The Holy Spirit

He Perfects Us in Holiness

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

To the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. -1 Thessalonians 3:13

There are two kinds of perfection which a Christian needs: one is the perfection of justification in the person of Jesus; and the other is, the perfection of sanctification worked in him by the Holy Spirit. At present corruption still rests even in the breasts of the regenerate. At present the heart is partially impure. At present there are still lusts and evil imaginations. But, oh! My soul rejoices to know that the day is coming when God shall finish the work which He has begun; and He shall present my soul, not only perfect in Christ, but perfect in the Spirit, without spot or blemish, or any such thing. And is it true that this poor depraved heart is to become as holy as that of God? And is it true that this poor spirit, which often cries, “O, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this sin and death!” shall get rid of sin and death? I shall have no evil things to vex my ears, and no unholy thoughts to disturb my peace. Oh, happy hour! May it be hastened! Just before I die sanctification will be finished; but not till that moment shall I ever claim perfection in myself. But at that moment when I depart, my spirit shall have its last baptism in the Holy Spirit’s fire. It shall be put in the crucible for its last trying in the furnace; and then, free from all dross, and fine, like a wedge of pure gold, it shall be presented at the feet of God without the least degree of dross or mixture. O glorious hour! O blessed moment! Methinks I long to die if there were no heaven, if I might but have that last purification come up from Jordan’s stream most white from the washing. Oh! To be washed white, clean, pure, perfect! Not an angel more pure than I shall be- yea, not God Himself more holy! And I shall be able to say, in a double sense, “Great God, through Jesus’ blood, I am clean, through the Spirit’s work, I am clean too!” Must you not extol the power of the Holy Ghost in thus making us fit to stand before our Father in heaven? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0030.cfm

Power Over the Imagination

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

…and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ -2 Corinthians 10:5

The will is somewhat worse than the heart to bend, but there is one thing that excels the will in its naughtiness, and that is the imagination. I hope that my will is managed by Divine Grace. But I am afraid my imagination is not at times. Those who have a fair share of imagination know what a difficult thing it is to control. You cannot restrain it. It will break the reins. You will never be able to manage it. The imagination will sometimes fly up to God with such a power that eagles’ wings cannot match it. It sometimes has such might that it can almost see the King in His beauty, and the land which is very far off. With regard to myself, my imagination will sometimes take me over the gates of iron, across the infinite unknown, to the very gates of pearl, and discover the blessed glorified. But, if it is potent one way, it is another: for my imagination has taken me down to the vilest kennels and sewers of earth. It has given me thoughts so dreadful, that, while I could not avoid them, yet I was thoroughly horrified at them. These thoughts will come; and when I feel in the holiest frame, the most devoted to God, and the most earnest in prayer, it often happens that that is the very time when the plague breaks out the worst.

But I rejoice and think of one thing, that I can cry out when this imagination comes upon me. I know it is said in the Book of Leviticus, when an act of evil was committed, if the maiden cried out against it, then her life was to be spared. So it is with the Christian. If he cries out, there is hope. Can you chain your imagination? No; but the power of the Holy Ghost can. Ah, He shall do it! And He does do it at last, He does it even on earth.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0030.cfm

The Spirit Makes a Man Willing

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

Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power… -Psalm 110:3

“My lord Will-be-will,” as Bunyan calls him in his “Holy War,” is a fellow who will not easily be bent. The will, especially in some men, is a very stubborn thing; and in all men, if the will is once stirred up to opposition, there is nothing can be done with them. Free-will somebody believes in. Free-will many dream of. Free-will! Wherever is that to be found? Once there was Free-will in Paradise, and a terrible mess Free-will made there; for it spoiled all Paradise and turned Adam out of the garden. Free-will was once in heaven; but it turned the glorious archangel out, and a third part of the stars of heaven fell into the abyss. I want nothing to do with Free-will, but I will try to see whether I have got a Free-will within. And I find I have. Very free will to evil but very poor will to that which is good. Free-will enough when I sin, but when I would do good, evil is present with me, and how to do that which I would I find not. Yet some boast of Free-will. I wonder whether those who believe in it have any more power over persons’ wills than I have? I know I have not any. I find the old proverb very true, “One man can bring a horse to the water but a hundred cannot make him drink.” I find that I can bring you all to the water, and a great many more than can get into this chapel; but I cannot make you drink; and I don’t think a hundred ministers could make you drink. I have read old Rowland Hill, and Whitefield, and several others, to see what they did; but I cannot discover a plan of turning your will. I cannot coax you, and you will not yield by any manner of means. I do not think any man has power over his fellow-creature’s will, but the Spirit of God has. “I will make them willing in the day of My power.” He maketh the unwilling sinner so willing that he is impetuous after the gospel; he who was obstinate now hurries to the cross. He who laughed at Jesus now hangs on His mercy; and he who would not believe is now made by the Holy Spirit to do it, not only willingly, but eagerly; he is happy, is glad to do it, rejoices in the sound of Jesus’ name, and delights to run in the way of God’s commandments. The Holy Spirit has power over the will.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0030.cfm

The Spirit’s Power Over a Man’s Hard Heart

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, salvation, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.- Zechariah 4:6

(M)en’s hearts are very hard to affect. If you want to get at them for any worldly object, you can do it. A cheating world can win man’s heart; a little gold can win man’s heart; a trump of fame and a little clamor of applause can win man’s heart. But there is not a minister breathing that can win man’s heart himself. He can win his ears and make them listen; he can win his eyes, and fix those eyes upon him; he can win the attention, but the heart is very slippery. Yes! The heart is a fish that troubles all gospel fishermen to hold. You may sometimes pull it almost all out of the water; but, slimy as an eel, it slippeth between your fingers, and you have not captured it after all. Many a man has fancied that he has caught the heart, but has been disappointed. It would take a strong hunter to overtake the hart on the mountains. It is too fleet for human foot to approach. The Spirit alone has power over man’s heart. Do you ever try your power on a heart? If any man thinks that a minister can convert the soul, I wish he would try. Let him go and be a Sabbath School teacher. He shall take his class, he shall have the best books that can be obtained, he shall have the best rules, he shall draw his lines of circumvallation about his spiritual Sebastopol, he shall take the best boy in his class, and if he is not tired in a week I shall be very much mistaken. Let him spend four or five Sabbaths in trying; but he will say, “the young fellow is incorrigible.”  He will soon find “it is not by might nor power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.” He can give a sense of blood-bought pardon that shall dissolve a heart of stone. He can

“Speak with that voice which wakes the dead
And bids the sinner rise;
And makes the guilty conscience dread
The death that never dies.”

He can make Sinai’s thunders audible; yea, and He can make the sweet whisperings of Calvary enter into the soul. He has power over the heart of man. And here is a glorious proof of the omnipotence of the Spirit that He has rule over the heart.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0030.cfm

The Power to Save the Unsaved

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

But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: -2 Thessalonians 2:13

Behold a city where a soothsayer hath the power, who has given out himself to be some great one, a Philip enters it and preaches the Word of God; straightway a Simon Magus loses his power and himself seeks for the power of the Spirit to be given to him, fancying it might be purchased with money. See, in modern times, a country where the inhabitants live in miserable wigwams, feeding on reptiles and the meanest creatures; observe them bowing down before their idols and worshiping their false gods, and so plunged in superstition, so degraded and debased, that it became a question whether they had souls or not; behold a Moffat go with the Word of God in his hand, hear him preach as the Spirit gives him utterance, and accompanies that Word with power. They cast aside their idols; they hate and abhor their former lusts; they build houses, wherein they dwell; they become clothed, and in their right mind. They break the bow, and cut the spear in sunder; the uncivilized become civilized; the savage becomes polite; he who knew nothing begins to read the Scriptures: thus out of the mouths of Hottentots, God attests the power of His mighty Spirit.

I knew a village, once perhaps the most profane in England, a village inundated by drunkenness and debauchery of the worst kind, where it was impossible almost for an honest traveler to stop in the public house without being annoyed by blasphemy; a place noted for incendiaries and robbers. One man, the ringleader of all, listened to the voice of God. That man’s heart was broken. The whole gang came to hear the gospel preached, and they sat and seemed to reverence the preacher as if he were God, and not a man. These men became changed and reformed; and every one who knows the place affirms that such a change had never been wrought but by the power of the Holy Ghost. Let the gospel be preached and the Spirit poured out, and you will see that it has such power to change the conscience, to ameliorate the conduct, to raise the debased, to chastise and to curb the wickedness of the race, that you must glory in it. I say, there is naught like the power of the Spirit. Only let that come, and, indeed, everything can be accomplished.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0030.cfm

Attestation Power

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

And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased. -Luke 3:22

When Jesus Christ went into the stream of baptism in the river Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove, and proclaimed Him God’s beloved Son. That is what I style an attestation work. And when afterwards Jesus Christ raised the dead, when He healed the leper, when He spoke to diseases and they fled apace, when demons rushed in thousands from those who were possessed of them, it was done by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit dwelt in Jesus without measure, and by that power all those miracles were worked. These were attestation works. And when Jesus Christ was gone, you will remember that master attestation of the Spirit, when He came like a rushing mighty wind upon the assembled apostles, and cloven tongues sat upon them; and you will remember how He attested their ministry, by giving them to speak with tongues as He gave them utterance; and how, also, miraculous deeds were wrought by them, how they taught, how Peter raised Dorcas, how He breathed life into Enticus, how great deeds were wrought by the apostles as well as their Master so that “mighty signs and wonders were done by the Holy Ghost, and many believed thereby.” Who will doubt the power of the Holy Spirit after that? Ah! Those Socinians who deny the existence of the Holy Ghost and His absolute personality, what will they do when we get them on creation, resurrection, and attestation? They must rush in the very teeth of Scripture. But mark! It is a stone upon which if any man fall he shall be bruised; but if it fall upon him, as it will do if he resists it, it shall grind him to powder. The Holy Spirit has power omnipotent, even the power of God.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0030.cfm

The Power of the Resurrection of Christ

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

He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that His soul was not left in hell, neither His flesh did see corruption. -Acts 2:31

If ye have ever studied this subject ye have perhaps been rather perplexed to find that sometimes the resurrection of Christ is ascribed to Himself. By His own power and godhead He could not be held by the bond of death, but as He willingly gave up His life He had power to take it up again. In another portion of Scripture, you find it ascribed to God the Father: “He raised Him up from the dead:” “Him hath God the Father exalted.” And many other passages of similar import. But, again, it is said in Scripture that Jesus Christ was raised by the Holy Spirit. Now, all these things were true. He was raised by the Father because the Father said, “Loose the prisoner and let Him go. Justice is satisfied. My law requires no more satisfaction-vengeance has had its due, let Him go.” Here He gave an official message which delivered Jesus from the grave. He was raised by His own majesty and power, because He had a right to come out; and He felt He had, and therefore “burst the bonds of death: He could be no longer holden of them.” But He was raised by the Spirit as to that energy which His mortal frame received, by the which it rose again from the grave after having lain there for three days and nights. If you want proofs of this you must open your Bibles again, 1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit.” And a further proof you may find in Romans 8:11 “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0030.cfm