promises

The God of Bacchus Defeated by the Gospel

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. – Exodus 20:3

There are other gods still worshipped in this world, to be execrated with unrelenting indignation. There is one which is certain to be broken, so sure as ever a man becomes a Christian: I mean Bacchus, that jolly god whom so many adored in days of yore with mad revelry, and who is still worshipped by tens of thousands of Englishmen. Perhaps he is the great god of Britain. I am certain he has many temples, for there is scarcely a corner of any street in which we do not behold his image, or see his votaries pouring out libations before him. He is a god that is worshipped with reeling to and fro, and staggering. Men become drunken in his presence, and so do him homage. Now, ye that are drunkards, if ye become Christians, that will turn your cup bottom upwards once and for ever. There will be no more inebriety for you now. By the grace of God you will say, “They that be drunken are drunken in the night, but let us who are of the day be sober. I renounce this practice of drunkenness, I can have nothing more to do with it.” Bless God there are many here present who have gone out of this hall to demolish this god… They have heard the gospel not in word only, but also in power, and now their home is a paradise, their house is made glad with prayer, their children are brought up in the fear of the Lord. We have seen the wife’s tear of gladness when she said, “The Lord be blessed for ever, and blessed be the name of the gospel, for a wretched woman has been made happy, and she who was but a drudge and a slave to one who was like a fiend, has now become the companion of one whom she reckons to be little short of an angel.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The God of Self-Righteousness

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

“Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all.”- 2 Chronicles 31:1

“Thou shalt have none other gods before Me.” Every place is before God. Every thing is before His face and open to Him. Therefore by this command we understand that we are in no way, and in no sense to have another god, but the Lord our God. What! do you ask, are we a nation of idolaters? Can this text pertain to us?… Yea, all of us, until renewed by divine grace, worship gods which our own hands have made, and we do not fear, and love, and obey the living God with our entire and exclusive homage. Once however, let grace be received into the heart, let the soul be renewed by the Holy Spirit, once drink in the free life of Jesus, and these false gods must be broken in pieces at once.

The first god who is worshiped among us is one called self-righteousness. The Pharisees were the high priests of this god; they burnt incense every morning and every evening before him, but he has ten thousand times ten thousand worshipers still left. Among your respectable classes of society he is the received divinity. If a man be respectable, he thinks it all-sufficient. Among your moralists, this is the great god before which they bow down and worship… Until we are brought to know our own lost and ruined condition, self-righteousness is the god before which every one of us will prostrate ourselves. Oh, my dear friends… let us… aim a blow, by the help of God, at self righteousness; let us… prostrate ourselves before God, and cry-

“Vile and full of sin I am.”

“Lord, I confess before Thee, that I have no good works in which to trust, no self-righteousness on which I can rely. I cast my boastings away; I come to Thee as a poor, guilty, helpless sinner; ‘Lord, save, or I perish.'” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

Unceasing Intercession with Praise

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

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— – 1Timothy 2:1

My dear friends, the first effect which the reading of the history of God’s mighty works should have upon us, is that of gratitude and praise. Have we nothing to sing about to-day?-then let us sing concerning days of yore… When we have thus begun to praise God for what He has done, I think I may venture to impress upon you one other great duty: let what God has done suggest to you the prayer that He would repeat like signs and wonders among us. Oh! men and brethren, what would this heart feel if I could but believe that there were some among you who would go home and pray for a revival of religion-men whose faith is large enough, and their love fiery enough to lead them from this moment to exercise unceasing intercessions that God would appear among us and do wondrous things here, as in the times of former generations. Why, look you here in this present assembly what objects there are for our compassion. Glancing round, I observe one and another whose history I may happen to know, but how many are there still unconverted-men who trembled and who know they have, but have shaken off their fears, and once more are daring their destiny, determined to be suicides to their own souls and to put away from them that grace which once seemed as if it were striving in their hearts. They are turning away from the gates of heaven, and running post-haste to the doors of hell; and will not you stretch out your hands to God to stop them in this desperate resolve?

Dear friends, we do not know what God may do for us if we do but pray for a blessing… We shall never get a revival unless we believe that it is the Lord, and the Lord alone, that can do it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0263.cfm

Has God Changed?

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

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. – Hebrews 13:8

When people hear about what God used to do, one of the things they say is: “Oh, that was a very long while ago.” They imagine that times have altered since then…Granted; but I want to know what the things have to do with it. I thought it was God that did it. Has God changed? Is He not an immutable God, the same yesterday, to-day and for ever? Does not that furnish an argument to prove that what God has done at one time He can do at another? Nay, I think I may push it a little further, and say what He has done once is a prophecy of what He intends to do again-that the mighty works which have been accomplished in the olden time shall all be repeated, and the Lord’s song shall be sung again in Zion, and He shall again be greatly glorified. Others among you say, “Oh, well I look upon these things as great prodigies-miracles. We are not to expect them every day.” That is the very reason why we do not get them. If we had learnt to expect them, we should no doubt obtain them, but we put them up on the shelf, as being out of the common order of our moderate religion, as being mere curiosities of Scripture history. We imagine such things, however true, to be prodigies of providence; we cannot imagine them to be according to the ordinary working of His mighty power. I beseech you, my friends, abjure that idea, put it out of your mind. Whatever God has done in the way of converting sinners is to be looked upon as a precedent, for “His arm is not shortened that He cannot save, nor is His ear heavy that He cannot hear.” If we are straitened at all, we are not straitened in ourselves, and with earnestness let us seek that God would restore to us the faith of the men of old, that we may richly enjoy His grace as in the days of old. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0263.cfm

