The Holy Spirit

Believe the Threat and the Promise

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

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth… Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he. -Genesis 6:13, 22

Faith is to be exercised about the commandments; for David says, “I have believed Thy commandments.” Faith is to be exercised upon the promises; for there its sweetest business lies. But, believe me, you cannot have faith in the promise unless you are prepared to have faith in the threatening also. If you truly believe a man, you believe all that he says. He who does not believe that God will punish sin, will not believe that God will pardon it through the atoning blood. He who does not believe that God will cast unbelievers into hell, will not be sure that he will take believers into heaven. If we doubt God’s Word about one thing, we shall have small confidence in it upon another thing. Sincere faith in God must treat all God’s Word alike; for the faith which accepts one word of God and rejects another is evidently not faith in God, but faith in our own judgment, faith in our own taste. Only that is true faith which believes everything that is revealed by the Holy Spirit, whether it be joyous or distressing. Noah had, in this case, received a promise; but, as the dark background to it, he had listened to the terrible threatening that God would destroy all living things with a flood: his faith believed both the warning and the promise. If he had not believed the threat, he would not have prepared an ark, and so would not have received the promise…With solemn awe believe the bitter word of judgment, that the word of mercy may be sweet to you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2147.cfm

Trust Wholly in Christ

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

To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: – Colossians 1:27

Whatever there is in us that is not of Christ and the work of His Spirit, will have to come out of us, and blessed be the day in which it is ejected…Wood, hay, stubble, are quick building, but they are also quick burning; only that which belongs to “Christ formed in me the hope of glory,” will prove to be gold, silver, precious stones, this may seem slow building, but it will abide the fire. O Christian, pray much and labor much to have Christ in thee, for He is all that is worth having in thee. He is only the husk of a Christian who has not the precious kernel of Christ in his heart. Christ on the cross saves us by becoming Christ in the heart. Jesus is indeed all for us, all to us, all in us…We trust wholly in Him. I often question myself upon many Christian graces, but there is one thing I never can doubt about, and that is I know I have no other hope but in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. If a soul can perish relying with all its power upon the finished work of the Savior, then I shall perish; but if saving faith be an entire reliance upon Him whom God hath sent forth to be a propitiation for sin, then I can never perish until God’s word be broken. Can you not say that, dear brethren, and will it not yield you comfort? Have you anything else you could trust to? Have you one good work that you could rely upon? Is there a prayer you have ever offered, an emotion you have ever felt, that you would dare to use as a buttress, or as in some degree a prop, to your hope of salvation? I know you reply, “I have nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing; but Christ my Savior is all my salvation and all my desire, and I abhor the very idea of putting anything side by side with Him as a ground of my dependence before God.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1006.cfm

The Absolute Essential to True Godliness

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

Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. – 1Corinthians 13:7

The grace of charity, or love, of which so much is most admirably spoken in this chapter, is absolutely essential to true godliness. So essential is it that, if we have everything beside, but have not charity, it profiteth us nothing. The absence of charity is absolutely fatal to vital godliness; so saith the Holy Ghost in this chapter. When, then, you read the apostle’s high encomiums of charity, do not say, “This is a fancy virtue to which certain special saints have attained, and we are bound to admire them for it, but we need not imitate them.” Far from it. This charity is the common, everyday livery of the people of God. It is not the prerogative of a few; it must be the possession of all. Do not, therefore, however lofty the model may be, look up to it as though you could not reach it: you must reach it. It is put before you not only as a thing greatly desirable, but as absolutely needful; for if you excelled in every spiritual gift, yet if you had not this all the rest would profit you nothing whatever. One would think that such excellent gifts might benefit us a little, but no, the apostle sums them all up, and saith of the whole, “it profiteth me nothing.” I pray that this may be understood of us at the very beginning, lest we should manage to slip away from the truth taught us by the Holy Ghost in this place, and should excuse ourselves from being loving by the notion that we are so inconsiderable that such high virtue cannot be required of us, or so feeble that we cannot be expected to attain to it. You must attain it, or you cannot enter into eternal life, for if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His, and the Spirit of Christ is sure to beget the charity of our text, which “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1617.cfm

Christ’s Love to Us and Our Love to Christ

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

We love Him, because He first loved us.- 1 John 4:19

We first learn of His love to us, and then as the result of that, we are brought to love Him. Ours is a poor little love, not worthy of His acceptance; but, such as it is, we give it all to Him; and He will not refuse it, or despise it. Oh, that we all might be joined to Christ in love now!

“I give my heart to Thee,
O Jesus, most desired!
And heart for heart the gift shall be,
For Thou my soul hast fired:
Thou hearts alone would’st move,
Thou only hearts dost love;
I would love Thee as Thou lov’st me,
O Jesus most desired!”

In this loving union, Christ’s love to us and our love to Christ flow in the same channel. Together they make a stream of love of a glorious kind. We love one another for Christ’s sake; we love sinners for Christ’s sake. We love the truth as Christ loves the truth. We love the Father in the same manner that Christ loves the Father, though not to the same degree. There is, in fact, but one love in the Head and in all the members. What the Head loves all the body loves. As one man we go with Christ. Being united to Him, His desires and longings become our desires and longings too; we grow into His likeness, and “are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2245.cfm

Love and I

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

“…lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  Amen. – Matthew 28:20

Jesus is ever at home where love is reigning. When love lives in His people’s hearts, Jesus lives there too. Does Jesus, then, live in the hearts of His people? Yes; wherever there is the love of the Father shed abroad in them, He must be there.

We are sure that He is where love is; for, first, where there is love there is life, and where there is life there is Christ, for He Himself says, “I am the life.” There is no true life in the believer’s soul that is divided from Christ. We are sure of that; so that where there is love there is life, and where there is life there is Christ. Again, where there is the love of God in the heart there is the Holy Spirit; but wherever the Holy Spirit is, there is Christ, for the Holy Spirit is Christ’s representative; and it is in that sense that He tells us, “Lo, I am with you alway,” namely, because the Spirit is come to be always with us. So where there is love there is the Spirit of God, and where there is the Spirit of God there is Christ. So it is always “Love and I.”

Furthermore where there is love there is faith, for faith worketh by love, and there never was true love to Christ apart from faith; but where there is faith there is always Christ, for if there is faith in Him He has been received into the soul. Jesus is ever near to that faith which has Himself for its foundation and resting place. Where there is love there is faith, where there is faith there is Christ, and so it is “love and I.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1667.cfm

The Divine Love in Us

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

“And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” – John 17:26

God does not love us because we know Him, for He loved us before we knew Him, even as Paul speaks of “His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins.” Jesus has not come to set His Father’s love upon the chosen. Oh, no; He did not even die with that object, for the Father’s love was upon the chosen from everlasting. “The Father Himself loveth you” was always true. Christ did not die to make His Father loving, but because His Father is loving: the atoning blood is the outflow of the very heart of God toward us. So do not make any mistake. Our Lord speaks not of the divine love in itself, but in us. This is not the eternal love of God towards us of which we are now reading, but that love in us. We are inwardly to feel the love which proceeds from the Father, and so to have it in us. We are to have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. It is to be recognized by us, felt in us, made the subject of inward joy; this it is that our Lord wishes to produce, that the love of God may be in us, dwelling in our hearts, a welcome guest, the sovereign of our souls.

The love of the Father towards Jesus springs up like a crystal fountain, and then the sparkling drops fall and overflow, as you have seen the fountains do, and we are the cups into which this overflowing love of God towards Christ Jesus flows, and flows till we, too, are full. The inward love so much desired for us by our Lord is…the Father’s love transplanted into the soil of these poor hearts, and becoming our love to Jesus. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1667.cfm

Christ’s Aim: Making Known the Father

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

“And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” – John 17:26

Are you growing in knowledge, my brothers and sisters? My labour is lost if you are not growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ…That little knowledge which you received by grace when you found “life in a look at the Crucified One” has saved you…A look at Christ saves; but oh, it is the look into Christ that wins the heart’s love and holds it fast and binds us to Him as with fetters of gold. We ought every day to be adding something to this inestimably precious store, that as we are known of God so we may know God, and become thereby transformed from glory unto glory through His Spirit.

Are you not thankful for this blessed word of the Lord Jesus: “I will declare it…I will make it known”? He did do so at His resurrection, when He taught His people things they knew not before; but He did so much more after He had ascended up on high when the Spirit of God was given. “He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” And now to-day in the hearts of His people He is daily teaching us something that we do not know. All our experience tends that way. When the Spirit of God blesses an affliction to us, it is one of the Saviour’s illuminated books out of which we learn something more of the Father’s name, and consequently come to love Him better: for that is the thing Christ aims at. He would so make known the Father, that the love wherewith the Father hath loved Him may be in us, and that He Himself may be in us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1667.cfm