Consecrated to the Lord

Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God… – 2 Corinthians 1:21

We are consecrated to the Lord, for the oil poured upon the priest was the oil of consecration. From that time forward he was a dedicated man; he could not serve anyone but God; he, above all the rest of the congregation, was the man of God for ever as long as ever he lived. So beloved, we have been consecrated: the Spirit of God has sanctified us and set us apart unto the Lord, as it is written, “Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price.” Our Lord said in His matchless prayer, “they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” “Sanctify them,” said He, “by Thy truth, Thy word is truth.” Yes, blessed be God, we are consecrated men and women: we belong to the Lord, and are vessels for the Master’s use, hallowed from all other uses to be the Lord’s. “For I will be to them a God, they shall be to me a people.” Does not this make you glad? Are you really set apart to be the Lord’s own sons and daughters, and hallowed to be used by Him in His service both here and hereafter, and do you not rejoice? O my soul, dost thou not feel the trickling of the consecrating oil adown thy brow even now, and does it not make thy face to shine and make thy heart happy, because thou art now the Lord’s?

…And it is this anointing which teaches us and makes us fit for the service to which the Master has called us. Oh, does the Holy Spirit then lead us into all truth, and give us knowledge, and shall we not rejoice? Ignorance means sorrow, but the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ means joy. O brethren, will ye not bless God to-day for what the Spirit of God has taught you? If you do not, what must you be made of? for He has taught you such wonderful lessons so full of joy. Even if He has never taught you more than this, that whereas you were once blind now you see, He has taught you enough to make your heart rejoice as long as you live. Is He not the oil of gladness? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

To Be Perfectly Glad

Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. – Psalm 45:7

“Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness.” The perfect righteousness of Christ has brought to Him this gladness, because perfect holiness there must be before there can be perfect happiness. Sin is the enemy of joy. Let the sinner say what he likes, sin can no more dwell with real joy than the lion will lie down with the lamb. To be perfectly glad you must be perfectly cleansed from sin, for until you are so cleansed you cannot possess the oil of gladness to the measure that Christ possessed it. As the believer is delivered from the power of sin he is brought into a condition in which the joy of the Lord can more and more abide in him. Now, every way Jesus loved righteousness intensely and hated wickedness intensely. He died that He might establish righteousness and that He might destroy wickedness from off the face of the earth; therefore, it is that He has greater gladness, because He had greater holiness. Moreover, you know that in any holy enterprise if the business succeeds the joy of the worker is proportionate to the trial it has cost him. In the great battle of righteousness our Lord has led the van, in the great fight against wickedness our Savior has borne the brunt of the battle, therefore, because He to the death loved righteousness and to the agony and bloody sweat strove against sin, the accomplished conquest brings Him the greatest joy. He has done the most for the good cause, and therefore He is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.

To the unrighteous the oil of gladness cannot come, but to the righteous there ariseth light even in darkness. “There is no peace saith my God, unto the wicked.” Therefore, is the Spirit of the Lord God upon Him that He may give the oil of joy to His own chosen, and make them righteous, even as He is righteous, glad as He is glad. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

Entering Into the Joy of Our Lord

…enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. – Matthew 25:21

My brethren, the joy of our Lord Jesus Christ now that He knows His beloved are securely His, and no longer the slaves of sin and heirs of wrath, is too great to be measured. He has redeemed unto Himself a people in whom His soul delights. For them the price is fully paid, for them the penalty has been completely endured, for them all chains are broken, and for them the prison house is razed to its foundation: for them hath He bruised the serpent’s head, for them hath He by death destroyed death, and led captive him that had the power of death, even the devil.

He now continues to receive into His joy the multitudes whom the Spirit brings to Him, for whom of old He shed His precious blood. You cannot conceive the gladness of Christ. If you have ever brought one soul to Christ you have had a drop of it, but His gladness lies not only in receiving them, but in actually being the author of salvation to every one of them. The Savior looks upon the redeemed with an unspeakable delight, thinks of what they used to be, thinks of what they would have been but for His interposition, thinks of what they now are, think of what He means to make them in that great day when they shall rise from the dead; and as His heart is full of love to them He joys in their joy, and exults in their exultation. Their heavens swell their Mediator’s heaven, and their myriad embodiments of bliss, each one reflects His own felicity, and so (speaking after the manner of men) increases it, for He lives ten thousand lives by living in them, and joys unnumbered joys in their joys. I speak with humblest fear lest in any word I should speak amiss, for He is God as well as man, but this is certain, that there is a joy of our Lord into which He will give His faithful ones to enter, a joy which He has won by passing through the shame and grief by which He has redeemed mankind. The oil of gladness is abundantly poured on that head which once was crowned with thorns. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

The Spirit’s Peculiar Office

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me; because the LORD hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound… – Isaiah 61:1

“And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; And shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears: But with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.” (Isaiah 11:2-4) The Holy Spirit also had a peculiar interest in Jesus’ resurrection, for He was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.” He was “put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit.” That same Spirit wrought even more fully when the Lord ascended up on high, and led captivity captive; then, succeeding His ascension, the gifts of the cloven tongues of fire and the rushing mighty wind were witnessed by His disciples, for the Spirit of God was given abundantly to the Church in connection with the ascension of the Redeemer. Oh, how sweetly doth the Spirit co-operate with Christ at this very day, for it is He that takes of the things of Christ and reveals them unto us. He is the abiding witness in the Church to the truth of the gospel, and the worker of all our gifts and graces. Jesus gives repentance, but the Spirit works it; faith fixes upon Christ, but the Spirit of God first creates faith and opens the eye which looks to Jesus. The whole of this dispensation through it is the peculiar office of the Spirit of God to be revealing Christ to His people, and Christ in His people, and Christ in the midst of an ungodly and gainsaying generation, for a testimony against them. Blessed be the name of the Holy Spirit, that He is the divine anointing, and so proves His hearty assent to the great plan of redemption. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

The Holy Ghost’s Anointing

“Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.”-Psalm 45:7

We know that the anointing received by our Lord Jesus Christ was the resting of the Spirit of God upon Him without measure. We are not left to any guesswork about this, for in Isaiah 61 we are told, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me.” Our Lord appropriated these very words to Himself when He went into the synagogue at Nazareth and opened the book at the place wherein these words are written, and said, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” The Apostle Peter also, in Acts 10:38, speaks of “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power”: so that we know both on Old and New Testament authority that the anointing which rested upon the Lord Jesus Christ was the unction of the Holy Ghost. Therefore, by the “oil of gladness” which we have before us in the text is intended the Holy Spirit Himself, or one of the gracious results of His sacred presence. The divine Spirit has many attributes, and His benign influences operate in divers ways, bestowing upon us benefits of various kinds, too numerous for us to attempt to catalogue them. Amongst these is His comforting and cheering influence. “The fruit of the Spirit is joy.” In Acts 13:52 we read, “The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost.” Wherever He comes as an anointing, whether upon the Lord or upon His people, upon the Christ or the Christians, upon the Anointed or upon those whom He anoints, in every case the ultimate result is joy and peace. On the head of our great High Priest He is joy, and this oil of gladness flows down to the skirts of His garments. To the Comforter, therefore, we ascribe “the oil of gladness.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

Our Best Comfort

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

There is no comfort in the world like a sight of Christ. Oh, brethren, if you are poor, and if the Holy Ghost shows you that Christ had not where to lay His head, what a sight for you! And if you are sick, and if the Holy Ghost shows you what sufferings Christ endured, what comfort comes to you! If you are made to see the things of Christ, each thing according to the condition which you are in, how speedily you are delivered out of your sorrow!

And then, if the Holy Ghost glorifies Christ, that is the cure for every kind of sorrow. He is the Comforter. Many years ago, after the terrible accident in the Surrey Gardens, I had to go away into the country and keep quite still. The very sight of the Bible made me cry. I could only keep alone in the garden; and I was heavy and sad, for people had been killed in the accident; and there I was, half dead myself; and I remember how I got back my comfort, and I preached on the Sabbath after I recovered. I had been walking round the garden, and I was standing under a tree. If it is there now, I should know it; and I remember these words: “Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior.” “Oh”, I thought to myself, “I am only a common soldier. If I die in a ditch, I do not care. The King is honored. He wins the victory;” and I was like those French soldiers in the old times, who loved the emperor; and you know how, when they were dying, if he rode by, the wounded man would raise himself up on his elbow, and cry once more, “Vive l’Empereur!” for the emperor was graven on his heart. And so, I am sure, it is with every one of you, my comrades, in this holy war. If our Lord and King is exalted, then let other things go which way they like: if He is exalted, never mind what becomes of us. God’s truth is safe, we are perfectly willing to be forgotten, derided, slandered, or anything else that men please. The cause is safe, and the King is on the throne. Hallelujah! Blessed be His name! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm

For the Honor of Christ

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. “He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. – John 16:13,14

How often I have wished that men of great minds might be converted! I have wished that we could have a few Miltons, and such like men, to sing of the love of Christ; a few mighty men, who teach politics, and the like, to consecrate their talents to the preaching of the gospel. Why is it not so? Well, because the Holy Ghost does not seem to think that that would be the way to glorify Christ supremely; and He prefers, as a better way, to take us common-place sort of persons, and to take the things of Christ, and to show them to us. He does glorify Christ; and blessed be His name that ever my blear eyes should look upon His infinite loveliness; that ever such a wretch as I, who can understand everything but what I ought to understand, should be made to comprehend the heights and depths, and to know, with all saints, the love of Christ, that passeth knowledge. You see, in a school, that clever boy. Well, it is not much for the master to have made a scholar of him. But here is one who shines as a scholar, and his mother says that he was the greatest dolt in the family. All his schoolfellows say, “Why, he was our butt! He seemed to have no brains; but our master, somehow, got some brain into him, and made him know something which he appeared, at one time, incapable of knowing.” Somehow, it does seem to be as if our very folly, and impotence, and spiritual death-if the Holy Ghost shows to us the things of Christ-will go towards the increase of that great glorifying of Christ at which the Holy Spirit aims. Then, beloved brethren, since it is for the honor of Christ for His things to be shown to men, He will show them to us, that we may go and show them to other people. This we cannot do, except as He is with us to make the others to see; but He will be with us while we tell forth what He has taught us; and so, the Holy Ghost will really be showing to others while He is showing to us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm