The Holy Spirit

Our Preservation

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

But he who endures to the end shall be saved. – Matthew 24:13

The Holy Ghost acts in the heart as the Spirit of preservation. Where He dwells men do not go back unto perdition. He works in them a watchfulness against temptation day by day. He works in them to wrestle against sin. Rather than sin a believer would die ten thousand deaths. He works in believers union to Christ, which is the source and guarantee of acceptable fruitfulness. He creates in the saints those holy things which glorify God, and bless the sons of men. All true fruit is the fruit of the Spirit. Every true prayer must be “praying in the Holy Ghost.” He helpeth our infirmities in prayer. Even the hearing of the Word of the Lord is of the Spirit, for John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice.” Everything that comes of the man, or is kept alive in the man, is first infused and then sustained and perfected of the Spirit. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.” We never go an inch towards heaven in any other power than that of the Holy Ghost. We do not even stand fast and remain steadfast except as we are upheld by the Holy Spirit… He is the garrison of God within our redeemed humanity, and He will keep us to the end. “May the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” For preservation, then, we look to the Holy Spirit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

A Consuming Fire

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

And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them. – Ezekiel 36:27

The coming of the Holy Ghost into the soul gives a mortal stab to the power of sin. The old man is not absolutely dead, but it is crucified with Christ. It is under sentence, and before the eye of the law it is dead; but as a man nailed to a cross may linger long, but yet he cannot live, so the power of evil dies hard, but die it must. Sin is an executed criminal: those nails which fasten it to the cross will hold it fast till no breath remains in it. God the Holy Ghost gives the power of sin its death wound. The old nature struggles in its dying agonies, but it is doomed, and die it must. But you never will overcome sin by your own power, nor by any energy short of that of the Holy Spirit. Resolves may bind it, as Samson was bound with cords; but sin will snap the cords asunder. The Holy Spirit lays the axe at the root of sin, and fall it must. The Holy Ghost within a man is “the Spirit of judgment, the Spirit of burning.” Do you know Him in that character? As the Spirit of judgment, the Holy Spirit pronounces sentence on sin, and it goes out with the brand of Cain upon it. He does more: He delivers sin over to burning. He executes the death penalty on that which He has judged. How many of our sins have we had to burn alive! and it has cost us no small pain to do it. Sin must be got out of us by fire, if no gentler means will serve; and the Spirit of God is a consuming fire. Truly, “our God is a consuming fire…”This is what the Spirit does, and it is by no means easy work for the flesh, which would spare many a flattering sin if it could. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

Conviction of Sin

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

Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. – John 3:5

The point of contact between a sinner and Christ is sin. The Lord Jesus gave Himself for our sins, He never gave Himself for our righteousnesses. He comes to heal the sick, and the point He looks to is our sickness. When a physician is called in he has no patience with things apart from his calling. “Tut, tut!” he cries, ” I do not care about your furniture, nor the number of your cows, nor what income tax you pay, nor what politics you admire; I have come to see a sick man about his disease, and if you will not let me deal with it I will be gone.” When a sinner’s corruptions are loathsome to himself, when his guilt is foul in his own nostrils, when he fears the death that will come of it, then he is really convinced by the Holy Spirit; and no one ever knows sin as his own personal ruin till the Holy Spirit shows it to him. Conviction as to the Lord Jesus comes in the same way. We do not know Christ as our Saviour till the Holy Spirit is put within us. Our Lord says-“He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you,” and you never see the things of the Lord Jesus till the Holy Ghost shows them to you. To know Jesus Christ as your Saviour, as one who died for you in particular, is a knowledge which only the Holy Spirit imparts. To apprehend present salvation, as your own personally, comes by your being convinced of it by the Spirit. Oh, to be convinced of righteousness, and convinced of acceptance in the Beloved! This conviction cometh only of Him that hath called you, even of Him of whom the Lord saith, “I will put My Spirit within you.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

The Spirit of God Illuminates

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

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. – John 3:5

When the Holy Spirit enters, after quickening He gives enlightening. We cannot make men see the truth, they are so blind; but when the Lord puts His Spirit within them their eyes are opened. At first they may see rather hazily; but still they do see. As the light increases, and the eye is strengthened, they see more and more clearly. What a mercy it is to see Christ, to look unto Him, and so to be lightened! By the Spirit, souls see things in their reality: they see the actual truth of them, and perceive that they are facts. The Spirit of God illuminates every believer, so that he sees still more marvellous things out of God’s law; but this never happens unless the Spirit opens his eyes. The apostle speaks of being brought “out of darkness into His marvellous light”; and it is a marvellous light, indeed, to come to the blind and dead. Marvellous because it reveals truth with clearness. It reveals marvellous things in a marvellous way. If hills and mountains, if rocks and stones were suddenly to be full of eyes, it would be a strange thing in the earth, but not more marvellous than for you and me by the illumination of the Holy Spirit to see spiritual things. When you cannot make people see the truth, do not grow angry with them, but cry, “Lord, put Thy spirit within them.” When you get into a puzzle over the Word of the Lord, do not give up in despair, but believingly cry, “Lord, put Thy Spirit within me.” Here lies the only true light of the soul. Depend upon it, all that you can see by any light except the Spirit of God you do not spiritually see. If you only see intellectually, or rationally, you do not see to salvation.

O Lord, grant us the Spirit within, for our soul’s illumination! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

This Life of the Spirit

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

And I will put My spirit within you… – Ezekiel 36:27

One of the first effects of the Spirit of God being put within us is quickening. We are dead by nature to all heavenly and spiritual things; but when the Spirit of God comes, then we begin to live. The man visited of the Spirit begins to feel; the terrors of God make him tremble, the love of Christ makes him weep. He begins to fear, and he begins to hope: a great deal of the first and a very little of the second, it may be. He learns spiritually to sorrow: he is grieved that he has sinned, and that he cannot cease from sinning. He begins to desire that which once he despised: he specially desires to find the way of pardon, and reconciliation with God. Ah, dear hearers! I cannot make you feel, I cannot make you sorrow for sin, I cannot make you desire eternal life; but it is all done as soon as this is fulfilled by the Lord, “I will put My spirit within you.” The quickening Spirit brings life to the dead in trespasses and sins.

This life of the Spirit shows itself by causing the man to pray. The cry is the distinctive mark of the living child. He begins to cry in broken accents, “God be merciful to me.” At the same time that he pleads, he feels the soft relentings of repentance. He has a new mind towards sin, and he grieves that he should have grieved his God. With this comes faith; perhaps feeble and trembling, only a touch of the hem of the Saviour’s robe; but still Jesus is his only hope and his sole trust. To Him he looks for pardon and salvation. He dares to believe that Christ can save even him. Then has life come into the soul when trust in Jesus spring up in the heart. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

In the Midst of You

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And I will put My spirit within you… Ezekiel 36:27

It is an instructive symbol when the Lord teaches us our death with Christ by burial in baptism: it is to our great profit that He ordains bread and wine to be tokens of our communion in the body and blood of His dear Son; but these are only outward things, and if they are unattended with the Holy Spirit they fail of their design. There is something infinitely greater in this promise-“I will put My spirit within you.” I cannot give you the whole force of the Hebrew, as to the words “within you,” unless I paraphrase them a little, and read “I will put My spirit in the midst of you.” The sacred deposit is put deep down in our life’s secret place. God puts His Spirit not upon the surface of the man, but into the centre of his being. The promise means-“I will put My spirit in your bowels, in your hearts, in the very soul of you.” This is an intensely spiritual matter, without admixturing of anything material and visible. It is spiritual, you see, because it is the Spirit that is given; and He is given internally within our spirit. It is true the Spirit operates upon the external life, but it is through the secret and internal life, and of that inward operation our text speaks. This is what we so greatly require… The good Spirit fires your heart; He penetrates your mind; He saturates your soul; He touches the secret and vital springs of your existence. Blessed Word! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

The Holy Spirit Bows Himself to Dwell in Sinful Men

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

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you… – Ezekiel 36:26

God in our nature is a very wonderful conception! God in the babe at Bethlehem, God in the carpenter of Nazareth, God in the “Man of sorrows,” God in the Crucified, God in Him who was buried in the tomb-this is all marvellous. The incarnation is an infinite mystery of love; but we believe it. Yet, if it were possible to compare one illimitable wonder with another, I should say that God’s dwelling in His people and that repeated ten thousand times over, is more marvellous. That the Holy Ghost should dwell in millions of redeemed men and women, is a miracle not surpassed by that of our Lord’s espousal of human nature. For our Lord’s body was perfectly pure, and the Godhead, while it dwells with His holy manhood, does at least dwell with a perfect and sinless nature; but the Holy Spirit bows Himself to dwell in sinful men; to dwell in men who, after their conversion, still find the flesh warring against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; men who are not perfect, though they strive to be so; men who have to lament their shortcomings, and even to confess with shame a measure of unbelief.

Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have the Spirit of God, for “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” You could not bear the suspicion that you are not His; and therefore, as surely as you are Christ’s, you have His Spirit abiding in you. The Saviour has gone away on purpose that the Comforter might be given to dwell in you, and He does dwell in you. Is it not so? If it be so, admire this condescending God, and worship and praise His name. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm