The Holy Spirit

I do love Him!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 8 Comments

Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory… – 1 Peter 1:8

Do not, I pray you, deny Christ your love. It is all you can give Him. It is a poor thing, but He values it. He would sooner have your heart than all the gold in Europe. He would sooner have the heart of a poor servant girl or of a poor humble labourer upon the soil than the queen’s diadem. He loveth love. Love is His gem-His jewel. He delights to win it, and if He be indeed altogether lovely, let Him have it. You have known people, I dare say, whom you could not help loving. they never had to say to you, “Love me,” for you were captivated at once by the very sight of them. In like manner many and many have only received one beam of light from the Holy Spirit, and have thereby seen who Jesus was, and they have at once said of Him, “Thou hast ravished my heart with one look of Thine eyes,” and so it has been that all their life long they have loved their Lord. Now, the praise is suggestive still further. “Is Christ altogether lovely? Then do I love Him? As a child of God, do I love Him as much as I ought? I do love Him. Yes, blessed be His name, I do love Him. But what a poor, cold, chill love it is. How few are the sacrifices I make for Him. How few are the offerings that I present to Him. How little is the fellowship that I maintain with Him.”

I cannot tell you how near a man may live to heaven, but I am persuaded that a very large proportion of the bliss of heaven may be enjoyed before we come there. There is one conduit pipe through which heavenly joy will flow, and if you draw from it you may have as much as you will. “Abide in Me” says Christ; and if you do abide in His love you shall have His joy fulfilled in yourselves that your joy may be full. You will have more capacious vessels in heaven, but even now the little vessel that you have can be filled up to the brim by knowing the inexpressible loveliness of Jesus and surrendering your hearts to it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm

Do you not love Christ?

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

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. – 1 Corinthians 2:14

If you were to go to some remote island where beauty consisted in having one eye and a twisted mouth, and a sea-green complexion, you would say, “Those people are strange beings.” Such are the people of this world; spiritual beauty is not appreciated by them. This world appreciates the man who makes money, however reckless he may be of the welfare of others while scheming to heap up riches for himself. As for the man who slays his fellow-creatures by thousands, they mount him on a bronze horse, put him on an arch, or they pile up a column, and set him as near heaven as they can. He slew his thousands: he died blood-red: he was an emperor, a tyrant, a conqueror; the world feels his power and pays its homage. As for this Jesus, He only gave His life for men; He was only pure and perfect, the mirror of disinterested love. The vain world cannot see in Him a virtue to admire. It is a blind world, a fool world, a world that lieth in the wicked one. Not to discern the beauties of Jesus is an evidence of terrible depravity. Have you, my dear friend, frankly to confess that you were never enamoured of Him who was holy, harmless, and undefiled, and went about doing good? Then let this come home to you-that the question is not as to whether Christ is lovely or not, the mistake is here-that you have not a spiritually enlightened eye, a fine moral perception, nor even a well-regulated conscience, or you would see His loveliness at once. You are dark and blind. God help you to feel this.

Do you not love Christ? Then let me ask you why you do not? There was never a man yet that knew Christ that could give a reason for not loving Him, neither is there such a reason to be discovered. He is altogether lovely. In nothing is He unlovable. Oh I wish that the good Spirit of God would whisper in your heart, and incline you to say, “I will see about this Christ. I will read of Him. I will look at the portraits of Him painted by the evangelists, and if He be indeed thus lovely, no doubt He will win my heart as He appears to have won the hearts of others.” I pray He may. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm

Always and Ever Lovely

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

He is altogether lovely. – Songs 5:16

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. – Hebrews 13:8

No fairer flower ever bloomed in the garden of creation than the mind of that youth of Nazareth gradually unfolding, as He “grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him.” All the while He lived on earth, what moral perfections, what noble qualities, what spiritual charms were about His sacred person! His life among men is a succession of charming pictures. And He was lovely in His bitter passion, when as the thick darkness overshadowed His soul He prayed, in an agony of desire, “Not My will, but Thine, be done.” The bloody sweat did not disfigure, but adorned Him. And oh, was He not lovely when He died? Without resentment He interceded for His murderers. His patience, His self-possession, His piety, as “the faithful martyr,” have fixed as the meridian of time the hour when He said, “It is finished,” and “bowed His head,” and “cried with a loud voice, Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” He is lovely in His resurrection from the dead; beyond description lovely. Not a word of accusation did He utter against His cruel persecutors, though He had risen clothed with all power in heaven and in earth. With such tender sympathy did He make Himself known to His sorrowing disciples, that despite the waywardness of their unbelief their hearts’ instinct told them it was “the same Jesus.” He is altogether lovely.

He will be lovely when He comes with solemn pomp, and sound of trumpet, and escort of mighty angels, and brings all His saints who have departed with Him, and calls up those that are alive and remain on the earth till His advent, to meet Him in the air. Oh, how lovely He will appear to the two throngs who will presently join in one company! How admirable will His appearance be! How eyes, ears, hearts and voices will greet Him! With what unanimity the host redeemed by blood will account their highest acclamations as a trivial tribute to His honour and glory! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm

What is Loveliness?

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

He is altogether lovely. – Songs 5:16

What, I pray you, what is loveliness? To discern it is one thing, but it is quite another thing to describe it…How can I-enamoured, entranced, enraptured as I am with Him whom my soul loveth-how can I speak of Him? He is altogether lovely? Where shall I find words, terms, expressions that shall fitly set Him forth? Unless the Eternal Spirit shall upraise me out of myself I must for ever be incapable of setting forth the Well-beloved… I suppose that, by-and-by, when our Lord had entered upon His active life, and encountered its struggles, His youthful beauty was marred with lines of sadness and sorrow. Still His courage so overshadowed His cares, the mercy He showed so surpassed the misery He shared, and the grace He dispensed so exceeded the griefs that He carried, that a halo of real glory must ever have shone around His brow. His countenance must still have been lovely even when surrounded with the clouds of care and grief. How can we describe even the marred visage? It is a great mystery, but a sure fact, that in our Lord’s marred countenance His beauty is best seen. Anguish gave Him a loveliness which else He had not reached. His passion put the finishing touch upon His unrivalled loveliness.

Brethren, I am not about to speak of Christ’s loveliness after the flesh, for now after the flesh know we Him no more. It is His moral and spiritual beauty, of which the spouse in the song most sweetly says, “Yea, he is altogether lovely.” The loveliness which the eye dotes on is mere varnish when compared with that which dwells in virtue and holiness; the worm will devour the loveliness of skin and flesh, but a lovely character will endure for ever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm

He Girds the Weak with Strength

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

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

“I wish I could serve Jesus Christ like Paul, or like Whitefield-that I could range the country through proclaiming His dear name and winning thousands of converts. But I am slow of speech and dull of thought, and what I attempt produces little or no effect.” Well, brother, mind that you do what you can. Do you not recollect the parable of the men who had talents entrusted to them? I do not want to lay undue stress upon the fact that it was the man who had one talent who buried it. Yet why is he represented as doing so? I think it was not because the men of two and five talents do not sometimes bury theirs, but because the temptation lies most with the one talent people. They say, “What can I do? What is the use of me? I may be excused.” That is the temptation. Brother, do not be entangled in that snare. If your Lord has only given you one talent He does not expect you to make the same interest upon it as the man does with five; but still He does expect His interest, and therefore do not wrap your talent in a napkin. It is but with strength imparted that any of us can serve Him. We have nothing to consecrate to Him but the gift we have first received from Him. You are weak. You feel it; but what says your God to you? “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.” He can make you useful though you have no extraordinary endowments. Grape-shot may do great execution, though it cannot compare with grenade or bomb-shell. A sinner may be brought to Christ by the simple earnestness of a peasant or an artisan, without calling in the aid of a professor’s learning or a preacher’s eloquence. God can bless you far above what you think to be your capacity, for it is not a question of your ability but of His aid. You have no self-reliance, you tell me. Then take refuge in God, I entreat you, for you evidently want more of the divine succor. Go and get it; it is to be had. He girds the weak with strength. “The young men shall faint and be weary, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” Why, I think you are more likely to do good than if you had five talents, for now you will pray more and you will depend more upon God than you would have done if you had possessed strength of your own. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1513.cfm

Yield to the Sovereignty of the Holy Ghost

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 5 Comments

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. – John 6:63

Religion, and the truth of it, is not to be learnt by the head. Years of reading, hours of assiduous study, will never make a man a Christian. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.” Oh! art thou destitute of the Spirit of the living God? For oh! I charge thee to remember this my hearer: if in thy soul mysterious and supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit has never been shed abroad, thou art an utter stranger to all the things of God. The promises are not thine; heaven is not thine, thou art on thy road to the land of the dead, to the region of the corpse, where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. Oh that the Spirit of God may rest upon you now! Bethink you, you are absolutely dependent upon His influence. You are in God’s hand today to be saved or to be lost-not in your own hands, but in His. You are dead in sins; unless He quickens you, you must remain so. The moth beneath your finger is not more absolutely at your mercy than you are now at the mercy of God. Let Him but will to leave you as you are, and you are lost; but oh! if mercy speaks and says, “Let that man live,” you are saved. I would that you could feel the weight of this tremendous doctrine of sovereignty. It is like the hammer of Thor, it may shake your heart however stout it be, and make your rocky soul tremble to its base.

“Life, death, and hell, and worlds unknown,
Hang on His firm decree.”

Yield to the sovereignty of the Holy Ghost; and He shall assuredly prove to you that, in that very yielding, there was a proof that He had loved you; for He made you yield; He made you willing to bow before Him in the day of His power. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0315.cfm

The Holy Ghost Teacheth Sovereignly

Sherry Character of Jesus, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 7 Comments

But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth… – John 16:13

The Holy Ghost teaches sovereignly. He teaches whom He pleases. He takes the fool and makes him know the wonders of the dying love of Christ, to bring aspiring wisdom low and make the pride of man humble and abase itself. And as the Spirit teaches whom He wills, so He teaches when He wills. He has His own hours of instruction, and He will not be limited and bound by us. And then again He teaches as He wills-some by affliction, some by communion; some He teaches by the Word read, some by the Word spoken, some by neither, but directly by His own agency. And so also the Holy Spirit is a sovereign in that He teaches in whatever degree He pleases. He will make one man learn much, while another comprehends but little. Some Christians wear their beards early-they come to a rapid and high degree of maturity, and that on a sudden, while others creep but slowly to the goal and are very long in reaching it. Some Christians in early years understand more than others whose hairs have turned grey. The Holy Ghost is a sovereign. He does not have all His pupils in one class, and them all the same lesson by simultaneous instruction; but each man is in a separate class, each man learning a separate lesson. Some beginning at the end of the book, some at the beginning, and some in the middle-some learning one doctrine and some another, some going backwards and some forwards. The Holy Spirit teacheth sovereignly, and giveth to every man according as He wills, but then, wherever He teaches at all, He teaches effectually. He has never failed to make us learn yet…We instruct the ear, and the ear is far removed from the heart; He teaches the heart itself, and therefore His every word falleth upon good soil, and bringeth forth good and abundant fruit-He teaches effectually…Put thyself daily under His teaching, and thou shalt never learn a word amiss, nor a thought awry, but become infallibly taught, well taught in the whole truth as it is in Jesus.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0315.cfm