend, is God in Your House?

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

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. -1 Peter 3:7

What a delightful family we belong to if it can be said of our house, “Jehovah-shammah, the Lord is there”! Has it a thatched roof and a stone floor? What matters? The father of the family lives near to God, and his wife rejoices to be his fellow-helper in prayer, while the children grow up to honest toil and honorable service. Assuredly that cottage home is dear to God, and becomes a place where angels come and go. Because God is there, every window looks towards the Celestial City. It is a comfort that we need not go across the road to morning prayer, or step out every evening to worship, for we are priests ourselves, and have a family altar at home, whereon the incense burns both morning and night. We talk not of matins and vespers, but we glory that “the Lord is there” when we bow the knee as a household. What is more delightful than to gather round the family hearth, to hear the Scriptures read, and listen to the senior, as he talks to the younger ones of what God has done for him, and what the Lord is waiting to give to all who trust Him? Free from all formality, family prayer makes a house a temple, a family a church, and every day a holy day. Truly, I may say of families of this kind, wherever they dwell, that it is none other but the house of God, and it is the very gate of heaven”; for “the Lord is there.” Friend, is God in your house? If it has no family prayer, it has no roof to it. There is no true joy in domestic life unless the Lord be there. All else is fiction; God alone is true delight. I charge you, if your homes are not such that God could come to them, set your houses in order, and say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Will you dare to dwell where God could not lodge with you? May all men say of your home, “The Lord is there”!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

The Doubtful Penitent

Sherry confession of sin, prayer 3 Comments

And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned -Joshua 7:20

You find Achan making a very full confession. He says, “Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.” It seems so full a confession, that if I might be allowed to judge, I should say, “I hope to meet Achan the sinner, before the throne of God.”…Ah! dear friends, it has been my lot to stand by many a death-bed, and to see many such a repentance as this: I have seen the man, when worn to a skeleton, sustained by pillows in his bed; and he has said, when I have talked to him of judgment to come, “Sir, I feel I have been guilty, but Christ is good; I trust in Him.” And I have said within myself, ” I believe the man’s soul is safe.” But I have always come away with the melancholy reflection that I had no proof of it, beyond his own words; for it needs proof in acts and in future life, in order to sustain any firm conviction of a man’s salvation…Ah! dear friends, I hope none of you will have such a death-bed repentance as that; I hope your minister or your parents will not have to stand by your bedside, and then go away and say, “Poor fellow, I hope he is saved. But alas! death-bed repentances are such flimsy things; such poor, such trivial grounds of hope, that I am afraid, after all, his soul may be lost.” Oh! to die with a full assurance; oh! to die with an abundant entrance, leaving a testimony behind that we have departed this life in peace! That is a far happier way than to die in a doubtful manner, lying sick, hovering between two worlds, and neither ourselves nor yet our friends knowing to which of the two worlds we are going. May God grant us grace to give in our lives evidences of true conversion, that our case may not be doubtful!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0113.cfm

A Blessed Cure for Anxiety

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

For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes: nevertheless Thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto Thee. – Psalm 31:22

When we get into a difficulty we shall say, “I am now going to see the wonders of God, and to learn again how surely He delivers them that trust in Him.” I thank God I have learned at times to glory in necessities, as opening a window into heaven for me, out of which the Lord would abundantly pour forth His supplies. It has been to me so unspeakable a delight to see how the Lord has supplied my needs for the Orphanage, the College, and other works, that I have half wished to be in straits, that I might see how the Lord would appear for me. I remember, some time ago, when year after year all the money came in for the various enterprises, I began to look back with regret upon those grand days when the Lord permitted the brook Cherith to dry up, and called off the ravens with their bread and meat, and then found some other way of supplying the orphans’ needs. In those days, the Lord used to come to me, as it were, walking on the tops of the mountains, stepping from peak to peak, and by marvellous deeds supplying all my needs, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Do you know, I almost wished that the Lord would stop the streams, and then let me see how He can fetch water out of the rock. He did so, not very long ago. Funds ran very low, and then I cried to Him, and He heard me out of His holy hill. How glad was I to hear the footfall of the ever-present Lord, answering to His child’s prayer, and letting him know that his times were still in his Father’s hand! Surely it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is a joy worth worlds to be driven where none but the Lord can help you, and then to see His mighty hand pulling you out of the net. The joy lies mainly in the fact that you are sure it is the Lord, and sure that He is near you. This blessed realization of the Lord’s interposition causes us to glory in tribulation. Is not that a cure for worry, a blessed cure for anxiety? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2205.cfm

O Sinner, Could He Refuse Thee?

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

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us…- Titus 3:4, 5

God must punish sin, every transgression must receive its just recompense of reward; but, lo, Christ has come, and as the scape-goat He has carried sin away; as the sin-offering He has removed transgression. Is not this good news? But I hear you say that your sins are too many and great. Do you then foolishly think that Christ is a sin-bearer for the innocent? That would be ridiculous. Do you suppose that Christ bore little sins only? That is to make Him a little Savior. Beware of this. Nay, but mountain sins, heaven-defying sins, were laid on Him when He hung upon the tree, and for these He made effectual atonement.

Perhaps, one of your greatest difficulties is that you cannot pray. You say, “I cannot put a dozen words together; if I groan, I fear I do not feel in my heart what I ought to feel.” Well, there is One who can pray for you if you cannot for yourself. Give Him your cause to plead, and do not doubt but that it shall succeed.

Think of His character as the meek and lowly Savior. Little children loved Him; He called them and they willingly came, for He was meek and lowly of heart. O sinner, could He refuse thee? Do you think He could give you a hard word and send you about your business, if you were to seek mercy today? It could not be; it is not in the nature of Him, who is both the Son of God and the Son of Man, ever to repel a heart that fain would cling to Him. Until He has once acted harshly to a coming sinner, you have no right to dream of His rejecting you, if you come to Him.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1010.cfm