The Holy Spirit

His Hand of Favor and Power

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

And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; – Revelation 1:17

“He laid His right hand upon me.” It is the hand of favor, it is also the hand of power. God gives strength to those who have none. He puts power into the faint. When the child of God is brought very low, it is not a mere subject for consideration or theme for reflection that can lift him up: sick men want more than instruction, they require cordials and supports. There must be actual strength and energy imparted to a swooning soul, and, glory be to God, by His own Holy Spirit, Jesus can and does communicate energy to His people in the time of weakness. He is come that we may have life, and that we may have it more abundantly. The omnipotence of God is made to rest upon us, so that we even glory in infirmities. “My grace is sufficient for thee, my strength is made perfect in weakness,” is a blessed promise, which has been fulfilled to the letter to many of us. Our own strength has departed, and then the power of God has flowed in to fill up the vacuum. I cannot explain the process: these are secrets and mysteries to be experienced rather than expounded; but as the coming of the Spirit of God into us first of all makes us live in regeneration, so the renewed coming of the power of God into our soul raises us up from our weakness and our faintness into fresh energy. Be thou encouraged, then, thou fainting spirit today. They that trust upon the Lord shall renew their strength. All power belongeth unto the Lord, and He will give it plenteously to those who have none of their own. Be of good courage and wait upon Him for none shall be ashamed who make Him their confidence. Then there followed a word from the Master’s own mouth. He spoke and said, “Fear not.” Here He applied the remedy to the disease. Christ Himself is our medicine, as well as our physician. His voice which stilled the sea, also casts out all our fears. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Knowing the Love of Jesus

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

And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not… – Revelation 1:17

“He laid His hand upon me.” It is noticeable, that in the great cures which our Savior wrought, He almost always touched the patient. He could with a word have healed, but to prove His fellowship with the sick, He put His hand upon the leper, and upon the blind eye, and touched the deaf ear; thus, manifesting His condescending contact with the infirmities of our nature. The Master could have spoken a word to John and have revived him; but He did not stand at a distance, or guard Himself with a “Touch Me not” but, instead of that, He commenced His care with a touch. No other hand could have revived the apostle, but the hand which was pierced for him had matchless power. There is mighty healing in the royal hand of our Immanuel. When the Holy Spirit inspires us with a sense of the relationship which Christ bears to us, of the sympathy which Christ feels with us, of the kinship and fellow-feeling which reign in Jesus’ breast, then are we comforted. To know that He is not ashamed to call us brethren is a wellspring of comfort to a tried child of God; to feel His presence, to perceive the touch of His hand, and to hear Him say: “I am with thee, be not dismayed, for I am thy God,” this is new life to our waning spirits. Oh! what bliss is this. “In all their afflictions He was afflicted.” He is a brother born for adversity; a sympathetic and tender friend touched with a feeling of our infirmities. “He laid His hand upon me.” “O child of God, pray for a manifestation of the kinsman Christ to thy soul; ask that He would instruct thee as to the fact that He enters into thy grief, having Himself endured the like. Thou art one with Him, and He is one with thee; and as surely as the head feels the pain of the members, so does Jesus share in all the sorrows of His people. Let this be a comfort to thee, thou who art now lying as dead before the risen Lord. He comes near to thee, not to kill thee, but to revive thee by most intimate intercourse, talking with thee as a man speaketh with his friend. O man, greatly beloved, be not so overwhelmed with the greatness of thy Lord as to forget His love, His great love, His familiar love, which at this moment lays its hand upon thee. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

The Best Remedy for Fears

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

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:  I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:17, 18

The knowledge of Jesus is the best remedy for fears: when we are better acquainted with our Lord, we part company with half our doubts-these bats and owls cannot bear the sun. Jesus in His person, work, offices, and relations, is a mine of consolation; every truth which is connected with Him is an argument against fear: when our heart shall be filled with perfect love to Him fear will be cast out, as Satan was cast down from heaven. Study then your Lord. Make it your life’s object to know Him. Seek the Holy Spirit’s illumination, and the choice privilege of fellowship, and your despondency and distress will vanish as night birds fly to hide themselves when the day breaketh. It is folly to walk in sorrow when we might constantly rejoice. We do not read that John was any more afraid after the Lord had discoursed lovingly upon His own glorious person and character. That divine enlightenment which was given to his mind, purged from it any secret mistake and misjudgment which had created excessive fear.

It is an infinite blessing to us to be utterly emptied, stripped, spoiled, and slain before the Lord. Our strength is our weakness, our life is our death, and when both are entirely gone, we begin to be strong and in very deed to live. To lie at Jesus’ feet is a right experience; to lie there as sick and wounded is better, but to lie there as dead is best of all; a man is taught in the mysteries of the kingdom, who comes to that. Moses with dim legal light needs to be told to put off his shoe from off his foot in the presence of the Lord of Hosts, but John is manifestly far in advance of him, because he lies lower, and is like a dead man before the Infinite Majesty. How blessed a death is death in Christ! How divine a thing is life in Him.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

The Clean Made Unclean to Clean the Unclean

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

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? – Hebrews 9:13,14

Solomon, according to the Jewish tradition, declared that he did not understand why the ashes of the heifer made everybody clean except those who were unclean already. You saw in the reading that the priest, the man who killed the red cow, the person who swept up the ashes and he who mixed the ashes with water and sprinkled them were all rendered unclean by those acts—and yet the ashes purified the unclean! Is not this analogous to the riddle of the bronze serpent? It was by a serpent that the people were bitten—and it was by a serpent of brass that they were healed! Christ’s being regarded as unclean that we become clean and the operation of His Sacrifice is just like that of the ashes, for it both reveals uncleanness and removes it.

