promises

The Man that is Blessed

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

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. – Romans 8:24,25

Here is a test for us all. You may judge of a man by what he groans after. Some men groan after wealth, they worship Mammon. Some groan continually under the troubles of life; they are merely impatient-there is no virtue in that. Some men groan because of their great losses or sufferings; well, this may be nothing but a rebellious smarting under the rod, and if so, no blessing will come of it. But the man that yearns after more holiness, the man that sighs after God, the man that groans after perfection, the man that is discontented with his sinful self, the man that feels he cannot be easy till he is made like Christ, that is the man who is blessed indeed. May God help you, and help me, to groan all our days with that kind of groaning. I have said before, there is heaven in it, and though the word sounds like sorrow, there is a depth of joy concealed within,

“Lord, let me weep for nought but sin,
And after none but Thee;
And then I would, O that I might,
A constant weeper be.”

While you shall for a while sigh for more of heaven, you shall soon come to the abodes of blessedness where sighing and sorrow shall flee away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0788.cfm

Our Sacred Sighs

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

…even we ourselves groan within ourselves… – Romans 8:23

A Christian’s experience is like a rainbow, made up of drops of the griefs of earth, and beams of the bliss of heaven. It is a checkered scene, a garment of many colours. He is sometimes in the light and sometimes in the dark. The text says, “we groan.” But it is added, “We groan within ourselves.” It is not the hypocrite’s groan, when he goes mourning everywhere, wanting to make people believe that he is a saint because he is wretched. We groan within ourselves. Our sighs are sacred things; these griefs and sighs are too hallowed for us to tell abroad in the streets. We keep our longings to our Lord, and to our Lord alone. We groan within ourselves. It appears from the text that this groaning is universal among the saints: there are no exceptions; to a greater or less extent we all feel it. He that is most endowed with worldly goods, and he who has the fewest; he that is blessed in health, and he who is racked with sickness; we all have in our measure an earnest inward groaning towards the redemption of our body.

We are to groan after perfection, but we are to wait patiently for it, knowing that what the Lord appoints is best. Waiting implies being ready. We are to stand at the door expecting the Beloved to open it and take us away to Himself. The believer continues to hope for the time when death and sin shall no more annoy his body; when, as his soul has been purified, so shall his body be, and his prayer shall be heard, that the Lord would sanctify him wholly, body, soul, and spirit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0788.cfm

Our Deficiencies, Our Groans

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

…even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. – Romans 8:23

Brethren, as soon as a man believes in Christ, he is no longer under the curse of the law. As to his spirit, sin hath no more dominion over him, and the law hath no further claims against him. His soul is translated from death unto life, but the body, this poor flesh and blood, doth it not remain as before? 

There is another point in which the saint is deficient as yet, namely, in the manifestation of our adoption...We have not yet the royal robes which become the princes of the blood; we are wearing in this flesh and blood just what we wore as the sons of Adam; but we know that when He shall appear who is the “first born among many brethren,” we shall be like Him.

There is a third thing in which we are deficient, namely, liberty, the glorious liberty of the children of God. The whole creation is said to be groaning for its share in that freedom. You and I are also groaning for it. Brethren, we are free! “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” But our liberty is incomplete…How shall the heir of God be content till he rests on his Father’s bosom, and is filled with all the fulness of God?

Brethren, we are like warriors fighting for the victory; we share not as yet in the shout of them that triumph…Those in heaven, have, as it were, stolen there. They are blessed, but they have not had their public entrance. They are waiting till their Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the trump of the archangel, and the voice of God…After this consummation the believing heart is panting, groaning, and sighing. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0788.cfm

Groaning in Our Waiting

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

…but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. – Romans 8:23

When the soldiers of Godfrey of Bouillon came in sight of Jerusalem, it is said they shouted for joy at the sight of the holy city. For that very reason they began to groan. Ask ye why? It was because they longed to enter it. Having once looked upon the city of David, they longed to carry the holy city by storm, to overthrow the crescent, and place the cross in its place. He who has never seen the New Jerusalem, has never clapped his hands with holy ecstasy, he has never sighed with the unutterable longing which is expressed in words like these-

“O my sweet home, Jerusalem,
Would God I were in thee!
Would God my woes were at an end,
Thy joys that I might see!”

An exile, far away from his native country, has been long forgotten, but on a sudden a vessel brings him the pardon of his monarch, and presents from his friends who have called him to remembrance. As he turns over each of these love-tokens, and as he reads the words of his reconciled prince, he asks “When will the vessel sail to take me back to my native shore?” If the vessel tarries, he groans over the delay; and if the voyage be tedious, and adverse winds blow back the barque from the white cliffs of Albion, his thirst for his own sweet land compels him to groan…So, you see, beloved, that because we have the “first-fruits of the Spirit,” for that very reason, if for no other, we cannot help but groan for that blissful period which is called “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0788.cfm

Waiting for the Harvest

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

…but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. – Romans 8:23

Brethren, the work of the Spirit is called “first-fruits,” because the first-fruits were not the harvest. No Jew was ever content with the first-fruits. He was content with them for what they were, but the first-fruits enlarged his desires for the harvest. If he had taken the first-fruits home, and said, “I have all I want,” and had rested satisfied month after month, he would have given proof of madness, for the first-fruit does but whet the appetite-does but stir up the desire it never was meant to satisfy. So, when we get the first works of the Spirit of God, we are not to say, “I have attained, I am already perfect, there is nothing further for me to do, or to desire.” Nay, my brethren, all that the most advanced of God’s people know as yet, should but excite in them an insatiable thirst after more. My brother with great experience, my sister with enlarged acquaintance with Christ, ye have not yet known the harvest, you have only reaped the first handful of corn. Open your mouth wide, and God will fill it! Enlarge thine expectations-seek great things from the God of heaven-and He will give them to thee; but by no means fold thine arms in sloth and sit down upon the bed of carnal security. Forget the steps thou hast already trodden, and reach forward towards that which is before, looking unto Jesus. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0788.cfm

The Pledge of the First-fruits

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

(For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) – Ephesians 5:9

It is called “first-fruits,” because the first-fruits were always the pledge of the harvest. As soon as the Israelite had plucked the first handful of ripe ears, they were to him so many proofs that the harvest was already come. He looked forward with glad anticipation to the time when the wain should creak beneath the sheaves, and when the harvest home should be shouted at the door of the barn. So, brethren, when God gives us “Faith, hope, charity-these three,” when He gives us “whatsoever things are pure, lovely, and of good report,” as the work of the Holy Spirit, these are to us the prognostics of the coming glory. If you have the Spirit of God in your soul, you may rejoice over it as the pledge and token of the fulness of bliss and perfection “which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

It is called “first-fruits,” again, because these were always holy to the Lord. The first ears of corn were offered to the Most High, and surely our new nature, with all its powers, must be regarded by us as a consecrated thing. The new life which God has given to us is not ours that we should ascribe its excellence to our own merit: the new nature is Christ’s peculiarly; as it is Christ’s image and Christ’s creation, so it is for Christ’s glory alone. That secret we must keep separate from all earthly things; that treasure which He has committed to us we must watch both night and day against those profane intruders who would defile the consecrated ground. We would stand upon our watch-tower and cry aloud to the Strong for strength, that the adversary may be repelled, that the sacred castle of our heart may be for the habitation of Jesus, and Jesus alone. We have a sacred secret which belongs to Jesus, as the first-fruits belong to Jehovah. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0788.cfm

A Heritage Divine

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

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Romans 8:23

We were once an undistinguished part of the creation, subject to the same curse as the rest of the world, “heirs of wrath, even as others.” But distinguishing grace has made a difference where no difference naturally was; we are now no longer treated as criminals condemned, but as children and heirs of God. We have received a divine life, by which we are made partakers of the divine nature, having “escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust.” The Spirit of God has come unto us so that our “bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost.” God dwelleth in us, and we are one with Christ. We have at this present moment in us certain priceless things which distinguish us as believers in Christ from all the rest of God’s creatures…Believing in Jesus, we speak confidently, we have unspeakable blessings given to us by the Father of spirits. Not we shall have, but we have. True, many things are yet in the future, but even at this present moment, we have obtained an inheritance; we have already in our possession a heritage divine which is the beginning of our eternal portion. This is called “the first-fruits of the Spirit,” by which I understand the first works of the Spirit in our souls. Brethren, we have repentance, that gem of the first water. We have faith, that priceless, precious jewel. We have hope, which sparkles, a hope most sure and steadfast. We have love, which sweetens all the rest. We have that work of the Spirit within our souls which always comes before admittance into glory. We are already made “new creatures in Christ Jesus,” by the effectual working of the mighty power of God the Holy Ghost. This is called the first-fruit because it comes first. As the wave-sheaf was the first of the harvest, so the spiritual life which we have, and all the graces which adorn that life, are the first gifts, the first operations of the Spirit of God in our souls. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0788.cfm