promises

“Depart, ye cursed!”

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

Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels -Matthew 25:41

Doubtless many would be greatly pleased if there were no God at all; for in their hearts they say, “No God.” God is not to them a father, a friend, a trust, a treasure. If they were to speak from their hearts, and could hope for a satisfactory answer, they would ask, “Whither can I flee from His presence?” If a spot could be found wherein there would be no God, what a fine building speculation might be made there! Millions would emigrate to “No God’s land,” and would feel at ease as soon as they trod its godless shore. There they could do just as they liked, without fear of future reckoning. Now, friend, if you would fain escape from the presence of God, your state is clearly revealed by that fact. There can be no heaven for you; for heaven is where the Lord’s presence is fullness of joy. If you could be happy to be far off from God, I must tell you what your fate will be. You are now going away from God in your heart and desire, and at last the great Judge of all will say to you, “Depart, ye cursed”; and you will then be driven from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power.

“Is the presence of God my delight?” If so, I am His, and He will be with me. On the contrary, Is the presence of God a matter of indifference, or even of dread? Then my condition is one of guilt, disease, and danger. May the Lord, of His infinite mercy, set me right!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

“With God, anywhere. Without God, nowhere.”

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

You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. -Psalm 16:11

I know that there is a company who can truly say that they feel only happy when they are conscious that God is with them. The place where they meet with the Lord is very dear and precious to them, because of His unveilings. The memory of holy convocations is sweet, because the Lord was among them. They would not care to go where God is not. If there were a place forsaken of God, however gay and full of merriment men might think it, they would not be found among its guests. Where we cannot enjoy God’s company we will not go. Our motto is: “With God, anywhere. Without God, nowhere.” In Him we live, and move, and have our being; and, therefore, it would be death to us to be apart from God. Without God we should be without hope. Ah, my dear friend! whatever your difficulties, and trials, and sorrows, all is well with you if God is your delight, and His presence your joy. But, however high your temporal enjoyments may rise, it is all wrong with you if you can rest away from the God of grace. The child must be in a sad state of heart when he does not care to have his father’s approving smile. Things must be terribly wrong with any creature when it can be content to walk contrary to its Creator. Nothing but the corruption of the heart could permit any man to be at ease away from God.

Jesus, where’er Thy people meet,
There they behold Thy mercy-seat:
Where’er they seek Thee, Thou art found,
And every place is hallowed ground.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Beholding Him

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

…and they shall call His name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. -Matthew 1:23

I almost tremble while I remind you of the truest temple of God-the body of our Lord. The nearest approach of Godhead to our manhood was when there was found, wrapped in swaddling bands and lying in a manger, that child who was born, that Son who was given whose name was called “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” As for thee, O Bethlehem favored above all the towns of earth, out of thee He came, who is Immanuel, God with us! Verily Thy name is Jehovah-shammah. All along, through thirty years and more of holy labor, ending in a shameful death, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. In the gloom of Gethsemane, among those sombre olives, when Jesus bowed, and in His prayer sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground, He was “seen of angels” as the Son of God bearing human sin. Speak of Gethsemane, and we tell you God was there. Before Herod, and Pilate, and Caiaphas, and on the cross-the Lord was there. Though in a sense there was the hiding of God, and Jesus cried, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” yet in the deepest sense Jehovah was there, bruising the great sacrifice. The thick darkness made a veil for the Lord of glory, and behind it He that made all things bowed His head and said, “It is finished.” God was in Christ Jesus on the cross, and we, beholding Him, feel that we have seen the Father. O Calvary, we say of thee, “The Lord is there.”

“Oh, come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight!
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

 

Heaven’s Supreme Delight

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation 7 Comments

…and so shall we ever be with the Lord. -1 Thessalonians 4:17

Up yonder, whither many of our beloved ones have already gone: up yonder, within that gate of pearl where eye cannot as yet see. What is it that makes heaven”, with all its supreme delights? Not harps of angels, nor blaze of seraphim; but this one fact, “the Lord is there.” What must it be to be with God? O soul that loves Him, what will your fullness of pleasure be when you shall dwell with Him for whom your soul is hungering and thirsting! What joy to be “for ever with the Lord”! This perfect bliss may be ours this very day. We little know how near we are to our glorification with our Lord. The veil is very thin that parts the sanctified from the glorified.

One gentle sigh, the soul awakes:
We scarce can say ‘He’s gone,’
Before the ransomed spirit takes
Its mansion near the throne.”

The joy and glory of those divine mansions is that “the Lord is there.” Heaven’s loftiest peak shines for ever in this clear light-The Lord God and the Lamb are the light thereof: “the Lord is there.”

“No beams of cedar or of fir
Can with Thy courts on earth compare;
And here we wait, until Thy love
Raise us to nobler seats above.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Lord, Be Among Us!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit 9 Comments

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. -John 1:14

If the Lord be among us the consequences will be, first, the conservation of true doctrine. The true God is not with a lie: He will not give His countenance to falsehood. Those who preach other than according to His word abide not under His blessing; but are in great danger of His curse. If any man speak another gospel (which is not another, but there be some that trouble us), God is not with him, and any transient prosperity which he may enjoy, will be blown away as the chaff. God is with those who speak the truth faithfully, hold it devoutly, believe it firmly, and live upon it as their daily bread. May it always, be said of this church, “the Lord is there,” and therefore they are sound in the faith, reverent towards Holy Scripture, and zealous for the honor of Christ! Trust-deeds and confessions of faith are useful in their way, even as laws are useful to society; but as laws cannot secure obedience to themselves, so articles of belief cannot create faith, or secure honesty; and to men without conscience, they are not worth the paper they are written upon…Truth must be written on the heart as well as in the book. If the Lord be among His people, they will cling to the eternal verities, and love the doctrine of the cross, not by force of law, but because divine truth is the life of their souls.

If the Lord should depart from us, as He has gone from churches which are now apostate, what an abyss opens before us! If He should take His Holy Spirit from us, even as the glory departed from the temple at Jerusalem, then our ruin would become a thing to mention with dread, a case to be quoted for a warning to future generations. O Lord, our God, take not Thy flight! Abide with us, we pray Thee! Our only hope lies in Thy making the place of Thy feet glorious among us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Pray The Lord Keeps His Church

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

Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. -Psalm 121:4

A dead church is a reeking Golgotha, a breeding-place of evils, a home of devils. The tombs may be newly whitewashed, but they are none the less open sepulchres, haunts of unclean spirits. A church all alive is a little heaven, the resort of angels, the temple of the Holy Ghost. In some of our churches everybody seems to be a little colder than everybody else. The members are holy icicles. A general frost has paralyzed everybody; and though some are colder than others, yet all are below zero. There are no flowing rills of refreshment, but everything is bound hard and fast with the frost of indifference. Oh, that the Lord would send forth His wind, and melt the glaciers! Oh, that the Spirit of God would chase winter out of every heart and every church! No human power can keep a church from the frostbite which numbs and kills. Except the Lord be there, growth, life, warmth-are all impossible. Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest, but cry day and night to Him! O Lord, abide with us. Go forth with our armies. Make us to be the living children of the living God!”

Who is to keep the church pure? None but God Himself. If the Lord is there, holiness will abound, and fruits of the Spirit will be seen on all sides; but if the Lord be once withdrawn, then flesh and blood will rule, and gender towards corruption after its own manner; and the church will become a synagogue of formalists. Pray, my brethren, continually, that the Lord may dwell in our Zion, to maintain us in all holy obedience and purity of life.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Empowered Saints

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

Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. -Ephesians 6:10

With God there is power in the ministry, power in prayer, power in all holy work. We may do a vast deal of work, and yet nothing may come of it; and, on the other hand, we may only be able to do comparatively little, and yet great results may flow therefrom: for results depend not on the quantity of the machinery, but on the presence of the Lord.

Do you not all know persons who are not peculiarly gifted, and yet are eminently useful? You do not remark anything about them that is specially noticeable, and yet their whole career enlists attention by its power. Their words tell, for there is character behind them. A consistent life gives force to a plain testimony. It is not so much what is said as who says it. But that is not all: God Himself is at the back of the man who is living for Him. He causes him to speak in His name, so that none of his words fall to the ground. Is it not said of the godly, “His leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”? This is so with every church where the Lord abides. His presence makes it a power with its children and adherents, a power with the neighborhood, and a power with the age. Its example, its testimony, its effort tells. God uses it, and therefore it answers its end. The power is with God; but the church is the instrument by which that power exercises itself. He uses a living people for the display of living power, and He gives to them both life and power, more and more abundantly. As we desire power with which to labor for God, we must pray that the God of power will remain in our midst. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm