Come, for Angels Bid You

“Come, see the place where our Lord lay.” -Matthew 28:6

Angels said, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” The Syriac version reads, “Come, see the place where our Lord lay.” Yes, angels put themselves with those poor women, and used one common pronoun-our. Jesus is the Lord of angels as well as of men. Ye feeble women-ye have called Him Lord, ye have washed His feet, ye have provided for His wants, ye have hung upon His lips to catch His honeyed sentences, ye have sat entranced beneath His mighty eloquence; ye call Him Master and Lord, and ye do well; “But,” said the seraph, “He is my Lord too;” bowing his head, he sweetly said, “Come, see the place where our Lord lay.”

Come, for it is a pure and healthy place. Fear not to enter that tomb. I will admit that catacombs are not the places where we, who are full of joy, would love to go. There is something gloomy and noisome about a vault. there are noxious smells of corruption; oft-times pestilence is born where a dead body hath lain; but fear it not, Christian, for Christ was not left in hell-in Hades-neither did His body see corruption. Come, there is no scent, yea, rather a perfume. Step in here, and, if thou didst ever breathe the gales of Ceylon, or winds from the groves of Araby, thou shalt find them far excelled by that sweet, holy fragrance left by the blessed body of Jesus; that alabaster vase which once held divinity, and was rendered sweet and precious thereby…Come then, Christian, summon up thy thoughts, gather all thy powers; here is a sweet invitation, let me press it again. Let me lead thee by the hand of meditation, my brother; let me take thee by the arm of thy fancy, and let me again say to thee, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0018.cfm

Come to the Tomb of Jesus

“Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”- Matthew 28:6

Every circumstance connected with the life of Christ is deeply interesting to the Christian mind. Wherever we behold our Saviour, He is well worthy of our notice.

“His cross, His manger, and His crown,
Are big with glories yet unknown.”

All His weary pilgrimage, from Bethlehem’s manger to Calvary’s cross, is, in our eyes, paved with glory. Each spot upon which He trod is, to our souls, consecrated at once, simply because there the foot of earth’s Saviour and our own Redeemer once was placed. When He comes to Calvary, the interest thickens; then our best thoughts are centered on Him in the agonies of crucifixion, nor does our deep affection permit us to leave Him, even when, the struggle being over, He yields up the ghost… By faith we discern Joseph of Arimathea, and the timid Nicodemus, assisted by those holy women, drawing out the nails and taking down the mangled body; we behold them wrapping Him in clean, white linen, hastily girding Him round with belts of spices; then putting Him in His tomb, and departing for the Sabbath rest…Ask me the greatest man who ever lived-I tell you the Man Christ Jesus was “anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellow.” If ye seek a chamber honored as the resting-place of genius, turn in hither; if ye would worship at the grave of holiness, come ye here; if ye would see the hallowed spot where the choicest bones that e’er were fashioned lay for awhile, come with me, Christian, to that quiet garden, hard by the walls of Jerusalem.

Oh! in pensive sorrow come with me to this dark garden of our Saviour’s burial; come to the grave of your best friend-your brother, yea, one who “sticketh closer than a brother.” Come thou to the grave of thy dearest relative, O Christian, for Jesus is thy husband, “Thy Maker is thy husband, the Lord of Hosts is His name.” Doth not affection draw you? Do not the sweet lips of love woo you? Is not the place sanctified where one so well-beloved slept, although but for a moment ? Surely ye need no eloquence; if it were needed I have none. I have but the power, in simple, but earnest accents, to repeat the words, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0018.cfm

This Promise is Ours

…And I will cause showers to come down in their season; they will be showers of blessing. -Ezekiel 34:26

“I will give thee showers of blessing.” The word is in the plural. All kinds of blessings God will send. The rain is all of one kind when it comes; but grace is not all of one kind, or it does not produce the same effect. When God sends rain upon the church, He “sends showers of blessing.” There are some ministers who think, that if there is a shower on their church, God will send a shower of work. Yes, but if He does, He will send a shower of comfort. Others think that God will send a shower of gospel truth. Yes, but if He sends that, He will send a shower of gospel holiness. For all God’s blessings go together. They are like the sweet sister graces that danced hand in hand. God sends showers of blessings. If He gives comforting grace, He will also give converting grace; if He makes the trumpet blow for the bankrupt sinner, He will also make it sound a shout of joy for the sinner that is pardoned and forgiven. He will send “showers of blessing.”

Well, then, if the promise is ours, the precept is ours, as much as the promise. Ought we not to ask God to continue to make us a blessing?… Only let us together strive, without variance. Let us labor for Jesus. Never did men have so fair an opportunity, for the last hundred years. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0028.cfm

Plenteous Grace

And yet He has not left Himself without witness, doing good, giving to you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.” -Acts 14:17

“I will give them showers.” What would the ground do without showers? You may break the clods, you may sow your seeds; but what can you do without the rain? Ah! you may prepare your barn, and sharpen your sickles; but your sickles will be rusted before you have any wheat, unless there are showers. They are needed. So is the divine blessing.

If God gives a blessing, He usually gives it in such a measure that there is not room enough to receive it. Where are we going to hold God’s blessing that we have obtained already? …Plenteous grace! Ah! we shall want plenteous grace, my friends; plenteous grace to keep us humble, plenteous grace to make us prayerful, plenteous grace to make us holy, plenteous grace to make us zealous, plenteous grace to make us truthful, plenteous grace to preserve us through this life, and at last to land us in heaven. We cannot do without showers of grace. How many are there here that have been dry in a shower of grace? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0028.cfm

Our Influence

That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. -Galatians 3:14

None of us can bless others unless God has first blessed us. We need divine workmanship. “I will make them a blessing by helping them, and by constraining them.” God makes His people a blessing by helping them. What can we do without God’s help? I stand and preach to thousands, or it may be hundreds; what have I done, unless a greater than man has been in the pulpit with me? I work in the Sabbath Schools; what can I do, unless the Master is there, teaching the children with me? We want God’s aid in every position; and once give us that assistance, and there is no telling with how little labor we may become a blessing. Ah! a few words sometimes will be more of a blessing than a whole sermon. You take some little prattler on your knee; and some few words that you say to him he remembers, and makes use of in after years. I knew a gray-headed old man, who was in the habit of doing this. He once took a boy to a certain tree, and said, “Now, John, you kneel down at that tree, and I will kneel down with you.” He knelt down and prayed, and asked God to convert him and save his soul. “Now,” said he, “perhaps you will come to this tree again; and if you are not converted, you will remember that I asked under this tree that God would save your soul.” That young man went away, and forgot the old man’s prayer; but it chanced as God would have it that he walked down that field again, and saw a tree. It seemed as if the old man’s name was cut in the bark. He recollected what he prayed for, and that the prayer was not fulfilled; but he dare not pass the tree without kneeling down to pray himself; and there was his spiritual birthplace. The simplest observation of the Christian shall be made a blessing, if God help him. “His leaf also shall not wither”-the simplest word he speaks shall be treasured up; “and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0028.cfm

Blessed to Be a Blessing

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing -Genesis 12:2

 The object of God, in choosing a people before all worlds, was not only to save that people, but through them to confer essential benefits upon the whole human race. When He chose Abraham, He did not elect Him simply to be God’s friend, and the recipient of peculiar privileges; but He chose Him to make Him, as it were, the conservator of truth. He was to be the ark in which the truth should be hidden. He was to be the keeper of the covenant in behalf of the whole world; and when God chooses any men by His sovereign, electing grace, and makes them Christ’s, He does it not only for their own sake, that they may be saved, but for the world’s sake. For, know ye not that “ye are the light of the world;”-“A city set upon a hill, which cannot be hid?” “Ye are the salt of the earth;” and when God makes you salt, it is not only that ye may have salt in yourselves, but that like salt ye may preserve the whole mass. If He makes you leaven, it is that, like the little leaven, you may leaven the whole lump. Salvation is not a selfish thing; God does not give it for us to keep to ourselves, but that we may thereby be made the means of blessing to others; and the great day shall declare that there is not a man living on the surface of the earth but has received a blessing in some way or other through God’s gift of the gospel. The very keeping of the wicked in life, and granting of the reprieve, was purchased with the death of Jesus; and through His sufferings and death, the temporal blessings which both we and they enjoy are bestowed on us. The gospel was sent that it might first bless those that embrace it, and then expand, so as to make them a blessing to the whole human race.

In thus speaking of the church as a blessing, we shall notice three things. First, here is divinity-“I will make them a blessing;” secondly, here is personality of religion-“I will make them a blessing;” and thirdly, here is the development of religion“-“and the places round about my hill.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0028.cfm

Showers of Blessing

“And I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.”- Ezekiel 34:26

I think we do not attach sufficient importance to the restoration of the Jews. We do not think enough of it. But certainly, if there is anything promised in the Bible, it is this. I imagine that you cannot read the Bible without seeing clearly that there is to be an actual restoration of the children of Israel. “Thither they shall go up; they shall come with weeping unto Zion, and with supplications unto Jerusalem.” May that happy day soon come! For when the Jews are restored, then the fulness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in; and as soon as they return, then Jesus will come upon Mount Zion to reign with His ancients gloriously, and the halcyon days of the Millennium shall then dawn; we shall then know every man to be a brother and a friend; Christ shall rule, with universal sway.

This, then, is the meaning of the text; that God would make Jerusalem and the places round about His hill a blessing. (P)erhaps, in a more enlarged sense…it applies to the Church of Jesus Christ, and to this particular church with which you and I stand connected. “I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in its season; there shall be showers of blessing.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0028.cfm