promises

A Drowned Debtor to the Mercy of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 1 Comment

Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever. – Psalm 106:1

I would be very earnest in the next minute or two to stir up my brethren here to sing to their Well-beloved a song, because I am quite sure the exercise will be most fitting and most beneficial. I will speak only for myself, but I will say this-if I did not praise and bless Christ my Lord, I should deserve to have my tongue torn out by its roots from my mouth, and I will add: if I did not bless and magnify His name, I should deserve that every stone I tread on in the streets should rise up to curse my ingratitude, for I am a drowned debtor to the mercy of God-over head and ears-to infinite love and boundless compassion am I a debtor. Are you not the same? Then I charge you by the love of Christ, awake, awake your hearts now to magnify His glorious name. It will do you much good, my brethren. There is, perhaps, no exercise that, on the whole, strengthens us so much as praising God. Sometimes, even when prayer fails, praise will do it. It seems to gird up the loins; it pours a holy anointing oil upon the head and upon the spirit; it gives us a joy of the Lord which is always our strength. Sometimes, if you begin to sing in a dull frame, you can sing yourself up the ladder. Singing will often make the heart rise. The song, though at first it be a drag, will by and by come to be wings to lift the spirit with it. Oh! sing more, my brethren, and you will sing more still, for the more you sing the more you will be able to sing the praises of God. It will glorify God; it will comfort yourself; it will also prove an attraction to those who are lingering around the churches. The melancholy of some Christians tends to repel seekers, but the holy joy of others tends to attract them. More flies will always be caught with honey than with vinegar, and more souls will be brought to Christ by your cheerfulness than by your moroseness, more by your consecrated joy than by your selfish dolour. God grant us to sing the praises of God with heart and life until we sing them in heaven ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

The New Song of the Christian

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

Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and His praise in the congregation of saints. – Psalm 149:1

Solid joys and lasting pleasures make up the new song of the Christian. New mercies make the song always new. There is a freshness in it of which we never weary. Some of you have heard the gospel now for fifty years: has it got flat to you? The name of Jesus Christ was known to you as the most precious of all sounds fifty or sixty years ago: has it become stale now? Those of us who have known and loved Him twenty years can only say, “The more we know Him the more sweet He is, and the more we enjoy His gospel the more resolved we are to keep to the old-fashioned gospel as long as ever we live.” We could, indeed, sing a new song, though we have sung the self-same praises these twenty years. All the saints’ praises have this about them-that they are all harmonious. I do not say that their voices are. Here and there, there is a brother who sings very earnestly through his nose, and very often puts out the rest that are round about him; but it does not matter about the sound of the voice to the ear of man: it is the sound of the heart to the ear of God. If you were in a forest, and there were fifty sorts of birds, and they were all singing at once, you would not notice any discord. The little songsters seem to pitch their songs in keys very different from each other, but yet, somehow or other, all are in harmony. Now the saints, when they pray-it is very strange-they all pray in harmony. So also when they praise God. I have frequently attended prayer-meetings where there were brethren of all sorts of Christian denominations, and I would have defied the angel Gabriel to have told what they were when they were on their knees. So is it with praise. I may say, “The saints in praise appear as one:-

“In word, and deed, and mind,
While with the Father and the Son,
Sweet fellowship they find.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

Singing Songs of Deliverance

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

Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place; Thou shalt preserve me from trouble; Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. – Psalm 32:6,7

We ought to praise our Lord Jesus Christ, and sing to our well-beloved a song, particularly when we have had a remarkable deliverance. “Thou shalt compass me about,” says David, “with songs of deliverance.” Were you raised from a bed of sickness? Have you passed through a great pecuniary difficulty? Through God’s help has your character been cleared from slander? Have you been helped in some enterprise, and prospered in the world? Have you seen a child restored from sickness, or a beloved wife once more given back to you from the gates of the grave? Have you just experienced the light of Christ’s countenance in your own soul? Has a snare been broken? Has a temptation been removed? Are you in a joyous frame of mind? “Is any merry? Let him sing psalms.” Oh! give your Well-beloved a song now the sun shines and the flowers bloom. When the year begins to turn and fair weather comes, the birds seem to feel it, and they renew their music. Do so, oh! believer. When the winter is past, and the rain is over and gone, fill the earth with your songs of gratitude. But remember, O believer, that you should sing your Well-beloved a song chiefly when it is not so with you, when sorrows befall. He giveth songs in the night. Perhaps there is no music so sweet as that which comes from the lip and heart of a tried believer. It is real then. When Job blessed God on the dunghill, even the devil himself could not insinuate that Job was a hypocrite. When Job prospered, then the devil said, “Doth Job serve God for naught?” but when he lost his all, and yet said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” then the good man shone like a star when the clouds are gone. Oh! let us be sure to praise God when things go ill with us…I will give to my Well-beloved extra music from my heart. He shall be praised by me now. Though He slay me, yet will I praise Him.” This is the part of a Christian. God help us ever to act it.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

When Our Soul First Perceives the Infinite Love of Jesus

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

Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. – Psalm 57:8; 108:2

The first occasion in which we must sing to His name is when our soul first perceives the infinite love of Jesus to us, when we receive the pardon of sin, when we enter into the marriage relationship with Christ as our bridegroom and our Lord. The song becomes the wedding feast. How should it be a marriage without joyfulness? Oh! do you remember, even years ago, do you not remember now that day when first you looked to Him and were lightened, and when your soul clasped His hands, and you and He were one? Other days I have forgotten, but that day never can I forget. Other days have mingled with their fellows, and, like coins which have been in circulation, the image and superscription have departed from them. That day when first I saw the Saviour is as fresh and distinct in all its outlines as though it were but yesterday coined in the mint of time. How can I forget it-that first moment when Jesus told me I was His, and my Beloved was mine? Were any of you saved last week? Did any of you find Jesus Christ at any of the meetings last week? Have you found Him this morning? Did a blessing come to you this afternoon? Then hallow the occasion, pour out your soul before the Most High. Now, if never before, let your Well-beloved have your choicest music. “Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp; I myself will wake right early. I will praise Thee, for though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is taken away and Thou comfortest me.”

Oh! I wish we often had broken through order and decorum, even, to give to our Lord a song. He well deserves it. Let not cold ingratitude freeze our praises on our lips.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

Do We Sing as Much as the Birds Do?

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

“I will sing to my Well-beloved a song.”- Isaiah 5:1

“I will bless the LORD at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” – Psalm 34:1

We don’t sing enough, my brethren. How often do I stir you up about the matter of prayer, but perhaps I might be just as earnest about the matter of praise. Do we sing as much as the birds do? Yet what have birds to sing about, compared with us? Think you, do we sing as much as the angels do? yet were they never redeemed by the blood of Christ. Birds of the air, shall ye excel me? Angels of heaven, shall ye exceed me? Ye have done so, but I do intend to emulate you henceforth, and day by day, and night by night, pour forth my soul in sacred song.

We may sometimes thank God not only by feeling thankfulness and living thankfulness, and speaking our thanks, but by that silent blessing of Him which consists in patient suffering and accepting the evil as well as the good from Jehovah’s hand. That is often better thanksgiving than the noblest psalm that the tongue could utter. To bow down before Him and say, “Not my will, but Thine be done,” is to render Him a homage equal to the Hallelujahs of cherubim and seraphim. To feel not only resigned, but acquiescent, willing to be anything or nothing, according as the Lord would have it-this is, in truth, to sing to our Well-beloved a song.

Now having put this before you, that there are some times when we cannot sing, but that, as a rule, our life should be praise, let me come to the text again by saying that sometimes on choice occasions appointed by providence and grace our soul will be compelled to say, “Now, now if never before, now beyond all other occasions, I will sing to my Well-beloved a song.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

Thankfulness and Thanks-living

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

Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever. – Psalm 106:1

Suppose, my dear brother, you are not rich, be thankful that you have to eat and to drink, and wherewithal you may be clothed. Suppose, even, that you had not a hope of heaven, I might say to a man, “Be thankful that you are not in hell.” But to you, Christian, I would add, “Be thankful that you never will be there, and that, if just now your present joys do not overflow, yet “there remaineth a rest for the people of God”: let that console you. Is there ever a day in the year, or ever a moment in the day, in which the Christian ought not to be grateful? Our answer is not slow to give-there is never such a day, there is never such a moment. Always receiving blessings untold, and incalculably precious, let us always be magnifying the hand that gives them. Always, beloved, as we have been, before the foundations of the world with our names engraved on the Saviour’s hands; always redeemed by the precious blood; always preserved by the power of God which dwells in the Mediator; always secure of the heritage which is given to us in covenant by oath, by the blood of Christ-let us always be grateful, and, if not always singing with our lips, let us always be singing with our hearts.

Then, brethren, we ought to be always thanks-living. I think that is a better thing than thanksgiving-thanks-living. How is this to be done? By a general cheerfulness of manner, by an obedience to the command of Him by whose mercy we live, by a perpetual, constant, delighting ourselves in the Lord, and submission of our desires to His mind. Oh! I wish that our whole life might be a psalm; that every day might be a stanza of a mighty poem; that so from the day of our spiritual birth until we enter heaven we might be pouring forth sacred minstrelsy in every thought, and word, and action of our lives. Let us give Him thankfulness and thanks-living. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm

Now Will I Sing to My Well-Beloved

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

Now will I sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Beloved… – Isaiah 5:1

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. – Psalm 51:15

“Now will I sing.” Does not that imply that there were times when he who spake these words could not sing? “Now,” said he, “will I sing to my Well-beloved.” There were times, then, when his voice, and his heart, and his circumstances were not in such order that he could praise God. My brethren, a little while ago we could not sing to our Well-beloved, for we did not love Him, we did not know Him, we were dead in trespasses and sins. Perhaps we joined in sacred song, but we mocked the Lord. We stood up with His people, and we uttered the same sounds as they did, but our hearts were far from Him. Let us blush for those mock psalms; let us shed many a tear of repentance that we could so insincerely have come before the Lord Most High. After that, we were led to feel our state by nature, and our guilt lay heavy upon us. We could not sing to our Well-beloved then. Our music was set to the deep bass and in the minor key. We could only bring forth sighs and groans…Brethren in Christ Jesus, it is now some years ago since we believed in Christ, but since then there have been times when we could not sing. Alas! for us, there was a time when we watched not our steps, but went astray, when the flatterer led us from the strait road that leads to heaven, and brought us into sin; and then the chastisement of God came upon us, our heart was broken, until we cried out in anguish, as David did in the 51st Psalm. Then if we did sing, we could only bring out penitential odes, but no songs. We laid aside all parts of the book of Psalms that had to do with Hallelujah, and we could only groan forth the notes of repentance. There were no songs for us then, till at last Emmanuel smiled upon us once more, and we were reconciled again, brought back from our wanderings and restored to a sense of the divine favour. It is not always summer weather with the best of us. Though for the most part:

“We can read our title clear,
To mansions in the skies,”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3476.cfm