salvation

Be a Joy to Others

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, The Father, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. – Isaiah 65:18

Alas, there are heady, hard-hearted persons abroad who, by their wilfulness and pride, would crush every flower in the garden beneath their wicked hoofs! Wherever they go, everything is despised, ridiculed, and kicked by them! This is the spirit of the evil one. Oh, do not so! Christian people, you dare not be so; you shall not be so: God will not let you be so: you must be gentle, compassionate, generous, kind, gracious. Wherever you go, try to make others happy; for God creates Jerusalem a rejoicing, and His people a joy: a joy to others who have no joy, a source of happiness to the saddest of our race. Help the widow, comfort the fatherless, succor the poor, cheer the desponding, tell the glad news to the weary heart…When the creation of God goes on, and a man is helped to conquer sin, when the work of grace in his soul grows and increases, he cries, “Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory,” and he gets increased joy in his soul over every conquered sin. When you and I see sin subdued, do we not feel happy? Whenever the news comes to me that a man has been reclaimed from drunkenness, or a woman is saved from the streets, or when I hear of a hard-hearted sinner repenting, I rejoice in the Lord. Conversion-days are our high holidays. Revivals are our jubilees.

In the Father’s hands, in Christ’s hands, in the Spirit’s hands, seek to break the prisoner’s fetters, and to bring him out into the light of liberty: you, too, are anointed to proclaim liberty to the captives. May the God of infinite mercy help you and help me so to do!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2211.cfm

Be Happy! And Share the Happiness

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 10 Comments

But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: yea, let them exceedingly rejoice. – Psalm 68:3

God always intended that His chosen, called, and converted people should be a rejoicing people. He created you on purpose that you should yourselves be happy, and bring happiness to others. Do you not know that His name is the happy God, and nothing gives Him greater happiness than to give happiness to His creatures? Do you think you were chosen to be a groaner all your days? Were you called to misery, dear brother? Does Jesus Christ say, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will make you doleful”? Does He say, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, and ye shall find agony in your hearts”? No; but He talks about rest, and peace, and joy, and blessedness.

Different people have different ways, you know; and some love to be comfortably wretched. But I find myself miserable only when I keep away from my Lord and His work of new-creation. I have always found hitherto that when I can get under the shadow of His wings, my soul is at rest, and I look upon that restfulness and happiness as the work and fruit of the Spirit-“the fruit of the Spirit is joy and peace.”

He has created His people a rejoicing: yea, His people to be a joy. Ours is a heritage of joy and peace. My dear brethren and sisters, if anybody in the world ought to be happy, we are the people. How large our obligations! How boundless our privileges! How brilliant our hopes! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2211.cfm

Find Your Joy Where God Would Have You Find It

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 3 Comments

And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD: it shall rejoice in His salvation. – Psalm 35:9

I fear that certain Christians go through this world making it miserable as they march through it. Oh, that they could see that Christ has come to destroy the works of the devil, and would have us rejoice in the new creation of our God!

Be glad in anything that the Lord has created in you. Has He created in you so much of the new life as to have produced conviction, repentance, faith in Christ, hope in the promise, longing for holiness? Be glad in this even if you have other circumstances pressing upon you, and causing you to be heavy of heart. Though you might be mourning because you are so sickly, yet be glad that you are born again. If somewhat distressed because you are so poor, yet be glad that you are a child of God, and have a place in the new family of love. Let the old things go, and grasp the new, the heavenly. The old creation -bear with it a little longer, for the time of your redemption from its bondage draweth nigh. Find your joy where God would have you find it, namely, in that part of your nature which is new, in the new principles, the new promises, the new covenant, and the blood of the new covenant, which are yours -all of them. Look no longer for the living among the dead, but let your heart dwell in the living world with your living Lord, and be glad. The kingdom of God is within you, rejoice in it.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2211.cfm

We Have a Higher Pleasure

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation 4 Comments

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. – 2 Peter 1:4

The world is dead to you, and you to the world. Carnal customs and attractions are for you abolished, even as the ancient sacrifices are abolished. What were your sins? They are blotted out: the depths have covered them: you shall see them again no more for ever. Seek not after them as though you had a lingering esteem for them. Let them not come to mind, except to excite you to repentance. What were your pleasures when you lived in sin? Forget them. They were very vapid, deceptive, destructive evils. You have a higher pleasure now which enchants your soul. What have been the sorrows of your past life, especially your sorrows while coming to Christ? You need not remember them; but, like the woman who remembereth no more her travail for the joy that a man is born into the world, so your birth into the new creation causes you to forget all the sufferings of your spirit in coming there. “Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!” I would to God that the joy of the new creation would so fill us right up to the brim that we should not imagine any other joy. This puts out all other joy as the sun hides all the stars. Let all go; let all go: rolled up as the heavens and the earth are to be, like vestures all outworn, let all of my past life be laid aside. Now put I on my new dress of sparkling joy and delight in the new things, for has not Christ made all things new to me? A new song is in my mouth, even praise to Him for evermore; a new law is in my heart; and a new service engages all my powers.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2211.cfm

Gone the Memory of the Old Creation

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation 14 Comments

… and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. – Isaiah 65:17

Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

In those last days we shall be in tune with Dr. Watts when he sang-

“Lo! what a glorious sight appears
To our believing eyes!
The earth and seas are pass’d away,
And the old rolling skies.

“From the third heaven, where God resides,
That holy, happy place,
The new Jerusalem comes down,
Adorn’d with shining grace.

“The God of glory down to men
Removes his bless’d abode,
Men the dear objects of His grace,
And He their loving God.

“His own soft hand shall wipe the tears
From every weeping eye,
And pains, and groans, and griefs, and fears,
And death itself shall die.”

As an instance of the expulsive power of a new delight, we all know how the memory of the old dispensation is gone from us. Brethren, did any one of you ever weep because you did not sit at the Passover? Did you ever regret the Paschal lamb? Oh, never, because you have fed on Christ! Was there ever man that knows his Lord that ever did lament that he had not the sign of the old Abrahamic covenant in his flesh? Nay, he gladly dispenses with the rites of the old covenant, since he has the fullness of their meaning in his Lord. The believer is circumcised in Christ, buried in Christ, risen in Christ, and in Christ exalted to the heavenly places. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2211.cfm

The Better Creation in the Renewed Man

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

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

Methinks, if a man feels within him a new heart, and rejoices in his new birth; if he sees in others new and holier lives, and rejoices in them; if he listens to the preaching of the gospel, and discovers in it new and better principles, such as the old worn-out world could never have discovered, why, that man is a gracious man. The eye that can see the new nature is an eye that grace has given and newly opened to new light. The heart that can rejoice in the new creation is a heart that is itself renewed, or else it would not comprehend spiritual things, and could not rejoice in them…It is a delightful thing that God should make a tree, and bid it come forth in the springtide with all its budding verdure. It is a far better thing that God should take a poor thorny heart like yours and mine, and transform it till it becomes like the fir-tree or the pine-tree to His praise. It is a charming sight when bulbs, that have slept under ground through the winter, hold up their golden cups to be filled with the glory of the returning sun. But how much better that hearts that have lain dead in trespasses and sins should be moved by the secret touch of the Spirit of God to welcome the Sun of Righteousness, and to rejoice in Him!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2211.cfm

The Second Creation

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

I create new heavens…(I create) a new earth…I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. – Isaiah 65:17, 18

The first creation was so fair that, when the Lord looked upon it, with man as its climax and crown, He said, “It is very good;” but it failed in man who should have been its glory. Man sinned; and in his sin he was so connected with the whole of the earth, that he dragged it down with him. The slime of the serpent passed over everything. The taint of sin marred the whole of God’s work in this lower world. The creation was made subject to vanity, and it groaneth in pain together until now. But the Infinitely Blessed would not be defeated, and in infinite condescension He determined that He would make a new creation which should rise upon the ruins of the first. He resolved that under a second Adam something more than Paradise should be restored to the universe. He purposed that He would undo, through Jesus Christ, the Seed of the woman, all the mischief that had been wrought by the serpent. He has commenced to undo this mischief, and to work this new creation, and so commenced that He will never withdraw His hand till the work is done. He has commenced it thus-by putting new hearts into as many as He has called by His Spirit, regenerating them, and making them to become new creatures in Christ Jesus.

The resurrection will be to the body what regeneration is to the soul. When body and soul are thus created anew, the whole earth around them, in which they shall dwell, shall be, at the same time, renewed also; and so God shall make the spirits, the minds, the bodies, and the bodies of men, all new. Have they not new desires? Should not all above them be new? They shall tread a new earth for they have new ways.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2211.cfm