Noah’s Faith and His Fear

 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; -Hebrews 11:7

The text begins, “By faith Noah.” We shall have to speak about his fear-being “moved by fear”; we shall also remember his obedience, for he “prepared an ark to the saving of his house.” But you must take distinct note that at the back of everything was his faith in God. His faith begat his fear: his faith and his fear produced his obedience. Nothing in Noah is held up before us as an example, but that which grew out of his faith. To begin with, we must look well to our faith. May I pass the question round these galleries, and put it to you also in this vast area? Have you faith? Let each one hear the question in the singular number. “Hast thou faith? Dost thou believe on the Son of God? Art thou resting in the promise of a faithful God?” If not, thou art nothing as to spiritual things. Without faith thou art out of the kingdom of grace, a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter if thou hast no faith. But if thou hast even a trembling faith, thou hast the root of the matter within thee. Even if other gracious things be not in thee as yet, they will be ere long produced by faith. Faith is the acorn, from which the oak of holiness will grow. Faith is that handful of corn, the fruit whereof shall shake like Lebanon. Without faith it is impossible to please God, but with faith we become “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2147.cfm

They Walked with God

By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.- Hebrews 11:7

The Apostle could not avoid mentioning Noah; for in him faith shone forth eminently. He has placed him in due order of time after Abel and Enoch; but he had also another reason for the arrangement. These three ancient believers are declared in Holy Writ to have pleased God. Of Abel, it is said that God testified of his gifts. Enoch, before his translation, had this testimony, that he pleased God: and Noah “found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Again, it was meet that Noah should follow close upon Enoch, as one of two who are described as having “walked with God.” “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him”; and we read in the sixth chapter of Genesis, verse eight, that Noah also “walked with God.” These two spent their lives in such constant communion with the Most High that they could be fully described as walking with God. Oh, that we may, through almighty grace, be so pleasing unto the Lord that we may abide in fellowship with Him! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2147.cfm

 

 

Don’t Give Him Up!

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. – Hebrews 13:8

I would like to put this personally to any tried child of God here. Are you going to let go your God because you have lost His smile? Then I ask you, Did you base your faith upon His smile? If you did, you mistook the true ground of faith. The ground of a believer’s confidence is not God’s smile, but God’s promise. It is not the temporary sunshine of His love, but His deep eternal love itself, as it reveals itself in the covenant and in the promises…Oh! Come then to this. The promise is as good as ever. Christ is the same as ever; His blood is as great a plea as ever; and the oath of God is as immutable as ever. We must get away from all building upon our apprehensions of God’s love. It is the love itself we must build on-not on our enjoyment of His presence, but on His faithfulness and on His truth. Therefore, be not cast down, but still call Him, “My God.”

Moreover, I may put it to you, if, because God frowns, you give Him up, what else do you mean to do? Why, is not it better to trust in an angry God than not to trust in God at all? Suppose thou leavest off the walk of faith, what wilt thou do? The carnal man never knew what faith was, and, therefore, gets on pretty fairly in his own blind, dead way; but you have been quickened and made alive, enlightened, and if you give up your faith, what is to become of you? Oh! hold to Him then.

“For if thine eye of faith be dim,
Still hold on Jesus, sink or swim;
Still at His footstool bow the knee
And Israel’s God thy strength shall be.”

Don’t give Him up. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3507.cfm

My Strong One

“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” – Matthew 27:46

Now it is easy to believe that God is ours when He smiles upon us, and when we have the sweet fellowship of His love in our hearts; but the point for faith to attend to, is to hold to God when He gives the hard words, when His providence frowns upon thee, and when even His Spirit seems to be withdrawn from thee. Oh! let go every thing, but let not go thy God. If the ship be tossed and ready to sink, and the tempest rages exceedingly, cast out the ingots, let the gold go, throw out the wheat, as Paul’s companions did. Let even necessaries go, but oh! still hold to thy God; give not up thy God; say still, notwithstanding all, “In the teeth of all my feelings, doubts, and suspicions, I hold Him yet; He is my God; I will not let Him go.”