Great Faith With Great Prayer

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

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. – Acts 2:1

Have you ever heard of the commencement of the great American revival? A man unknown and obscure, laid it up in his heart to pray that God would bless his country. After praying and wrestling and making the soul-stirring enquiry: “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” he hired a room, and put up an announcement that there would be a prayer-meeting held there at such-and-such an hour of the day. He went at the proper hour, and there was not a single person there; he began to pray, and prayed for half an hour alone. One came in at the end of the half-hour, and then two more, and I think he closed with six. The next week came around, and there might have been fifty dropped in at different times; at last the prayer-meeting grew to a hundred, then others began to start prayer-meetings; at last there was scarcely a street in New York that was without a prayer-meeting. Merchants found time to run in, in the middle of the day, to pray. The prayer-meetings became daily ones, lasting for about an hour; petitions and requests were sent up, these were simply asked and offered before God, and the answers came; and many were the happy hearts that stood up and testified that the prayer offered last week had been already fulfilled. Then it was when they were all earnest in prayer, suddenly the Spirit of God fell upon the people, and it was rumored that in a certain village a preacher had been preaching in earnest, and there had been hundreds converted in a week. The matter spread into and through the Northern States-these revivals of religion became universal, and it has been sometimes said that a quarter of a million people were converted to God through the short space of two or three months. Now the same effect was produced in Ballymena and Belfast by the same means. The brother thought that it lay at his heart to pray, and he did pray; then he held a regular prayer-meeting; day after day they met together to entreat the blessing, and fire descended and the work was done. Sinners were converted, not by ones or twos but by hundreds and thousands, and the Lord’s name was greatly magnified by the progress of His gospel. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0263.cfm

Men of Great Faith Do Great Things

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

And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. – Acts 6:8

Whenever God has done a mighty work it has been by some very insignificant instrument. When He slew Goliath it was by little David, who was but a ruddy youth… When God would slay Sisera, it was a woman that must do it with a hammer and a nail. God has done His mightiest works by the meanest instruments: that is a fact most true of all God’s works- Peter the fisherman at Pentecost, Luther the humble monk at the Reformation, Whitefield the potboy of the Old Bell Inn at Gloucester in the time of the last century’s revival; and so it must be to the end. God works not by Pharaoh’s horses or chariot, but He works by Moses’ rod; He doth not His wonders with the whirlwind and the storm; He doth them by the still small voice, that the glory may be His and the honour all His own. Doth not this open a field of encouragement to you and to me? Why may not we be employed in doing some mighty work for God here? Moreover, we have noticed in all these stories of God’s mighty works in the olden time, that wherever He has done any great thing it has been by someone who has had very great faith. I do verily believe at this moment that, if God willed it, every soul in this hall would be converted now. If God chose to put forth the operations of His own mighty Spirit, not the most obdurate heart would be able to stand against it. “He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy.” He will do as He pleases; none can stay His hand. “Well,” says one, “but I do not expect to see any great things.” Then, my dear friend, you will not be disappointed, for you will not see them; but those that expect them shall see them. Men of great faith do great things… Little faith may do little things, but great faith shall be greatly honoured. O God! our fathers have told us this, that whenever they had great faith Thou hast always honoured it by doing mighty works. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0263.cfm

God Works Suddenly

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

The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. – Matthew 4:16

There is a special feature to which I would call your attention with regard to the works of God in the olden time; they derive increasing interest and wonder from the fact that they were all sudden things. The old agers in our churches believe that things must grow, gently, by degrees; we must go step by step onward. Concentrated action and continued labour, they say, will ultimately bring success. But the marvel is, all God’s works have been sudden. When Peter stood up to preach, it did not take six weeks to convert the three thousand. They were converted at once and baptized that very day; they were that hour turned to God and become as truly disciples of Christ as they could have been if their conversion had taken seventy years…So was it in Whitefield’s day. The rebuking of a slumbering church was not the work of ages; it was done at once. Have ye never heard of the great revival under Whitefield? Take as an instance that at Camslang he was preaching in the church-yard to a great congregation, that could not get into any edifice; and while preaching, the power of God came upon the people, and one after another fell down as if they were smitten; and at least it was estimated that not less than three thousand persons were crying out at one time under the conviction of sin. He preached on, now thundering like Boanerges, and then comforting like Barnabas, and the work spread, and no tongue can tell the great things that God did under that one sermon of Whitefield. Not even the sermon of Peter on the day of Pentecost was equal to it.

So has it been in all revivals; God’s work has been done suddenly. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0263.cfm