The Holy Spirit

True Spiritual Worship 

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

God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth. – John 4:24

Every form of religion has its ritual. The Quaker, who sits still, and does not say a word, has a ritual so far; and he that has a thousand rites and ceremonies has a ritual so much farther. But if I have gone through the general routine of the worship of my church and then think that I have done something acceptable to God while yet my heart has not communed with Him in humble repentance, or faith, or love, or joy, or consecration, I make a great mistake. You may keep on with your religious performances for seventy years or more; you may never miss what our Scotch friends call “a diet of worship”; you may not neglect a single rubric in the whole ritual; but it is all nothing unless the soul has fellowship with God. Godliness is a spiritual thing; for “God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” So far as our forms or worship help us towards this spiritual communion, they are good, but no farther. “Oh, well!” says one, “I never worship beneath a cathedral roof; I am quite content to meet with a few friends in a barn.” Do not suppose, my friend, that the meagerness of your accessories has necessarily secured true worship. If thou hast met God in the barn, it is well; and if thy brother has met God in the right spirit, I care but little for thy barn, and I care even less for his cathedral. What does it signify how thou hast garnished thine offering if it be not a living sacrifice, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ? A dead thing must not be brought to the altar of God. Remember that, under the Jewish law, they never offered fish upon the altar, because they could not bring it there alive. Everything brought to God as a sacrifice must be alive. Its blood must be poured out warm at the altar’s foot. Oh, that you and I might feel that lifting of the soul to God, and that buoyancy of heart, which true spiritual worship alone can bring to us! May our ritual, whether we have much or little, be our guide to God, and not our chain to hold us back from God!

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

Newer is Not Truer

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

And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. – 1 Samuel 4:7

“The Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! For there hath not been such a thing heretofore.” The Israelites probably made the same mistake, fixing their hope on this new method of fighting the Philistines, which they hoped would bring them victory. We are all so apt to think that the new plan of going to work will be much more effective than those that have become familiar; but it is not so. It is generally a mistake to exchange old lamps for new. “There hath not been such a thing heretofore.” There is a glamour about the novelty which misleads us and we are liable to think the newer is the truer. If there has not been such a thing heretofore, some people will take to it at once for that very reason. “Oh,” says the man who is given up to change, “that is the thing for me!” But it is probably not the thing for a true-hearted and intelligent Christian, for if, “there hath not been such a thing heretofore,” it is difficult to explain, if the thing be a good one, why the Holy Ghost, who has been with the people of God since Pentecost, and who came to lead us into all truth, has not led the Church of God to this before. If your new discovery is the mind of God, where has the Holy Scriptures been all these centuries? Believing in the infallible Word and the abiding Spirit, I rather suspect your novelty; at least I cannot say that I endorse it until I have tested it by the Word of God. Philistines may like a thing that has not been heretofore; but we like the thing that has been since the days of Pentecost, the things that come from Him who is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever”: the workings of that God who changes not, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Let Him work His blessed will; and if He chooses to send a new thing on the earth, we will glorify His name; but because there are new things in the world, we will not ascribe them to Him for they may come from quite another quarter. We remember that “Lo, here is Christ, or there!” was the cry against which our Lord warned His disciples. Concerning such a cry the Saviour said, “Believe it not.”

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

Do Not Confound Enthusiasm with Faith

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

And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. – 1 Samuel 4:5

Anyone who had passed the camp of Israel that day might have said that they had “a bright, cheerful, happy service; just the kind of service the people like, you know, nothing dull about it.” Hark! How the glad sound rises! Surely these people must have great faith! No, they had not a scrap of the real article. They were under a mistake all the time; and shout as they might, they had very little to shout about; for in a short time their carcasses strewed the plain. The Philistines put an end to their shouting. Now, beloved, when you are worshipping God, shout if you are filled with holy gladness. If the ejaculation comes from your heart, I would not ask you to restrain it. God forbid that we should judge any man’s worship! But do not be so foolish as to suppose that because there is loud noise there must also be faith. Faith is a still water, it floweth deep. True faith in God may express itself with leaping and shouting and it is a happy thing when it does: but it also sits still before the Lord, and that perhaps is a happier thing still. Praise can sit silent on the lip and yet be heard in heaven. There is a passion of the heart too deep for words. There are feelings that break the backs of words; the mind staggers and trembles beneath the weight of them. Frost of the mouth often comes with thaw of the soul; and when the heart’s great deeps are breaking up, it sometimes happens that the mouth is not large enough to let the torrents flow, and so it has to be comparatively silent. Do not, therefore, make the mistake of confounding enthusiasm with faith in judging the externals of worship, else you may fall into a thousand blunders. He may worship God who shouts till the earth rings again, and God may accept him; but he may worship God as truly who sits in silence before the Most High and says not even a word. It is the spiritual worship which is most acceptable to God, not the external in any form or shape. It is the heart that has fellowship with the Lord, and it needs little in the way of expressing itself, neither has God tied it down to this way or that. It may find its own methods of utterance so long as it is truly “moved by the Holy Ghost.”

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

This Must Be Done

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

The LORD’S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see Thy name: hear ye the rod, and Who hath appointed it. – Micah 6:9

Israel was out of gear with God. The people had forgotten the Most High and had gone aside to the worship of Baal. They had neglected the things of God; therefore, they were given up to their enemies. When Jehovah had brought them out of Egypt, He instructed them how they were to live in the land to which He would bring them, and warned them that if they forsook Him, they would be chastened. His words were very plain: “If ye will not for all this hearken unto Me but walk contrary unto Me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury, and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.” In fulfillment of this threatening, the Philistines had been divinely permitted to make great havoc of the idolatrous Israelites, and to hold them in cruel slavery.

The only way for them to get out of their trouble was to return to God, who, by His judgments, seemed to say, “Hear ye the rod, and Who hath appointed it.” The only cure for their hurt was to go back with repentance and renew their faith and their covenant with God. Then all would have been right. But this is the last thing that men will do. Our minds, by nature, love not spiritual things. We will attend to any outward duty, or to any external rite; but to bring our hearts into subjection to the divine will, to bow our minds to the Most High, and to serve the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, the natural man abhors. Yet nothing less than this will suffice to turn our captivity.

Instead of attempting to get right with God, these Israelites set about devising superstitious means of securing the victory over their foes. In this respect most of us have imitated them. We think of a thousand inventions; but we neglect the one thing needful…Get right with God; confess thy sin; believe in Jesus Christ, the appointed Saviour; be reconciled to God by the death of His Son; then all will be right between thee and the Father in heaven. We cannot bring men to this, apart from the Spirit of God.

Is God in the Camp? by C. H. Spurgeon

The Persecuted Church

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 5 Comments

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. – Isaiah 43:2

When first there was a Church of God on earth, in the person of Abel it was persecuted, Cain lifted up his cruel club to slay his brother; and when the children of Seth were the representatives of God’s chosen, they were without doubt the subject of the jeer and gibe of the descendants of Cain. Noah, the preacher of righteousness endured during his one hundred and twenty years, the hardness of heart and carelessness of an unthinking world; he and his family, who were the remnant of the Church in the latter part of those days, were constantly exposed to the laughter and persecution of men…From that day forward, whether you read through the life of Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, it still standeth true, “He that is born after the flesh persecuteth him that is born after the Spirit.”

Find me the abode of the Church of God and I can smell the furnace not far off. Show me the follower of the God of Abraham and I shall soon find the host of enemies ready for the attack. Up till the days of the Saviour the kingdom of heaven suffered violence, not only from its friends who would take it, but from those enemies who would assault it. From the blood of Abel down to the blood of Zecharias the son of Barachias, the pathway of the Church hath been a blood-besprinkled time. Since that day, what tongue can tell the sufferings of the people of God? Since Christ became martyr as well as Redeemer, has there been a season in which God’s people have not somewhere or other been made to feel that they are not of the world, and that the world does not love them because they are not of the world? Through much tribulation the people of God must wade their way to Canaan.

Fire! Fire! Fire! by C. H. Spurgeon

 

Our Duty to the Great Commission

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? – Jeremiah 15:12

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

Man’s heart is very hard; it is like the northern iron and the steel. Our preaching—we try to make it forcible, but how powerless is it of itself! The preacher seeks goodly words and illustrations; he brings forth the law of God, he gives forth threatenings in God’s name; he reasons concerning judgment to come, and flinches not from declaring the eternal punishment of sin; he preaches the love of God, and the infinite mercy of Christ Jesus, and he blends all this with an affection which longs for conversion, and he prays for God’s blessing; but in many, many hearts there is no change, the northern iron and the steel remain unmovable…Children of God, you are driven to this, that here is a case in which you are powerless. You might as well reverse the wind, or move a star, or create a world, as soften these hardened hearts. What are you then to do? Certainly, you are to continue the effort; nothing must tempt you to relinquish it, or even to relax your zeal. If you cannot break the heart, truly it is no business of yours to do so; commit that work to Him who is fully equal to the miracle, keep to your work, and fear not that the Lord will work with you. God bids you continue prayer, warning instruction, and invitation. If you knew that every soul you preached to or talked with would be lost, it were no less your duty to preach the gospel; for the duty to tell out the gospel is not influenced by our success, but is based upon the commission of Christ: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon

The Victory of Truth

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

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of Me, saith the LORD. – Isaiah 54:17

My brethren, we may well fear the crafty machinations of the church of Rome, for all the subtlety of the old serpent is within her; but with the wisdom of God to meet it, there can be no alarm. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: there is no device nor counsel against the Lord. We may well be dismayed at the insidious attacks of scepticism; but while there remains a Holy Ghost to create and sustain faith in the world, we need not fear that the faithful will utterly cease out of the land. The thousands will still be reserved whose knees have never bowed to Baal. Infidelity and Socinianism have ready tongues, but every tongue that rises against the Church in judgment she will condemn. The forges of hell are busy in fashioning new weapons with which to assail us, but the Lord will break their bows and cut their spears in sunder. They may and will defeat the dogmas of superstition, but the truths of revelation and the people who believe them they can never overthrow. The iron will never break the northern iron and the steel. The church can bear the blows of Ritualism and Infidelity, and survive them all, and be the better for them too. See what the cause of Christ is. It is truth and therein is victory. Who knows not that the truth must prevail? There is in the church of God, moreover, life, and life is a thing you cannot overcome. A dead thing may be cut in pieces, and strewn to the winds of heaven; but the life in Christ’s Church is that which has defied and overcome Satan a thousand times already…Glory be to God, we have confidence in this, and in the name of God we set up our banner.

The Northern Iron and the Steel by C. H. Spurgeon