salvation

Climbing Higher

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

Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. – Deuteronomy 33:24-25

Our spiritual life is an upward climb, with constant danger of a fall. It is a great mercy to have shoes of iron and brass in our spiritual climbings, that should our feet be almost gone, we may find foothold before we are utterly cast down. We ought to climb: the higher our spiritual life the better. It is written of the believer, “He shall dwell on high.” We ought not to be satisfied till we reach the highest places of knowledge, experience, and practice. High doctrine is glorious doctrine, high experience is blessed experience, high holiness is heavenly living. Many souls always keep in the plains: the simple elements are enough for them; and, thank God, they are enough for salvation and for comfort. But if you want the richest delight and the highest degree of grace, climb the hills and roam among the mysteries of God, the sublimer revelations of His divine will. Especially climb into the doctrines of grace: be not afraid of electing love, of special redemption, of the covenant, and all that is contained in it. Be not afraid to climb high, for if thy feet be dipped in the oil of grace, they shall also be so shod that they shall not slip. Trust in God, and you shall be as Mount Zion, which can never be removed. Your shoes shall be iron and brass, for lofty thought and clear knowledge, if you commit your mind to the instruction of the Lord. Receiving nothing except as you find it in the Word, but in a childlike spirit receiving everything that you find there, you shall stand upon your high places. Your feet shall be like hinds’ feet, and your place of abode shall be above the mists and clouds of earth’s wretched atmosphere of doubt.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2062.cfm

The Book of Remembrance

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

Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon His name. – Malachi 3:16

Dear friends, I thank God that you and I know what it is to enjoy the presence of God in a great many different ways. When two or three of the people of God meet together, and talk to one another about the things of God, the Lord is never away. You remember that blessed text, “They that feared the Lord spake often one to another.” They had holy talks about heavenly things. It was such sweet conversation, that the Lord Himself turned eaves-dropper, and hearkened and heard. What He heard pleased Him so well that He there and then made a note of it; yea, and wrote it down, and ordered that “a book of remembrance” should be preserved “for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name.” Was not this sure evidence of His most gracious presence? John Bunyan knew that God was there when he went about tinkering, and came to Bedford, and there were three godly women sitting in the sun, at work; and as they worked they talked so sweetly that the tinker stood and listened, and was drawn to better things. By such means he became a believer and a preacher, and the writer of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which has so refreshed us all. The Lord was there, and therefore he dreamed a heavenly dream in the Bedford jail. Wherever His people meet, the Lord is graciously near. “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Our Delightful Homes

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

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. -Ephesians 6:4

We will think of our own dear homes. What a delightful family we belong to if it can be said of our house, “the Lord is there”! Has it a thatched roof and a stone floor? What matters? The father of the family lives near to God, and his wife rejoices to be his fellow-helper in prayer, while the children grow up to honest toil and honorable service. Assuredly that cottage home is dear to God, and becomes a place where angels come and go. Because God is there, every window looks towards the Celestial City. It is a comfort that we need not go across the road to morning prayer, or step out every evening to worship, for we are priests ourselves, and have a family altar at home, whereon the incense burns both morning and night. We talk not of matins and vespers, but we glory that “the Lord is there” when we bow the knee as a household. What is more delightful than to gather round the family hearth, to hear the Scriptures read, and listen to the senior, as he talks to the younger ones of what God has done for him, and what the Lord is waiting to give to all who trust Him? Free from all formality, family prayer makes a house a temple, a family a church, and every day a holy day. Truly, I may say of families of this kind, wherever they dwell, that it is none other but the house of God, and it is the very gate of heaven”; for “the Lord is there.” Friend, is God in your house? If it has no family prayer, it has no roof to it. There is no true joy in domestic life unless the Lord be there. All else is fiction; God alone is true delight. I charge you, if your homes are not such that God could come to them, set your houses in order, and say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Will you dare to dwell where God could not lodge with you? May all men say of your home, “The Lord is there”!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Immanuel Shall Come to Thee, O Israel!

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

After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God!…‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” -Revelation 19:1,9

Flying forward, as with a dove’s wing, to the future that is drawing near, we bethink us of the truth that there is to be a millennial age-a time of glory, and peace, and joy, and truth, and righteousness. But what is to be the glory of it? Why this, “Jehovah-shammah, the Lord is there!” The Lord Jesus Christ will come, and begin His personal reign on earth among His ancients. In like manner as He went up into heaven, and the disciples saw Him, so will He descend a second time, to be seen here among men; and His glorious presence shall fashion the golden age, the thousand years of peace. Then shall the nations shout “The Lord is come.” What hallelujahs will then rise to heaven! Welcome, welcome, son of God! How will all His faithful ones rejoice with joy unspeakable, and sing and sing again; for now the day of their reward has come, and they shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father! In all the glory of the latter days everything is wrapped up in this one word, “the Lord is there.”

“Oh, come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight!
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

 

The Lord is in His Church

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

…to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. -Ephesians 3:21

(T)here is a special place where God dwells among men, and that is in His church. He has but one church, chosen by eternal election, redeemed by precious blood, called out by the Holy Ghost, and quickened into newness of life-this, as a whole, is the dwelling place of the covenant God. Because God is in this church, therefore the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. “The Lord is there” might be said of the church in all ages. I have seen the crypts and underground chapels of the catacombs, and it made one feel that they were glorious places, when we remembered that the Lord God was there, by His Spirit, with His suffering people. When holy hymn and psalm and solemn prayer went up from the very bowels of the earth, from men who were hunted to the death by their foes-the Lord was there. In those dreary excavations, unvisited by sunlight and wholesome air, God was as He was not in the palaces of kings, and is not in the cathedrals of priests. In this land of ours, when a few people met together, here and there, to hear the gospel and to worship, they made cottages, caves, and hollows in the woods, to be “holiness unto the Lord.” Ay, and when crowds met beneath your gospel oaks, or gathered together by the hillside to listen to the pure word of grace, the Lord was there, and souls were saved and sanctified. When the Puritans solemnly conversed together of the things of God, and held their little conventicles for fear of their adversaries-God was there. On Scotland’s bleak moors and mosses, when the Covenanters gathered in the darkness and the storm, for fear of Claverhouse and his dragoons-God was there…And so onward, to this very day, wheresoever the chosen of God lift up holy hands and worship Him, whether it be in cathedral or in barn, beneath the blue sky or beneath a thatched roof, anywhere and everywhere when the heart is right, and the soul adores the living Lord, this is the special glory of the place…the Lord is there.”~ C.H.Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Jehovah Shammah and Immanuel

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father 5 Comments

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,”which is translated, “God with us.”- Matthew 1:23

The nearest approach of Godhead to our manhood was when there was found, wrapped in swaddling bands and lying in a manger, that child who was born, that Son who was given whose name was called “Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” As for thee, O Bethlehem favored above all the towns of earth, out of thee He came, who is Immanuel, God with us! Verily Thy name is Jehovah-shammah. All along, through thirty years and more of holy labor, ending in a shameful death, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. In the gloom of Gethsemane, among those sombre olives, when Jesus bowed, and in His prayer sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground, He was “seen of angels” as the Son of God bearing human sin. Speak of Gethsemane, and we tell you God was there. Before Herod, and Pilate, and Caiaphas, and on the cross-the Lord was there. Though in a sense there was the hiding of God, and Jesus cried, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” yet in the deepest sense Jehovah was there, bruising the great sacrifice. The thick darkness made a veil for the Lord of glory, and behind it He that made all things bowed His head and said, “It is finished.” God was in Christ Jesus on the cross, and we, beholding Him, feel that we have seen the Father. O Calvary, we say of thee, “The Lord is there.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Peace and Liberty with God

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

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus -Romans 8:1

If you are convinced of sin, my dear friends, do not lose a moment. Go to your chamber… shut your door, go alone to Jesus, and there repeat your confession, and once more affirm your faith in Christ; and you shall have that peace with God which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot take away. Your troubled conscience shalt find rest: your feet shall be on a rock; and a new song shall be in your mouth, even praise for evermore.

“From whence this fear and unbelief?-
Hast Thou, O Father, put to grief
Thy spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous Judge of men
Condemn me for that debt of sin,
Which, Lord, was charged on Thee?

Complete atonement Thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whate’er Thy people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place
If shelter’d in Thy righteousness,
And sprinkled with Thy blood?

If Thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely, in my room, endured
The whole of wrath divine;
Payment God cannot twice demand,-
First, at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.

Turn, then, my soul unto thy rest!
The merits of thy great High Priest
Speak peace and liberty:
Trust in His efficacious blood;
Nor fear thy banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0255.cfm