prayer

Abide with Us, We Pray Thee!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. -Acts 20:28

Brethren, we as a church have grown to great numbers, and we are not deficient either in gifts or in graces, or in work for our Lord; but let me solemnly remind you always that our chief, our only strength, must always lie in this-“the Lord is there.” 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.

If the Lord be among us, the consequences will be…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…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. No subscription to articles can keep out the unscrupulous. Wolves leap into the fold however carefully you watch the door…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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

The Gate of Heaven

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

You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. -Psalm 16:11

Do we reckon the presence of the Lord to be the greatest of blessings? If in any gathering, even of the humblest people, the Lord God is known to be present in a peculiarly gracious manner, should we make a point of being there?..Will you permit these thoughts to saturate you for a little space? I have spoken them with the desire that each one of us may ask himself, “Is the presence of God my delight?” If so, I am His, and He will be with me. On the contrary, Is the presence of God a matter of indifference, or even of dread? Then my condition is one of guilt, disease, and danger. May the Lord, of His infinite mercy, set me right!

God’s saints in divers places found choice spots where they could converse with heaven. In the first days our gracious God spake with His chosen ones in their daily walk, as Enoch; or under the oak, as Abraham; or by the brook, as Jacob; or before the bush, as Moses; or near the city wall, as Joshua. Wherever it might be, the place became to them the gate of heaven, for the Lord was there. Amid a torrent of sin and sorrow, you may cross the stream of time upon the stepping-stones of the places marked “Jevohah-Shammah”. The Lord’s delights were with the sons of men, and to them nothing brought such bliss as to find that still the Lord would be mindful of man, and visit him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

 

Peace and Liberty with God

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

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus -Romans 8:1

If you are convinced of sin, my dear friends, do not lose a moment. Go to your chamber… shut your door, go alone to Jesus, and there repeat your confession, and once more affirm your faith in Christ; and you shall have that peace with God which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot take away. Your troubled conscience shalt find rest: your feet shall be on a rock; and a new song shall be in your mouth, even praise for evermore.

“From whence this fear and unbelief?-
Hast Thou, O Father, put to grief
Thy spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous Judge of men
Condemn me for that debt of sin,
Which, Lord, was charged on Thee?

Complete atonement Thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whate’er Thy people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place
If shelter’d in Thy righteousness,
And sprinkled with Thy blood?

If Thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely, in my room, endured
The whole of wrath divine;
Payment God cannot twice demand,-
First, at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.

Turn, then, my soul unto thy rest!
The merits of thy great High Priest
Speak peace and liberty:
Trust in His efficacious blood;
Nor fear thy banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0255.cfm

Thy Sufferings Were for Me

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

Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. -Romans 3:24

Jesus, I believe that Thy sufferings were for me; and I believe that they are more than enough to satisfy for all my sins. By faith I cast myself at the foot of Thy cross and cling to it.

This is my only hope, my shelter, and my shield. It cannot be, that God can smite me now. Justice itself prevents, for when Justice once is satisfied it were injustice if it should ask for more. Now, is it not clear enough to the eye of every one, whose soul has been aroused, that Justice stands no longer in the way of the sinner’s pardon? God can be just, and yet the justifier. He has punished Christ, why should He punish twice for one offense? Christ has died for all His people’s sins, and if thou art in the covenant, thou art one of Christ’s people. Damned thou canst not be. Suffer for thy sins thou canst not. Until God can be unjust, and demand two payments for one debt, He cannot destroy the soul for whom Jesus died. “Away goes universal redemption,” says one. Yes, away it goes, indeed. I am sure there is nothing about that in the Word of God. A redemption that does not redeem is not worth my preaching, or your hearing. Christ redeemed every soul that is saved; no more, and no less. Every spirit that shall be seen in heaven Christ bought. If He had redeemed those in hell, they never could have come there. He has bought His people with His blood, and they alone shall He bring with Him. “But who are they?” says one. Thou art one, if thou believest. Thou art one if thou repentest of thy sin. If thou wilt now take Christ to be thy all in all, then thou art one of His.~C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0255.cfm

 

Our Numbered Days

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

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. -Psalm 90:12

Listen for one moment to the ticking of that clock!…It is the beating of the pulse of eternity. You hear the ticking of that clock!-it is the footstep of death pursuing you. Each time the clock ticks, death’s footsteps are falling on the ground close behind you. You will soon enter another year. This year will have gone in a few seconds…where will the next year be spent, my friends? One has been spent on earth; where will you spend the next? “In heaven!” says one, “I trust.” Another murmurs, “Perhaps I shall spend mine in hell!” Ah! solemn is the thought, but before that clock strikes 12, some here may be in hell; and blessed be the name of God! some of us may be in heaven! But O, do you know how to estimate your time, my hearers? do you know how to measure your days? Oh! I have not words to speak to-night. Do you know that every hour you are nearing the tomb? that every hour you are nearing judgment?…Do you know where the stream of life is hastening some of you? To the rapids-to the rapids of woe and destruction! What shall the end of those be who obey not the gospel of God?…O take care! take care! time is precious! and whenever we have little of it, it is more precious; yea, it is most precious. May God help you to escape from hell and fly to heaven! I feel like the angel, to-night, who put his hand upon Lot, and cried-“Escape! look not behind thee! stay not in all the plain; flee to the mountain, lest thou be consumed!”

“Ye virgin souls, arise!
With all the dead awake;
Unto salvation wise;
Oil in your vessels take:
Upstarting at the midnight cry,
Behold Your heavenly bridegroom nigh.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0059.cfm

Learned By Trouble

Sherry Attributes of God, prayer, promises, salvation 3 Comments

When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer went up to You, into Your holy temple…Salvation is of the Lord.- Jonah 2:7,9

Jonah learned this sentence of good theology in a strange college. He learned it in the whale’s belly, at the bottom of the mountains, with the weeds wrapped about his head, when he supposed that the earth with her bars was about him for ever. Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them. No man is competent to judge in matters of the kingdom, until first he has been tried; since there are many things to be learned in the depths which we can never know in the heights. We discover many secrets in the caverns of the ocean, which, though we had soared to heaven, we never could have known. He shall best meet the wants of God’s people as a preacher who has had those wants himself; he shall best comfort God’s Israel who has needed comfort; and he shall best preach salvation who has felt his own need of it. Jonah, when he was delivered from his great danger, when, by the command of God the fish had obediently left its great deeps and delivered its cargo upon dry land, was then capable of judging; and this was the result of his experience under his trouble-“Salvation is of the Lord.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0131.cfm

Thou Art a True God

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

That by two immutable things, in that it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: -Hebrews 6:18

If you should say to faith, “Faith, why do you expect God to do as He has said it, why do you expect it?” Faith would answer, “I have a whole bundle of reasons that justify the act. And in the first place, I have a right to expect Him to do as He has said, because He is a true God; I know He cannot lie. He has said He will give me such-and-such a thing; if He was not a truthful God, I would not say, ‘do as Thou hast said!’ but since He is a true God, and never was known to break His promise, and since, moreover, by two immutable things, wherein it is impossible for God to lie-His oath and His promise-He has made the thing secure; and since I know that in Christ all the promises are yea and amen, I think I have good reason enough for going to Him and saying, ‘do as Thou hast said.’ If He were some fallible being who promised and would not perform, I might hesitate somewhat; but since He is always true and constantly precious, I will go and say to Him, ‘Lord, do as Thou hast said.'” Poor sinner! God has said, “He that confesseth his sin shall find mercy.” Now, if you go to God, you want no other plea than this,-“Lord, do as Thou hast said;’ ‘I have confessed my sins;’ ‘do as Thou hast said.'” “But, sinner, why should I do as I have said? you do not deserve it.” “Lord, Thou art a true God.”

“Thou hast promised to forgive,
All who on Thy Son believe;
Lord I know Thou canst not lie,
Give me Christ or else I die.”

Go, poor sinner, tell the Lord that, and as truly as He is God, He will never send you empty away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0088.cfm