Sovereignty of God

You Must Have the Holy Spirit or Fail

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

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. – 1 Corinthians 6:11

When we get at the work our need remains; we long to see the people saved; but in order to do that, they must be born again, and this we cannot accomplish ourselves. Change a stone into flesh! Try that at home with a piece of stone on your table, before you attempt it with the hard hearts of men. Create a soul between the ribs of death! Try that in a charnel-house before you pretend to create within a sinner, dead in sin, the spiritual life. Of regeneration we may say, “This is the finger of God.” If our religion be not supernatural, it is a delusion. If the Holy Ghost be not with you, you are like Jannes and Jambres, attempting to work a miracle without Jehovah’s aid; and you will be baffled, and detected for an impostor. You will fail, like the seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, who tried to cast out devils: the devils do not know you; they would know Jesus; they would know the Holy Spirit; but at your idle efforts they mockingly laugh. Only those people who never do any spiritual work talk about what they can accomplish. When you get into the sacred service, you find how great your weakness is; you feel out of your depth when you come to deal with souls, and you must have the Holy Spirit or fail…We never personally go a step towards heaven, and we never lead another one inch on the way, apart from the Holy Ghost…

“Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With all Thy quickening powers.”

or else all our service for the Lord is in vain. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2218.cfm

Our Master-Passion

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

What is thy Beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? – Song of Solomon 5:8

The idols of the heathen are all made to stand in the Pantheon face to face, and there is no quarrelling among them; but as soon as you introduce Christ there, they must all go down, or He will not stay. The principle of the mental toleration of all forms of doctrine, and all forms and shades of action, is heathenish, for where Christ comes He comes to reign; and when once He enters the soul of a man, it is down, down, down with everything else.

There is a text which is often misunderstood. I heard it read thus only last Sunday: “No man can serve two masters.” I very much question whether he cannot; I believe he could serve, not only two, but twenty. That is not the meaning of the text; the true reading of it is, “No man can serve two masters.” They cannot both be masters; if two of them are equal, then neither of them is really master. It is not possible for the soul to be subject to two master-passions. If a man says, “I love Christ,” that is well; but if he says, “I love Christ, and I love money, and I love them both supremely,” that man is a liar, for the thing is not possible… This is not the case with the truly Christ-like man. With him, Christ is first, Christ is last, Christ is midst, Christ is all in all; and when he speaks about anything connected with Christ, his words come with such a solemn earnestness, that men are impressed with what he says, and they turn round to him, and ask, as the daughters of Jerusalem enquired of the spouse, “What is thy Beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2469.cfm

Christians, be troublesome to the world!

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

“I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my Beloved, that ye tell Him, that I am sick of love.”

“What is thy Beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy Beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?” – Song of Solomon 5:8,9

The “fairest among women” was asked why she had so spoken: “I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my Beloved, that ye tell Him, that I am sick of love.” By this “charge” is meant, I suppose, that the spouse adjured them, and spoke solemnly to them about her Beloved. Christians, be troublesome to the world! O house of Israel, be like a burdensome stone to the world! You are not sent here to be recognized as honorable citizens of this world, to be petted and well-treated. Even Christ Himself, the peaceable One, said, “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?” What I mean is this, we are not to be quiet about our religion. The world says to us, “Hold your tongue about religion, or at least talk about it at fit times; but do not introduce it at all seasons so as to become a pest and a nuisance.” I say again, and you know in what sense I mean it, be a nuisance to the world; be such a man that worldlings will be compelled to feel that there is a Christian in their midst. An officer was walking out of the royal presence on one occasion, when he tripped over his sword. The king said to him, “Your sword is rather a nuisance.” “Yes,” was the officer’s reply, “your majesty’s enemies have often said so.” May you be a nuisance to the world in that sense, troublesome to the enemies of the King of kings! While your conduct should be courteous, and everything that could be desired as between man and man, yet let your testimony for Christ be given without any flinching and without any mincing of the matter.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2469.cfm

Blessed Contentment

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. –  Philippians 4:11

We ought to walk in holy contentment. Jesus was perfectly content with His lot. When the foxes had holes and the birds of the air had nests, and He had not where to lay His head, yet He never murmured, but found rest in pursuing His life-work. The cravings of covetousness and pinings of ambition never touched our Lord. Friends, if you do, indeed, say that you abide in Him, I pray you be of the same contented spirit. “I have learned,” said the apostle, as if it were a thing which had to be taught, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

In a word, Christ lived above this world; let us walk as He walked. Christ lived for God, and for God alone; let us live after His fashion. And Christ persevered in such living; He never turned aside from it at all; but as He lived so He died, still serving His God, obedient to His Father’s will, even unto death. May our lives be a mosaic of perfect obedience, and our deaths the completion of the fair design. From our Bethlehem to our Gethsemane may our walk run parallel with the pathway of the Well-beloved! Oh, Holy Spirit, work us to this sacred pattern! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1732.cfm

Our Delight is in God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, He was there alone. – Matthew 14:23

He who says that Christ is in him ought also to live as Christ lived in secret. And how was this? His life was spent in abounding devotion… He was pure and holy, and yet He must needs wait upon God all day long, and often speak with His Father; and then when the night came, and others went to their beds, He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed… Think of His delight in God. How wonderful was Christ’s delight in His God! I can never think of His life as an unhappy one. He was, it is true, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”; but still there was a deep spring of wondrous happiness in the midst of His heart, which made Him always blessed; for He said to His Father, “I delight to do Thy will, 0 My God! Yea, Thy law is within My heart.” He delighted in God. Many a sweet night He spent in those prayer-times of His in fellowship with the Father. Why, it was that which prepared Him for the agony of His bloody sweat, and for the “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Those love-visits, those near and dear communings which His holy heart had with the Father were His secret meat and drink. And you and I also must delight in God. This charming duty is far too much neglected. Strange that this honey should so seldom be in men’s mouths! Listen to this text, “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Many a man says, “I should like to have the desires of my heart” Brother, here is the royal road thereto, the King’s ascent to His treasury-“Delight thyself also in the Lord.” But, listen, it is very likely you would not obtain the desire that is now in your heart if you did that; for he that delights himself in God rises above the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and comes to desire that which God desires, and therefore it is that he wins the desire of his heart. But, oh, the pleasure, the joy, the bliss of delighting in God!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1732.cfm

The Lowliness and Tenderness of Christ

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

Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. – Matthew 7:21

When I see men so big that they cannot speak to poor people, as if they were made of something better than ordinary flesh and blood; when I notice a haughty, high, hectoring disposition anywhere, it grates upon my feelings, and makes me wonder whether these blunderers hope to go to the heaven of the lowly. The Lord Jesus would never have been half as big as some of His followers are. What great folk some of His disciples are, as compared with Him! He was lowly, meek, gentle, a man who so loved the souls of others that He forgot Himself. You never detect in the Lord Jesus Christ any tendency towards pride or self-exaltation. Quite the reverse: He is ever compassionate and condescending to men of low estate.

And then note again another point, and that is His great tenderness, and gentleness, and readiness to forgive. His dying words ought to ring in the ear of all who find it hard to pass by affronts, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Did He not set us an example of bearing and forbearing? “Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again.” For every curse He gave a blessing,,. You cannot be Christians if this spirit of love is foreign to you. “Oh,” say you, “we endorse the confession.” I do not care. You must love your enemies, or you will die with the Creed in your throats. “Oh,” say you, “we are regular in our pews, hearing the gospel.” I do not care; you must forgive them that trespass against you, or you will go from your pews to perdition “Oh, but we have been baptized, and we come to the communion.” I do not care even about that; for unless you are made meek and lowly in heart you will not find rest unto your souls. Pride goeth not before salvation, but before destruction; and a haughty spirit is no prophecy of elevation, but the herald of a fall. Take care, take care, you that say that you are in Christ; you ought also to walk in all the lowliness and in all the tenderness of Christ, or else at the end you will be discovered to be none of His. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1732.cfm

 

Self-denials for the Lord’s Sake

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

And He said to them all, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. – Luke 9:23

We ought to walk as Christ did in the matter of self-denial. Of course, in this work of self-denial we are not called to imitate Christ in offering up ourselves as a propitiatory sacrifice. That would be a vain intrusion into things which are His peculiar domain. The self-denials which we practise should be such as He prescribes us. There is a will-worship which is practised in the Church of Rome of self-denials which are absurd, and must, I think, be hateful in the sight of God rather than pleasing to Him… Enough self-denials come naturally in every Christian man’s way to make him try whether he can deny himself in very deed for the Lord’s sake. You are thus tested when you are put in positions where you might get gain by an unrighteous act, or win fame by withholding a truth, or earn love and honour by pandering to the passions of those about you. May you have grace enough to say, “No; it cannot be. I love not myself, but my Lord. I seek not myself, but Christ. I desire to propagate nothing but His truth, and not my own ideas”: then will you have exhibited the self-denial of Jesus. These self-denials will sometimes be hard to flesh and blood. And then in the Church of God to be able to give all your substance, to devote all your time, to lay out all your ability-this is to walk as Jesus walked. When weary and worn, still to be busy; to deny yourself things which may be allowable, but which if allowable to you would be dangerous to others-this also is like the Lord. Such self-denial as may be helpful to the weak you ought to practise. Think what Christ would do in such a case, and do it; and, whenever you can glorify Him by denying yourself, do it. So walk as He did who made Himself of no reputation, but took upon Himself the form of a servant. and who, though He was rich, brought Himself down to poverty for our sakes, that we might be rich unto God. Think of that.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1732.cfm