salvation

The Joy and Rejoicing of Our Heart

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

…Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart… – Jeremiah 15:16

He who has spiritually found God’s word, and consequently feeds upon it, is the happy man. But in order to get joy from God’s word we must receive it universally. Jeremiah first speaks of God’s “words,” then he changes the number and speaks of God’s “word.” We are not only to receive parts of the gospel, but the whole of it, and then it will afford us great joy. That man’s heart is right with God who can honestly say that all the testimonies of God are dear to him. “But” saith one, “that is impossible: parts of the Bible are full of terrible denunciations; can they afford us joy?” In this way, brethren: if God appoints that sin should be punished, we are not to rebel against His righteous ordinance, nor to close our minds to the consideration of divine justice; God’s judgments are right, and what is right we must rejoice in. Moreover, by the threatenings of His word many are led to forsake their sin, and thus the warning itself is a means of grace. To tender-hearted Jeremiah I have no doubt it was a trial to say, “Your city will be destroyed, and your women and your children will be slain.” But when he considered that some might be led to repentance, he would with tearful vehemence deal out the thunder of the Lord. But, brethren, God’s word is not all threatening. How much of it consists of exceeding great and precious promises? Grace drops from it like honey from the comb. How would even Jeremiah brush away the falling tear, while that face usually so clouded would beam as the sun when he spoke of the Messiah? Surely, if there be anything in the whole range of truth which can make our hearts leap for joy, it is the part of it which touches upon the lovely Person and finished work of our adorable Redeemer, to whom be honor and glory for ever. Receive the whole of God’s word. Do not cut a single text out of Scripture or desire to pervert its meaning. Hold the truth in its entirety and harmony, and then as a matter of certainty it will become to you the joy and rejoicing of your spirit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0980.cfm

Eternal Life is Found in God’s Word

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

Thy words were found…and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart… – Jeremiah 15:16

To find God’s words, means that we have been made to understand them. A man may be well versed in Scripture, both in the English and in the original tongue; he may be accustomed to read the best of commentaries, and be acquainted with Eastern manners, and yet he may be quite ignorant as to the word of God. For the understanding of this Book, as to its depth of meaning, does not lie within the range of natural learning and human research; reason alone is blinded by the excess of light, and wanders in darkness at noon day; for “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Before my conversion I was accustomed to read the Scriptures, to admire their grandeur, to feel the charm of their history, and wonder at the majesty of their language; but I altogether missed the Lord’s intent therein; but when the Spirit came with His divine life and quickened all the page to my newly enlightened soul, the inner meaning shone forth with quickening glory. The Bible is to many carnal minds almost as dull a book for reading as an untranslated Latin work would be to an ignorant ploughman, because they cannot get at the internal sense, which is to the words as juice to the grape, or the kernel to the nut… Recollect, my brethren, the time when you first found God’s word. Recall the period of your conversion; let the remembrance kindle in you anew the flame of gratitude. Magnify the divine grace which revealed the heavenly word to you. What a removal of darkness and bursting in of glory you then felt!…you found eternal life in God’s word. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0980.cfm

Finding God’s Words

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

Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart… – Jeremiah 15:16

“Thy words were found.” As Jeremiah meant them, they signified this: that certain messages came to him most clearly from God, and he recognised them as such; he ascertained how far the thoughts which passed through his mind were originated by the Spirit of God, and how far they were from merely his own imaginings; he separated between the precious and the vile, and when he had found, discovered, and discerned God’s words, then it was that he fed upon it.

What is meant by finding God’s words? The expression suggests the mode. A thing found has usually been sought for. Happy is that man who reads the Scriptures and hears the word- searching all the while for the hidden spiritual sense, which is indeed the voice of God…Solomon tells us the method of finding the true wisdom, in that cheering word at the commencement of the second chapter of the Proverbs, “My son, if thou wilt incline thine ear to wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.” Though occasionally the Lord in His infinite sovereignty has been pleased to reveal His salvation to those who sought it not, according to His own word, “I am found of them that sought Me not,” yet there is no promise to this effect; the promise is to those who seek. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0980.cfm

The Hereafter of the Lost

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, salvation, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 2 Comments

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” – Revelation 21:8

We believe that those who die in their sins when they pass from this life into the next, shall find that second death to be no extinction of existence, but an eternity of sin and of misery, Ah! how can any of us bear to think of this if we feel that we are morally responsible for any one soul that is damned? Yet are we so, I speak but the bare truth, until we have delivered ourselves from that responsibility by faithful earnestness. Is there a Cain here who says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” I shall not appeal to your most sympathetic soul but leave you to your Judge. But to the Christian I say, “No man liveth to himself.” When you think of a spirit in despair, cast out for ever from the presence of his God and from the glory of his power, may you, friends, be able to say, “Great God, though I understand not Thy ways, for Thy judgments are a great deep; yet I warned the sinner, I admonished him to lay hold on Christ, and if he perished it was not for want of preaching to or for praying over; my warnings and tears were never spared. I did what was in me to prevent his ruin.” Put in that light, we may look at least with some degree of serenity upon the doctrine of divine sovereignty. I must confess that the sovereignty of God is a great mountain whose top we cannot scale. I often marvel at the coldness with which some men talk of the sovereignty of God, as though it were of small concern whether men were lost or saved. They seem to take these things as easily as if they were only talking of blocks of wood, or fields filled with tares. I do not think that we can equitably plead the divine sovereignty as a counterpart to our futile efforts, till we can say, “I have done all that was possible to bring that soul to God, I have prayed over him and wept over him, and now if he perish I must believe that this man wilfully rejected Christ, that his iniquities are upon his own head, and that in him, as a vessel of wrath, God will get glory as well as in vessels of mercy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

For the Sake of a Clear Conscience

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

I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth… – Psalm 40:10 

How awful to remember that every hour there are hundreds of men and women who are dying without Christ. Turn to the bills of mortality of this one city. Be our sentiments ever so charitable, let us judge with the utmost liberality, the dreadful fact fills our mind, and every knell speaks it to our heart, “They go out of this world unforgiven; they go before their Maker’s bar without a hope!” I think our hearts would break with the dread recollection of this if we could not say, “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation; lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth from the great congregation.”

And how many deaths there always are among our hearers! What comfort can any Christian who knows you have if you die unsaved, unless he is able to appeal to God, and say, “My Father, I did all I could to teach that soul the way of salvation; I did all I could to persuade him to accept the Christ of God”?

Dear friends, whenever you see any of your neighbors, your relatives, your acquaintance die, can you forbear to ask yourselves, shall their blood be required at my hands? Are your skirts stained? Are there no blood drops there? Come, look them down, and say if you can ponder with a clear conscience the fact of a sinner dying in a Christless state without your being able to say, “I have done all I could to bring that soul to Christ”? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

Let Us Say It

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

It ought to be the ambition of every believer here, in a sense more or less extensive, to be able to say,

“I have preached righteousness; I have not refrained my lips; I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation; I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth.” – Psalm 40:10

It is not, perhaps, the man who can stand and talk to thousands, but it may be you in the family-the housewife, the kitchen maid, the serving-man, or the woman who has been bed-ridden for years, whose only audience will be a few poor neighbors, or perhaps, now and then, a generous friend…Though we may feel that we have not preached as earnestly as we could have wished; that we have not done our utmost towards those whom we have taught; that in our house-to-house visitation we have not been so earnest with poor souls as we might have been in this respect, for alas! alas! we are all unprofitable servants; yet we can say, “I have preached righteousness; I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation; I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth.” Fervently do I hope that those of you with the largest opportunities may yet be privileged to make this good profession with all sincerity. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

What Men Must Know of God

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

I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. – Psalm 40:10

Our Lord, with eagle eye, descries what is most important for men to know, and upon that He dwells. Sinners must know of God’s righteousness; they will never know their sinfulness else knowing it they will think it to be a little thing. The righteousness of God comes like a stream of light into the soul and reveals its corruption. God’s salvation, again, must be shown in its true colors. It does not owe its origin, its accomplishment, or its application to our works or our merits, but it proceeds from God’s grace, and redounds to His glory…Jesus Christ preached God’s righteousness, and showed God’s righteousness even in salvation, and then He preached that salvation fully.

Nor, dear friends, did He withhold His testimony of the other attributes of God. Think for an instant of God’s faithfulness. Oh, what a delightful theme! As immutability is a glory that belongs to all His attributes, so faithfulness pertains to all His purposes and promises…Moreover, He will rest in His love, “for the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name’s sake.” He is “the Father of lights, with whom is, no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” His promises and His threatenings abide steadfast. Side by side with the faithfulness of God there is witness of His lovingkindness. Oh, what a glorious revelation! the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the God of pity and of pardon, the God of love…The God whom Jesus preached is full of gentleness and tenderness. May we learn to believe in the God and Father whom His only begotten Son Jesus Christ delighted to make known, and if called to testify of Him may we testify fully and heartily as Jesus did. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm