salvation

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

What of Nonsuccess?

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

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. – Galatians 6:9

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

When a man succeeds, he continues to succeed, as a rule; he derives encouragement from what God has already done by him and goes from strength to strength. Probably, however, there is more grace exhibited by the Christian, who, without present success, realises the things not seen as yet, and continues still to work on. To labor is not easy, but to labor and to wait is harder far. It is a grand thing to continue patiently in well doing, confident that in the end the reward is sure.

You know the story of the removal of old St. Paul’s by Sir Christopher Wren. A very massive piece of masonry had to be broken down, and the task, by pick and shovel, would have been a very tedious one, so the great architect prepared a battering-ram for its removal, and a large number of workmen were directed to strike with force against the wall with the ram. After several hours of labor, the wall, to all appearances, stood fast and firm. Their many strokes had been apparently lost, but the architect knew that they were gradually communicating motion to the wall, creating an agitation throughout the whole of it, and that, by-and-by, when they had continued long enough, the entire mass would come down beneath a single stroke. The workmen, no doubt, attributed the result to the one crowning concussion, but their master knew that their previous strokes had only culminated in that one tremendous blow and that all the nonresultant work had been necessary to prepare for the stroke which achieved the purpose. O Christian people, do not expect always to see the full outgrowth of your labors! Go on, serve your God, testify of His truth, tell of Jesus’ love, pray for sinners, live a godly life, serve God with might and main, and if no harvest spring up to your joyous sickle, others shall follow you and reap what you have sown, and since God will be glorified, it shall be enough for you.

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

The Day is Coming…

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

…only the stump of Dagon was left to him. – 1 Samuel 5:4

We carry a bombshell heart about with us—and we had better keep clear of all the devil’s candles lest there should be an explosion of actual sin. These candles are common enough in the form of some plausible but skeptical friend, or in the form of amusements which are questionable. Keep clear of Lucifer’s matches! You have got enough mischief in your heart without going where you will get more!..The stump of Dagon is left. Be careful, watchful, prayerful—and loathe sin with all your soul.”

Here is mercy that though the stump of Dagon was not taken out of the Philistine temple, we may go beyond the history and rejoice that it will be taken from our hearts! The day is coming, Brother, Sister, in which there will be no more inclination in you to sin than there is in an angel! The day is coming in which your nature shall be so established in the Truth of God and righteousness and holiness that all the devils in Hell will not be able to make you think a wrong thought!

“Oh,” says one, “I wish that time would come soon.” It will come, Brother. The Lord will keep you fighting and warring, but there will come a day when a messenger will wait at your door and he will say, “The pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern. Your flesh must return to the dust and your spirit to God that made it.” And then your spirit shall open its eyes with glad surprise and find itself delivered from the body and, at the same time, delivered from all sin!..All its past sin will be washed away—no, is washed away—in the blood of the Lamb! And all its propensities, tendencies and inclinations to sin shall all be gone forever!

 Dagon’s Ups and Downs by C. H. Spurgeon

Quietly Consider the Word of God

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

And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. – 1 Samuel 5:4

Now, what happened on the night mentioned in the text? Dagon fell before the Ark when it was all quiet and still in the temple. While the worshipers were there, during the day, there was noise and shouting—the false god sat aloft, and you could not tell that there was any mysterious power about the Ark. It was in the quiet of the night that this deed was done and thus, often, in the hearing of the Word, Grace is introduced into the heart. But you would not know that any change was worked, for it is only when the man gets away from the world’s business—gets alone and begins to consider—that a Divinely-mysterious might is displayed by the inward Grace so as to sink sin and lay the power of evil low.

Would to God our hearers took more opportunities for quietly considering the Word of God! How much more blessing might often be gotten out of sermons and books if there were more meditation! You get the grapes, but you do not tread them in the winepress! There is more trouble taken to collect the sheaves of the sermon than is afterwards expended in threshing them out! The power which smote Dagon was displayed in the quiet of the night—and when the Grace of God has entered into your souls, it is probable that the coming down of sin will be better effected in times of quiet thought and searching of heart than at any other period. Thought is the channel of immense benefit to the soul. Shut the temple doors and let all be still—and then will the Holy Spirit work wonders in the soul!

Dagon’s Ups and Downs by C. H. Spurgeon

The Dagon Fall of Our Sin

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…behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again.…behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD… – 1 Samuel 5:3,4

Sin of every sort is bowed low before the triumphant Grace of God! Yes, and the man who receives the Grace of God feels that the love of any and every sin is cast out of its place in his heart. Now he desires to be quit of it all and anxiously cries, “Lord, what would you have me to do?” He will no more go and live in sin, as he did before, than Paul will continue to be a persecutor after the Lord, even Jesus, has appeared to him by the way. What a Dagon-fall there was in the Apostle’s pride just outside the Damascus gate! Such a fall takes place in the heart of every man to whom the Grace of God comes with power!

This fall of Dagon very soon began to be perceived, for, “When they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen on his face to the earth.” Very soon after the entrance of Divine Grace, this sign follows and, before long, it is seen and known. Let no man conceive that there is Grace in his soul if Dagon still sits on the throne! This is one of the earliest tokens of the entrance of the life of God into the soul—that sin falls down from its high place and is no more held in honor. At the same time, observe that Dagon was not broken. He had fallen on his face, but that was all—so that the next day his foolish worshipers set him up, again.

Sometimes, at the first entrance of Grace, there is a downfall of sin, but nothing like such a breaking and destroying of sin in the soul as there will be afterwards. When the Divine life has entered, sin is dethroned—it no longer sits up there in the place of God—but yet, for all that, there is an awful power remaining in the corrupt nature. There is a deadly tendency to sin, a powerful law in the members bringing the soul into captivity. Still, down the idol goes, even if it is not broken! It cannot reign, though it may remain to trouble us.

Dagon’s Ups and Downs by C. H. Spurgeon

Divine Grace Enters the Soul

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

…behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD… – 1 Samuel 5:4

Dagon was nothing more than a merman or mermaid, only, of course, there was no pretense of his being alive. He was a carved image—like that which the papists worship and call the Blessed Virgin, or Saint Peter, or Saint Remy. The temple at Ashdod was, perhaps, the cathedral of Dagon, the chief shrine of his worship—and there he sat erect upon the high altar with pompous surroundings. The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts was a small wooden box overlaid with gold. It was, by no means, a very cumbersome or bulky thing but, nevertheless, very sacred because it had a representative character and symbolized the Covenant of God…Not long did the Ark remain where it was, with Dagon still supreme, but the mere incoming of the Ark into the idol temple was a fair picture of the introduction of the Grace of God into the human heart. The Philistines brought in the Ark of the Lord, but only an act of Divine power can bring the Grace of God into the soul.

By different instrumentalities the Truth of God, as it is in Jesus, is read, is heard, is brought to the recollection, is seen printed in the lives of men and so enters into the temple of the inner man or woman. When it first comes into the heart it finds sin enthroned there—and the Prince of Darkness reigning supreme. The first Grace that enters into the soul finds it in darkness and in death, under the dominion of sin. Brothers and Sisters, we have not to deliver ourselves from sin and death and darkness—and then obtain Grace! No! While we are yet DEAD, Divine Grace visits us! While we are yet slaves, the Liberator comes! On our blackest midnight, the Sun of Righteousness arises!

Dagon’s Ups and Downs by C. H. Spurgeon