promises

Look at the Martyrs

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

…but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

“Look at the martyrs; did not they seek the Lord above all men? …they wanted many good things; they were in prison, sometimes in cold, and nakedness, and hunger; they were on the rack tormented, many of them went to heaven from the fiery stake.” Yes, but they never wanted any good thing…Who are the brightest before the eternal throne? Those who suffered most below. lf they could speak to you now, they would tell you that that noisome dungeon was, because it enabled them to glorify God, a good thing to them. They would tell you that the rack whereon they did sing sweet hymns of praise was a good thing for them, because it enabled them to show forth the patience of the saints, and to have their names written in the book of the peerage of the skies. They would tell you that the fiery stake was a good thing, because from that pulpit they preached Christ after such a fashion as men could never have heard it from cold lips and stammering tongues. Did not the world perceive that the suffering of the saints were good things, for they were the seed of the Church? They helped to spread the truth, and because God would not deny them any good thing He gave them their dungeons, He gave them their racks, He gave them their stakes, and these were the best things they could have had, and with enlarged reason, and with their mental faculties purged, those blessed spirits would now choose again, could they live over again, to have suffered those things. They would choose, were it possible, to have lived the very life, and to have endured all they braved, to have received so glorious a reward as they now enjoy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

God Knows What is Best for You

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

O fear the LORD, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that fear Him…they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:9,10

I think sometimes it would be a good thing for me if I had more talents, but if it were a good thing I should have more, I should have them. You think it were a good thing, if you were to have more money. Well, if He saw it to be good, you would have it. “Oh!” say you, “but it would have been a good thing if my poor mother had been spared to me: if she had been alive now, it would have been a good thing, and it would be a good thing certainly for us to be in the position I was five years ago before these terrible panic times came.” Well, if it had been a good thing for you to have been there, you would have been there. “I don’t see it.” says one. Well, do not expect to see it, but believe it. We walk by faith, not by sight. But the text says so. It says not that every man shall have every good thing, but it does say that every man that seeks the Lord shall have every good thing. He shall not want any good thing, be it what it may. “Well, I doubt it,” says one. Very well, I do not wonder that you do, for your father Adam doubted it, and that is how the whole race fell. Adam and Eve were in the garden, and they might have felt quite sure that their heavenly Father would not deny them any good thing, but the devil came and whispered, and said to them, “God doth know that in the day you eat of the fruit of that tree you will be as gods; that fruit is very good for you, a wonderfully good thing; never anything like it, and that one good thing God has kept away from you.” “Oh!” said Eve, “then I will get it,” and down we all fell. The race was ruined through their doubting the promise. If they had continued to seek the Lord, they would not have wanted any good thing. That fruit was not a good thing to them; it might have been good in itself, but it was not good to them, or else God would have given it to them, and their doubting it brought all this terrible sorrow on us. So it will upon you, for let me show you-you say, perhaps, “It would be a very good thing for me to be rich.” God has stopped you up many times. You have never prospered when you thought you were going to. You will put out your hand, perhaps, to do a wrong thing to be rich, but if you say, “No, I will work, and toil, and do what I can, but if I am not prospered, it is not a good thing for me to be prospered, and I would not do a wrong thing, if it would bring me all the prosperity that heart could desire,” then you will walk uprightly and God will bless you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

No Want of Any Good Thing

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

… but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

“They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” That is, not one of them. They that first stepped into Bethesda’s pool were healed, and no others; but here everybody that steps into this pool is healed; that is to say, everyone that seeks the Lord has this promise-the least, as well as the greatest: the Little-faiths and the Much-afraids as much as the Great-hearts and the Stand-fasts. They that seek the Lord, whether they are chimney-sweeps or princes, whether they are tender children, or seasoned veterans in the Master’s great army-they shall want no good thing. “Well, but” somebody says, “there are some of them that are in want.” They are in want? Yes, that may be, but they are not in want of any good thing. They cannot be. God’s word against anything you say, or I say. If they seek the Lord, they shall not, they cannot, they must not want any good thing. “Well, at any rate, they want what appears to be a good thing.” That is very likely; the text does not say they shall not be. “Well, but they want what they once found to be a good thing; they want health-is not that a good thing? It was a good thing to them when they had it before, yet they want health; does not that go against the text?” No, it does not in any way whatever. The text means this, that anything which is absolutely good for him, all circumstances being considered, no child of God shall ever want. I met with this statement in a work by that good old Puritan, Mr. Clarkson, which stuck by me when I read it some time ago. I think the words were these, “If it were a good thing for God’s people for sin, Satan, sorrow, and affliction to be abolished, Christ would blot them out within five minutes, and if it were a good thing for the seeker of the Lord to have all the kingdoms of this world put at his feet and for him to be made a prince, Jesus would make him a prince before the sun rose again.” If it were absolutely to him, all things being considered, a good thing, he must have it, for Christ would be sure to keep His word. He has said he shall not want it, and He would not let His child want it, whatever it might be, if it were really, absolutely, and in itself, all things considered, a good thing. Now, taking God’s Word and walking by faith towards it, what a light it sheds on your history and mine! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

Is His Promise Truly Ours?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

…they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

We must be among those who seek the Lord heartily, not merely saying that we do, or wishing that we did, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, and in the power of His blessed residence in our souls, we must be panting after God’s glory heartily, otherwise I do not see that we can put our hands on the promise without presumption. We must be seeking it honestly, too, for there is a way of seeking God’s good and your own at the same time- I mean having a sinister and selfish motive. We may preach, and not be preaching only for God at all. A man may live in the Sanctuary, in holy engagements from morning until night and yet may never ardently, intensely seek the Lord. A man may be a great giver to charities, a great attender at prayer-meetings, a great doer of all kinds of Christian work, and yet he may never seek the Lord, but may yet be seeking to have his name known, to be noted as a generous man, or be merely seeking to get merit to himself, or self-complacency to his own conscience. It is a downright honest desire to serve and glorify God while we are here that is meant in the text. If we have got it-and I think we may readily see whether we have or not-then is the word of the Psalmist true to us.

Oh! may God grant that we may all be able truly to say, “I seek the Lord; I am sure, I am certain that I seek Him,” for if we can feel that that is true, then we can take the promise of the text; if not, we may not touch it. If we, as professing Christians, fire not at top and bottom, in heart, and soul, and spirit, and in all that we do, really seeking the glory of God, the promise does not belong to us; but if we can from our very souls declare, “Notwithstanding a thousand infirmities, yet, Lord, Thou knowest all things: Thou knowest that I love Thee, and that I seek Thine honour,” then this is true of us, and no one of us shall want any good thing. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

The Desire of the Christian

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

O fear the LORD, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that fear Him… they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:9,10

The (saved) man seeks the Lord by daily and constant prayer, seeking that he may be upheld, guided, constrained in paths of righteousness, and restrained from the ways of sin. He becomes a seeker of the Lord after sanctification as once he was after justification. And then he becomes a seeker of the Lord in a further sense. He seeks to enjoy the Lord’s love, and His gracious fellowship and communion. He seeks to get near in reverent friendship to his Lord. He now longs to grow up in the likeness of Christ, that his intercourse with the Father and the Son may be more close, more sweet, more continuous. He feels that God is his Father, and that he is no longer at a distance from him in one sense, for he is made nigh by the blood of the cross. Yet sometimes he is oppressed with a sense of his old evil heart of unbelief and in departure from the living God, and he cries out, “Draw me nearer to Thyself.” In fact, his prayer always is:

“Nearer my God to Thee,
Nearer to Thee:
E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
Still all my cry shall be,
Nearer to Thee, nearer to Thee.”

He seeks the Lord’s company. He delights to be in God’s house, and at God’s mercy-seat, and at the foot of the cross, where God reveals Himself in all His glory. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

The Life of the Christian

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

…they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

The term to “seek the Lord,” I may say, is the description of the life of the Christian. When he lives as he should, his whole life is seeking the Lord. It is with this he begins. “Behold, he prayeth,” that is, he seeks the Lord. He has begun to be conscious of his sin; he is seeking pardon of the Lord. He has begun to be aware of his danger; he is seeking salvation in the Lord. He is now aware of his powerlessness, and he is looking for strength to the Lord. Those deep convictions, those cries and tears, those repentings and humblings, and, above all, those acts of simple confidence in which he casts himself upon the great atonement made upon Calvary’s bloody tree-those are all acts of seeking the Lord. Now, perhaps, some of you have got no farther than this. Well, you shall have your proportion of blessing, according to your strength. You shall have your share in it, little as you are. He will give to His children at the table their portion, as well as to those who have grown to manhood.

After a man has attained unto eternal life by confiding in the Lord Jesus, he then goes on to seek the Lord in quite another way. No wonder; since he has found the Lord, or rather has been found of Him, and yet he still presses on to apprehend Him of whom he has been already apprehended. He still presses forward, seeking the Lord, and he seeks the Lord thus. He seeks now to know the Lord’s mind, the Lord’s law and will. “Show me what Thou wouldest have me to do,” saith he. “Lord, I went by my own wit once, and I brought myself into a dark wood: I lost myself: I was at hell’s brink, and Thou didst save me: now, Lord, guide and direct me: be pleased to teach me: open my lips when I speak: guide my hands when I act: I wait at Thy feet, feeling that –

“For holiness no strength have I;
My strength is at Thy feet to lie.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

No Lack for the Seekers of the Lord

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

“The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.”- Psalm 34:10 (read also Psalm 23:1)

The young lions are very strong; they are as yet in the freshness of their youth, and yet their strength does not always suffice to keep them supplied. The young lions are very crafty; they understand how to waylay their game and leap upon them with a sudden spring at unawares, and yet, with all their craftiness, they howl for hunger in the wood. The young lions are very bold and furious, very unscrupulous; they are not stayed from any deed of depredation, and yet for all that, free-booters as they are, they sometimes lack, and suffer hunger. These are just the type of many men in the world; they are strong men, they are cunning men, they are thoroughly up to the times-smart, sharp men. If anybody could be well supplied, one would think they should be. But how many of them go to bankruptcy and ruin, and, with all their cunning, they are too cunning, and, with all their unscrupulousness, they manage at last full often, to come to an ill end. They do lack and suffer hunger. But here are the people of God-they are regarded as simpletons, such simpletons as to seek the Lord instead of adopting the maxims of universal worldly wisdom namely, “Seek yourself”; they have given up what is called the first law of human nature, namely, self-seeking, self-pleasing, self-serving, and have come to seek the Lord, to seek to magnify Him. And what comes of their simplicity? “They shall not want any good thing.” Notwithstanding their want of power, their want of cunning, and the check which conscience often puts upon them so that they cannot do what others can to enrich themselves, yet for all that, they have a fortune ensured to them: they “shall not want any good thing.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm