Found in the Pages of Scripture

Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”- John 1:45

He who reads the Bible with the view of finding Christ, will not be long before some passage of Scripture will seem to leap up, to attract his attention, as though it were set on fire, and then it will speak to him of Jesus, whispering to him of the great sacrifice on Calvary, and speaking to his heart of divine love and mercy. Philip was a searcher after Christ in the place where Christ loves to be, in the pages of Scripture, and you must be the same if you desire to find Jesus.

But then Philip also gave himself to prayer. We are not told so, but we feel sure of it. He asked the Lord to reveal Christ to him, to guide him to where the Christ would be, to let him know the Christ. Oh, if you want to be saved, be much in prayer! I do not mean merely saying prayers; what is the good of that? I do not mean simply saying fine words of your own, merely for the sake of uttering them. Prayer is communing with God; it is asking the Lord for what you really feel that you need. What wagon-loads of sham prayers are shot down at God’s door, as if they were so much rubbish thrown away! Let it not be so with your prayers; but speak to the Lord out of your very soul when you come to the throne of grace. With the open Bible before you to guide your understanding, kneel down, and say, “O God, graciously reveal Christ to me by thy Holy Spirit; bring me to know Him, bring me this day to find Him as my own Saviour!” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2375.cfm

When Christ Comes to Our Soul

“The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow Me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”- John 1:43-45

“Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” That is Philip’s description of it: “We have found Jesus.” It was a true description, but it was not all the truth; we will notice the Holy Spirit’s description of it: “The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip.” Philip’s account of the incident is that he found Christ; but the Holy Spirit’s record of it is that Christ found Philip. They are both true, however; although the latter is the fuller.

The day in which a man comes to Christ is also a wonderful day in its effect upon all his future. It is as when the helm of a ship is put right about; the man now sails in a totally different direction. His future will never be what his past was. There may be faults; there may be infirmities and shortcomings; but there will never be the old love of sin any more. “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” This is God’s own promise to us, given through His servant Paul. When Christ comes to our soul, He so breaks the neck of sin, that though it lives a struggling, dying life, and often makes a deal of howling in the heart, yet it is doomed to die. The cross of Christ has broken its back, and broken its neck, too, and die it must. Henceforth the man is bound for holiness, and bound for heaven.

“Tell to sinners round,
What a dear Saviour I have found.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2375.cfm

The Grandest Event in History

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. – Acts 4:12

The day in which a man comes to Christ, that very day his transgressions and iniquities are blotted out, even as the thick clouds are driven from the sky when God’s strong wind chases them away. Is not that a grand day in which our sins are cast into the depths of the sea so that henceforth it can be said of them, “They may be sought for, but they shall not be found; yea, they shall not be, saith the Lord”? I say that the day in which a soul comes into contact with Christ is the greatest day of its history, because all the past is changed by it; and as for the present, what a different life does a man begin to live on the day in which he finds the Lord! He commences to live in the light instead of being dead in the darkness; he begins to enjoy the privileges of liberty, instead of suffering the horrors of slavery; he is started on the way to heaven, instead of continuing on the road to hell. He is such a new creature that he cannot tell how changed he is. One said to me, “Sir, the change in me is of this kind; either the whole world is altered, or else I am.” So is it when we are brought to know Christ; it is a real, total, radical change. With many, it is a most joyous alteration; they feel like the man who had been lame, and who, when Peter spoke to him in the name of Jesus, and lifted him up, so that his feet and ankle bones received strength, was not satisfied with walking, for we read, “He leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.” He was walking, and leaping, and praising God; do you wonder at it? If you had lost the use of your legs for a while, you would feel like leaping and praising God when you had them all right again; and thus is it with a soul when it first finds the Saviour. Oh! happy, happy day, when the miraculous hand of Christ takes away the infirmities of the soul, and makes the lame man to leap as a hart, and causes the tongue of the dumb to sing!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2375.cfm

They Shall Find Their Mistake

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. – Galatians 6:7

It is a law in Nature that a man cannot hurt his fellows without hurting himself. Now, you who cause grief to others’ minds, do not think the grief will end there; you will have to reap a harvest even here. Again, a man cannot sin against his estate without reaping the effects of it. The miserly wretch, who hoards up his gold, sins against his gold. It becomes cankered, and from those golden sovereigns he will have to reap a harvest; yes, that miserly wretch, sitting up at night, and straining his weary eyes to count his gold, that man reaps his harvest. And so does the young spendthrift. He will reap his harvest when all his treasure is exhausted. It is said of the prodigal, that “no man gave unto him,”-none of those that he used to entertain,-and so the prodigal shall find it. No man shall give anything unto him. Ah! but the worst harvest will be that of those who sin against the Church of Christ. I would not that a man should sin against his body; I would not that a man should sin against his estate; I would not that a man should sin against his fellows; but, most of all, I would not have him touch Christ’s Church. He that touches one of God’s people, touches the apple of His eye. When I have road of some people finding fault with the servants of the Lord, I have thought within myself, “I would not do so.” It is the greatest insult to a man to speak ill of his children. You speak ill of God’s children, and you will be rewarded for it in everlasting punishment. There is not a single one of God’s family whom God does not love, and if you touch one of them, He will have vengeance on you. Nothing puts a man on his mettle like touching his children; and if you touch God’s Church, you will have the direst vengeance of all. The hottest flames of hell are for those who touch God’s children. Go on, sinner, laugh at religion if thou pleasest; but know that it is the blackest sin in the whole catalogue of crime. God will forgive anything sooner than that; and though that is not unpardonable; yet, if not repented of, it will meet the greatest punishment. God cannot bear that His elect should be touched, and if you do so, it is the greatest crime you can commit.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2896.cfm

The Gathering of Christ’s Saints

And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” Revelation 14:15

There was first a harvest, and then a vintage. The harvest is the righteous; the vintage is the wicked. When the wicked are gathered, an angel gathers them; but Christ will not trust an angel to reap the righteous. “He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle. “O my soul, when thou comest to die, Christ will Himself come after thee; when thou art to be cut down He that sits upon the throne will cut thee down with a very sharp sickle, in order that He may do it as easily as possible. He will be the Reaper Himself; no reaper will be allowed to gather Christ’s saints in, but Christ the King of saints. Oh, will it not be a joyful harvest when all the chosen race, every one of them, shall be gathered in? There is a little shrivelled grain of wheat, there, that has been growing somewhere on the headland, and that will be there. There are a great many who have been hanging down their heads, heavy with grain, and they will be there too. They will all be gathered in.

“His honor is engaged to save
The meanest of His sheep;
All that His heavenly Father gave
His hands securely keep.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2896.cfm

The Harvest of Christ

And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.- Revelation 14:16

Christ had His sowing times. What bitter sowing times were they! Christ was one who went out bearing precious seed. Oh, I picture Christ sowing the world! He sowed it with tears; He sowed it with drops of blood; He sowed it with sighs; He sowed it with agony of heart; and at last He sowed Himself in the ground, to be the seed of a glorious crop. What a sowing time this was! He sowed in tears, in poverty, in sympathy, in grief, in agony, in woes, in suffering, and in death. He shall have a harvest, too. Blessings on His name, Jehovah swears it; the everlasting predestination of the Almighty has settled that Christ shall have a harvest. He has sown, and He shall reap; He has scattered, and He shall gather in. “He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days; and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands.” My friends, Christ has begun to reap His harvest. Yea, every soul that is converted is part of His reward; every one who comes to the Lord is a part of it. Every soul that is brought out of the miry clay, and set on the King’s highway, is a part of Christ’s crop. But He is going to reap more yet. There is another harvest coming, in the latter day, when He shall reap armfuls at a time, and gather the sheaves into His garner. Now, men come to Christ in ones and twos and threes; but, then, they shall come in flocks, so that the church shall say, “Who are these that come in as doves to their windows?”

Observe but one particular. When Christ comes to reap His field, He comes with a crown on. There are the nations gathered together before that crowned Reaper! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2896.cfm

Wonders of Grace to God Belong

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. – Psalm 126:5

You shall have a harvest, whatever you are doing. I trust you are all doing something. If I cannot mention what your peculiar engagement is, I trust you are all serving God in some way; and you shall assuredly have a harvest wherever you are scattering your seed. But suppose the worst,- if you should never live to see the harvest in this world, you shall have a harvest when you get to heaven. If you live and die a disappointed man in this world, you shall not be disappointed in the next. I think how surprised some of God’s people will be when they get to heaven. They will see their Master, and He will give them a crown, “Lord, what is that crown for?” “That crown is because thou didst give a cup of cold water to one of My disciples.” “What! a crown for a cup of cold water?” “Yes,” says the Master, “that is how I pay My servants. First I give them grace to give that cup of water, and then, having given them grace, I give them a crown.” “Wonders of grace to God belong.” He that soweth liberally shall reap liberally; and he that soweth grudgingly shall reap sparingly. Ah, if there could be grief in heaven, I think it would be the grief of some Christians who had sown so very little. After all, how little the most of us over sow! I know I sow but very little compared with what I might. How little any of you sow! Just add up how much you give to God in the year. I am afraid it would not come to a farthing per cent. Remember, you reap according to what you sow. O my friends, what surprise some of you will feel when God pays you for sowing one single grain! The soil of heaven is rich in the extreme. If a farmer had such ground as there is in heaven, he would say, “I must sow a great many acres of land; “and so let us strive, for the more we sow, the more shall we reap in heaven. Yet remember it is all of grace, and not of debt.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2896.cfm