promises

Masters of the Art of Prayer

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit 4 Comments

Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. – 11:33,34

Can you pray, my brother? If you know how to pray, you can move heaven and earth. Can you pray, my brother? Then you can set almighty forces in operation. You can suffer no need, for everlasting supplies await the hand of prayer: “Ask, and it shall be given you.” You cannot miss your way, for you shall be guided in answer to prayer. You shall hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” “O sir,” you say, “I cannot pray prevailingly.” Then you are not like Jacob, good at wrestling. You cannot take hold upon the angel, and win the victory. Do you feel in prayer as if the sinew of your strength were shrunk, and your knee out of joint? Well, then, let me bring the text before you. Out of this weakness in prayer you can only be made strong by faith. Believe in God, and you will prevail with God. Believe in His promise, and plead it. Believe in His Spirit, and pray by His help. Believe in Jesus, who makes intercession; for through Him you may come boldly to the throne of grace. Faith alone can confirm feeble knees. “According to your faith be it unto you.”…Seek faith to become Masters of the Art of prayer. I would rather be Master of the Art of prayer than M.A. of both universities. He who knows how to pray has his hand on a leverage which moves the universe. But there is no praying without believing. If thou believest not, thou mayest be heard-it is more than I can promise thee; but if thou believest, thou shalt be heard, for God refuses no believing prayer. To refuse to keep His own promise when it is pleaded would be to falsify His word, and change His character; and neither of these things can ever be. Have thou strong confidence: “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Jesus said, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” Believe in prayer, and you will pray believingly. Some do not think that there is much in prayer. Poor souls! The Lord teach them better! O my brothers, believe up to the hilt in prayer, and you will find it to be the most remunerative work on earth! He that trades with God in prayer enters upon a business whereof the merchandise is better than silver or gold. Prayer makes us “rich towards God,” and this is the best of riches; but it must be believing prayer. “Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” Hast thou a poor, faint heart in this sacred exercise? Be assured that only by faith out of this weakness canst thou be made strong. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2209.cfm

Faith Leads Us to Obey

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

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. – Deuteronomy 6:5

The first duty of a Christian man is to obey God. Obedience is hard work to proud flesh and blood; indeed, these ingrained rebels will never obey through our own efforts. By nature we love our own will and way; and it goes against the grain for us to bring ourselves into such complete subjection as the law of the Lord requires. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Who among us has done this? Who among us can do this, unless a power outside of himself shall come to his aid? Faith alone takes hold of the divine strength; and only by that strength can we obey. Hence faith is the essential point of holiness. Ah, my dear friend! if you start on the voyage of life, by divine grace, with the resolve that you will follow the track; marked down on the chart by the Lord your God, you will find that you have chosen a course to which the Lord’s hand alone can keep you true. The current does not run that way. Before long you will find that the wind is dead against you, and the course to be followed is hard to keep. What will you do then if you have not faith? When duty is contrary to your temperament, what will you do without faith? When it involves loss of money, or ease, or honor, what will you do then if you have no faith? If you believe that God is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, you will persevere; but not else. Suppose the right course should expose you to ridicule, cause you to be spoken of as a fanatic, or mocked at as a hypocrite, or despised as a fool, what can you do without faith? If you trust the living God, you will do the right, and bear the loss or the shame; but if your faith fail you, self-love will create such respect for your own good name, such fear of ridicule, such unwillingness to be singular, that you will slide from your integrity, and choose a smooth and pleasing road. Though you may think it a very ordinary thing to obey God in all things, you will find that a man had need to set his face like a flint in order to keep the right road; and the only way in which he will be able to hold on his way will be by having faith in God. Let him say, “God commands, and therefore I must do it;” and he will be strong. Let him say, “God commands, and therefore he will bear me through;” and he will be strong. Let him say, “God commands, and he will recompense me,” and he will be strong. We are not saved by obedience, for obedience is the result of salvation. We are saved by faith, because faith leads us to obey. Faith is weakness clinging to strength, and becoming strong through so doing. Faith in God made the cripple at the temple gate stand, and walk, and leap, and praise God; and even so does faith make our sin-crippled manhood obey the will of the Lord with exultation. – C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2209.cfm

Our Weakness

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

“Out of weakness were made strong.”-Hebrews 11:34.

Brethren, as believers in the Lord Jesus, we are called to two things, namely, to do and to suffer for His name’s sake. Certain saints are summoned to active marching duty, and others are ordered to keep watch on the walls. There are warriors on the field of conflict, and sentries in the box of patience.

Both in doing and in suffering, if we are earnest and observant, we soon discover our own weakness. “Weakness” is all we possess. “Weakness” meets us everywhere. If we have to work for the Lord, we are soon compelled to cry, “Who is sufficient for these things?” and if we are called to suffer for Him, our weakness, in the case of most of us, is even greater: many who can labor without weariness cannot suffer without impatience. Men are seldom equally skilled in the use of the two hands of doing and bearing. Patience is a grace which is rarer and harder to come at than activity and zeal. It is one of the choicest fruits of the Spirit, and is seldom found on newly-planted trees. The fact soon comes home to us that we are weak where we most of all desire to be strong.

Our longing is to be able both to do and to suffer for our Lord, and to do this we must have strength from above, and that strength can only come to us through faith. (Read you this glorious 11th chapter of Hebrews), which describes the mighty men of faith, the men of renown. They accomplished all their feats by a power which was not in them by nature. They were not naturally strong either to do or to suffer. If they had been, they would not have required faith in God; but being men of like passions with ourselves, they needed to trust in the Lord, and they did so. They were quite as weak as the weakest of us; but by their faith they laid hold on heavenly strength until they could do all things. There was nothing in the range of possibility, or, I might say, nothing within the lines of impossibility, which they could not have performed. They achieved everything that was necessary in the form of service, and they bore up gloriously under the most fearful pressure of suffering, simply and only by faith in God, who became their Helper. You and I may be very weak at this time, but we can be made strong out of just such weakness. We need not wish to have any strength of our own, for by faith we can reach to any degree of power in the Lord. We can have all imaginable strength for the grandest achievements desirable, if we have faith in God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2209.cfm

The Perfume of Christ

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

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. – Song of Songs 2:1

To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. – 2 Corinthians 2:16

Such is the freeness of Christ’s grace that it is written, “I am found of them that sought Me not.” He sends His sweet perfume into nostrils that never sniffed after it. He puts Himself in the way of eyes that never looked for Him. How I wish that some man who has never sought for Christ, might find Him even now! You remember the story that Christ tells of the man that was ploughing the field; he was only thinking of the field, and how much corn it would take to sow it; and he was ploughing up and down, when suddenly, his plowshare hit upon something hard. He stopped the oxen, and took his spade, and dug, and there was an old crock, and it was full of gold. Somebody had hidden it away, and left it. This man had never looked for it, for he did not even know it was there, but he had stumbled on it, as men say, by accident. What did he do? He did not tell anybody, but he went off to the man who was the owner of the field, and he said, “What will you take for that field?” “Can you buy it?” “Yes, I want it, what will you take for it?” The price was so high that he had to sell the house he lived in, and his oxen, and his very clothes off his back; but he did not care about that, he bought the field, and he bought the treasure, and then he was able to buy back his clothes, his house, and his oxen, and everything else. If you find Christ, and if you have to sell the coat off your back in order to get Him, if you have to give up everything you have that you may find Him, you will have such a treasure in Him that, for the joy of finding Him, you would count all the riches of Egypt to be less than nothing and vanity; but you need not sell the coat off your back, Christ is to be had for nothing, only you must give Him yourself. If He gives Himself to you, and He becomes your Savior, you must give yourself to Him, and become His servant. Trust Him, I beseech you, the Lord help you so to do, for Jesus’ sake! Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2472.cfm

I Am the Rose, and I Am the Lily

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

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. – Song of Songs 2:1

Bring me which rose you please, and I will tell you that it smells sweet; bring which lily you choose, and I will say, “Yes, that also has a delicate perfume; that will do, with the rose, to serve as an emblem of Christ.” Our Lord Jesus possesses every kind of beauty and fragrance. “He is all my salvation, and all my desire.” All good things meet in Christ; in Him all the lines of beauty are focussed. Blessed are they who truly know Him. Christ is the very essence of the sweetness both of the rose and of the lily. When He says, “I am the rose,” He means, not only that He is like the rose, but that He made all the sweetness there is in the rose, and it is still in Him; and all the sweetness there is in any creature comes to us from Christ, or else it is not sweetness such as we ought to love. I like to look upon the bread I eat as His gift to me, and to bless His providential hand that bestows it. I like to look upon all the landscape on such a fair day as this has been, and to say, “Christ is in all this, giving this charming view to such a poor, unworthy creature as I am.” He is in all there is that is good, He is the goodness of all the good there is. He is the very soul of the universe, whatever there is in the universe that is worthy of our soul’s love. All good for our soul comes from Him, whether it be pardon of sin, or justification, or the sanctification that makes us fit for glory hereafter, Christ is the source of it all; and in the infinite variety of delights that we get from Him, He is Himself the essence of it all. We can become tired of most things, I suppose that we can become tired of everything earthly; but we shall never tire of Christ. I remember one who, when near his death-hour, forgot even his wife, and she was greatly grieved that he did not recognize her. They whispered in his ear the name of his favourite child; but he shook his head. His oldest friend, who had known him from his boyhood, was not recognized. At last they asked him, “Do you know Jesus Christ?” Then he said, “Ah, yes! and I am going to Him.” The ruling passion was strong in death; Christ was nearer and dearer to him than those he loved best here. All Bowers will fade, even roses and lilies among them; but not this blessed Rose of Sharon, and Lily of the valleys. Christ does not say, “I was a rose, and I was a lily;” but “I am the rose, and I am the lily.” He is now all that He ever was, and He will be in life, in death, and throughout all eternity, to the soul that knows Him, an infinite variety of everything that is delightful. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2472.cfm

The True “Plant of Renown”

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 4 Comments

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. – Song of Songs 2:1

He is not only full of joy, and pleasure, and delight to our hearts, but He is full of all sorts of joy, and all sorts of pleasure, and all sorts of delights to us.

“Nature, to make His beauties known,
Must mingle colors not her own.”

The rose is not enough, you must have the lily also, and the two together fall far short of the glories of Christ, the true “Plant of renown.”

“I am the rose.” That is the emblem of majesty. The rose is the very queen of flowers; in the judgment of all who know what to admire it is enthroned above all the rest of the beauties of the garden. But the lily-what is that? That is the emblem of love...Are you not delighted when you put these two things together, majesty and love? A King upon a throne of love, a Prince, whose very eyes beam with love to those who put their trust in Him, a real Head, united by living bonds of love to all His members; such is our dear Lord and Savior. A rose and yet a lily; I do not know in which of the two I take the greater delight, I prefer to have the two together. When I think that my Savior is King of kings and Lord of lords, I shout, “Hallelujah!” But when I remember that He loved me, and gave Himself for me, and that still He loves me, and that He will keep on loving me for ever and ever, there is such a charm in this thought that nothing can excel it. Look at the lily, and sing,-

“Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high!
Hide me, O my Savior, hide,
Till the storm of life be past;
Safe into the haven guide;
Oh receive my soul at last.”

Then look at the rose, and sing,-

“All hail the power of Jesus’ name!
Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of all;”

then put the rose and the lily together, and let them remind you of Christ’s majesty and love. The combination of these sweet flowers also suggests our Lord’s suffering and purity.

“White is His soul, from blemish free,
Red with the blood He shed for me.”

The rose, with its thorn, reminds us of His suffering, His bleeding love to us, His death on our behalf, His bearing of the thorns which our sin created. Christ is a royal rose beset with thorns; but the lily shows that-

“For sins not His own
He died to atone.”

And of what avail would His perfections be if He had not died, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God? But the two together, the rose and the lily, suffering and purity, fill us with delight. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2472.cfm

Christ is the Choicest of the Choice

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 5 Comments

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. – Song of Songs 2:1

You notice, the Bridegroom says, “I am the rose.” Yes, but there were some particularly beautiful roses that grew in the valley of Sharon; “I am that rose,” said He. And there were some delightful lilies in (Israel); it is a land of lilies, there are so many of them that nobody knows which lily Christ meant, and it does not at all signify, for almost all lilies are wondrously beautiful. “But,” said He, “I am the lily of the valleys,” the choicest kind of lily that grew where the soil was fat and damp with the overflow of mountain streams. “I am the lily of the valleys:” that is to say, Christ is not only good, but He is the best; and He is not only the best, but He is the best of the best. He is a flower; ay, but He is a rose, that is the queen of flowers; ay, but then He is the best rose there is, He is the rose of Sharon. He is a Savior, and a great one; yea, the only Savior. He is a Husband; but what a Husband! Was there ever such a Bridegroom as Christ Jesus the Lord? He is the Head; but father Adam was a poor head compared with Him. He is inexpressibly, unutterably, indescribably lovely; I might as well leave off talking about Him, for I cannot hope to set Him forth as He deserves. If you could but see Him, I would leave off, for I am sure I should be only hanging a veil before Him with the choicest words that I could possibly use. Suppose you had a dear son, or husband, or friend, far away, and that I was a painter who could carry pictures in my mind’s eye, and then draw them to the very life. If I stood here, trying to paint your well-beloved friend, laying on my colors with all the skill I possessed, and doing my best to reproduce his features; suppose, while I was at work, that the door at the back was opened, and he came in, I should cry out, “Oh, stop, stop, stop! Let me put away my canvas, let me pack up my brushes and my paints. Here is the loved one himself; look at him! Look at him, not at my portrait of him!” And you would rise from your seat, and say, “It is he! It is he! You may talk as long as you like, dear sir, when he is away; but when he is himself here, your talk seems but mere chatter.” Well, I shall be quite content that you should think so, I shall be even glad if you do, provided that the reason shall be that you can say, “We have seen the Lord. He has manifested Himself to us as He does not unto the world.” “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.” The best of the best, the fairest of the fair, the sweetest of the sweet, is Jesus Christ to you and to me if we are indeed His people. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2472.cfm