The Holy Spirit

Helped by His Spirit

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. – Romans 8:26

Brethren, the Lord Jesus knew that after we were saved from the damning power of sin, we should always be full of wants, and therefore He was moved with compassion, and He sets up the throne of grace, the mercy-seat, to which we may always come, and from which we may always obtain grace to help in time of need. Helped by His Spirit, we can bring what petitions we will, and they shall be heard. And then, since He knew we could not pray as we ought, He was moved with compassion when He sent the Holy Spirit to help our infirmities, to teach us how to pray. Now I do not know a single infirmity that I have or that you have, my Christian brother, but what Christ Jesus has been moved with compassion about it, and has provided for it. He has not left one single weak point of which we have to say, “There I shall fail, because He will not help there”; but He has looked us over and over from head to foot, and said, “You will have an infirmity there: I will provide for it. You will have a weakness there: I will provide for it.” And oh! how His promises meet every case! Did you ever get into a corner where there was not a promise in the corner too? Had you ever to pass through a river but there was a promise about His being in the river with you? Were you ever on the sick bed without a promise like this, “I will make thy bed in thy sickness?” In the midst of pestilence have not you found a promise that “He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust?” The Lord’s great compassion has met the wants of all His servants to the end.

Oh! what a guardian Saviour is the Lord Jesus Christ to us, and how we ought to bless His name at all times, and how His praise should be continually in our mouth. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3438.cfm

That Sweet Hope, an Inheritance Incorruptible

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

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ… – 1Peter 1:2

The apostle says that we are “elect through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,”-“wherein we greatly rejoice.” Is the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ girt about my loins, to be my beauty and my glorious dress; and its the blood of Jesus sprinkled upon me, to take away all my guilt and all my sin and shall I not in this greatly rejoice? What shall there be in all the depressions of spirits that can possibly come upon me that shall make me break my harp, even though I should for a moment hang it upon the willows? Do I not expect that yet again my songs shall mount to heaven; and even now through the thick darkness do not the sparks of my joy appear, when I remember that I have still upon me the blood of Jesus, and still about me the glorious righteousness of the Messiah?

But the great and cheering comfort of the apostle is, that we are elect unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us. And here, brethren, is the grand comfort of the Christian. When the child of God is sore-stricken and much depressed, the sweet hope, that living or dying, there is an inheritance incorruptible, reserved in heaven for him, may indeed make him greatly rejoice. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0222.cfm

The Master is Come

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary, her sister, secretly, saying, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee.” – John 11:28

That word “The Master” has a sweet ring about it. He is the Master. He that is come is earth’s Master. What are your cares? He can relieve them. What are your troubles? He can overcome them, and sweep them out of the way. The Master has come. “Cast thy burden on the Lord: He will sustain thee.” He is hell’s Master. Art thou beset with fierce temptations and foul insinuations of the arch-fiend? The Master has come. Oh! lift thy head, thou captive daughter of Zion, for thy bands are broken. The Breaker is come up before them; their King shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them. He who hath come is no menial servant, but the right royal Master Himself. The Master is come. What though your heart now seem cold as a stone and your spirit is cast down within you? What though death hath set up its adamantine throne in thy breast? The Master has come, and His presence can thaw the ice, dissolve the rock, bring thee all the graces of the Spirit and all the blessings of heaven that thy soul can possibly require. “The Master is come”-does not that touch your soul and fire your passions? Whose Master is He but your own? And what a Master! No taskmaster, no slave’s master, but such a Master that His absolute sovereignty inspires you with sweetest confidence; for He binds you with the bonds of love, and draws you with the cords of a man. Master indeed is He! Aye, Lord and sole Master of your soul’s inmost core if you be what you profess to be; the Master whose sceptre is the sceptre of reed which He carried in His hand when He was made a scorn and scoffing for you; the Master whose crown is the crown of thorns which He wore for your sins when He accomplished your redemption. Your Master. He is only Master in that same sense in which the tender loving husband is the master of the house. Love makes Him supreme, for He is Master in the art of love, and, therefore, Master of our loving hearts. How sweetly doth “my Master” sound! “My Master.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3461.cfm

The New-Making Work of the Gospel

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

Behold, I make all things new. – Revelation 21:5

After the relation of the world to God had been changed by the sufferings of Jesus, the world’s thought concerning God came to be changed by the preaching of Jesus. He came and revealed God to man as man had never seen God before. It was through Him we learned that “God is love.” It was through Him that we understood that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It is the preaching of the cross of Jesus that is to make the world new.

And it is also by the giving of the Holy Ghost, as the result of the ascension of Christ on high, that the world is made new. Thus He gives power to the ministry. There were three thousand new creations in one day when Peter preached the Gospel under the influence of the Holy Spirit…Oh! I would that there might be some new creations, that that divine heavenly Spirit would come into some of your souls, and drop there that vital spark of heavenly flame which shall never be quenched, but shall burn brightly in heaven for ever. Wherever the Gospel is preached, the Spirit is present in that Gospel, and He gives faith to men, gives life to men, and so they are made new, and the new-making thus goes on.

I might go on to speak of His constant and prevalent intercessions, for His pleading before the throne is also a part of the mighty operation; nor can I doubt but that His Second Advent will be the bringing out of the topstone with shoutings of “Grace, grace unto it!” Then shall be fulfilled-finally and exhaustively fulfilled-the saying that is written, “Behold I make all things new.” The text begins with “Behold!” and I am going to close with that same note of admiration. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3467.cfm

Our New Nature

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

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation. – Galatians 6:15

I love Thee, O my Saviour, because on the cross Thou didst bear shame, and spitting, and manifold disgrace for me. New principles stir the new nature which God has given. And this new nature is conscious of new emotions. It loves what once it hated; it hates what once it loved. It finds blight where once it sought for bliss, and finds bliss where once it found nothing but bitterness. It leaps at the sound which was once dull to its ears-the name of a precious Christ. It rejoices in hopes which once seemed idle as dreams. It is filled with a divine enthusiasm which it once rejected as fanatical. It is conscious now of living in a new element, breathing a fresh air, partaking of new food, drinking out of new wells not digged by men nor filled from the earth. The man is new-new in principles, and new in emotions…He was an heir to wrath; he is now a child of God. He was a bond-slave; he is now a freeman…He rejoices in Christ Jesus, and feasts to the full. He was the citizen of earth once; he is now a citizen of heaven. He once found his all beneath the clouds; but now his all is beyond the stars. He has new relationships. Christ is his brother; God is his Father; the angels are his friends; and the despised people of God are his best and nearest kinsfolk. And hence the man has new aspirations. He now pants to glorify God. What cared he about the glory of God once? He now pants to see God; once he would have paid the fare, if it had cost his life, that he might escape from the presence of the Lord. Now he hungers and thirsts after the living God; yea, if his soul had wings, and he could break the fetters of this mortality, he would mount at once to dwell where Jesus is.

Dear friends, are you new men? If you are, you understand what it is; if you are not, I know I cannot explain it to you. Oh! to be born again is a great mystery; blessed is the soul that comprehends it! But he that knows it not will never learn it by the lip; he can only know it by the Spirit of God causing him also to be made a new creature in Christ Jesus. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3467.cfm

New Creatures in Christ Jesus

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

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

Christ has made for us a new covenant. The old covenant was, “Do this and live.” That covenant was a sentence of death upon us all. We could not do, therefore we could not live, and so we died…The covenant of grace reveals God’s kindness towards us, and our part thereof has been fulfilled for us by our surety, Christ Jesus. Thus it runs, “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more for ever; a new heart also will I give them, and a right spirit will I put within them.” The old world is still under the old covenant of works, and its children perish, for they cannot carry out the conditions of the covenant, they cannot keep God’s law, they break it constantly, and they die. But the children of grace are under the new covenant of grace, and through the precious blood, which is the penalty of the old broken covenant, and through the spotless righteousness of Christ, which is the fulfilment and magnifying of the old covenant, the Christian stands secure, and rejoices that he is saved. Christ has thus made His people dwell under a new covenant, instead of under the old one.

In addition to the new covenant, Christ has been pleased to make us new men. His saints are “new creatures in Christ Jesus.” They have a new nature. God has breathed into them a new life. The Holy Spirit, though the old nature is still there, has been pleased to put within them a new nature. There is now a contending force within them-the old carnal nature inclining to evil, and the new God-given nature panting after perfection. They are new men, “begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This new nature is moved by new principles. The old nature needed to be awed with threatenings, or bribed with rewards; the new nature feels the impulse of love. Gratitude is its mainspring: “We love Him because He first loved us.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3467.cfm

Life Incorruptible

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

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. – 1 John 5:11

“Now Jehovah’s banner’s furled,
Sheathed His sword because ’tis done”;

Reel, ye pillars of earth! Be shaken, ye arches of the starry heavens! Pass away, O Time, and you ye rolling worlds, dissolve into your native nothingness! But the believer must live on, because Jesus lives, and until the Lord’s Christ can bow His head, till He who hath immortality can expire, till God Himself can cease to be, no soul that believed in Jesus can lose the life incorruptible which God’s own Spirit hath put within it.

I want to sing, brethren, rather than to talk with you. These are words and thoughts fit for some ancient bard, or for the spirit of some inspired prophet sent from heaven. I do but lisp where even seraphs might find their loudest songs fail in the them. Let your hearts mount! Let your souls exult! Let your spirits be glad! Do you

“Long for evening to undress,
That you may rest with God,”

and enter into His heaven? Long for the evening of death, when your toil shall be over, and the hour of your bliss shall have come.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3401.cfm