promises

Making Light of the King’s Only Son

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

But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. – Matthew 22:7

Ah! sinner, when thou makest light of the gospel, thou makest light of Christ-of that Christ before whom glorious cherubs bow themselves-of that Christ at whose feet the high archangel thinks it happiness to cast his crown; thou makest light of Him with whose praise the vault of heaven rings; thou makest light of Him whom God makes much of, for He has called Him, “God over all, blessed for ever.” Ah! it is a solemn thing to make light of Christ. Despise a prince, and ye shall have little honour at the king’s hand for it; but despise the Son of God, and the Father will have vengeance on you for His slighted Son. Oh! my dear friends, it seems to me to be a sin, not unpardonable, I know, but still most heinous, that men should ever despise my blessed Lord Jesus Christ and treat Him with cruel scorn. Make light of Thee, sweet Jesus! Oh! when I see Thee with Thy shirt of gore, wrestling in Gethsemane, I bow myself o’er Thee, and I say, “O, Redeemer, bleeding for sin, can any sinner make light of Thee?” When I behold Him with a river of blood rolling down His shoulder, beneath the cursed flagellation of Pilate’s whip, I ask, “Can a sinner make light of such a Saviour as this?” And when I see Him yonder, covered with His blood, nailed to a tree, expiring in torture, shrieking, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” I ask myself, “Can any make light of this?” Ay, if they do, then, indeed, it were sin enough to damn them, if they have no other sin-that they have lightly esteemed the Prince of Peace, who is glorious and altogether lovely. Oh! my friend, if thou makest light of Christ, thou hast insulted the only One who can save thee-the only One who can bear thee across the Jordan-the only One who can unbolt the gates of heaven and give thee welcome. O, sinner, think of thy sin, if thou art making light of Him, for then art thou making light of the King’s only Son.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0098.cfm

Persecuted for Righteousness’ Sake

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 4 Comments

Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. – John 15:20

As your Master was persecuted, you must expect to be the same. Some of you pity us when we are persecuted and despised. Ah! save your pity, keep it for those of whom the world speaks well; keep it for those against whom the woe is pronounced. “Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you.” Save your pity for earth’s favorites; save your pity for this world’s lords, that are applauded by all men. We ask not for your pity; nay, sirs, in all these things we rejoice, and “glory in tribulations also, knowing that the things which happen unto us, happen for the furtherance of the gospel;” and we count it all joy when we fall into manifold temptations, for we rejoice that the name of Christ is known and His kingdom extended.

Look to it, Christian people, that if you are persecuted, it is for righteousness’ sake; for if you get any persecution yourself you must keep it yourself. The persecutions you bring on yourself for your own sins, Christ has nothing to do with them; they are chastisements on you. They hated Christ without a cause; then fear not to be hated. They hated Christ without a cause; then court not to be hated, and give the world no cause for it.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0089.cfm

 

Oh! What a Blessed Thing It Is to Be Gospelized!

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

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. – Mark 16:15

Oh! how great a work it is to gospelize any man, and to gospelize a poor man. What does it mean? It means, to make him like the gospel. Now, the gospel is holy, just, and true, and loving, and honest, and benevolent, and kind, and gracious. So, then, to gospelize a man is to make a rogue honest, to make a harlot modest, to make a profane man serious, to make a grasping man liberal, to make a covetous man benevolent, to make the drunken man sober, to make the untruthful man truthful, to make the unkind man loving, to make the hater the lover of his species, and, in a word, to gospelize a man is, in his outward character, to bring him into such a condition that he labours to carry out the command of Christ, “Love thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.” Gospelizing, furthermore, has something to do with an inner principle; gospelizing a man means saving him from hell and making him a heavenly character; it means blotting out his sins, writing a new name upon his heart-the new name of God. It means bringing him to know his election, to put his trust in Christ, to renounce his sins, and his good works too, and to trust solely and wholly upon Jesus Christ as his Redeemer. Oh! what a blessed thing it is to be gospelized! How many of you have been so gospelized? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0114.cfm

Give to the Poor

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises 3 Comments

“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” – Luke 6:38

Many a man has lost his wealth by God’s righteous judgment for his misuse of it. Thou art God’s steward, wilt thou cheat Him? He has given thee His wealth to distribute to the poor; wilt thou not supply their needs out of what He hath given thee? Yes, surely thou wilt; I cannot believe thou wilt turn them away, so long as thou hast aught wherewith to relieve them, but wilt share what thou hast with them. Remember, if thou dost not relieve them, thou givest great and grave suspicion that thou lovest not Christ, for if ye love not Christ’s people, how can it be that ye are His disciples, since it is the mark, “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one another;” and how can ye love, where ye have, and give not where God hath made you rich, and yet you do not bestow? Gravely ye give cause to doubt that the love of God is in you, if the love of the brethren is not in you also. Oh! remember, when thou givest, God can give thee more. Thou hast lost nothing! thou hast put it in another purse, and God may hand it back to thee in larger measure yet. Men lose nothing by what they give to God’s saints. It would often be a heavenly investment if they bestowed it upon God’s family; but if they retain it, God hath other means to make them poor if they will not give to His cause. John Bunyan tells of a man who had a roll of cloth, and the more he cut from it, the more he had; and he says, in his rhyming way,-

“A man there was, though some did count him mad,
The more he cast away, the more he had.”

He was not much of a madman, after all, if he had more the more he gave away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm

Testing the Lord’s Work

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises 3 Comments

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. – Romans 8:27

God often allows His people to be a tried and a poor people, just to plague the devil. The devil was never more plagued in his life, I think, than he was with Job. As long as Job was rich, Job caused much envy in Satan, but he never made him so angry as when he was poor. It was then that Satan was the most incensed against him because, after all his trials, he would not curse God and die. You know, if a man thinks he can do a thing, he will always wrap himself up in his self-complacency till he tries to do it and then fails. So Satan thinks he may overthrow one or other of God’s children. “Now, Satan,” says God, “I will give thee an opportunity of trying thy skill: one of my children is very poor; I will cut off his bread and water, I will give him the water of affliction to drink, and the bread of bitterness to eat; he shall be exceedingly tried; take him, Satan, drag him through fire and water, and see what thou canst do with him.” So Satan tries to starve out the divine life from his soul; but he cannot do it, and he finds, after all he has done, that he is defeated, and he goes away plagued and vexed, and feeling another hell within himself, though miserable enough before, because he was foiled in all his attempts to tread out the spark of life in the heart of God’s child. God often allows Satan to test the Lord’s work. It is marvelous that the crafty devil should continue to work when it all tends to the glory of God after all, but he is a devil all over, and will ever continue so. He always will keep on meddling with God’s children; he will persevere even to the last moment; till every saint is safe across the Jordan, he will still be plaguing and vexing God’s beloved. Ah! then let us rejoice, God will deliver us, and bring us off safe at last, yea, “more than conquerors, through Him that loved us.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm

The Sovereignty of God Displayed

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

The LORD makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory. – 1 Samuel 2:7-8

God is pleased always to have a poor people, that He may display His sovereignty in all He does. If there were no poor saints, we should not so strongly believe the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, or, at least, if the saints believed it, as they always must and will, yet the wicked, and those who despise it, would not have so clear an evidence of it, and would not sin against such great light, which shines upon their poor dark, blind eyeballs from evident displays of sovereignty in salvation. Those who deny divine sovereignty, deny it in the face of all testimony certainly in the teeth of Scripture, for it is there positively affirmed, and God, in order that there may be something besides Scripture, has made His providence bear out the written word, and has caused many of His children to be the despised among the people. “I take whom I please,” says God. “Ye would have Me choose kings and queens first; I choose their humble servants in their kitchens before I choose their masters and mistresses in their banqueting halls. Ye would have Me take the counselor and the wise man; I take the fool first, that I may teach you to despise the wisdom of man. I take the poor before the rich, that I may humble all your pride, and teach you there is nothing in man that makes Me choose him, but that it is the sovereign will of God alone which creates men heirs of grace.” I bless God that there are poor saints, for they teach me this lesson, that God will do as He pleases with His own. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm

The Chosen Poor

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

Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? – James 2:5

God hath been pleased for the most part to plant His grace in the soil of poverty. He has not chosen many great, nor many mighty men of this world, but He hath “chosen the poor of this world-rich in faith-to be heirs of the kingdom of God.” We should wonder why, were we not quite sure that God is wise in His choice. We cannot dispute a fact which Scripture teaches, and which our own observation supports, that the Lord’s people are, to a very large extent, the poor of this world. Very few of them wear crowns; very few ride in carriages; only a proportion of them have a competence; a very large multitude of His family are destitute, afflicted, tormented, and are kept leaning, day by day, upon the daily provisions of God, and trusting Him from meal to meal, believing that He will supply their wants out of the riches of His fullness.

Oh! ye would never thank God half so much if ye did not see your cause for thankfulness by marking the needs of others. Oh! ye dainty ones, that can scarcely eat the food that is put before you, it would do you good if you could sit down at the table of the poor. Put you out in the cold some winter’s night, and would you not thank God for the fire afterwards? Make you thirst for a little while, and how grateful would be the cup of water! God gives us a great many mercies we never thank Him for. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0099.cfm