Sovereignty of God

Christ’s Price

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

Buy the truth, and sell it not… buy wine and milk without money and without price. – Proverbs 23:23; Isaiah 55:1

“Buy the truth.” Let us correct an error here. Some might suppose that Christ, and the gospel, and salvation-all of which are included in the truth-can be bought. They can, but they cannot. They can in the sense of the text; they cannot in any other sense. You cannot purchase salvation; merit cannot win it. Christ’s price is, “Without money and without price.” Has not the prophet so worded it? “Yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” Salvation is of free grace, and is from the very necessity of its nature, gratis. You cannot merit it; you cannot earn it. It is not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth, but “He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion.”

To be saved, give up everything that must be given up, in order to your receiving the free salvation. Every sin must be given up. No man shall go to heaven while he lives in, and favours any one, sin. A man may sin and be saved, but he cannot love sin and be saved. Give up, then, thy drunkenness, if that be thy sin. Give up, then, thine unchaste living, if that be thy sin. Conquer that angry temper, that love of greed-whatever it is that keeps thee back from Christ. Buy the truth, and give up these. Thou wilt not merit salvation then; but if this must be given up, let it not stand in thy way. Give it up, man! Since thou canst not have thy sin and have Christ too, get a divorce from thy sin and take holiness, and take the Saviour. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3449.cfm

Walk Straight Forward

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, repentance, Sovereignty of God 5 Comments

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. – James 1:22

You profess to be a Christian: be a Christian. You say that you are a follower of Christ: follow Him, then. You know it is right to be a man of integrity and uprightness: be so. Let no dirty tricks of trade, let no meannesses, let none of those white lies which degrade commerce nowadays, ever come across your path, except to be reprobated and abhorred. Walk straight forward. Learn not to tack. Do not wish to understand policy, and craft, and cunning. Buy the truth. It will shame the world yet. He that speaks out his mind, says what he means, and means what he says, does the just thing, does the right thing, fears no man, and lifts his head boldly in the face of all creation if it dares to whisper that it will enrich him by his doing wrong-that is the man that buys the truth practically. You know how it can be carried out in commerce readily enough, in the parlour, in the drawing-room, and in the kitchen. There is a truthful way for a shoe-black to black shoes in the street, and there is a lying way of doing it. There is a truthful way of doing the commonest actions, and there is a false method of doing the very self-same thing. In this respect, then, buy the truth, as to the straightforwardness, the clean, sharp transparency of your moral character and of your Christian conduct. Never seem to be what you are not, or if you must for a while be in that position, count that you are unfortunate, and escape from it as soon as you can. Never do what you are ashamed of; it matters not who sees. Think always that God sees, and with God for a witness you have enough of observers. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3449.cfm

The Battle Within

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 4 Comments
…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. – Philippians 2:12-13

Alas! we see nowadays in many professors a great deal of life without struggle, and I think I have learned that all spiritual life that is not attended with struggles is a mistake, for Isaac, the child of the promise, is sure to be mocked by Ishmael. No sooner does the seed of the woman come into the world than the seed of the serpent tries to destroy it. You must, and will, find a battle going on within you if you are a believer. Sin will contest it with grace, and grace will seek to reign over sinful corruptions. Be afraid of too easy an experience. “Moab is at ease from his youth; he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel; for the time cometh when the Lord will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled upon their lees.” There must be strivings within, or we may well beware of such an experience. And I think I have noticed a growing feeling abroad of confidence without self-examination. I would have you hold to believe God’s Word, but do not take your own state at haphazard. Do not conclude that you are a Christian because you thought you were ten years ago. Day by day bring yourself to the touchstone. He that cannot bear examination will have to bear condemnation. He that dare not search himself will find that God will search him. He that is afraid to look himself in the face has need to be afraid to look the Judge in the face when the great white throne shall be placed, and all the world summoned to judgment. Confidence is quite consistent with self-examination, and I pray you in this thing buy the truth, and seek to have a religion that will bear the test-a true faith, a living faith, a faith that moves your soul, a deep-rooted faith, a faith which is the supernatural work of the Holy Ghost, for the time cometh when, as the Lord liveth, nothing short of this will stand you in good stead.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3449.cfm

Only One True New Birth

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 5 Comments

Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. – Luke 3:8

How easy it is to be deceived with the notion that we are converted when we still need to be converted; to fancy that, because we have the approbation of our minister and of our Christian friends, we must, therefore, necessarily be the people of God. There is only one true new birth, but there are fifty counterfeits of it. In this respect, then, buy the truth. Let me have you beware of an experience which has a faith in it that was never attended with repentance. I am afraid of a dry-eyed faith. That faith seems to me to be the faith of God’s elect, whose eyes are full of tears. If thou hast never felt thyself a sinner, never trembled under the law of God, never felt that thou hast deserved to be cast into hell, I am afraid thy faith is a mere presumption, and not the faith that looks to Christ. Beware of an experience that lies in talk, and not in feeling. Mr. Talkative, in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress could speak very glibly about religion; no man more so than he; he was fit to take the chair in an assembly of divines; but it was not heart-work; it was all surface-work. Plough deep, my brethren. Feel what you believe. Let it be with you real homework, soul-work, the work of God the Holy Ghost-not a temporary excitement, not head-knowledge, not theory. May the truth be burned into your souls by the operation of the Holy Ghost. In this respect, buy the truth. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3449.cfm

Buy the Truth and Sell It Not

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 17 Comments

Buy the truth, and sell it not. – Proverbs 23:23

Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. – Matthew 13:46

John Bunyan* pictures the pilgrims as passing at one time through Vanity Fair, and in Vanity Fair there were to be found all kinds of merchandise, consisting of the pomps and vanities, the lusts and pleasures of this present life and of the flesh. Now all the dealers, when they saw these strange pilgrims come into the fair began to cry, as shopmen will do, “Buy, buy, buy-buy this, and buy that.” There were the priests in the Italian row with their crucifixes and their beads. There were those in the German row with their philosophies and their metaphysics. There were those in the French row with their fashions and with their prettinesses. But the one answer that the pilgrims gave to all the dealers was this-they looked up and they said, “We buy the truth; we buy the truth,” and they would have gone on their way if the men of the Fair had not laid them by the heels in the cage, and kept them there, one to go to heaven in a chariot of fire, and the other afterwards to pursue his journey alone. This is very much the description of the genuine Christian at all times. He is surrounded by vendors of all sorts of things, beautifully got up and looking exceedingly like the true article, and the only way in which he will be able to pass through Vanity Fair safely is to keep to this, that he buys the truth, and if he adds to that the second advice of the text, and never sells it, he will, under divine guidance, find his way rightly to the skies. “Buy the truth, and sell it not.”

Truth is the one pearl beneath the skies that is worth having, and whatever else we buy not, we must buy the truth, and whatever else we may have to sell, yet we must never sell the truth, but hold it fast as a treasure that will last us when gold has cankered, and silver has rusted, and the moth has eaten up all goodly garments…Buy the truth. Here is the treasure. Cost it what it may, buy you it.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3449.cfm

*Pilgrim’s Progress

There is Yet a Future Time of Rest

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God 26 Comments

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. – Hebrews 4:9

Here on earth the believer enters into rest by faith; the Christian enjoys rest even in the wilderness; the promise is fulfilled. “They shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.” God giveth to His beloved sleep; there is a peace that passeth all understanding, which we may enjoy even in this land of turmoil, strife, and alarms, a peace which the worldling knoweth not of, nor can he guess it.

“A holy calm within the heart,
The pledge of glorious rest.
Which for the church of God remains,
The end of cares, the end of pains.”

But beloved, drink as we may of the cup of peace, the good wine is kept until a future time. The peace we drink to-day is dashed with some drops of bitter. There are disturbing thoughts; the cares of this world will come, doubts will arise; live as we may in this world, we must have disquietudes; thorns in the flesh must come. But oh! the “rest that remaineth for the people of God.” What good wine shall that be! God hath a sun without a spot, a sky without a cloud, a day without a night, a sea without a wave, a world without a tear. Happy are they who, having passed through this world, have entered into rest, and ceased from their own works, as God did from His, bathing their weary souls in seas of heavenly rest. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0226.cfm

The Good Wine

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 9 Comments

The governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now. – John 2:9-10

My dear friends, this is a great fact, that Christ’s feast increaseth in sweetness. When first the Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed a feast for the sons of men, the first cup He set upon the table was but a very little one, and it had in it but few words of consolation. You remember the inscription upon that ancient vessel, the first cup of consolation that was ever held to the sons of men-“The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” There was to them but little sweetness there: much to us, because we can understand it better, and some to them, because God’s Spirit might help them to understand it, but still in the revelation of it there seemed but little promise. As the world went on, there were greater cups of precious wine brought forth, whereof patriarchs and ancient saints did drink; but beloved, all the wine they ever had under the Old Testament dispensation was far behind that of which we drink. He that is least in the kingdom of heaven is more highly favoured than he who is chief under the Old Testament dispensation. Our fathers did eat manna, but we do eat the bread that came down from heaven; they did drink of water in the wilderness, but we drink of that living water whereof if a man drink he shall never thirst. It is true they had much sweetness; the cups of the ancient tabernacle had precious wine in them; there was in the outward symbol the sign and the shadow, much that was delightful to the faith of the true believer; but we must remember that we are drinking to-day of that wine which prophets and kings desired to drink of, but died without a taste thereof. They guessed its sweetness; they could by faith foresee what it would be; but lo! we are allowed to sit at the table and quaff full draughts of wines on the lees well refined, which God hath given to us in this mountain wherein He hath made a feast of fat things for all people.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0226.cfm