prophecy

All Men Need Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 3 Comments

To whom He said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. – Isaiah 28:12

Why is it that all men do not receive Christ joyfully? This is our first question. They need Him, all of them. There is no difference in this respect. Whether Jews or Gentiles, they are all sold under sin. God has concluded the whole race of man in unbelief. He has shut them all up in condemnation. There is no escape from the universal doom except by the way of the cross. Jesus Christ comes to save; comes with pardon in His hands, with messages of love, with tokens of favour; yet most men bar the doors of their hearts against Him. There is no cry heard in their souls, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates! and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come in!” Instead thereof, there is a sullen cry, “Come prejudice; come unbelief; come hardness of heart; come love of sin; bar ye the doors and barricade the gates lest, perhaps, the King of Glory should force an entrance!” Men treat the Saviour as they would treat an invader who attacked their country. They seek to drive Him away; they would fain be rid of Him. They cannot endure His presence. Nay, they can scarce endure, some of them, to hear about Him in the street. Why is this? The chief reason lies in the depravity of man’s nature. You never know how bad man is till he comes in contact with the Cross.

Oh! Human Nature, how blind must be thy heart, how seared thy conscience, not to see the beauties of Christ! How base must thou be to despise the love and tenderness of such a Saviour!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3487.cfm

A Glorious Purpose

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

“Behold, I make all things new.” And He said unto me, “Write: for these words are true and faithful.”- Revelation 21:5

It is the purpose and intention of the Lord Jesus to make this world entirely new. You recollect how it was made at first, pure and perfect. It sang with its sister-spheres the song of joy and reverence. It was a fair world, full of everything that was lovely, beautiful, happy, holy. And if we might be permitted to dream for a moment of what it would have been if it had continued as God created it, one might fancy what a blessed world it would be at this moment. Had it possessed a teeming population like its present one, and if, one by one, those godly ones had been caught away, like Elijah, without knowing death, to be succeeded by pious descendants-oh! what a blessed world it would have been! …But there came a serpent, and his craft spoiled it all. He whispered into the ears of a mother Eve; she fell, and we fell with her, and what a world this now is! …Devils could not be worse than men when their passions are let loose. Dogs would scarce tear each other as men do. Men of intellect sit down, and put their fingers to their foreheads, racking their brains to find out new ways of using gunpowder, and shot, and shell, so as to be able to blow twenty thousand souls into eternity as easily as twenty might be massacred by present appliances…. It is a dreadful world. But Jesus Christ, who knew that we should never make this world much better, let us do what we would with it, designed from the very first to make a new world of it. Truly, truly, this seems to me to be a glorious purpose. To make a world is something wonderful, but to make a world new is something more wonderful still.

Jesus Christ, coming in the form of a man, revealing Himself as the Son of God, determines to make all things new; and be assured, brethren and sisters, He will do it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3467.cfm

Not One Is Missing

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

For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. – Ephesians 5:30

Christ lives a perfect life. Perhaps you do not see how this is a link between His living and your living, but it is, because we are a part of Christ. According to the Word of Scripture, every believer is a member of Christ’s body. Now, a man who lives perfectly has not lost his finger, or his arm, or his hand. A man may be alive with many of his limbs taken away, but you can scarcely call him a perfect-living man. But I cannot imagine a maimed Christ. I have never been able to conceive in my soul, of Christ lacking any of His members. Such a thing was never seen on earth. The barbarous cruelty of the Jews could not effect that, and, by the Providence of God, Pilate’s officers were not permitted to cause such a thing. “Not a bone of Him shall be broken,” was the ancient prophecy. They brake the legs of the first and second thief, but when they came to the matchless Lord they saw He was already dead, so they brake not His legs. Even in His earthly body, which was the type of His spiritual body, He must suffer no maiming injury. Therefore, my brethren, because Christ lives as a perfect Christ, everyone that is one with Him must live also…Because He lives in perfect happiness, I conceive that all who are dear to Him will be round about Him. It shall not be said that He lost one of them, nor shall one of the family be missing, but:

“All the chosen seed
Shall meet around the throne,
To bless the conduct of His grace,
And make His wonders known.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3401.cfm

 

Willful and Wicked Conduct

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

And Zacharias said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years…” “But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.” – Luke 1:18, 20

His fault was that he looked at the difficulty. “I am an old man,” said he, “and my wife is well stricken in years.” And while he looked at the difficulty, he would fain suggest a remedy; he wanted a sign. I have often trembled in my own soul when I have felt an inclination thus to tempt the Lord by looking for some minute circumstance to verify a magnificent promise. When I have thought, “Hereby shall I know whether He does hear prayer or not,” a cold shiver has passed over me, the shudder has gone through my soul that ever I should think of challenging the truth of God’s word, when the fact is so certain. To us who have full often cried unto the Lord in our distresses and been delivered out of our troubles, to raise such a question is indeed ungrateful. For a child of God who habitually prays to his Father in heaven to look upon His faithfulness as a matter of uncertainty is to degrade himself, and to dishonour his Lord. Yet there is no denying the tendency and disposition among us to want a sign. As we read a prophecy of the future, we crave a token in the present. If the Lord were pleased to give us a sign, or if he told us to ask for a sign, we should be quite right in attaching a high importance thereto, but for us to doubt a plain promise, and, therefore, ask a sign, is to sin against the Lord. Sometimes we have wanted signs in spiritual things. Meet and proper is it for us to rejoice in the true delights of fellowship with Christ, but it ill becomes us to make our feelings a kind of test of our acceptance, or to say, “I will not believe God if He does not indulge me with certain manifestations of grace; unless He gives me the sweetmeats I crave, I will be sulky and sullen, and refuse to eat the children’s bread.” Why, such conduct is willful and wicked; it is weak, and utterly inexcusable. Yet how many of us have been guilty of this folly? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3495.cfm

This is Heaven Indeed

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

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. – Revelation 21:3

Mark, that in all Christ has, a believer has a share. This seems to me to be the sum total, and the crowning of it all- to reign with Christ, to ride in His triumphal chariot, and have a portion of His joy; to be honored with Him, to be accepted in Him, to be glorified with Him. This is heaven, this is heaven indeed.

Well said Chrysostom, “The pains of hell are not the greatest part of hell; the loss of heaven is the weightiest woe of hell;” to lose the sight of Christ, the company of Christ, to lose the beholding of His glories, this must be the greatest part of the damnation of the lost. Oh, you that have not this bright hope, how is it that you can live? You are going through a dark world, to a darker eternity. I beseech you stop and pause. Consider for a moment whether it is worth while to lose heaven for this poor earth. What! pawn eternal glories for the pitiful pence of a few moments of the world’s enjoyments? No, stop I beseech you; weigh the bargain ere you accept it. What shall it profit you to gain the whole world and lose your soul, and lose such a heaven as this?

But as for you who have a hope, I beseech you hold it fast, live on it, rejoice in it-

“A hope so much divine,
May trials well endure,
May purge your soul from sense and sin,
As Christ the Lord is pure.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0188.cfm

The Magnificence of Our Saviour

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy 8 Comments

For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. – Romans 14:11

Can you imagine the magnificence of the Saviour? Can you conceive how thrones and princes, principalities and powers, all wait at His beck and command? Ye cannot tell how well the tiara of the universe doth fit His brow, or how the regal purple of all worlds doth gird His shoulders; but certain it is, from the highest heaven to the deepest hell, He is Lord of Lords-from the furthest east to the remotest west, He is master of all. The songs of all creatures find a focus in Him. He is the grand reservoir of praise. All the rivers run into the sea, and all the hallelujahs come to Him, for He is Lord of all. Oh, this is heaven-it is all the heaven I wish, to see my Master exalted; for this has often braced my loins when I have been weary, and often steeled my courage when I have been faint “The Lord also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, both of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth.”

We cannot read our Bibles and believe them literally, without believing that there are bright days coming, when Christ shall sit upon the throne of His father David, when He shall hold His court on earth, and reign amongst His ancients gloriously. But oh, if it be so, you and I shall see it, if we belong to the happy number, who have put their trust in Christ…Happy men and happy women who have such a hope, so to behold the Saviour’s glory. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0188.cfm

The Traveller’s Hope

Sherry Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation 24 Comments

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. – Hebrews 11:13

Going home the other night I noticed the difference between the horse’s pace in coming here and going home, and I thought to myself, “Ah! the horse goes well, because he is going home;” and the thought struck me, “How well a Christian ought to go, because he is going home.” You know, if we were going from home, every rough stone in the road might check us, and we might need a good deal of whip to make us go. But it is going home. Bless God, every step we take is going home. It may be knee-deep in trouble, but it is all on the road; we may be ankle-deep in fear, but it is going home; I may stumble, but I always stumble homewards. All my afflictions and griefs, when they cast me down they but cast me onwards towards heaven. The mariner does not mind the waves, if every wave sends him nearer his haven, and he does not care how loudly howl the winds, if they only blow him nearer port. That is the Christian’s happy lot: he is going homeward. Let that cheer thee, Christian, and make thee travel on joyfully, not needing the whip to urge thee to duty, but always going on with alacrity through duty and through trial, because thou art going homeward.

Again: if we have the best things to come dear friends, do not let us be discontented. Let us put up with a few of the bad things now, for they only seem to be so…You and I are travellers. It will soon be over… Come! let us put up with these few inconveniences on the road, for the best wine is coming; let us pour away all the vinegar of murmuring, for the best wine shall come. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0226.cfm