promises

Held to Personal Account

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

After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them…For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. – Matthew 25:19,29

The man who has many talents requires much hard labor to use them all. He might make the excuse that he found five talents too many to put out in the market at once; you have only one; anybody can lend out his one talent to interest-it will cost you but little trouble to supply that; and inasmuch as you live, and inasmuch as you die, without having improved the one talent, your guilt will be exceedingly increased by the very fact that your talent was but little, and, consequently, the trouble of using it would have been but little too. If you had but little, God required but little of you; why, then, did you not render that? If any man holds a house at a rental of a pound a year, let it be never so small a house for the money, if he brings not his rent there is not one half the excuse for him that there would be if his rent had been a hundred pounds, and he had failed to bring it. You shall be the more inexcusable on account of the little that was required of you. Let me, then, address you, and remind you that you must be brought to account…In the day of judgment thy account must be personal; God will not ask you what your church did-He will ask you what you did yourself…Remember, it is not what your brethren are doing, but it is what you do that you will be called to account for at the bar of God; and each one of you will be asked this question, “What hast thou done with thy talent?” All your connection with churches will avail you nothing; it is your personal doings-your personal service towards God that is demanded of you as an evidence of saving grace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0175.cfm

God’s Glory from Man’s Littleness

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability… – Matthew 25:15

God gives to men two talents, because in them very often He displays the greatness of His grace in saving souls. You have heard a minister who was deeply read in sacred lore; his wisdom was profound, and his speech graceful. Under his preaching many were converted. Have you never heard it not quite said, but almost hinted, that much of his success was traceable to his learning and to his graceful oratory? But, on the other hand, you have met with a man, rough in his dialect, uncouth in his manners, evidently without any great literary attainments; nevertheless, God has given that man the one talent of an earnest heart; he speaks like a son of thunder; with rough, stern language, he denounces and proclaims the gospel; under him hundreds are converted. The world sneers at him. “I can see no reason for all this,” says the scholar; “it is all rubbish-cant; the man knows nothing.” The critic takes up his pen, nibs it afresh, dips it in the bitterest ink he can find, and writes a most delightful history of the man in which he goes so far as to say, not that he sees horns on his head, but almost everything but that. He is everything that is bad, and nothing that is good. He utterly denounces him. He is foolish, he is vain, he is base, he is proud, he is illiterate, he is vulgar. What says the man himself? “Even so, O Lord; now must the glory be unto Thee for ever, inasmuch as Thou hast chosen the base things of this world, and the things that are not, to bring to naught the things that are.” So it seemeth that out of the little God sometimes winneth more glory than He doth out of the great; and I doubt not that He has made some of you with little power to do good, with little influence, and with a narrow sphere, that He may, in the last great day, manifest to angels how much He can do in a little space…Surely if in the little, man can honor himself as well as in the great, the Infinite, and the Eternal, can most of all glorify Himself when He stoopeth to the littleness of mankind. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0175.cfm

The Great Fountain

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. – James 1:17

And I was afraid and went and hid Thy talent in the earth: lo, there Thou hast that is Thine. – Matthew 25:25

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.” All that men have they must trace to the Great Fountain, the giver of all good. Hast thou talents? They were given thee by the God of talents. Hast thou time? hast thou wealth, influence, power? Hast thou powers of tongue? Hast thou powers of thought? Art thou poet, statesman, or philosopher? Whatever be thy position, and whatever be thy gifts, remember that they are not thine, but they are lent thee from on high. No man hath anything of his own, except his sins. We are but tenants at will. God hath put us into His estates, and He hath said, “Occupy till I come.” Though our vineyards bear never so much fruit, yet the vineyard belongs to the King, and though we are to take the hundred for our hire, yet King Solomon must have his thousand. All the honor of our ability and the use of it must be unto God, because He is the Giver. The parable tells us this very pointedly; for it makes every person acknowledge that his talents come from the Lord. Even the man who digged in the earth and hid his Lords money, did not deny that his talent belonged to his Master; for though his reply, “Lo, there thou hast that is thine,” was exceedingly impertinent, yet it was not a denial of this fact. So that even this man was ahead of those who deny their obligations to God, who superciliously toss their heads at the very mention of obedience to their Creator and spend their time and their powers rather in rebellion against Him than in His service. Oh, that we were all wise to believe and to act upon this most evident of all truths, that everything we have, we have received from the Most High. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0175.cfm

Our Privilege

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

“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” – Mark 8:35

There was a young man who said, “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest,” but Christ gave him a cool reception: and there was an older man who said, “Though all men shall forsake thee yet will not I,” and in reply his Master prayed for him that his faith should not fail. Now, you must not promise as Peter did, or you will make a greater failure. But, beloved, this devotion is what Christ expects of us if we are His disciples. He will not have us love father or mother more than Him; we must be ready to give up all for His sake. This is not only what our Master expects from us, but what He deserves from us.

This, also, is what the Lord will help us to do, for He will give us grace if we will but seek it at His hands: and this it is which He will graciously reward, and has already rewarded, in that choice word of His in the twelfth of John, where He says of His disciples in the twenty-sixth verse, “If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will My Father honor.” Oh, to be honored of God in eternity when He shall say, “Stand back, angels; make way, seraphim and cherubim; here comes a man that suffered for the sake, of My dear Son. Here comes one that was not ashamed of My Only-begotten when His face was smeared with the spittle. Here comes one that stood in the pillory with Jesus and was called ill names for His sake. Stand back, ye angels, these have greater honor than you.” …O brothers and sisters, snatch at the privilege of living for Jesus; consecrate yourselves this day unto Him; live from this hour forward, not to enrich yourselves, nor to gain honor and esteem, but for Jesus, for Jesus alone. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1512.cfm

Be On the Side of Truth and Right

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

“…wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servant be.” – 2 Samuel 15:21

Where is the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, brethren, He is wherever the truth is, and I pray God that He may raise up a race of men and women who are determined to be wherever the truth of God is. We have a host of molluscous creatures about who will always be where the congregation is the most respectable: respectability being measured by clothes and cash. Time was in the church of God when they most esteemed the most pious men; has it come to this that gold takes precedence of grace? Our fathers considered whether a ministry was sound, but now the question is-“Is the man clever?” Words are preferred to truth, and oratory takes the lead of the gospel. Shame on such an age. O you who have, not altogether sold your birthrights, I charge you keep out of this wretched declension.

Where is our Master? Well, He is always on the side of truth and right. And, O, you Christian people, mind that in everything- politics, business and everything you keep to that which is right, not to that which is popular. Do not bow the knee to that which for a little day may be cried up but stand fast in that which is consistent with rectitude, with humanity, with the cause and honor of God, and with the freedom and progress of men. It can never be wise to do wrong. It can never be foolish to be right. It can never be according to the mind of Christ to tyrannize and to oppress. Keep you ever to whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of good report, and you will so far keep with Christ. Temperance, purity, justice-these are favorites with Him; do your best to advance them for His sake. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1512.cfm

Wherever Christ Is, There We Will Be

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

Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why do you also go with us? …But Ittai answered the king, “As the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servant be.” – 2 Samuel 15:19,21

Canst thou lift thy hand to Christ, and say, “Henceforth I will live as Thy servant, not doing my own will, but Thy will; Thy command is henceforth my rule?” Canst thou say that? It involved, for Ittai, that he was to do his utmost for David’s cause, not to be his servant in name, but his soldier, ready for scars and wounds and death, if need be, on the king’s behalf. Now, if thou wouldst be Christ’s disciple, determine henceforth by His grace that thou wilt defend His cause; that if there be rough fighting, thou wilt be in it; and if there be a forlorn hope needed, thou wilt lead it, and go through floods and flames if thy Master’s cause shall call thee. Blessed is the man who will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, giving himself wholly up to his Lord to serve Him with all his heart.

Ittai, in his promise, declared that he would give a personal attendance upon the person of his master. Brethren, let us make the same resolve in our hearts, that wherever Christ is, there we will be. Where is Christ? …Answer: in His church. The church is a body of faithful men; and where these are met together, there is Jesus in the midst of them…Where else did Jesus go? In the commencement of His ministry, He descended into the waters of baptism. Let us follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. At the close of His ministry, He brake bread, and said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me.” Be often at His table, for if there is a place on the earth where He manifests Himself to His children it is where bread is broken in His name…”Surely in what place my Lord the King shall be, whether it be in a prayer-meeting or at a sermon, even there also will thy servant be.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1512.cfm

Be Not Ashamed of Your Lord

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

…whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be. – 2 Samuel 15:21

 But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed… – 2 Timothy 1:12

Dear friend, you must publicly own yourself a Christian. If you are a Christian, you must not try to sneak to heaven round the back alleys but march up the narrow way like a man and like your Master. He was never ashamed of you, though He might have been: how can you be ashamed of Him when there is nothing in Him to be ashamed of? Some Christians seem to think that they shall lead an easier life if they never make a profession. Like a rat behind the wainscot, they come out after candlelight and get a crumb, and then slip back again. I would not lead such a life. Surely, there is nothing to be ashamed of. A Christian-let us glory in the name! A believer in the Lord Jesus Christ-let them write it on our door plates, if they will. Why should we blush at that? “But,” says one, “I would rather be a very quiet one.” I will now place a torpedo under this cowardly quietness. What saith the Lord Jesus? Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven; but he that shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven.” Take up your cross and follow Him, for “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” …If you have the spirit of Ittai you will say, “Wheresoever my lord the king is, there also shall thy servant be.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1512.cfm