promises

Come Out of Your Iron Cage

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly…-Jonah 2:1

One is saying, “Oh! I shall never be in a more unhappy state than I now am in, I have lost the light of His countenance; He hath clean gone away from me, and I shall perish.” You remember in John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” the description of the man shut up in the iron cage. One says to him, “Wilt thou never come out of this cage?” “No, never.” “Art thou condemned for ever?” “Yes, I am.” “Why was this?” “Why I grieved the Spirit, and He is gone; I once thought I loved Him, but I have treated Him lightly and He has departed. I went from the paths of righteousness, and now I am locked up here, and cannot get out.” Yes, but John Bunyan does not tell you that the man never did get out. There have been some in that iron cage that have come out. There may be one here who has been for a long while sitting in that iron cage, rattling the bars, trying to break them, trying to file them through with his own little might and strength. Oh! dear friend, you will never file through the iron bars of that terrible cage; you will never escape by yourself. What must you do? You must begin to sing like the bird in the cage does; then the kind Master will come and let you out. Cry to Him to deliver you; and though you cry and shout, and He shutteth out your prayer, He will hear you by-and-bye; and like Jonah you shall exclaim in days to come, “Out of the belly of hell I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me.”

“Return, O wanderer, return,
And seek an injured Father’s face;
Those warm desires that in thee burn
Were kindled by reclaiming grace.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0051.cfm

Only Christ’s, Solely Christ’s!

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

Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me. –  Job 29:2

Frequently this complaint arises from idolatry. Many have given their hearts to something else save God, and have set their affections upon the things of earth, instead of the things in heaven. It is hard to love the world and love Christ, it is impossible: that is more; but it is hard not to love the creature; it is hard not to give yourself to earth; I had almost said, it is impossible not to do that; it is difficult, and only God can enable us; He alone can keep us with our hearts fully set on Him; but mark whenever we make a golden calf to worship sooner or latter it will come to this; we shall get our golden calf ground up and put into our water for us to drink, and then we shall have to say, “He hath made me drunken with wormwood.” Never a man makes an idol for himself to worship but it tumbles down on him and breaks some of his bones. There was ne’er a man yet who departed to broken cisterns to find water, but instead thereof he found loathsome creatures therein, and was bitterly deceived. God will have His people live on Him, and on none else, and if they live on anything else but Him He will take care to give them of the waters of Mara, to embitter their drink, and drive them to the Rock of purest streams. Oh, beloved, let us take care that our hearts are wholly His, only Christ’s, solely Christ’s! If they are so, we shall not have to cry out, “Oh that I were as in months past!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0051.cfm

The Remedy for Your Grief

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, prayer, promises 5 Comments

O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come. – Psalm 65:2

It is said that fat men may for a time live on the flesh they have acquired; but there is not a Christian so full of flesh that he can live on old grace. If he waxes fat he kicks, but he cannot live upon his fat. Those who are strong and mighty in themselves cannot exist without prayer. If a man should have the spiritual might of fifty of God’s choicest Christians in himself, he must die, if he did not continue to plow. My brother, cannot you look back and say, “Three or four months ago my prayers were more regular, more constant, more earnest than they are now; but now they are feeble, they are not sincere, they are not fervent, they are not earnest? “O brother, do not ask anybody what is the cause of your grief; it is as plain as possible; you need not ask a question about it. There is the cause; and where is the remedy? Why, in more prayer, beloved. It was little prayer that brought you down; it is great prayer that will lift you up. It was lack of prayer that brought you into poverty, it must be increase of prayer that will bring you into riches again.

A certain merchant wishes that he were as rich as he used to be; he was wont to send his ships over to the gold country, to bring him home cargoes of gold, but ne’er a ship has been out of port lately, and therefore can he wonder that he has had no cargo of gold? So when a man prayeth he sends a ship to heaven, and it comes back laden with gold; but if he leaves off supplication, then his ship is weather-bound and stays at home, and no wonder he cometh to be a poor man.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0051.cfm

Why Such a Leanness of Soul?

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

“Oh that I were as in months past.”- Job 29:2

For the most part the gracious Shepherd leads His people beside the still waters, and makes them to lie down in green pastures; but at times they wander through a wilderness, where there is no water, and they find no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainteth within them, and they cry unto the Lord in their trouble. Though many of His people live in almost constant joy, and find that religion’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace, yet there are many who pass through fire and through water: men do ride over their heads, (and) they endure all manner of trouble and sorrow…

One of the causes of this mournful state of things is defect in prayer; and of course the cure lies somewhere next door to the cause. You are saying, “Oh that I were as in months past!” Come, my brother; we are going into the very root of the matter. One reason why it is not with you as in months past is this: you do not pray as you once did. Nothing brings such leanness into a man’s soul as want of prayer. It is well said that a neglected closet is the birth-place of all evil. All good is born in the closet, all good springeth from it; there the Christian getteth it; but if he neglecteth his closet, then all evil comes of it. No man can progress in grace if he forsakes his closet. I care not how strong he may be in faith. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0051.cfm

 

 

 

A Divine Salvation

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

“I will rejoice in Thy salvation.”- Psalm 9:4

You have salvation wrapped up in the gift of the person of Jesus Christ. All of it lies in Christ. Because He died, our sin is put away. Because He lives, we shall live also. And Christ is the pure gift of God. All salvation is in Him, and, therefore, all salvation is thus procured by God. It is God’s salvation. And what is more, God not only plans and procures, but He also applies salvation… All believers will confess that they are God’s workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus. “No man can come unto Me except the Father which hath sent Me draw Him.” There is a want (lack) of power. “Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life.” There is a want (lack) of will, and the Spirit of God, therefore, applies the salvation which God has planned, and which God has provided. And as the first application of this salvation is of God, so is it all the way through.

He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending. “Salvation is of the Lord,” from first to last. He makes the rough draft of it, in conviction, upon our conscience; He goes on to complete the picture; and if there be one touch in the picture that is not of God, it is a blot upon it. If there be anything of the flesh, it will have to be wiped out; it is not consistent with the work of God. Of God is it in all respects. Now we know that this salvation is of God, not only because we are told that He planned it, and provided it, and applies it, but because it has the marks of God upon it.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3503.cfm

God Can Make Thee a New Man

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 7 Comments

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

“Oh that I were a new man in Christ Jesus; oh that I might begin a new life!”

Some of you would like to begin a new life; some of you reprobates who have gone far away! Well, poor mortal, thou mayest. “How?” sayest thou. Why, if thou art a new man in Christ Jesus thou wilt begin again. A Christian is as much a new man as if he had been no man at all before; the old creature is dethroned, he is a new creature, born again, and starting on a new existence. Poor soul! God can make thee a new man. God the Holy Spirit can build a new house out of thee, with neither stick nor stone of the old man in it, and He can give thee a new heart, a new spirit, new pleasures new happiness, new prospects, and at last give thee a new heaven. “But,” says one “I feel that I want these things but may I have them?” Guess whether you may have them, when I tell you, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” It does not say it is worthy of some acceptation, but it is worthy of all the acceptation you will ever give it. If you now say, “Jesus came into the world to save sinners, I believe He did! I know He did; He came to save me,” you will find it “worthy of all acceptation.” You say still, “But will He save me?” I will give you another passage: “Whosoever cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.” Ah! but I do not know whether I may come! “Whosoever,” it saith. “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.” “Whosoever will, let him come,” it is written. Dost thou will? I only speak to such as will, who know their need of a Saviour. Dost thou will? Then God the Holy Spirit says, “Whosoever will, let him come, and take the water of life freely.”

The feeble, the guilty, the weak, the forlorn,
In coming to Jesus shall not meet with scorn;
But He will receive them, and bless them, and save
From death and destruction, from hell and the grave.

-and He will lift them up to His kingdom of glory. God so grant it; for His name’s sake. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0051.cfm

A Limit to God’s Mercy

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

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. -Matthew 12:31

Remember, there is a limit to God’s mercy…If I read the Bible rightly, there is one sin which can never be forgiven. It is the sin against the Holy Ghost. Tremble, unpardoned sinners, lest ye should commit that. If I may tell you what I think the sin against the Holy Ghost is, I must say that I believe it to be different in different people; but in many persons, the sin against the Holy Ghost consists in stifling their convictions…Perhaps the very next time thou laughest over a sermon, or mockest at a prayer, or despisest a text, the very next oath thou swearest, God may say, “He is given to idols, let him alone; My Spirit shall no more strive with that man; I will never speak to him again.”

Ah! poor sinner, if thou knewest that Christ died for thee, and I know that He did, if thou repentest, if thou knewest that one day thou wilt be His, wouldst thou spit upon Him now? Wouldst thou scoff at God’s day, if thou knewest that one day it will be thy day? wouldst thou despise Christ, if thou knewest that He loves thee now, and will display that love by-and-bye? Oh! there are some of you that will loathe yourselves when you know Christ because you did not treat Him better. He will come to you one of these bright mornings, and He will say, “Poor sinner, I forgive you;” and you will look up in His face, and say. “What! Lord, forgive me? I used to curse Thee, I laughed at Thy people, I despised everything that had to do with religion. Forgive me?” “Yes,” says Christ, “give Me thy hand; I loved thee when thou hatedst Me, come here!” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0084.cfm