You know that in the text our Lord calls God in the original His “strong one”-“Eli, Eli”-“My strong one, My mighty one.” So let the Christian, when God turns away the brightness of His presence, still believe that all his strength lies in God, and that, moreover, God’s power is on his side. Though it seemed to crush him, yet faith says, “It is a power that will not crush me. If He smite me, what will I do? I will lay hold upon His arm, and He will put strength in me. I will deal with God as Jacob did with the angel. If He wrestle with me, I will borrow strength from Him, and I will wrestle still with Him until I get the blessing from Him.” Beloved, we must neither let go of God, nor let go of our sense of His power to save us. We must hold to our possession of Him, and hold to the belief that He is worth possessing, that He is God all-sufficient, and that He is our God still.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3507.cfm

Look to Your God Again

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. Matthew 27:45

The comfortable presence of God, which had all His life long sustained Him, began to withdraw from Him in the garden, and appeared to be quite gone when He was just in the article of death upon the cross; and meanwhile the waves of God’s wrath on account of sin began to break over His spirit, and He was in the condition of a soul deserted by God. Now sometimes believers come into the same condition, not to the same extent, but in a measure. Yesterday they were full of joy, for the love of God was shed abroad in their hearts, but today that sense of love is gone; they droop; they feel heavy. Now the temptation will be at such times for them to sit down and look into their own hearts; and if they do, they will grow more wretched every moment, until they will come well nigh to despair; for there is no comfort to be found within, when there is no light from above…Now observe our Lord. He is deserted of God, but instead of looking in, and saying, “My soul, why art Thou this? Why art Thou that? Why art Thou cast down? Why dost Thou mourn?” He looks straight away from that dried-up well that is within, to those eternal waters that never can be stayed, and which are always full of refreshment. He cries, “My God.” He knows which way to look, and I say to every Christian here, it is a temptation of the devil, when you are desponding, and when you are not enjoying your religion as you did, to begin peering and searching about in the dunghill of your own corruptions, and stirring over all that you are feeling, and all you ought to feel, and all you do not feel, and all that. Instead of that look from within, look above, look to your God again, for the light will come there.~ C. H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3507.cfm

The Christ-life

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering… – Colossians 3:12

The exhibition of the Christ-life in the saints is the legitimate inference from the fact that Christ is all to them. If Christ is all, and yet I being a Christian am not like Christ, my Christianity is a transparent sham, I am nothing but a base pretender, and my outward religiousness is a pompous pageantry for my soul to be carried to hell in-nothing more. It is a gilded coffin for a lifeless spirit. I shall perish with a double destruction, if I have dared to profane the name of Christ by taking it upon me, when I have not the essence of the Christian religion within me…O brethren, these are searching things to everyone of us. Who amongst us lives as he should at home? Could you bear that the angel who visits your house should publish, before the great cloud of witnesses, all that he has seen there? In your shops, in your businesses, you professors, are you always upright and straightforward as Christians should be? You merchants on the Exchange, are not some of you, who profess to be Christians, as greedy and as overreaching as others? I charge you, if you have any respect for Christ, lay down His name if you will not endeavor to honor it; you will be lost, you covetous money-grubbers, you earth-scrapers, who live only for this world, you will be lost, you need not doubt of that, you will be lost sure enough; but why need you make the assurance of your condemnation doubly sure by the base imposture of calling yourselves Christians…If you are not living as you should, do not pretend to be what you are not. Seek ye unto God, that the life of Christ being in you, you may manifest it in your conversation.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1006.cfm

“Christ is mine!”

For how great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty! – Zechariah 9:17

There are many things in this world that are good, but there is nothing that is good for everything. Some plants may be a good medicine, but not a good cordial; the plant of renown is good every way. Good clothing is not able to stay your hunger, but Christ the bread of heaven is also the Father’s best robe. You cannot expect any finite thing to be good for all things, but Christ is infinite goodness. This tree of life bears all manner of fruits, and the leaves are for the healing of the nations. He is strength and beauty, safety and sanctity, peace and plenty healing and help, comfort and conquest, life here, and life for ever. Glory be to the Lord Jesus Christ! What can He be less than God, if He be all? “All.” Is it not a synonym for God? We say there cannot be two Gods, because the one God is everywhere, and fills all space; and who then can He be who is called “all in all,” but “very God of very God?” Worship Him, my brethren, with all your hearts, rejoice in Him, bless Him from day to day. Let not the world think you poor who are so rich in Him. Never suffer men to think you unhappy, who have perfect happiness in the ever blessed Immanuel.

No emperor that has not Christ is half as rich as he that has Christ and is a beggar. He that hath Christ, being a pauper, hath all things; and he that hath not Christ, possessing a thousand worlds, possesses nothing for real happiness and joy. Oh, the blessedness of the man who can say, “Christ is mine.” On the other hand, see the wretchedness of the man who has not the Savior: for if Christ is all, you who believe not on Him are devoid of all, in being destitute of Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1006.cfm