repentance

This Holy Battle

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

There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. – Joshua 1:5

God’s people are in conflict with sin, and they carry out this war vigorously when they have first seen their right to the blessings of grace, as given them of the living God. You may not claim a piece of land unless you are sure that it is really yours; you are a thief if you do. But when you are sure that an estate is rightfully yours, then you commence your action, and strive to win it, In spiritual things, waive no spiritual right. Say to sin, that now mars your peace, “Peace is mine, clear out!” Say to sin, that stops your usefulness, “That usefulness is mine, I claim it: clear out!” “Hivite, Jebusite, Girgashite, whatever sort of fellow you are, clear out of my heart and life, for holiness is mine. God, the sovereign possessor of all things, has given us our redeemed nature, to have and to hold for His glory, and we mean to have it!”

Each blessing is yours, since you put the foot of faith upon it; but the actual enjoyment of it will need a struggle. War! war! war! with every Canaanite! Break their images, and cut down their groves. They must be driven out at the sword’s point. You have God’s help with you in this holy battle. Your warfare will be accomplished, for the Lord Himself has said, “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2086.cfm

Set a Watch

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, prayer, promises, repentance Leave a comment

“We set a watch against them day and night, because of them.” – Nehemiah 4:9

“We set a watch.” Brethren, if we are to watch over ourselves, and we must do so, we must do it with a definite purpose. We must not say, “I must try to be watchful.” No, no; you must be watchful; and your watchfulness must be as distinct and definite an act as your prayer. “We set a watch.” Some of you have seen the guards changed in the barracks; there is a special time for each company to mount guard. When you go to bed at night, pray the Lord to guard you during the darkness. In the morning, set a watch when you go to your business. Set a watch when you go to the dinner-table; set a watch when you return home. Oh, how soon we may be betrayed into evil unless we set a watch!

It was a work carefully done; for Nehemiah says, “We set a watch against them day and night, because of them.” Those three last words would be better rendered, “over against them”; that is, wherever there was an enemy, there he set a watch. They are likely to come up this way. Very well, set a watch there. Perhaps they may shift about, and come up this way. Very well, set a watch there. Possibly they may come climbing over the wall in front here. “Well, set a watch there. “We set a watch over against them.” One brother has a very hot temper. Brother, set a watch there. Another is very morose at home, critical, picking holes in other people’s coats. Brother, set a watch there. One friend has a tendency to pride, another to unbelief. Set a watch wherever the foe is likely to come. “We made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch over against them.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2254.cfm

Follow Your Lord’s Example

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Look unto Me, and be ye saved… – Isaiah 45:22

Fight sinful habits with the Word of God, as the sword of the Spirit: so only will you conquer your evil self. Find a text of Scripture that will cleave your sin down to the chine, or stab it to the heart. “Alas! Satan tempts me horribly,” cries one; “I have been lately assailed in many ways.” Have you? You are not the first. Our divine Lord in the wilderness was tempted of the devil. He might have fought Satan with a thousand weapons; but He chose to defeat him with this one only. He said, “It is written; it is written; it is written.” He pricked the foeman so sorely with this sharp point, that the arch-adversary thought to try the same sword; and he also began to say, “It is written.” But he cut himself with this sword, for he did not quote the passages correctly, nor give the whole of them; and the Master soon found the way to knock aside his sword, and wound him still more. Follow your Lord’s example. “Oh, but,” says one,” I am so low in spirits.” Very well; fight lowness of spirits with the Word of God. “The doctor recommended me,” says one, “to take a little spirits to raise my spirits.” Those doctors are always having this sin laid to their charge. I am not so sure that they are not often maligned. You like the dose, and that is why you take it. Try the Word of God for lowness of spirits, and you will have found a sure remedy. I find, if I can lay a promise under my tongue, like a sweet lozenge, and keep it in my mouth or mind all the day long, I am happy enough. If I cannot find a Scripture to comfort me, then my inward troubles are multiplied. Fight despondency and despair with the sword of the Spirit. I cannot tell what your particular difficulty may be at this moment; but I give you this direction for all holy warfare- “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

God grant you His Spirit’s aid, for Christ’s sake! Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2201.cfm

Use the Word of God Against Sin

Sherry Character of Jesus, repentance, salvation, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. – Romans 10:17

Do not try to conquer sin in others, or capture a heart for Jesus, except with the sword of the Spirit. How the devil laughs when we try to make converts apart from Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit! He laughs, I say; for he derides our folly. What can you do, you children, playing with your little wooden swords-what can you do against men covered from head to foot with the steel mail of the habit of sin? Sunday-school teachers, teach your children more and more the pure Word of God; and preachers, do not try to be original, but be content to take of the things of Christ, and show them to the people; for that is what the Holy Ghost Himself does; and you will be wise to use His method and His sword. No sinner around you will be saved except by the knowledge of the great truths contained in the Word of God. No man will ever be brought to repentance, to faith, and to life in Christ, apart from the constant application of the truth through the Spirit. I hear great shouting, great noises everywhere, about great things that are going to be done: let us see them. The whole world is going to be embraced within the church; so they say. I fear the world will not be much the better for inclusion in such a church. Big boasters should heed the word of the wise man, “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.” If the champion goeth forth with any other sword than the Word of God, he had better not boast at all; for he will come back with his sword broken, his shield cast away, and himself grimy with dishonor. Defeat awaits that man who forsakes the Word of the Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2201.cfm

Slain by the Sword

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. – Hebrews 4:12

We have seen this sword take off the head of many a Goliath doubt, and slay a horde of cares and unbeliefs. We have seen the Spirit pile up heaps upon heaps of the slain when the Word of conviction has gone forth, and men have seen sin to be sin, and fallen down as dead before the Lord and His law. We also know what the use of the sword by the Spirit of God means, for within our own being He has left marks of His prowess. He has killed our doubts and fears, and left no more mistrusts to worry us. There was a man of God who was frequently subject to doubts, even doubts upon the fundamentals of religion. He hated this state of mind; but still he could not get rid of the habit of evil questioning. In answer to prayer, the Spirit came, and convinced him of the pride of his intellect, and of the wickedness of setting up his judgment against the Word of the Lord; and from that day forward he was never the subject of another fit of unbelief. He saw things clearly in the light of the Holy Spirit; and that is to see them indeed. The great giant of doubt is sorely wounded by the sword of the Spirit- yea, he is slain outright; for the Spirit works in the believer such a conviction of the truth that assurance banishes suspicion. When the Holy Spirit deals with the lusts of the flesh, and the lusts of the eye and the pride of life, these also lie at His feet, trophies to the power of His mighty weapon, even the Word of God! The Holy Spirit is glorious in the use of this sword. He finds that this weapon suits His hand, and He seeks no other. Let us use it also, and be glad to do so. Though it is the sword of the Spirit, yet our feebler hand may grasp it; yea, and find in the grasping that somewhat of the divine power comes unto our arm. ~ C. H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2201.cfm

The Word Used for Holy Purposes

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. – Romans 10:17

The Word, we say, is the only sword which the Spirit uses. I know the Holy Ghost uses gracious sermons; but it is only in proportion as they have the Word of God in them. Conviction, conversion, and consolation still are wrought, and only by the Word of God. Learn, then, the wisdom of using the Word of God for holy purposes. All wisdom dwells in Him. He thought out the laws which govern nature and direct providence. The Holy Spirit is the great teacher of human spirits: He taught Bezaleel and the artificers in the wilderness how to make the fine linen, and the gold and carved work for the tabernacle. All arts and sciences are perfectly known to Him, and infinitely more than men can ever discover. Yet He will not use these things in this holy controversy. In the quarrel of His covenant He neither uses philosophy, nor science, nor rhetoric. In contending against the powers of darkness, “The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.” “It is written” is His master-stroke. Words which God has spoken by holy men of old, and has caused to be recorded on the sacred page-these are the battle-axe and weapons of war of His Spirit. This Book contains the Word of God, and is the Word of God; and this it is which the Holy Ghost judges to be so effectual a weapon against evil that He uses this, and this only, as His sword in the great conflict with the powers of darkness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2201.cfm

Conviction of Sin

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. – John 3:5

The point of contact between a sinner and Christ is sin. The Lord Jesus gave Himself for our sins, He never gave Himself for our righteousnesses. He comes to heal the sick, and the point He looks to is our sickness. When a physician is called in he has no patience with things apart from his calling. “Tut, tut!” he cries, ” I do not care about your furniture, nor the number of your cows, nor what income tax you pay, nor what politics you admire; I have come to see a sick man about his disease, and if you will not let me deal with it I will be gone.” When a sinner’s corruptions are loathsome to himself, when his guilt is foul in his own nostrils, when he fears the death that will come of it, then he is really convinced by the Holy Spirit; and no one ever knows sin as his own personal ruin till the Holy Spirit shows it to him. Conviction as to the Lord Jesus comes in the same way. We do not know Christ as our Saviour till the Holy Spirit is put within us. Our Lord says-“He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you,” and you never see the things of the Lord Jesus till the Holy Ghost shows them to you. To know Jesus Christ as your Saviour, as one who died for you in particular, is a knowledge which only the Holy Spirit imparts. To apprehend present salvation, as your own personally, comes by your being convinced of it by the Spirit. Oh, to be convinced of righteousness, and convinced of acceptance in the Beloved! This conviction cometh only of Him that hath called you, even of Him of whom the Lord saith, “I will put My Spirit within you.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm