Sovereignty of God

Alignment with the Word of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, repentance, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him… – Hebrews 5:9

I hope I shall always be able to lift up my voice against that charity growing up in our midst, which is not only a charity towards persons, but a charity towards doctrines. I have fervent charity towards every brother in Christ who differs from me. I love him for Christ’s sake, and hold fellowship with him for the truth’s sake: but I can have no charity for his errors, nor do I wish him to have any for mine. I tell him straight to his face, “If your sentiments contradict mine, either I am right and you are wrong, or you are right and I am wrong; and it is time we should meet together and search the Word of God, to see what is right.” Talk of your Evangelical Alliances, and such like: they will never endure; they may effect many blessed purposes, but they are not the remedy that is wanted for our divisions. What is wanted is, for all of us to come to the model of the Word of God, and when we have come to that, we must come together. Let us all come “to the law and to the testimony.” Let the Baptist, let the Independent, let the Churchman, lay aside his old thoughts, his old prejudices, and his old traditions, and let each man search for himself, as in the sight of Almighty God, and some of the altars must go down, for they cannot all be after the divine type, when their dissimilarity is so palpable. May the Spirit of God be poured out in this land, and there will come a three-fold reformation; broken images, groves cut down, and fallen altars scattered to the winds. And yet, my dear hearers, I do not ask you to attend to this last thing first. It is unimportant, compared with the first. The images are first to be burned, then sinful customs are to be given up, and after that let the church be reformed.

“I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say,” and may God guide you aright.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

“I desire to be set right”

Sherry Christian Life, repentance, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. – Ephesians 5: 15-17

If Martin Luther, were now to visit our so-called reformed churches, he would say with all his holy boldness “I was not half a reformer when I was alive before, now I will make thorough work of it.” How he would adjure you to cast away your superstitions, to abolish all the rites and forms and ceremonies that are not of divine appointment, and once more in the integrity of simple faith, to worship the Lord God alone, in that way alone, which the Lord God Himself has ordained. Let all these, like those altars of Judaism, be cast down to the ground and utterly put away. I desire not only to be a Christian, but to be fully a Christian, walking in all the ways of my blessed Master, with a perfect heart, and I desire for all my brethren and sisters in Christ not only that they may have grace enough to save their souls, but grace enough to purify them from all the devices of men, from every false doctrine, from every false practice, and every evil thing.

I exhort you, therefore, my brothers and sisters, after you have broken your images and cut down your groves, go a step further, and break down the false altars. I can only say for myself, “If I be wrong, I desire to be set right,” and for you I am solemnly concerned, “If you be wrong, may God help you to a right judgment, and bring you to see the truth, embrace it, and earnestly and valiantly maintain it. I like you to be charitable to others; but do not be too charitable to yourselves. Let others follow out their own conscientious convictions, but do you recollect, it is not your conscience that is to be your guide, but God’s Word; and if your conscience is wrong, you are to bring it to God’s Word that it may be reproved and “transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It is for you to do what God tells you, as God tells you, when God tells you, and how God tells you.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The Unlawful Altars

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

…and threw down the high places and the altars… – 2 Chronicles 31;1

These altars were built for the service of the true God, but they were built against His express command. God had said that He would have but one altar, namely, at Jerusalem. These people, to avoid inconvenience and trouble, thought they would build altars, wherever they lived, and there celebrate their worship. I can conceive that they worshipped Jehovah with all their hearts, and that He might graciously accept even such worship as that through Christ Jesus, overlooking their ignorance and casting their sin behind His back. But now as their zeal was kindled, their consciences became scrupulous, so they resolved not only to avoid the things that are positively sinful but they would have nothing to do with anything that is not positively right. So they began to cast down the altars of God because they were not built according to God’s law… There should be a casting down of everything in connection with the true worship, that is not according to the law of God and the word of God. As it was with the worship of Israel of old, so it is now with that of the Christian church. The pure becomes alloyed with the base, that which is genuine with that which is spurious, divine revelation with human tradition, and the inspired decrees of heaven with the inventions and devices of the children of men. Some fallacies are perpetuated from generation to generation, until the deep hue of antiquity tinges them over, makes them look venerable and speciously invites a reverence and regard to which they never had any legitimate claim… But, mark ye this, if the grace of God be once more restored to the church in all its fullness and the Spirit of God be poured out from on high, in all His sanctifying energy there will come such a shaking as has never been seen in our days. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The Groves-cont’d

Sherry Christian Life, repentance, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

… and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves… – 2 Chronicles 31:1

Dancing-the ball-room-is there anything sinful there? I say, No! no more than there was in the trees that surrounded the image. But nevertheless, I will cut the trees down, because of their association with the images. I must have done with every amusement of such a kind that I could not appear before my God whilst in the act. The Christian is to recollect, that “in such an hour as he thinks not the Son of Man cometh.” Would he like his Master to come and find him in the society of the frivolous; engaged in the dizzy mazes of the dance? I trow not. Perhaps one of the last places he would like to be found in would be there. Dancing! while hell is filling and sinners are perishing! What! are Christian men to be the saviours of the world, and yet waste their time so? Are there no poor to be relieved, no sick to be visited? Are there no dens of this great metropolis that need to be pried into by the servants of Christ? Are there no children to be taught, are there no aged men who need leading to Jesus; is there nothing to be done in this great vineyard-this great field of the Lord, so that a Christian could afford to waste his time so? Let the worldling do it if he likes, we have no right to talk to him about it. But amusements that are right for him are not right for us. Let him do as he pleases, but we are the servants of God. We protest that all we have and all we are is given up to Christ, and can that be consistent with the waste of time that is involved in the frivolous amusements in which so many are content to indulge? I do not condemn the thing itself, any more than I condemn the grove of trees. I condemn it for its associations with many things that are to be avoided by the Christian; jesting, lascivious and foolish talking, and many unholy thoughts, that must necessarily arise. Down with the trees altogether, because there have false gods been worshipped. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The God of Bacchus Defeated by the Gospel

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. – Exodus 20:3

There are other gods still worshipped in this world, to be execrated with unrelenting indignation. There is one which is certain to be broken, so sure as ever a man becomes a Christian: I mean Bacchus, that jolly god whom so many adored in days of yore with mad revelry, and who is still worshipped by tens of thousands of Englishmen. Perhaps he is the great god of Britain. I am certain he has many temples, for there is scarcely a corner of any street in which we do not behold his image, or see his votaries pouring out libations before him. He is a god that is worshipped with reeling to and fro, and staggering. Men become drunken in his presence, and so do him homage. Now, ye that are drunkards, if ye become Christians, that will turn your cup bottom upwards once and for ever. There will be no more inebriety for you now. By the grace of God you will say, “They that be drunken are drunken in the night, but let us who are of the day be sober. I renounce this practice of drunkenness, I can have nothing more to do with it.” Bless God there are many here present who have gone out of this hall to demolish this god… They have heard the gospel not in word only, but also in power, and now their home is a paradise, their house is made glad with prayer, their children are brought up in the fear of the Lord. We have seen the wife’s tear of gladness when she said, “The Lord be blessed for ever, and blessed be the name of the gospel, for a wretched woman has been made happy, and she who was but a drudge and a slave to one who was like a fiend, has now become the companion of one whom she reckons to be little short of an angel.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The God of Self-Righteousness

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

“Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all.”- 2 Chronicles 31:1

“Thou shalt have none other gods before Me.” Every place is before God. Every thing is before His face and open to Him. Therefore by this command we understand that we are in no way, and in no sense to have another god, but the Lord our God. What! do you ask, are we a nation of idolaters? Can this text pertain to us?… Yea, all of us, until renewed by divine grace, worship gods which our own hands have made, and we do not fear, and love, and obey the living God with our entire and exclusive homage. Once however, let grace be received into the heart, let the soul be renewed by the Holy Spirit, once drink in the free life of Jesus, and these false gods must be broken in pieces at once.

The first god who is worshiped among us is one called self-righteousness. The Pharisees were the high priests of this god; they burnt incense every morning and every evening before him, but he has ten thousand times ten thousand worshipers still left. Among your respectable classes of society he is the received divinity. If a man be respectable, he thinks it all-sufficient. Among your moralists, this is the great god before which they bow down and worship… Until we are brought to know our own lost and ruined condition, self-righteousness is the god before which every one of us will prostrate ourselves. Oh, my dear friends… let us… aim a blow, by the help of God, at self righteousness; let us… prostrate ourselves before God, and cry-

“Vile and full of sin I am.”

“Lord, I confess before Thee, that I have no good works in which to trust, no self-righteousness on which I can rely. I cast my boastings away; I come to Thee as a poor, guilty, helpless sinner; ‘Lord, save, or I perish.'” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

Unceasing Intercession with Praise

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— – 1Timothy 2:1

My dear friends, the first effect which the reading of the history of God’s mighty works should have upon us, is that of gratitude and praise. Have we nothing to sing about to-day?-then let us sing concerning days of yore… When we have thus begun to praise God for what He has done, I think I may venture to impress upon you one other great duty: let what God has done suggest to you the prayer that He would repeat like signs and wonders among us. Oh! men and brethren, what would this heart feel if I could but believe that there were some among you who would go home and pray for a revival of religion-men whose faith is large enough, and their love fiery enough to lead them from this moment to exercise unceasing intercessions that God would appear among us and do wondrous things here, as in the times of former generations. Why, look you here in this present assembly what objects there are for our compassion. Glancing round, I observe one and another whose history I may happen to know, but how many are there still unconverted-men who trembled and who know they have, but have shaken off their fears, and once more are daring their destiny, determined to be suicides to their own souls and to put away from them that grace which once seemed as if it were striving in their hearts. They are turning away from the gates of heaven, and running post-haste to the doors of hell; and will not you stretch out your hands to God to stop them in this desperate resolve?

Dear friends, we do not know what God may do for us if we do but pray for a blessing… We shall never get a revival unless we believe that it is the Lord, and the Lord alone, that can do it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0263.cfm