promises

The Very Core of Christianity

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. – Leviticus 17:11

“For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” – Matthew 26:28

Beloved, we know from Holy Scripture that the death of Christ is the very core of Christianity. Leave out the cross, and you have killed the religion of Jesus. Atonement by the blood of Jesus is not an arm of Christian truth; it is the heart of it. “Even as the Lord said of the animal, ‘The blood is its life,’ so it is true of the gospel, the sacrificial death of Jesus is the vital point of our profession. I know nothing of Christianity without the blood of Christ. No teaching is healthy which throws the cross into the background. The doctrine of Christ crucified is always with me. As the Roman sentinel in Pompeii stood to his post even when the city was destroyed, so do I stand to the truth of the atonement though the church is being buried beneath the boiling mud-showers of modern heresy. Everything else can wait, but this one truth must be proclaimed with a voice of thunder.

If the light of the atonement is put under a bushel, the darkness will be dense. In omitting the cross you have cut the Achilles’ tendon of the church: it cannot move, nor even stand, when this is gone. Holy work falls to the ground: it faints and dies when the blood of Jesus is taken away. The cross must be put into the forefront more than ever by the faithful, because so many are unfaithful. Let us endeavour to make amends for the dishonour done to our divine Master by those who deny or dishonour His vicarious sacrifice. Let us remain steadfast in this faith while others waver, and preach Christ crucified if all others forbear. Grace, mercy, and peace be to all who exalt Christ crucified! ~ Charles H. Spurgeon

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Be Very Watchful

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. – 1 Peter 1:16

Let us be very watchful against all impurity. Anything like uncleanness in a Christian will soon send the Master away from the church. You know what it was that brought the evil upon the house of Eli. It was because his sons made themselves vile even at the tabernacle door. The young people in that case were the immediate cause of the mischief, but it was the fault of the elder ones that they restrained them not. Watch against all evil passions and corrupt desires. Be ye holy even as your Father which is in heaven is holy.

And then, again, a want of prayer will send Him away. There are members of some churches who never come to the prayer-meetings, and I should be afraid that their private prayers cannot be any too earnest. Of course we speak not of those who have good excuse; but there are some who habitually and wilfully neglect the assembling of themselves together; these are worthy of condemnation. Oh, let us continue a prayerful church as we have hitherto been, otherwise the Master may say, “They do not value the blessing, for they will not even ask for it; they evidently do not care about My Spirit, for they will not meet together and cry for Him.” Do not grieve Him by any such negligence of prayer.

So, too, we may grieve the Spirit by worldliness. If any of you who are rich get to imitate the fashions of the world and act as worldlings do, you cannot expect the Lord to bless us. You are Achans in the camp, if such is the case. And if you who are poor get to be envious of others and speak harshly of others to whom God has given more substance than to you, that again will grieve the Lord…Let me ask you to be more in prayer; let me pray you to live nearer to Him; let me entreat you for the church’s sake, and for the world’s sake, to be more thoroughly Christ’s than you ever have been and may the power of the Holy Spirit enable you in this. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

Lovingly Remember the Church of God

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

I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house… – Song of Songs 3:4

“I brought Him to my mother’s house.” We ought lovingly to remember the Church of God. By the Holy Spirit we were begotten unto newness of life, but it was in the church, and through the preaching of the word there that we were brought into the light of life. We owe our conversion, the most of us, to some earnest teacher of the truth in the Church of God, or to some of those godly works which were written by Christian men. Through the Church’s instrumentality the Bible itself has been preserved to us, and by her the gospel has been preached to every age. She is our mother and we love her. I know that many of you, dear friends, the members of this church, love the church, and you can say, “If I forget thee, let my right hand forget her cunning.” When you are away from this place, and cannot mix in our solemn assemblies, your heart mourns like one in banishment. Have not I heard you cry, “Ziona, Ziona, our holy and beautiful house, wherein we have worshipped our God, the house which is built of living stones, among whom Christ Himself is the corner-stone, even Thy church, O Jesus: would God I were in her midst again, and could once more unite my praises with those that dwell within her.” Yes, and because we love our mother’s house and the chamber of her that conceived us, we desire to bring Christ into the church more and more…The saints can bring Him in by their testimony. I hope that often Christ is here when I have borne testimony to you of His power to save, of His atoning blood, of His exaltation in heaven, of the perfection of His character, and of His willingness to save. Is there any subject that so delights you as that which touches upon Christ? Is not that the rarest string in all the harp of scriptural truth? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

A Sweet Perfume

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, sermon, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

“Let my prayer be set before You like incense, my uplifted hands like the evening offering.” – Psalm 141:2

For we are to God the fragrance of Christ… – 2 Corinthians 2:15

Be much in prayer. Prayer casts a chain about Him. He never leaves the heart that prays. There is a sweet perfume about prayer that always attracts the Lord; wherever He perceives it rising up to heaven there will He be. Hold Him, too, by your obedience to Him. Never quarrel with Him. Let Him have His way. He will stop in any house where He can be master; He will stay nowhere where some other will lords it over His. Watch His words; be careful to obey them all. Be very tender in your conduct, so that nothing grieves Him. Show to Him that you are ready to suffer for His sake. I believe that where there is a prayerful, careful, holy, loving, believing walk towards Jesus, the fellowship of the saint with his Lord will not be broken, but it may continue for months and years. There is no reason, except in ourselves, why fellowship with Jesus should not continue throughout an entire life and oh, if it did, it would make earth into heaven, and lift us up to the condition of angels, if not beyond them, and we should be the men who would bring Christ into the church, and through the church into the world. The church would be blest, and God would be glorified, and souls would be saved, if there were some among us who thus held Him and would not let Him go.

Ah, Lord, I may be mistaken about doctrine, but I am not mistaken about Thee. I may, perhaps, be staggered in my belief of some dogma which I thought was truth, but I am not staggered about Thee. Thou Son of God made flesh for me, Thou art all my salvation and all my desire: I rest on Thee only, without a shadow of mixture of any other hope, and I love thee supremely, desiring to honor Thee and to obey Thee in life and until death. I hold Thee, Thou Covenant Angel, and I will not let Thee go. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

Christ is Willing to be Held

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

…I held him, and would not let him go… – Song of Songs 3:4

Christ is willing to be held. Who could hold Him if He were not? He is the omnipotent Savior, and if He willed to withdraw, He could do so: let us hold Him as we might. But mark His condescension. When His spouse said, “I held Him, and I would not let Him go,” He did not go, He could not go, for His love held Him as well as her hands. He loves that sacred violence which takes Him by force, that holy diligence which leaves not a gap open by which He may escape, but shuts every door, bars every bolt, and saith, “I have Thee now and I will take care that if I lose Thee, it shall be through no fault of mine.” Jesus is willing enough to be retained by hearts which are full of His love. When He met with Jacob that night at the Jabbok, He said, “Let Me go.” He would not go without Jacob’s letting Him, but He would have gone if Jacob had loosed his hold. The patriarch replied, “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.” This is one of Christ’s ways and manners; it is one of the peculiarities of His character. When He walked to Emmaus with the two disciples, “He made as if He would have gone further:” they might have known it was none other than the Angel of the Covenant by that very habit. He would have gone further, but they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us for the day is far spent.” 

Brethren, whenever you have Christ, please to remember that you are able to hold Him. She who held Him in the Song was no stronger than you are; she was but a feeble woman, poorly fed under the Old Testament dispensation; you have drunk the new wine of the new covenant, and you are stronger than she. You can hold Him, and He will not be able to go from you. “How,” say you, “shall I be able to hold Him?” Oh, have you grasped Him? Is He with you? Now, then, hold Him fast by your faith; trust Him implicitly, rest in Him for every day’s cares, for every moment. Walk by faith and He will walk with you. Hold Him also with the grasp of love. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

Oh, for more Enochs…

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

I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not…It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. – Song of Songs 3:2,4

We must search to the very utmost till we find our Beloved. The Christian must leave no stone unturned till he gets back his fellowship with Christ. If any sin obstructs the way, it must be rigorously given up; if there be any neglected duty, it must be earnestly discharged; if there be any higher walk of grace, which is necessary to continuous fellowship, we must ascend it, fearing no hill of difficulty. We must not say, “there is a lion in the way”-if there be lions we must slay them; if the way be rough, we must tread it; we must go on hands and knees if we cannot run; but we must reach to fellowship with Jesus; we must have Christ or pine till we do. Sacrifices we must make and penalties we must endure, but to Christ we must come, for we are feeble when we are absent from Him, and quite incapable of rendering any great service to the church, till once for all we can say, “I found Him, I held Him, and I would not let Him go.” O dear brethren and sisters, I know there are some of you who can enter into what I mean; but I would to God there were many more to whom the first thought of life was Christ Jesus. Oh, for more Enochs, men who walk with God, whose habitual spirit is that of close communion with Jesus, meditating upon Him, yea, more than that, sympathizing with Him, drinking into His spirit, changed into His likeness, living over again His life, because He is in them the monarch of their souls. O that we had a chosen band of elect spirits of this race, for surely the whole church would be revived through their influence; God, even our own God, would bless us; and we should see bright, halcyon days dawning for the Bride of Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

We Thirst After Fellowship with Thee, Our Savior

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation Leave a comment

The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? – Song of Songs 3:3

In seeking our Lord, we must use all ministries. The spouse enquired of the watchmen. We are not to despise God’s servants, for He is usually pleased to bless us through them, and it would be ungrateful both to Him and to them to pass them by as useless. But, while we use the ministries, we must go beyond them. The spouse did not find her Lord through the watchmen; but she says, “it was but a little that I passed from them, that I found him whom my soul loveth.” I charge you, my dear hearers, never rest content with listening to me. Do not imagine that hearing the truth preached simply and earnestly will of itself be a blessing to your souls. Far, far beyond the servant, pass to the Master. Be this the longing of each heart, each Sabbath-day, “Lord, give me fellowship with Thyself.” True, we are led to see Jesus sometimes, and I hope often, through listening to the truth proclaimed, but, O Lord, it is no outer court worship that will satisfy us we want to come into the Holy of Holies and stand at the mercy-seat itself. It is not seeing Thee afar off and hearing about Thee that will content our spirits, we must draw nigh unto Thee and behold Thee as the world cannot. Like Simeon, we must take Thee into our arms, or we cannot say that we have seen God’s salvation: like John, we must lean our heads upon the bosom, or we cannot rest. Thine apostles are well enough, Thy prophets well enough, Thy evangelists well enough; but oh, we feel constrained to go beyond them all, for we thirst after fellowship with Thee, our Savior. Those who feel thus will bless the church, but only such. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm