The Holy Spirit

Be Very Watchful

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

Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. – 1 Peter 1:16

Let us be very watchful against all impurity. Anything like uncleanness in a Christian will soon send the Master away from the church. You know what it was that brought the evil upon the house of Eli. It was because his sons made themselves vile even at the tabernacle door. The young people in that case were the immediate cause of the mischief, but it was the fault of the elder ones that they restrained them not. Watch against all evil passions and corrupt desires. Be ye holy even as your Father which is in heaven is holy.

And then, again, a want of prayer will send Him away. There are members of some churches who never come to the prayer-meetings, and I should be afraid that their private prayers cannot be any too earnest. Of course we speak not of those who have good excuse; but there are some who habitually and wilfully neglect the assembling of themselves together; these are worthy of condemnation. Oh, let us continue a prayerful church as we have hitherto been, otherwise the Master may say, “They do not value the blessing, for they will not even ask for it; they evidently do not care about My Spirit, for they will not meet together and cry for Him.” Do not grieve Him by any such negligence of prayer.

So, too, we may grieve the Spirit by worldliness. If any of you who are rich get to imitate the fashions of the world and act as worldlings do, you cannot expect the Lord to bless us. You are Achans in the camp, if such is the case. And if you who are poor get to be envious of others and speak harshly of others to whom God has given more substance than to you, that again will grieve the Lord…Let me ask you to be more in prayer; let me pray you to live nearer to Him; let me entreat you for the church’s sake, and for the world’s sake, to be more thoroughly Christ’s than you ever have been and may the power of the Holy Spirit enable you in this. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

Lovingly Remember the Church of God

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

I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house… – Song of Songs 3:4

“I brought Him to my mother’s house.” We ought lovingly to remember the Church of God. By the Holy Spirit we were begotten unto newness of life, but it was in the church, and through the preaching of the word there that we were brought into the light of life. We owe our conversion, the most of us, to some earnest teacher of the truth in the Church of God, or to some of those godly works which were written by Christian men. Through the Church’s instrumentality the Bible itself has been preserved to us, and by her the gospel has been preached to every age. She is our mother and we love her. I know that many of you, dear friends, the members of this church, love the church, and you can say, “If I forget thee, let my right hand forget her cunning.” When you are away from this place, and cannot mix in our solemn assemblies, your heart mourns like one in banishment. Have not I heard you cry, “Ziona, Ziona, our holy and beautiful house, wherein we have worshipped our God, the house which is built of living stones, among whom Christ Himself is the corner-stone, even Thy church, O Jesus: would God I were in her midst again, and could once more unite my praises with those that dwell within her.” Yes, and because we love our mother’s house and the chamber of her that conceived us, we desire to bring Christ into the church more and more…The saints can bring Him in by their testimony. I hope that often Christ is here when I have borne testimony to you of His power to save, of His atoning blood, of His exaltation in heaven, of the perfection of His character, and of His willingness to save. Is there any subject that so delights you as that which touches upon Christ? Is not that the rarest string in all the harp of scriptural truth? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

Endow us, O God, with the Holy Ghost

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

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. – John 14:26

Let the Spirit of God be in the church, then there is power given to all her ministries; whether they be ministries of public testimony in the preaching of the word, or ministries of holy love amongst the brethren, or ministries of individual earnestness to the outside world, they will all be clothed with energy, in the fullness of the power of the Lord Jesus. Then her ordinances become truly profitable, then baptism is burial with the Lord, and the sacred supper is a feast of love; then the communion of the brethren in their solemn prayer and praise becomes deep and joyful, and their whole life and walk are bright with the glow of heaven. In the presence of the Lord the graces of the saints are developed; the church grows rich in all spiritual gifts; her warfare becomes victorious, and her continual worship sweet as the incense of the golden censor. What the moon is to the night, or the sun to the day, or the Nile to Egypt, or the dew to the tender herb, or the soul to the human frame, that is the presence of Jesus to His church. Give us the Spirit of God and we will ask no endowments from the State, nor sigh for the prestige of princely patronage. Endow us, O God, with the Holy Ghost, and we have all we need. The poverty of the members, their want of learning, their want of rank, all these shall be as nothing. The Holy Ghost can make amends for all deficiencies and clothe His poor and obscure people with an energy at which the world shall tremble. This made the apostolic church mighty; she had the Holy Ghost outpoured upon her.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

The Representative of Christ

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

And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever. – John 14:16

Christ Jesus, the Lord, is present in His Church by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is this day the representative of Christ in the midst of the Church, and it is in the power and the energy of the Holy Ghost that Christ is with us always and will be even to the end of the world. As God, Jesus is everywhere; as Man, He is only in heaven; as God and Man in one person, Mediator and Head of the Church, He is present with us by the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, whom the Father has sent in His name. It is by the working of the Spirit of God that Christ’s presence in the Church is manifested; and we are to expect no other presence than that: we have the spiritual divine presence of the second person of the blessed Trinity, and the presence of Christ Jesus also in the power of His representative on earth, the Holy Ghost. This presence, not a bodily but a spiritual presence, is the glory of the Church of God. When she is without Him, she is shorn of her strength; when she possesses Him all good things ensue. Brethren, if a church be without the Spirit of God in it, it may have a name to live, but it is dead, and, you know, that after death there follows corruption, corruption which breeds foulness and disease. Hence, those churches which have turned aside unto error, have not only lost all power to do good, but they have become obnoxious and the causes of great evil in the midst of the world. If any professing church abides not in Christ, it is cast forth as a branch and is withered; and while it is decaying, it is injurious, and there is need for the world’s welfare that it be utterly destroyed. We must have Christ in the church, or the body which was meant to be the medium of the greatest good becomes the source of the grossest evil. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

God Never Spoils His Children

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

And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them… – Exodus 14:19

So the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground…And it came to pass, in the morning watch, the LORD looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and He troubled the army of the Egyptians. – Exodus 14:22,24

Faith performs her greatest feats in the darkest places. These Israelites were to do what after all was a grandly glorious thing for them to do, -to march right down into the heart of the sea. What people ever did this before? Modern haters of miracles may say that they passed over the sands at an unusual tide, and that an extraordinarily strong wind drove back the water and left a passage, but that is not the notion of the Holy Spirit. He says by His servant Moses, “The floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.” It is also written, “But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.” The tribes went down into the dread valley which remained when the waters dried up, and they crossed over between two frowning walls of water. You and I would have needed great faith to have gone down into such an abyss as that, but they descended without fear. Moses lifting up his rod and the waters rolling apart to make them a passageway, with no fiery cloudy pillar in front of them, they calmly marched into the heart of the sea. That was a grand act of faith. This would not have been so clearly of faith had the way been made easier by miracle and token. I know some of you who are Christian people want to be always coddled and cuddled, like weakly babies…and be wheeled in a spiritual perambulator all the way to heaven, but your heavenly Father is not going to do anything of the sort. He will be with you, but He will try your manhood and so develop it. God never spoils His children… Beloved, you and I lose the enjoyments of religion and the comforts of hope in order that we may walk by faith and not by sight and may the more greatly glorify God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1793.cfm

God, a Failure? It Can Never Be

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And Benaiah came to the tabernacle of the LORD, and said unto him, Thus saith the king, Come forth. And he said, Nay; but I will die here. – 1 Kings 2:30

Listen to me, soul, whoever thou mayest be out of the crowd, man or women, whatever thy life may have been, even though it may have been that of a harlot or a thief, a drunkard or a profligate, if thou wilt now believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved; for, if not, then God Himself will have missed His greatest design. What did He give Jesus for but to save sinners? What did He lay sin upon Jesus for, but that He might take it off the sinner, and let him go free, and be pardoned? If, then, Christ fails, God’s grandest expedient has broken down. That method by which the Lord resolved to show what His almighty grace can do has proved to be a failure if a believing sinner is not saved. Dost thou think that such a thing can ever be? It is blasphemy to think that Jehovah can be defeated. He that believes in Christ shall be saved; nay, he is saved.

If thou art not saved believing in Christ, then Christ Himself is dishonoured. Oh, let them once know, down in the dark abode of fallen spirits, that a man has trusted in Christ and yet has not been saved, I tell you that they will make such exultation over Christ as Philistia made over Samson when his eyes were put out. They would feel that they had defeated the Prince of Glory. They would trample on His blood and ridicule His claim to be the Savour of men. If any soul can truly say hereafter, “I went to Christ, and He refused me,” then Christ does not speak the truth when He says, “Him that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast out.” Then He has changed His nature, foregone His word, and foresworn Himself. But that also can never be. Wherefore, dear heart, cling to Jesus, and say still, “If I die, I will die here.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1826.cfm

Faith, Experience, and Communion Sees It

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

…and we beheld His glory… – John 1:14

“How can we behold His glory?” Why, faith sees it. Faith is sometimes assisted by Experience; and Experience sees His glory: it sees the glory of His grace in rolling away all our sins; the preciousness of His blood in giving us reconciliation with the Father; the power of the Spirit in subduing the will; the love of His heart in constantly remembering us upon the throne; and the power of His plea in its perpetual prevalence with God. Experience shows us the glory of Christ in the deep waters, while He puts His arm beneath us and says, “Fear not, thou shalt not be drowned.” It shows us the glory in the blazing furnace while the Son of Man treads the glowing coals with His afflicted Israel. Experience shows us the glory of Christ in all the attacks of Satan. While He is our shield, He wards off every poisoned arrow; experience shows us the glory of Christ in helping us to live and enabling us to die; and by-and-bye it shall show us the glory of Christ in enabling us to rise and take possession of the crown which He hath purchased for His children.

And with Experience there is another that helps us to behold the glory of Christ, namely, Communion. Beloved, I hope you know what that means-when in the chamber shut in with God, and the world shut out, our eyes behold Him and not another; when we can kneel down in the very posture of the poor agonizing victim of Gethsemane, and see by fellowship the sweat of blood as it streams from the pores of His frame: when we can mark Him hounded, hissed, scouted through all the streets of His own city, and taken to Calvary to die. Communion knows something of the bitterness of the cup which He then drank, somewhat of the sharpness of the nails that pierced His hands, and somewhat of the death which was endured when at last He said, “It is finished!” and gave up the ghost. Yes, Communion can show us the glory of Christ even in His shame. And then it can take to its wings and show us His glory beyond the skies. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0414.cfm