salvation

This Must Be Done

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

The LORD’S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see Thy name: hear ye the rod, and Who hath appointed it. – Micah 6:9

Israel was out of gear with God. The people had forgotten the Most High and had gone aside to the worship of Baal. They had neglected the things of God; therefore, they were given up to their enemies. When Jehovah had brought them out of Egypt, He instructed them how they were to live in the land to which He would bring them, and warned them that if they forsook Him, they would be chastened. His words were very plain: “If ye will not for all this hearken unto Me but walk contrary unto Me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury, and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.” In fulfillment of this threatening, the Philistines had been divinely permitted to make great havoc of the idolatrous Israelites, and to hold them in cruel slavery.

The only way for them to get out of their trouble was to return to God, who, by His judgments, seemed to say, “Hear ye the rod, and Who hath appointed it.” The only cure for their hurt was to go back with repentance and renew their faith and their covenant with God. Then all would have been right. But this is the last thing that men will do. Our minds, by nature, love not spiritual things. We will attend to any outward duty, or to any external rite; but to bring our hearts into subjection to the divine will, to bow our minds to the Most High, and to serve the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, the natural man abhors. Yet nothing less than this will suffice to turn our captivity.

Instead of attempting to get right with God, these Israelites set about devising superstitious means of securing the victory over their foes. In this respect most of us have imitated them. We think of a thousand inventions; but we neglect the one thing needful…Get right with God; confess thy sin; believe in Jesus Christ, the appointed Saviour; be reconciled to God by the death of His Son; then all will be right between thee and the Father in heaven. We cannot bring men to this, apart from the Spirit of God.

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

Sinner, Trust the Saviour Now

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

Then (the thief) said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:42,43

For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.”
Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. – 2 Corinthians 6:2

Just now, the wisdom of man is (the gospel’s) worst foe, but the Lord will deliver it now. The gospel lives and reigns. Tell it out among the heathen, that the Lord reigneth from the tree, and from that tree of the curse He issues His supreme commands. The self-same day in which Jesus died, He took with Him into His kingdom and His inmost paradise a thief who had hung at His side. He liveth and reigneth for ever and ever, and calleth to Himself whomsoever He hath chosen. Let us drown the taunts of the adversary with our shouts of Hallelujah! The Lord shall reign for ever and ever. Hallelujah. Amen!

Dear friends, who have never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ before, how I wish you could try Him now! You feel full of sin, and full of need. Come, then, and trust the Saviour now. See whether He will not save you now. Is there one day in the year in which Jesus cannot save a sinner? Come and see whether the 17th of June is that day. Try whether He will not deliver you now from the guilt, the penalty, the power of sin. Why not come? …Oh, that the Saviour may find you! Jesus Christ is a Saviour every day, all the year round. Whoever cometh to Him shall find eternal life now. “Oh,” you say, “I am in such an unfit state; I am in all the deshabille of my carelessness and godlessness.” Come along, man, come along, just as you are. Tarry not for improvement or arrangement, for both of these Jesus will give you; come and put your trust in the great Sacrifice for sin, and He will deliver you-deliver you now. Lord, save the sinner, now! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Let Him Deliver Him Now

Our Faithful Testimony

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

If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. – John 15:19

True Christians are aliens, foreigners, men that speak another speech, men who are actuated by different motives, men who live for different ends, who are governed by different maxima from the rest of the men of this world, therefore it is that their pathway must be one of trial and opposition. All things the Christian teaches are so dead against the pleasures of the worldling and his gain, that it is no wonder he opposes us. Men hate the gospel because the gospel does not like them. That church is never true to her Christ, nor true to herself which does not draw upon herself the hatred of ungodly men, by a faithful testimony against their sins.

It hath fared well with the Church when she hath been persecuted, and her pathway hath been through fire. Her feet are shod with iron and brass. She ought not to tread on paths strewed with flowers; it is her proper place to suffer. Christ redeemed the world with agonies, and the Church must teach the world by the example of her anguish. First of all, the blood of Christ was shed meritoriously, and afterwards the blood of His Church is shed testimonially, to win the world by suffering…There is no loss in the army of Christ when the best preachers fall, and the mightiest evangelists are put to death. They are not lost; the blood is well shed and gloriously well spent. It is buying victory. It is procuring crowns for Jesus Christ. 

Fire! Fire! Fire! by C. H. Spurgeon

None Shall Resist His Will

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

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? – Jeremiah 15:12

And (Saul) said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” – Acts 9:5

To resist God is to strike with naked feet against a goad. “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” You will hurt yourself; you cannot injure Him, nor change His purposes by so much as the turning of a hair. God will have His way: None shall resist His will. Everlasting and eternal are His decrees; and fast and fixed they ever must remain, though all earth and hell should unite in one great conspiracy. He thrusts a bit into the tempest’s mouth, and rides upon the wings of the wind. Confusion there is none to Him. Adversaries, what are they? They are utterly consumed as the stubble. But take ye heed that God come not out against you, ye who are rebels; for if He once put on the war-harness and fight against you, woe unto you! Have you not heard? Hath no one told you of the arrows of His quiver? They are sharp, heart-piercing, infallible. Sickness can shake you till every nerve shall become a road for pain to carry on its dreadful traffic. Poverty can come upon you, and want, like an armed man. Death shall strike down all your lovers, and your acquaintances shall sink into the abyss. Let God but come forth in judgment against a man, or a people, and what can He not do?

Cast down your weapons. Come now and ask for reconciliation. The ambassador of peace invites you. I point you no longer to His burning throne, but to yonder cross. See there God in human flesh—bleeding, suffering, dying. Those wounds are fountains of mercy. Look to them, and you shall live. Wrath is appeased by the death of Jesus. Fury is no more in Jehovah! Trust in Jesus, the crucified, and your transgression shall be forgiven you. That precious blood shall make reconciliation: there shall be peace between you and God; but O resist no longer, for the iron cannot break the northern iron and the steel.

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon

He Hath Done It

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Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. – Zechariah 4:6

Every time we try to do good in our own strength, the effort bears the certainty of defeat in its own bowels. You shoot pointless darts; you wield a blunted sword when you go to work for God without God. It is only when we go in God’s power that we can save souls. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” Lo, spiritual children are a heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of our soul’s womb is His reward. Feel your weakness, my brethren, and then you shall know your strength. Go to the sinner in God’s strength, and then shall you see the divine operation; but certainly not till then. What a blessing it has been to some of us at times to be made to lie very low in the dust and see what unworthy creatures we are! I have often noticed that when God intends to give a great blessing upon my ministry, and to let me know it, he usually makes me feel as if I had rather die than live, because I feel myself so utterly unworthy to preach His word, and am made to bemoan my wretched unfitness to be used at all by my gracious Master. Let the stone lie in the brook, and let it be rounded, and made smooth by trituration of the water—it will do nothing of itself; but when it has been worn away enough by the brook, and David slings it, and smites the giant’s brow, the stone cannot say, “I slew the giant by my own force;” but all men will give glory to the champion who hurled it at the giant’s forehead. Yes, God will have the glory, and He will take means to prevent us from usurping it. He will make us feel that the iron cannot break the northern iron and the steel, and then He will send us forth to victory. Truly my inmost heart confesses that if one heart has been won for my Lord Jesus by me, I am less than nothing in it, and He is all in all. My soul dares not touch the glory but loathes every thought of self-praise. He hath done it, and to Him be everlasting songs.

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon

Our Duty to the Great Commission

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

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? – Jeremiah 15:12

Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. – Zechariah 4:6

Man’s heart is very hard; it is like the northern iron and the steel. Our preaching—we try to make it forcible, but how powerless is it of itself! The preacher seeks goodly words and illustrations; he brings forth the law of God, he gives forth threatenings in God’s name; he reasons concerning judgment to come, and flinches not from declaring the eternal punishment of sin; he preaches the love of God, and the infinite mercy of Christ Jesus, and he blends all this with an affection which longs for conversion, and he prays for God’s blessing; but in many, many hearts there is no change, the northern iron and the steel remain unmovable…Children of God, you are driven to this, that here is a case in which you are powerless. You might as well reverse the wind, or move a star, or create a world, as soften these hardened hearts. What are you then to do? Certainly, you are to continue the effort; nothing must tempt you to relinquish it, or even to relax your zeal. If you cannot break the heart, truly it is no business of yours to do so; commit that work to Him who is fully equal to the miracle, keep to your work, and fear not that the Lord will work with you. God bids you continue prayer, warning instruction, and invitation. If you knew that every soul you preached to or talked with would be lost, it were no less your duty to preach the gospel; for the duty to tell out the gospel is not influenced by our success, but is based upon the commission of Christ: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon

The Bound Sinner Made Free

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

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? – Jeremiah 15:12

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. – Luke 5:32

Here is a man with the fetters of his transgressions about him, but “he will get them off,” he says: prayer shall be his file; tears shall be the (nitric acid) to dissolve the metal, and his own resolutions shall, like a hammer, dash the links in fragments. But it cannot be: the iron shall never break this northern iron and the steel. Habits of sin yield not to raspings of the unregenerate resolves. You are condemned, and only Christ the Son of God can set you free from the fetters which hold you in the condemned cell. All your efforts apart from Jesus are utterly useless. He must bring liberty—you cannot emancipate yourselves. You say that you will break off the chains of evil habit. There are some you can break off, but can you alter your nature? “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” That were an easy task compared with a man renewing his own heart. Let not thy puny strength be wasted on so futile an effort as that which aims at self-salvation; how shall weakness achieve the labor of omnipotence, or death accomplish the sublime miracle of the Immortal? The imaginations of the thoughts of your heart are evil, only evil, and that continually, and do what you will they will remain so. The dead cannot give themselves life: it needs superior power to hew off the fetters which hold you prisoner in the sepulcher of your natural death…Come, bring thyself, chained as thou art, to Him, or if thou canst not stir an inch, cry out to Him! Ask Him to deliver thee! He can do it. Trust in Him, for trust in His precious blood and reliance upon His perfect sacrifice will make thee a free man in a moment, never to be a bondslave again. 

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon