Sovereignty of God

Nothing But Lies

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

When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves… – Mark 11:13

The Searcher finds nothing but leaves where fruit might have been expected. Nothing but leaves mean nothing but lies. Is that a harsh expression? If I profess faith, and have no faith, is not that a lie? If I profess repentance, and have not repented, is not that a lie? If I unite with the people of the living God, and yet have no fear of God in my heart, is not that a lie? If I come to the communion-table, and partake of the bread and wine, and yet never discern the Lord’s body, is not that a lie? If I profess to defend the doctrines of grace, and yet am not assured of the truth of them, is not that a lie? If I have never felt my depravity; if I have never been effectually called, never known my election of God, never rested in the redeeming blood, and have never been renewed by the Spirit, is not my defense of the doctrines of grace a lie? If there is nothing but leaves, there is nothing but lies, and the Saviour sees that it is so. All the verdure of green leaf to him without fruit is but so much deceit. Profession without grace is the funeral pageantry of a dead soul. Religion without holiness is the light which comes from rotten wood-the phosphorescence of decay: I speak dread words, but how can I speak less dreadfully than I do? If you and I have but a name to live, and are dead, what a state we are in! Ours is something worse than corruption: it is the corruption of corruption. To profess religion and live in sin, is to sprinkle rose-water upon a dunghill, and leave it a dunghill still. To give a spirit an angel’s name when it bears the devil’s character, is almost to sin against the Holy Ghost. If we remain unconverted, of what use can it be to have our name written among the godly? An empty profession is a practical curse; and should it not receive the censure of the Lord of truth? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

Jesus Hungers for Our Fruit

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

Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. – Mark 11:12

The Saviour, when He came unto the fig tree, did not desire leaves; for we read that He hungered…He desired to eat a fig or two; and He longs to have fruit from us also. He hungers for our holiness: He longs that His joy may be in us, that our joy may be full…He would see in us love to Himself, love to our fellow-men, strong faith in revelation, earnest contention for the once delivered faith, importunate pleading in prayer, and careful living in every part of our course. He expects from us actions such as are according to the law of God and the mind of the Spirit of God; and if He does not see these, He does not receive His due. What did He die for but to make His people holy? What did He give Himself for but that He might sanctify unto Himself a people zealous of good works? What is the reward of the bloody sweat and the five wounds and the death agony, but that by all these we should be bought with a price? We rob Him of His reward if we do not glorify Him, and therefore the Spirit of God is grieved at our conduct if we do not show forth His praises by our godly and zealous lives.

Oh, that our prayer might rise to heaven: “Jesus, Master, come and cast Thy searching eyes upon me, and judge whether I am living unto Thee or not! Give me to see myself as Thou seest me, that I may have my errors corrected, and my graces nourished. Lord, make me to be indeed what I profess to be; and if I am not so already, convince me of my false state, and begin a true work in my soul. If I am Thine, and am right in Thy sight, grant me a kind, assuring word to sink my fears again, and I will gladly rejoice in Thee as the God of my salvation.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

God’s Great Grace

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

And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. – Mark 11:13

Whenever we see any standing out prominently, and making a bold profession, what should be our thoughts about them? I answer, do not judge them; do not fall into habitual mistrust. Your Lord did not stand at a distance and say, “That tree is worthless.” No, He went up to it, with His disciples, and carefully inspected it. These prominent persons may be wonders of divine grace: let us hope and pray that they may be. Let the Lord and His love be magnified in them! God has His fig trees that bear figs in winter; God has His saints who are filled with good works when the love of others has waxed cold. The Lord raises some up to be as standards for the truth, rallying points in the battle. The Lord can make young men mature, and new converts useful. It has been said, by way of proverbial expression, that “some men are born with beards.” The Lord can give great grace, so as to make spiritual growth rapid and yet solid. He does this so often that we have no right to doubt but what the prominent brother before us is one of these growths of grace. Unless we are forced to see with bitter regret that there are no marks of grace, no evidences of faith, let us hope for the best, and be glad at the sight of God’s grace.

When the Lord makes the first in position to be first in holiness, it is a blessing to the church, to the family, and to the neighborhood; indeed, it may prove to be a blessing to the whole world. We ought, therefore, to pray the Lord to water with His own hand those trees which He has planted; or, in other words, to uphold by His grace those men of His right hand whom He has made strong for Himself. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

Showing the Processes of Grace

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

And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” – -Matthew 21:19

Do you not know persons who are in appearance everything and in reality, nothing? O dark thought! may we not ourselves be such persons? See the man, he is strong in faith, even to presumption; he is joyous in hope, even to levity; he is loving in spirit, even to utter indifference about truth! How very glib he is in talk! How deep he is in theological speculation! Yet he has never entered the kingdom by the new birth. He has never been taught of God. The gospel has come to him in word only. He is a stranger to the work of the Holy Ghost. Are there not such persons? Are there not persons who are defenders of orthodoxy and yet are heterodox in their own conduct? Do we not know men and women whose lives deny what their lips profess?

I like to see our young friends, when they believe in Christ, proving their faith by holiness at home, by godliness abroad, and then coming forward and confessing their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That looks to be the sober and normal way of proceeding, for a man first to be, and then to profess to be; first to be lighted, and then to shine; first to repent and believe, and then to confess his repentance and his faith…Will it not be ruinous if conviction of sin is slighted, repentance slurred, faith imitated, the new birth counterfeited, and godliness feigned? Beloved, this will never do. We must have figs before leaves, acts before declarations, faith before baptism, union to Christ before union with the church. You cannot leap over the processes of nature, neither may you omit the processes of grace, lest haply your foliage without fruit become a curse without cure. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

What is Our True Profession?

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

And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fig tree withered away. – Matthew 21:19

There have been churches which have stood prominent in numbers and in influence; but faith, and love, and holiness have not been maintained, and the Holy Ghost has left them to the vain show of a fruitless profession; and there stand those churches, with the trunk of organization, and widely extended branches, but they are dead, and every year they become more and more decayed. We may have numbers of people coming to hear the Word, and a considerable body of men and women professing to be converted; but unless vital godliness is in their midst, what are congregations and churches? We might have a valued ministry, but what would this be without the Spirit of God? We might have many outward efforts; but what of these without the spirit of prayer, the spirit of faith, the spirit of grace and consecration? I dread lest we should ever come to be like a tree, precocious with a superlative profession, but yet worthless in the sight of the Lord, because the secret life of piety, and vital union to Christ, are gone. Better that the axe clears away every vestige of the tree than that it stands out against the sky an open lie, a mockery, a delusion.

My heart’s desire is that we may learn the lesson in detail and take it home each one to his own heart. May the Lord Himself speak to each one of us personally! May we tremble, lest, having a profession of godliness, we should wear it conspicuously, and yet should lack the fruitbearing which alone can warrant such a profession. The name of saintship, if it be not justified by sanctity, is an offence to honest men, and much more to a holy God. A pronounced and forward avowal of Christianity without a Christian life at the back of it is a lie, abhorrent to God and man, an offence against truth, a dishonour to religion, and the forerunner of a withering curse. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

A Lesson for the Nations

Sherry Character of Jesus, promises, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

And when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!”- Matthew 21:19

The blighted fig tree was a singularly apt simile of the Jewish state. The nation had promised great things to God. When all the other nations were like trees without leaves, making no profession of allegiance to the true God, the Jewish nation was covered with the leafage of abundant religious profession. Scribes, pharisees, priests and elders of the people were all sticklers for the letter of the law, and boaster of being worshippers of the one God, and strict observers of all His laws. Their constant cry was, “The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these.” “We have Abraham as our father” was frequently on their lips. They were a fig tree in full leaf. But there was no fruit upon them; for the people were neither holy, nor just, nor true, nor faithful towards God, nor loving to their neighbor. The Jewish church was a mass of glittering profession, unsupported by spiritual life. Our Lord had looked into the temple and had found the house of prayer to be a den of thieves. He condemned the Jewish church to remain a lifeless, fruitless thing; and it was so. The synagogue remained open; but its teaching became a dead form. Israel had no influence upon the age.

What a lesson is this to nations! Nations may make a profession, a loud profession, of religion, and yet may fail to exhibit that righteousness which exalteth a nation. Nations may be adorned with all the leafage of civilization, and art, and progress, and religion; but if there be no inner life of godliness, and no fruit unto righteousness, they will stand for a while, and then wither away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

Once a Curse but Now a Blessing

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

“And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel, so will I save you and ye shall be a blessing…Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord.”—Zechariah 8:13, 22

The day is coming, yea it dawns already, when the whole world shall discern the true dignity of the chosen seed, and shall seek their company, because the Lord hath blessed them. In that day when Israel shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for their sins, the Jew shall take his true rank among the nations as an elder brother and a prince. The covenant made with Abraham, to bless all nations by his seed, is not revoked; heaven and earth shall pass away, but the chosen nation shall not be blotted out from the book of remembrance. The Lord hath not cast away His people; He has never given their mother a bill of divorcement; He has never put them away; in a little wrath He hath hidden His face from them, but with great mercies will He gather them. The natural branches shall again be engrafted into the olive together with the wild olive graftings from among the Gentiles. In the Jew, first and chiefly, shall grace triumph through the King of the Jews. O time, fly thou with rapid wing, and bring the auspicious day!..I think we do not attach sufficient importance to the restoration of the Jews. We do not think enough about 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 . . . For when the Jews are restored, the fullness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in; and as soon as they return, then Jesus will come upon Mount Zion 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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://thejerusalemconnection.us/blog/2011/08/01/charles-h-spurgeon-and-the-restoration-of-israel/