promises

The Gift of the Holy Spirit to Us

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

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, Whatsoever I have said unto you.”-John 14:26.

There are many choice gifts comprehended in the Covenant of Grace, but the first and richest of them are these twain-the gift of Jesus Christ for us and the gift of the Holy Ghost to us. The first of these I trust we are not likely to undervalue…But the second great gift, by no means inferior to the first-the gift of the Holy Spirit to us-is so spiritual and we are so carnal, is so mysterious and we are so material, that we are very apt to forget its value, ay, and even to forget the gift altogether. And yet, my brethren, let us ever remember that Christ on the cross is of no value to us apart from the Holy Spirit in us. In vain that blood is flowing, unless the finger of the Spirit applies the blood to our conscience; in vain is that garment of righteousness wrought out, a garment without seam, woven from the top throughout, unless the Holy Spirit wraps it around us, and arrays us in its costly folds. The river of the water of life cannot quench our thirst till the Spirit presents the goblet and lifts it to our lip. All the things that are in the paradise of God itself could never be blissful to us so long as we are dead souls, and dead souls we are until that heavenly wind comes from the four corners of the earth and breathes upon us slain, that we may live. We do not hesitate to say, that we owe as much to God the Holy Ghost as we do to God the Son. Indeed, it were a high sin and misdemeanor to attempt to put one person of the Divine Trinity before another. Thou, O Father, art the source of all grace, all love and mercy towards us. Thou, O Son, art the channel of Thy Father’s mercy, and without Thee Thy Father’s love could never flow to us. And Thou, O Spirit-Thou art He who enables us to receive that divine virtue which flows from the fountainhead, the Father, through Christ the channel, and by Thy means enters into our spirit, and there abides and brings forth its glorious fruit. Magnify, then, the Spirit, ye who are partakers of it; praise, laud, and love His name always, for it is seemly so to do. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0315.cfm

Ye Shall Be Witnesses Unto Me

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 5 Comments

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me. – Acts 1:8

“Holy Spirit, dwell in me;
I, myself, would holy be.”

There are many who would have been in the asylum, in their time of trial, if it had not been that they could carry their grief to Christ. There are some of us who are not strangers to very acute pain, and to a long continuance of it, too; and we have found no comfort in the world like going to our Lord when racked with anguish, and torn with pain. There is a power about Him to charm us into joy; when everything would drive us to distress, and almost to despair.

I have been at many death-beds; I have seen many Christians just about to die. There it is that the power of our holy religion comes in. How calm, how resigned, sometimes how triumphant, how ecstatic, is the frame of mind of the departing believer! I never heard one of them regret that he was a Christian. In times when men sift what they have done and believed, and when they tell no lies, for the naked truth comes up before them, I have heard them glory in belonging to Christ, and in resting in Him; but I have never heard them regret that they did so. Our religion is not all of the future; it is not a thing that dreams concerning the world to come. It gives us present joy, present strength, present comfort, and we commend it to you most heartily, for this is our duty, to be witnesses for Christ.

May the Spirit of God rest upon you, beloved in the Lord, and may you hear your Master say to you, Ye shall be witnesses unto Me”! Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2330.cfm

There is Something for You to Be

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

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me… – Acts 1:8

If you are a disciple of Christ, you are not to look into the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power; you are to receive the Spirit of God, and then there is something for you to be. Did you expect me to say that then there is something for you to do? Well, there is a great deal for you to do; but the text says, “Ye shall be witnesses”; not “Ye shall act as witnesses” only, but “Ye shall be witnesses.” Every true Christian should, in his own proper person, be a witness for his Lord. “Here I stand,” says he, “myself a proof of what my Lord can do. I, His servant, saved by Him, and renewed by Him, washed in His blood, it is I who, while I live, whether I speak or not, am a monument of His love, a trophy of His grace.” “Ye shall be Witnesses unto Me.”

Dear friends, we are to be witnesses of what Christ has done. If we have seen Christ, if we believe in Christ, let us tell it honestly. These apostles had a great deal to tell. They had been with Christ in private; they had seen His miracles; they had heard His choicest and more secret words; they had to go and bear witness to it all. And you, who have been let into the secrets of Christ, you who have communed with Him more closely than others, you have much to tell. Tell it all, for whatever He has said to you in the closet you are to proclaim upon the housetop. You are to witness what you have seen, and tasted, and handled, concerning your Lord. You are to witness to what He has revealed, to make known to others the doctrine that He preached, or taught by His apostles. Mind that you do not tell any other. You are not sent to be “an original thinker”, to make up a gospel as you go along; you are a witness, that is all, a re-teller of Christ’s truth, and you miss the end of your life unless you perpetually witness, and witness, and witness to what you know of Him, and to what you have learnt from Him. Let this be your prayer and your resolve-

“Give me Thy strength, O God of power!
Then let winds blow, or thunders roar,
Thy faithful witness will I be:
‘Tis fixed: I can do all through Thee.”

You are to witness to what you have experienced concerning Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2330.cfm

The Subtle Spiritual Power

Sherry Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. – Acts 1:8

There is a more secret, subtle power still, spiritual power, wherein, in the spiritual world, a man is made a prince with God, and hath power with God; and learning how to prevail with God for men, he catches the art of prevailing with men for God. He is first a wrestler alone by Jabbok; then he becomes a wrestler in the midst of the host of sinners, conquering them for Christ, taking them captive in the name of the Most High. Power in prayer is the highest form of power; and, communion with God is power; and holiness, above all things, is a great power among the sons of men.

This spiritual power makes a man influential, in a sense very different from that in which the world uses the word “influential”-a disgraceful use of the word. We want men who have influence in the divinest sense… In their presence men cannot do what they are accustomed to do elsewhere; when these men are in any company, they check sin without a word, they incite to righteousness almost without a sentence. They carry everything before them, not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord who dwells in them. Have I not seen some, decrepit and bedridden, yet ruling a house, and influencing a parish? Have I not seen some tottering old woman who, nevertheless, has been a very queen in the circle in which she moved? Have I not seen some poor, humble rustic from the plough who, nevertheless, has worn a coronet in the midst of his fellow-men by the holiness of his life, and the spiritual power that God the Holy Ghost had imparted to him? …Power must go with the word that is preached or taught if any large result is to follow; and that power must first be in the man who speaks that word. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2330.cfm

The Power of the Holy Spirit

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

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. – Acts 1:8

The Holy Spirit does not educate us, or give us culture after the common method of men, and yet there is an inner education and a higher culture which is much more to be desired, which comes from Him. He leads us into all truth; He makes us feel the force of truth; He gives us a grip of truth; He writes truth upon the heart; He applies it to the understanding. Many a man has become quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord, who was very slow of understanding in other respects. The Holy Spirit takes the fool, and makes him know the wonders of redeeming love. It is amazing how persons, of very scanty gifts, and very small attainments, have, nevertheless, become wise toward God, their mental faculties being quickened with regard to heavenly things in a very remarkable manner.

The power of the Spirit is also, in part, moral power. He gives to men qualities that make them strong and influential over their fellow-men; He imparts dauntless courage, calm confidence, intense affection, burning zeal, deep patience, much-enduring perseverance. Many other hallowed influences besides these are graces of the Spirit of God, which form in men a moral power exceedingly useful and exceedingly forcible. I have known men who have been slow of speech, and who have exhibited very few gifts, who have, nevertheless, been very strong men in our assemblies, true pillars of the church, for piety is power, and grace is power. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2330.cfm

We Want the Holy Ghost

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

Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? …It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. – Acts 1:6-8

The Savior said to the eleven that they were to wait at Jerusalem till they had received power by the Holy Ghost coming upon them. This is what we want; we want the Holy Ghost. We often speak about this; but, in truth, it is unspeakable, the power of the Holy Ghost, mysterious, divine. When it comes upon a man, he is bathed in the very essence of the Deity. The atmosphere about him becomes the life and power of God. There is an old proverb that knowledge is power; Christ has taken away the knowledge that is not power. He said, “It is not for you, child; it is not for you.” But He gives you the knowledge that is power; or, rather, that power which is better than all knowledge, the power of the Holy Spirit. Gotthold, in his parables, speaks of his little child who wanted to come into his room; but he was doing something there which he did not wish the child to see, and so he went on with his work, when, to his horror and surprise, he found that his child had in some way climbed up outside the window, and was standing on the sill trying to look in to see what his father was doing hazarding his life in the attempt. You may guess that it was not long before that child was taken down with a pat, and something more, to teach him not to pry into his father’s secrets. It is so with some of us; we need just a little pat, and perhaps more than that, to keep us from looking into things that do not belong to us. We may be comforted even if we do not know the times and the seasons, for we may get something vastly better, namely, the Holy Spirit to give us real power for our life-work. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2330.cfm

The Future is in the Father’s Power

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

When they therefore were come together, they asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? …It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. – Acts 1:6, 7

The future is all in God’s hand. No prophecy will lack its mate. No word of God will fall unfulfilled to the ground. Possess your souls in patience: the things that are foretold are sure to happen. “Though the vision tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” I am persuaded that God never is before His time, but He never is too late. He never failed to keep tryst with His people to the tick of the clock. The future is in the Father’s power….He must arrange it rightly; He must arrange it in infinite love to us. It cannot be that, in some dark hour yet to come, He will forget us. He is our Father; will He forget His children? If the times could be in my hand, how earnestly would I pray that Christ would take them into His hand, or that the Father would take away from me the dangerous power, and wield it all Himself!

“All my times are in Thy hand,
All events at Thy command”

The time of birth, the time of the new birth, the time of a sore trial, the time of the death of your beloved one, the time of your sickness, and how long it shall last, all these times must come, and last, and end, as shall please your Father. It is for you to know that your Father is at the helm of the ship, and therefore it cannot be wrecked. It may rock and reel to and fro; but, since He rules the waves, the vessel will not have one more tossing than His infinite love permits….The Father hath it in His own hands, and there we wish it to be. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2330.cfm