The Holy Spirit

My Goel, My Kinsman Lives

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

For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth… – Job 19:25

“I know,” said he, “that my Redeemer lives.” The word “Redeemer” here used is in the original “goel“—kinsman. The duty of the kinsman, or goel, was this—suppose an Israelite had alienated his estate, as in the case of Naomi and Ruth. Suppose an inheritance which had belonged to a family, had passed away through poverty. It was the goel’s business, the redeemer’s business, to pay the price as the next of kin, and to buy back the heritage. Boaz stood in that relation to Ruth. Now, the body may be looked upon as the heritage of the soul—the soul’s small farm—that little plot of earth in which the soul has been accustomed to walk and delight, as a man walks in his garden or dwells in his house. Now, it becomes alienated. Death, like Ahab, takes away the vineyard from us who are as Naboth. We lose our patrimonial estate. Death sends his troops to take our vineyard, and to spoil its vines, and ruin it. But we turn round to Death and say, “I know that my Goel liveth, and He will redeem this heritage; I have lost it; you take it from me lawfully, O Death, because my sin has forfeited my right; I have lost my heritage through my own offences, and through that of my first parent Adam; but there lives one who will buy this back.” Brothers and sisters, Job could say this of Christ long before He had descended upon earth! “I know that He lives;” and now that He has ascended up on high, and led captivity captive, surely we may with double emphasis say, “I know that my Goel, my Kinsman lives, and that He has paid the price so that I should have back my inheritance, so that in my flesh I shall see God.” Yes, my hands, you are redeemed with blood—bought not with corruptible things, as with silver and gold—but with the precious blood of Christ! Yes, heaving lungs and palpitating heart, you have been redeemed! He that redeemed the soul to be His altar, has also redeemed the body, that it may be a temple for the Holy Spirit. Not even the bones of Joseph can remain in the house of bondage. No smell of the fire of death may pass upon the garments which His holy children have worn in the furnace! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0504.cfm

Be Determined to Serve Christ Better than Ever Before

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent. – Revelation 2:5

What a marvel it is that God has borne with our ill manners, when He might justly have laid the reins on our necks, and suffered us to rush on in the road which we so often hankered after. See you not, dear brethren, what a body of death we carry with us, and what a terrible power it possesses? When you see the mischief that corruption has already done, never trust yourself, but look for new grace every day.

If you have such bitter regrets for what you have lost, hold fast what is still yours. Slip back no further, for if these slips have cost you so much, take heed that they do not ruin you. To continue presumptuous may be a proof that our profession is rotten throughout: only a holy jealousy can remove the suspicion of insincerity. Let your previous failings teach you to walk cautiously for the future. Be jealous, for you serve a jealous God. Since grey hairs may come upon you, here and there, and you may not know it, search, watch, try yourself day by day, lest you relapse yet more.

This should teach us to live by faith, since our best attainments fail us. We rejoice to-day, but we may mourn to-morrow. What a mercy it is that our salvation does not depend on what we are or what we feel. Christ has finished our salvation; no man can destroy what He has completed. Our life is hid with Christ in God and is safe there; none can pluck us out of Jehovah’s hands. Since we so frequently run aground, it is clear that we should be wrecked altogether, if we went to sea in a legal vessel with self for our pilot; let us keep to the good ship of free grace, steered by immutable faithfulness, for none other can bring us to the desired haven. But oh, let that free grace fill us with ardent gratitude. Since Christ has kept us, though we could not keep ourselves, let us bless His name, and, overwhelmed with obligations, let us rise with a solemn determination that we will serve Him better than we have ever done before; and may His blessed Spirit help us to make the determination a fact. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

Go to the Beloved Physician

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; When His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle… – Job 29:2-4

It is unprofitable to read these words of Job, and say, “Just so, that is how I feel,” and then continue in the same way. If a man has neglected his business, and so has lost his trade, it may mark a turn in his affairs when he says, “I wish I had been more industrious;” but if he abides in the same sloth as before, of what use is his regret? If he shall fold his arms and say, “Oh that I had dug that plot of land; oh that I had sown that field;” no harvest will come because of his lamentations. Up, man, up and labor, or you will have the sluggard’s reward, rags and poverty will still be your portion. If a man be in declining health, if drunkenness and riot have broken down his constitution, it may mark a salutary reform in his history if he confesses his former folly; but if his regrets end in mere expressions, will these heal him? I trow not. So neither will a man, affected by spiritual decline, be restored by the mere fact of his knowing himself to be so. Let him go to the beloved Physician, drink of the waters of life again, and receive the leaves of the tree which are for the healing of the nations. Inactive regrets are insincere. If a man really did lament that he had lost communion with God, he would seek to regain it. If he doth not seek to be restored he is adding to all his former sins this of lying before God, in uttering regrets that he does not feel in his soul.

Remember, many have been on Job’s dunghill, who knew nothing of Job’s God; many have imitated David in his sins, who never followed him, in his repentance. They have gone from their sin into hell by the way of presumption, whereas David went from it to heaven by the road of repentance and forgiveness. Never let us; merely because we feel some uneasiness within, conclude that this suffices…Up, men, and with all the strength that God’s Holy Spirit can give you, strive to drive out these traitors from your bosom, for they are robbing your soul of her best treasures. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

Desiring His Light

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

Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; When His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness… – Job 29:2,3

The joy of the Lord is our strength, the joy of the Lord is Israel’s excellency; it is the heaven of heaven, it is heaven even upon earth; and, consequently, to lose it, is a calamity indeed. Who that has once been satisfied with favor, and full of the blessing of the Lord, will be content to go into the dry and thirsty land, and live far off from God? Will he not rather cry out with David, “My soul thirsteth for God; when shall I come and appear before God?” Surely his agonising prayer will be, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit.” Love to God will never be content if His face be hidden. Until the curtain be drawn aside and the King’s face be seen through the lattices, the true spouse will spend her life in sighing, mourning like a dove bereaved of its mate.

Job deplored the loss of divine illumination. “By His light,” he says, “I walked through darkness,” that is to say, perplexity ceased to be perplexity; God shed such a light upon the mysteries of providence, that where others missed their path, Job, made wise by heaven, could find it. There have been times when, to our patient faith, all things have been plain. “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine;” but, if we walk far off from God, then, straightway, even the precious truth of God is no more clear to us, and the dealings of God with us in providence appear to be like a maze. He is wise as Solomon who walks with God, but he is a very fool who trusts his own understanding. All the wit that we have gathered by observation and experience will not supply us with sufficiency of common sense if we turn away from God. Israel, without consulting God, made a league with her enemies; she thought the case most plain when she entered into hasty alliance with the Gibeonites, but she was duped by cunning because she asked not counsel of the Lord. In the simplest business we shall err, if we seek not direction from the Lord; yet, where matters are most complicated, we shall walk wisely, if we wait for a voice from the oracle, and seek the good Shepherd’s guidance. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

True Christian Worship

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

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”-John 4:23-24.

True Christian worship addresses God, not merely as Creator and Preserver, or as the great Lord of the Universe, but as one who is very near of kin to us, our Father, beloved of our souls. Jesus likewise states that gospel worship is to be of a kind which does not result from the man himself merely, but comes from God, and is a work of grace. This is implied in the sentence, “The Father seeketh such to worship Him,” as if no true worship would come from any man unless God sought it. True devotion under the Christian dispensation is not merely human but also divine. These are very grave points, and draw a broad line of distinction between the living worship of the chosen of God and the dead formal worship of the world which lieth in the wicked one.

Furthermore, the Savior goes on to say that they who worship God are to worship Him “in spirit.” No longer with the visible sacrifice of a lamb, but inwardly trusting in Him who is the Lamb of God’s Passover; no more with the sprinkled blood of goats, but heartily relying upon the blood once shed for many; no longer worshipping God with ephod, breastplate, and mitre, but with prostrate soul, with uplifted faith, and with the faculties not of the body but of the inward spirit. We who worship God under this Christian dispensation are no longer to fancy that bodily exercise in worship profiteth anything, that genuflexions and contortions are of any value, but that acceptable worship is wholly mental, inward, and spiritual. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0695.cfm

Pray to the King

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

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit… – Ephesians 6:18

I fully believe that the darkest time of any true Christian church is just the period when it ought to have the most hope; for when the Lord has allowed us to spin ourselves out till there is no more strength in us, then it is that He will come to our rescue…Look to the Most High, and not to man, or ministers, or modes, or methods, but only to Him, and the guidance of His Spirit…In His name I ask you, can anything be too hard for the Lord? Perhaps in your sphere of service you have grown so dispirited that you are inclined to say, “I may as well give up all further effort; no good will result from my endeavors.” But what have you told the Master, and what have you sought at His hand? Have you told Him all your discouragements? Have you asked Him to speak with power, and has He refused you? If so, then give it up, but not till then, for He can even now “say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back;” and as when He said to the thick primaeval darkness, “Let there be light,” and the light leaped into being, and the darkness fled, so can He, amid the gross darkness of our huge city, or the not less dense darkness of our villages, create light to our astonishment and to His glory. It is the King’s word we want-nothing short of it, and nothing more. We must get that by prayer; we must wait upon Him with importunity. If there be only two or three whose hearts break over the desolations of the church, if we have only half a dozen that resolve to give the Lord no rest till He establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth, we shall see great things yet. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1007.cfm

Duty is Ours, the Result is God’s

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

So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. – Romans 9:16

However intent you may be in winning souls to Christ, you shall never meet with one who can be subdued to Him by any persuasions of yours apart from the working of His own power. I know the preacher has thought within himself, “I have only to put the truth in a reasonable way, and the man will see it.” Ah! sir, but sinners are not reasonable: they are the most unreasonable of all creatures: none are so senseless, none act so madly as they do. “But,” saith one, “if I were to tell them of the love of Christ in an affectionate loving way, that would reach them.” Yes, but you will find that all your affection and your tears, and earnest delineation of the love of Jesus, will be powerless against human hearts, unless the Eternal Spirit shall drive home your appeals. We know some who have been reasoned with, and if logic could win them, they ought to have been won long ago: they have also been persuaded, and if rhetoric could reach them, they ought to have turned away from their evil ways years ago; but all human art has been tried and tried, and tried in vain; yet there is no room for despair, for Jesus can conquer the unconquerables, and heal the incurables. Do not be disappointed, dear brother, if you have hitherto failed in your efforts; you have but proved that “vain is the help of man.” You see now by experience that “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.” It is yours to try and bring that soul to Jesus; but it lies with Him to perform the work. Duty is ours, the result is God’s. If the soil of the field committed to me will never yield a harvest, I am yet bound to plough it, if my Lord commands. If I could foresee that my child would never turn to the Lord, yet I ought not to slacken my efforts for its conversion. I have to do with my Master’s command, and what He bids me do I am bound to do…Do not forget then that there is a general opposition to the kingdom of Christ-such opposition as no human power can by any possibility overcome. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1007.cfm