If you are clean and you think of Christ’s death, what a sense of sin it brings upon you! You judge of the sin by the Atonement. If you are unclean, drawing near to Christ takes that sin away!—

“Thus while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of Grace,
It seals my pardon, too.”

If we think we are unclean, a sight of the atoning blood makes us see how unclean we are. And if we judge ourselves unclean, then the application of the atoning Sacrifice gives our conscience rest. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm

Peace, at Once and Forever!

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

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? – Heb 9:13-14

The sprinkling of the ashes of the heifer upon the unclean was not comprehensible as to its effect by anybody who received it. I mean that there was no obvious connection between the cause and the effect. Supposing an Israelite had been unclean and had been sprinkled with this water? He might now go up to the house of the Lord—but would he see any reason for the change? He would say, “I have received the water of separation, and I am clean, but I do not know why the sprinkling of those ashes should make me clean except that God has so appointed.” Brethren, you and I know how it is that God has made us clean, for we know that Christ has suffered in our place! Substitution explains the mystery and, therefore, it has much more effect upon the conscience than an outward, ritualistic form which could not be explained. Conscience is the understanding exercised upon moral subjects and that which convinces the understanding that all is right soon gives peace to the conscience.

As the ashes of the heifer were for all the camp, so are Christ’s merits for all His people. As they were put where they were accessible, so may you always come and partake of the cleansing power of Christ’s precious Atonement. As a mere sprinkling made the unclean clean, even so may you come and be cleansed even though your faith is but little and you seem to get but little of Christ. O Brothers and Sisters, the Lord God in His infinite mercy gives you to know the power of the great Sacrifice to work peace in you—not after three or seven days, but at once! And peace not merely for a time, but forever! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm

He Was Made a Curse for Us

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

This [is] the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein [is] no blemish, [and] upon which never came yoke… – Numbers 19:2

How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? – Hebrews 9:14

Now, my brethren, I want you, for a moment, to remember that our Lord Himself was spotless, pure and perfect. And yet—speak it with bated breath—God “has made Him to be sin for us,” even Him who knew no sin. Whisper it with still greater awe, “He was made a curse for us”—yes, a curse, as it is written, “Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.” That red heifer, though without spot and never having borne a yoke, was regarded as a polluted thing. Take it out of the camp. It must not live. Kill it. It is a polluted thing; burn it right up, for God cannot endure it! Behold and wonder that God’s own Ever-Blessed, adorable Son in inconceivable condescension of unutterable love, took the place of sin, the place of the sinner—and was numbered with the transgressors!

He must die! Hang Him up on a cross! He must be forsaken of men and even deserted of God! “It pleased the Father to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief; He shall make His soul an offering for sin.” “All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all”—not merely the punishment, but the iniquity, the very sin itself was laid upon the Ever-Blessed! The wise men of our age say it is impossible that sin should be lawfully imputed to the innocent. That is what the philosophers say, but God declares that it was done! “He has made Him to be sin who knew no sin.” Therefore, it was possible! Yes, it is done! It is finished! The Sacrifice, then, is much greater. “How much more,” we may cry exultingly as we think of it, “shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm

His Eternal Merit Makes Us Clean

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

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? – Hebrews 9:13,14

The heifer was not a spiritual, but a carnal offering. The creature knew nothing of what was being done, it was the involuntary victim. But Christ was under the impulses of the Holy Spirit, which were poured upon Him and He was moved by Him to render up Himself a sacrifice for sin. Hence somewhat of the greater efficacy of His death, for the willingness of the Sacrifice greatly enhanced its value. To give you another and probably a better interpretation of the words, there was the Eternal Spirit linked with the manhood of Christ, our Lord, and by Him, He gave Himself unto God. He was God as well as man, and that Eternal Godhead of His lent an infinite value to the sufferings of His human frame, so that He offered Himself as a whole Christ, in the energy of His eternal power and Godhead.

Oh, what a Sacrifice is that on Calvary! It is by the blood of the Man Christ that you are saved, and yet it is written, “The Church of God which He”—that is God— “has redeemed with His own blood.” One who is both God and man has given Himself as a Sacrifice for us! Is not the Sacrifice inconceivably greater in the fact than it is in the type (the red heifer)? Ought it not most effectually to purge our conscience? After they had burnt the heifer, they swept up the ashes. All that could be burnt had been consumed. Our Lord was made a sacrifice for sin. What remains of Him? Not a few ashes, but the whole Christ, which still remains, to die no more, but to abide unchanged forever! He came uninjured through the fires and now He always lives to make intercession for us! It is the application of His eternal merit which makes us clean and is not that eternal merit inconceivably greater than the ashes of an heifer can ever be? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm