repentance

Why Some Foolishly Refuse Him

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 7 Comments

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. -Galatians 3:10

Some refuse Him out of perfect indifference; the great mass of men have not a thought above their meat and their drink. Like the cock that found the diamond on the dunghill, they turn it over and wish it were a grain of barley. What care they for heaven, or the pardon of sin? Their mind does not reach to that. See that ye-that ye, none of you, are so sensuous as to “refuse Him that speaketh from heaven” for such a reason as this. Some reject Him because of their self-righteousness: they are good enough. Jesus Christ speaks against them, they say; He does not applaud their righteousness, He ridicules them rather; He tells them that their prayers are long prayers, and their many good works are, after all, a poor ground for reliance.” So as the Saviour will not patronize their righteousness, neither will they have to do with Him. Oh! say not ye are rich and increased in goods; ye are naked, and poor, and miserable. Say not ye can win heaven by your merits; ye have none; your merits drag you down to hell. Yet many will refuse the Saviour because of the insanity of their self-righteousness.  Some, too, reject Him because of their self-reliant wisdom. “Why,” they say, “this is a very thoughtful age.” …Nay, it is the thinking of Christ we have to think about; otherwise, our thinking may prove our curse…. While your souls are being lost, sirs, there is better employment for you than merely indulging in rhapsodies and inventions of your own supposed judgment. Take hold of this, the gospel of Jesus revealed of God, lest ye perish, and perish with a vengeance. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3492.cfm

Sin in Us Destroyed

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

And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God. -Revelation 14:5

Oftentimes the Lord also grants us to know what it is to overcome temptation, and so to break the head of the fiend. Satan allures us with many baits; he has studied our points well and he knows the weakness of the flesh: but many and many a time, blessed be God, we have foiled him completely to his eternal shame! The devil must have felt himself mean that day when he tried to overthrow Job, dragged him down to a dunghill, robbed him of everything, covered him with sores, and yet could not make him yield. Job conquered when he cried, “Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him.” A feeble man had vanquished a devil who could raise the wind and blow down a house, and destroy the family who were feasting in it. Devil as he is, and crowned prince of the power of the air, yet the poor bereaved patriarch sitting on the dunghill covered with sores, being one of the woman’s seed, through the strength of the inner life won the victory over him.

“Ye sons of God oppose his rage.
Resist, and he’ll be gone:
Thus did our dearest Lord engage
And vanquish him alone.”

Moreover, dear brethren, we have this hope that the very being of sin in us will be destroyed. The day will come when we shall be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing; and we shall stand before the throne of God, having suffered no injury whatever from the fall and from all the machinations of Satan, for are “they are without fault before the throne of God.” What triumph that will be! “The Lord will tread Satan under your feet shortly.” When He has made you perfect and free from all sin, as He will do, you will have bruised the serpent’s head indeed. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1326.cfm

The Guilt of Sin is Gone

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

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. -Romans 4:8 

Is not the power and dominion of sin broken in you? Do you not feel that you cannot sin because you are born of God? Some sins which were masters of you once, do not trouble you now. I have known a man guilty of profane swearing, and from the moment of his conversion he has never had any difficulty in the matter. We have known a man snatched from drunkenness, and the cure by divine grace has been very wonderful and complete. We have known persons delivered from unclean living, and they have at once become chaste and pure, because Christ has smitten the old dragon such blows that he could not have power over them in that respect. The chosen seed sin and mourn it, but they are not slaves to sin; their heart goeth not after it; they have to say sometimes “the thing I do,” but they are wretched when it is so. They consent with their heart to the law of God that it is good, and they sigh and cry that they may be helped to obey it, for they are no longer under the slavery of sin; the serpent’s reigning power and dominion is broken in them.

It is broken in this way, that the guilt of sin is gone. The great power of the serpent lies in unpardoned sin. He cries “l have made you guilty: I brought you under the curse.” “No,” say we, “we are delivered from the curse and are now blessed, for it is written, ‘Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.’ We are no longer guilty, for who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Since Christ hath justified, who is he that condemneth?” Here is a swinging blow for the old dragon’s head, such as he never will recover. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1326.cfm

Converted to God by His Still Small Voice

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

And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. – 1 Kings 19:12

Many have been converted to God by the still small voice whom no wind, though it rose to a hurricane, no earthquake, though it rent the world to its centre, and no fire, though it licked up the forests, could ever move. A gentle word has done it. Sometimes that still small voice has come to us by apparently very, very inadequate means. It is astonishing what little things God will use when He pleases to do so. He wanted to soften the heart of that rough prophet Jonah, and He sent a worm and a gourd, and they did it. He would bring Peter to repentance, and He bade a cock to crow… Means may seem to be absolutely ridiculous, yet God maketh use of the things that are not, as though they were. I remember to have heard the story of a man, a blasphemer, profane, an atheist, who was converted singularly by a sinful action of his. He had written on a piece of paper, “God is nowhere,” and bade his child read it, for he would make his child an atheist too. And the child spelt it, “God is n-o-w h-e-r-e-God is now here.” It was a truth, instead of a lie, and the arrow pierced the man’s own heart. I remember one who had lived a life of gross iniquity who stepped into Exeter Hall and found Christ there. It was not my sermon, however, that God blessed: it was only this. I read the hymn, “Jesus, lover of my soul.” Just those words touched his heart. “Jesus, lover of my soul,” he said to himself. “Did Jesus love my soul? Then how is it that I could have lived as I have done?”; and that word broke him down. God works great results by little things. A little hymn learnt at the Sunday School is sung at home by a little prattler, and the heart of the father is softened by it. One little sentence uttered by a friendly visitor reaches a mother’s conscience and impresses her heart. Ay, and God can use the quiet of the evening, or the stillness of the night, or a flash of lightning, or a peal of thunder, or a dewdrop, or a little flower-He can use anything He wills to bring His banished home. Often doth the Spirit speak thus with a still small voice. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3498.cfm

The Chief End of Man

Sherry Christian Life, repentance, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 4 Comments

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. -Ecclesiastes 12:13

“Is it not our duty to God that we should seek Him?” With some persons this reflection may be important. You remember the Countess of Huntingdon, one of the most remarkably gracious women that every lived–a mother in Israel. Her conversion was to a great degree caused by this: she was a blithe and worldly lady of noble rank, excellent and amiable, and all that, but she had no thought of the things of God. She was at a ball, and the amusements of the evening were engrossing all attention, and suddenly the answer to the first question of the assembly’s catechism, which she appears to have learnt when she was a child, came forcibly into her mind, “The chief end of man is to glorify God, and enjoy Him for ever.” She thought to herself, “Why, here am I, a butterfly among a lot of butterflies. All our chief end is to enjoy ourselves, to spend the evening merrily and make ourselves agreeable, and so on.” She went away smitten in her soul with that thought, “The end that God made me for I am not answering.” Now there are some minds that have sufficient in them to think of such a thing as that, and I shall leave that to fall into some honest and good ground. Perhaps some young man will say, “Well, after all, I am not serving my Creator as I should.”

Oh! I wish that some…might feel something of nobility within them that would make them feel, “It is mean to act so unjustly to God, as to prefer the trivial things of time to the weighty matters of eternity.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/history/spurgeon/web/ss-0036.html

The Comforting Remedy

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

But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name -John 1:12

Sinners distressed on account of sin, and bowed down with terror, there is a way of salvation for thee, a way open and accessible -accessible now. Thou mayest now have all thy griefs assuaged, and all thy sorrows may flee away. Hear thou then the remedy, and hear it as from the lips of God, and take care that thou availest thyself of it now, for the longer thou tarriest, the harder will it be to avail thyself of it. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Do you understand me? Trust Christ and you are saved; trust Him now and all your sins are gone; there is not one left. Past, present, and to come, all gone. “Am I to feel nothing?” No, not as a preparation for Christ; trust Jesus and thou art saved. “Are there no good works required of me?” None, none; good works shall follow afterwards. The remedy is a simple one; not a compound mixture of thy things and Christ; it is just this-the blood of Jesus Christ. There is Jesus on His cross. His hands are bleeding; His heart is bursting; His limbs are tortured; the powers of His soul are full of agony. Those sufferings were offered to God in the place of our sufferings, and “Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” Believe on Him now. “But I may not,” says one. Thou mayest, nay, not only thou mayest, but thou art condemned if thou dost not believe Him now. “I cannot,” saith one. Canst not believe thy Lord? Is He a liar? Canst thou not believe His power to save? The Son of God in agony, and yet no power to save?! “I cannot think He shed His blood for me,” saith such an one. Thou art commanded to trust Him. Come just as thou art; naked, lost, ruined, helpless, poor. If thou art so bad that I cannot describe thee, and thou canst not describe thyself, yet come. Mercy’s free, mercy’s free….There is the remedy, by the power of the Holy Spirit; avail thyself of it. Now God help thee and thou art fully saved. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0313.cfm

No Condemnation

Sherry Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me… -Psalm 32:4

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. -Romans 8:1 

I am one of those poor souls who for five years led a life of misery, and was almost driven to distraction; but I can heartily say, that one day of pardoned sin was a sufficient recompense for the whole five years of conviction. I have to bless God for every terror that ever seared me by night, and for every foreboding that alarmed me by day. It has made me happier ever since; for now, if there be a trouble weighing upon my soul, I thank God it is not such a trouble as that which bowed me to the very earth, and made me creep like a very beast upon the ground by reason of heavy distress and affliction. I know I never can again suffer what I have suffered; I never can, except I be sent to hell, know more of agony than I have known; and now, that ease, that joy and peace in believing, that “no condemnation” which belongs to me as a child of God, is made doubly sweet and inexpressibly precious, by the recollection of my past days of sorrow and grief. Blessed be Thou, O God, for ever, who, by those black days like a dreary wind, hath made these summer days all the fairer and the sweeter! The shore is never so welcome as when you mount it with the foot of a shipwrecked mariner just escaped from the sea; food never so sweet as when you sit at the table after days of hunger; water never so refreshing as when you arrive at the end of a parched desert and have known what it is to thirst.

Do you not think I have just driven the nail home here? Do you not feel in your spirit, that if Jesus would forgive you, you would do everything for Him? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0313.cfm