promises

Practical Christianity

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

But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? – 1 John 3:17

Words! Words! Words! Chaff! Chaff!! Chaff!!! If there be no act there is no sympathy. There is no Christian sympathy in all this if it does not, when needed, prove itself by real gifts of our substance. Zealous words will not warm the cold; delicate words will not feed the hungry; the freest speech will not set free the captive or visit him in prison; the most adorned words will not clothe the naked, and the words that are most full of unction will not pour oil and wine into the wounds of the sick. 

I am persuaded that there are times when, if Christ were upon earth, He would dwell mainly upon the themes of practical Christianity. I read my Master’s Sermon on the Mount, and what doctrine is there in it? It is all precept from beginning to end; not doctrine, but precept; for this I know, we want to see in the Christian world more of the practical carrying out of the loving benevolence of the Savior. What care I about the doctrines for which you fight, unless they produce in you the spirit of Christ? What care I for your forms of faith and your ceremonies, if all the while you are a Nabal, wickedly saying in your heart, “Shall I take my bread and my water to give it unto these strangers?” Oh! let your faith be a living faith, lest, while you have the form of godliness, you deny the power thereof. Time was when, wherever a man met a Christian he met a helper. “I shall starve!” said he, until he saw a Christian’s face, and then he said, “Now shall I be aided.” But some have thrown benevolence aside and imagine that these are old duties of a legal character. Legal, then, will I be, when, in my Master’s name, again I say, “To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0479.cfm

Loving the Brethren

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

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. – 1 John 4:11

Dear Christian friends, I think our experience is not so available as it might be for the good of others. In the olden times they that feared the Lord spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard. You will find your brethren often distressed in mind; you have passed through the same stage; conversation with them will help them to escape as you have done. More especially is this conversation very valuable under the pangs of conviction. When a young man or woman has been awakened under the ministry, I charge you each before God, you that have found peace in Christ, to watch the throes and agonies of the new birth and be at hand to take the little child and nurse it for Christ. The senior members of every Christian church should consider themselves, as called by their very position, to look after the young. We have some such here; we want a few more. We want you mothers in Israel, especially, to be so sympathetic that you may no sooner hear that a soul is in distress than you are in distress too till you have poured in the oil and the wine into their wounds. I think this sympathy should be especially shown to any that backslide. There is a tendency to cut such off from the Church-book and then leave them. This should not be; we must look after that which is out of the way. The shepherd must leave the ninety and nine sheep to go after the one which has gone astray. If you see one vacillating be most careful there. If you detect in any a growing coldness, be the more anxious to foster that which remains, which is ready to die. Let a holy discipline and watchfulness be maintained over the entire Church, by the care and forethought of every one for his next friend. Thus, can you practically allow your Christian sympathy.

Stand up for your brethren…Stand up for all that are your fellow-soldiers: be jealous of the honor of the regiment in which you have enlisted. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0479.cfm

The Joy in Holding the Sorrows of Others

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

“I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” – Acts 20:35

If you want joy—joy that you may think upon at nights, and live upon day after day, next to the joy of the Lord, which is our strength, is the joy of doing good. The selfish man thinks that he has the most enjoyment in laying out his wealth upon himself. Poor fool! his interest is vastly small compared with the immense return which generosity, and liberality, and sympathy bring to the man who exercises them. Be ye assured that we can know as much joy in another’s joy as in our own joy… We may never have known what it is to want bread, but to see a saint who has been brought to the door of starvation and yet has had his bread given and his water sure, may be almost as useful. You and I may not be tortured with the pangs of sickness or the weakness of decay, but to climb some three pairs of stairs to a miserable back room, and to see a child of God patient in his tribulation, and to put ourselves by sympathy upon his bed, and suffer and smart with him, may give us the next best thing to the experience itself. I do think, brethren, that some men may live twenty lives, and get the experience of twenty men, and the information and real good of twenty men’s troubles, by having large hearts which can hold the sorrows of others. Oh! we cannot tell how much blessedness we might receive if we were more free to aid our fellows. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Ask any man who has been to visit the sick, the poor, and the needy, whether he has not come home more resigned to his own trials, and more satisfied with his own lot. We gave a shilling and received a casket of pearls which dropped from the lips of the poor suffering one while he told of God’s faithfulness, and the preciousness of the love of Christ. We are great losers when we know not these rich poor saints. If we would but trade with them ’twere a blessed barter for us. Coral and pearl—let no mention be made of them in comparison with the priceless gems which we might receive if we had greater sympathy and fuller communion with the suffering sons and daughters of Jerusalem. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0479.cfm

“Lord, save them!”

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

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? – Romans 10:14

Last Tuesday night, there were a mother and father who had a son about whom they had once been very hopeful; but he had left home, and gone away for weeks, though he promised to return. He had gone off, and they had not heard a word about him. They came to a company of Christian people, last Tuesday night, broken-hearted. They had done their best to find their son, but they could not find him.

It was to Haddon Hall that they came, and the people of God there prayed for his father and mother. The father himself prayed, and broke down with emotion about his lost son. He went home, and there was a letter from his son to say that the Savior had found him. He had given up the drink, and he hoped to be a comfort to his father and mother all the rest of their days. He was many miles away, and knew nothing of his father’s prayer.

Often, when you do not get on with people, go and tell the Lord Jesus Christ about it; say, “Lord, I have preached to them, I have prayed for them, I have talked to them, I have wept over them, I bear them on my heart as a burden. Their very name seems to burn itself with letters of fire into my soul. Lord, save them! Lord, save them, and they will be saved!” That is the way to win souls. If God works, He first of all makes us travail in birth for the souls of others, and then are they born into the kingdom. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2327.cfm

Pray for the Power to Win Souls

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

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? – Romans 10:14

I wish that it were your habit to be always looking out for souls. Up then, you Christian men, and seek as God shall help you, by every means in your power, to make known Christ to the dying all around you! But you will not do it unless you are sent, driven, impelled, forced—you will not win souls for Christ until the Gospel is like a fire in your bones, and you feel that woe is unto you if you do not preach it.

Well now, before you go to try to do that, there is one thing more. You cannot do it effectively unless you are sent—and to be sent means to have power given you with which to do the work. Can that power be had? If you feel impelled to cry to God to give you the power to preach, the spiritual power, the power of the Holy Ghost, if you are propelled to teach in the Sunday school—and it is not worth doing unless you feel that you are impelled to it, and sent to it—then pray for the power to win the souls of those dear children for Christ. If you feel called upon to write a letter to a friend tomorrow about his soul or her soul, do it because you feel called upon to do it—but pray to God to show you how to do it. Pray to Him to put the power into the words that you utter, that you may say the right words, and put even the right tone into those words.

But the power being obtained, you must go forth and tell out the message that your Lord has given you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2327.cfm

Make Christ Known

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

…and how shall they hear without a preacher? – Romans 10:14

How can they hear without a preacher? Now, let every one of you become, in the sense in which the text means it, a preacher, by telling out in some form or other, and making known in some way or other, the wondrous doctrine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. Speak to an individual, if you can. If you cannot do that, write. If you cannot write, send a sermon, or give a tract. Only do keep on making Christ known….If every one of you Christians would every day make Christ known to somebody, what a missionary organization we should be!

It is pitiable that anybody should live and die without knowing the Gospel.

The more earnest a man is to win souls, the more he is shocked, amazed, and appalled by the necessity there is to keep on making known the Gospel of Christ…We, to whom the text alludes, who are the preachers of this Gospel of peace, say to you: “Sinner, throw down your weapons of rebellion. Guilty one, fight no longer against God; come, and be at peace with Him. His peace is proclaimed to you through Jesus Christ. He will freely forgive you every transgression and iniquity; He is ready to forget and blot it all out. God invites you to be reconciled to Him, to have done with warring against Him. We preach peace to you; and, if you hear us, we then tell you glad tidings of good things, full pardon for all the past, a change of heart to be given to you, to make you a new creature in Christ Jesus; help for the future to strive against sin; strength to conquer and tread the dragon beneath your feet, power to become a child of God, to become an heir of heaven, to be taken under the guardian wing of Providence, to be directed by the infinite wisdom of the Holy Spirit.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2327.cfm

Be the Preacher

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

…and how shall they hear without a preacher? – Romans 10:14

Someone must make the truth known to men. They will not find out about the Savior unless they are told of Him. The Gospel will not be revealed to men by any supernatural agency—we must go with it. They cannot learn it without being taught it. No man will know the Gospel unless somebody tells it to him, by word of mouth, or by the gift of a book or a tract, or by a letter, or by the open preaching of the Word. Somebody must make it known to the man, for how can he believe in Him of whom he has not heard, and how can he hear without a preacher?

Who ought to preach, then? Everyone who can preach, should do so. The gift of preaching is the responsibility for preaching. I often wonder at some Christian men who can fire away so grandly on the platform, but who never speak for Christ—they will have to account for those prostituted tongues. If a man can speak upon the temperance question, he can speak upon the salvation question; let him take care that he does so…Every man who knows the Gospel ought to make it known. “Let him that heareth say, Come.” When you hear the Gospel, tell it to somebody else—you Christian people are all bound, in proportion to your gifts and your opportunity, to make the Gospel known.

“Why!” says one, “I thought that work was for priests.” Just so, it is only for priests. But then all believers are priests. By His mighty grace, our Lord Jesus Christ has made us kings and priests unto God; and it is our duty, as well as our privilege, to exercise this blessed priestly function of telling to the sons of men the way whereby they may be saved. Each man, then, who knows Christ, and each woman and each young person, too, are bound to tell of Christ in some way or other to all who are round about them. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2327.cfm