The Holy Spirit

Being Taught of the Son of God

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

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” – John 14:26

O beloved, it is not knowledge that you and I pick up as a matter of book learning that will ever bring out our love to the Father: it is knowledge given us by Christ through His Spirit. It is not knowledge communicated by the preacher alone which will bless you; for however much he may be taught of God Himself, he cannot preach to the heart unless the blessed Spirit of God comes and takes of the things that are spoken, and reveals them and makes them manifest to each individual heart, so that in consequence it knows the Lord. Jesus said, “O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee,” and you and I would have been in the same condition, strangers to God, without God and without hope in the world, if the Spirit of God had not taken of divine things and applied them to our souls so that we are made to know them. Every living word of knowledge is the work of the living God. If you only know what you have found out for yourself, or picked up by your own industry apart from Jesus, you know nothing aright: it must be by the direct and distinct teaching of God the Holy Ghost that you must learn to profit. Jesus Christ alone can reveal the Father. He Himself said, “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” He that knows not Christ knows not the Father; but when Jesus Christ reveals Him, ah! then we do know Him after a special, personal, peculiar, inward knowledge. This knowledge brings with it a life and a love with which the soul is not puffed up, but built up. By such knowledge we grow up into Him in all things who is our Head, being taught of the Son of God.~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Our Lord’s Last Prayer

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit 4 Comments

“I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”- John 17:26

This text is taken out of our Lord’s last prayer with His disciples. He did as good as say, “I am about to leave you, I am about to die for you; and for a while you will not see Me; but now, before we separate, let us pray.” …Now, a prayer from such a one as Jesus, our Lord and Master; a prayer in such a company, with the eleven whom He had chosen, and who had consorted with Him from the beginning; a prayer under such circumstances, when He was just on the brink of the brook of Cedron, and was about to cross that gloomy stream and go up to Calvary, and there lay down His life-such a prayer as this, so living, earnest, loving and divine, deserves the most studious meditations of all believers.

You will observe that the last word of our Lord’s prayer is concerning love. This is the last petition which He offers, “That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” He reaches no greater height than this, namely, that His people be filled with the Father’s love. How could He rise higher? For this is to be filled with all the fulness of God, since God is love, and He that loveth dwelleth in God and God in him. What importance ought you and I to attach to the grace of love! How highly we should esteem that which Jesus makes the crown jewel of all. If we have faith, let us not be satisfied unless our faith worketh by love and purifieth the soul. Let us not be content indeed until the love of Christ is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Tried By Fire and Thou Art Victorious

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

Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him…_Job 13:15

If you resolve to cling to Jesus Christ with constancy, you must expect to have many trials. God loves to try His people that He may get glory out of their trials, and I am sorry to say I have known some who in the depths of poverty, when it has suddenly come upon them like an armed man, have felt as if religion itself could not support them, and they have actually given up their profession. It is poor Christianity that cannot bear the loss of all things… It is no gold if it will not stand the fire, and it is no grace if it will not bear affliction.

There are thousands, tens of thousands upon earth who have been with Jesus wherever He has been throughout the whole of their lives, and will be with Him in death, and after death; and there are millions-there they stand-wearing their white robes and waving their palms. Listen; you may almost hear their song. These are they that overcame; they endured unto the end; they came through great tribulation, and washed their robes in the Lamb’s blood, and, therefore, are they before the throne of God. What was done, in them may be done in you. But how was it, then, that they held on and kept close to their Lord? Answer-it was not in their own strength; it was the Holy Spirit, who day by day preserved them, led them in knowledge and true holiness, purged them from sin, and at last made them to enter upon the heritage of the perfect. There was not a single moment in which they persevered apart from the Spirit’s strength. Poor human nature at its best must start aside like a broken bow. ‘Tis only grace that holds a single Christian… ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3504.cfm

Good News from Heaven to Saints

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

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. -2 Peter 1:4

Does someone ask, “Is there any news from heaven?” Yes, there is; and that shall be my first remark in this part of my theme,-that news does still come from heaven. There is an invisible telegraph between us and the glory-land; we are not cut off from communication with those who are there. Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven, but it was not merely a dream. Never was there anything more real than that vision of the night, for there is a blessed means of communication between this far-off land and the goodly land beyond the river. Our prayers and sighs and tears, our praises and thanksgivings, get there all right; they are not, lost en route. They reach the great heart of God, and messages come down to us from Him in response to them. How do they come? Well, they come by the Holy Spirit sealing home to the soul the promises of the Word. Do you know, experimentally, what I mean by that? “Ah!” says someone, “do I not!” Every now and then, some blessed portion of Scripture seems as if it were set on fire, and, as you read it, it blazes out before your eyes, just as, sometimes, we see the lamps that are being got ready for an illumination. There is some grand device; and, before it is lit up, it is little more than an array of pipes; but how different it looks after they have lit it all! So, there is many a text of Scripture which is like that design; you can see something of what it means, but you should see it when it is lit up. How very different it is then! You sometimes get a promise from the Word whispered into your ear, and it is just as new to you as if it had never been written down eighteen hundred or three or four thousand years ago. It is as fresh to you as if the eternal pen had written it to-day, and written it for you alone. Some of us I hope, many of us-know how the Spirit of God takes of the things of Christ, and reveals them unto us, leading us into the very heart and soul of the precious blessings of the covenant of grace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2866.cfm

By His Given Power

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. -John 1:12

There is many a poor sinner who says, “I know that Christ is Himself the Truth, but how can that Truth be mine? I know that there is eternal life, and that Christ is the Life as well as the Truth and the Way, but I am spiritually dead, can I ever have that life?” Yes, you can, for our Lord Jesus Christ is not merely the Way, but He is also the power by which we run in that way. He is not only the Truth, but He gives us the illuminating Spirit to lead us into the Truth; and He is not only the Life, but He puts that Life into us, and sustains and perfects it. You have nothing to do, sinner, but to give yourself up to the leading, guiding, directing, assisting, quickening of the blessed Spirit of God. It is true that you must believe, but He will give you the grace of faith. It is true that you must repent, but it is also true that He works repentance in us. There must and there will be a change of life in all true converts but it is the Holy Spirit who converts you and turns you completely round. There must be sanctification in genuine believers, but it is the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you. There is nothing asked of you in the gospel, but what the gospel itself gives you. Those things which, in one part of Scripture, are put as precepts, are, in other parts of Scripture, among the promises. What the Lord bids the sinner do, He enables the sinner to do, just as, when Jesus said to the man that was paralyzed, “Take up thy bed, and walk,” with the command He gave the power to obey it; and when He said to another man, “Stretch out thy hand, withered though it be,” the miraculous power, that gave the nerves and muscles force again, went with the mandate from the lips of Jesus. In like manner, trust thou the Lord to give thee the power to lay hold on the gospel. The very eye, with which to look at the brazen serpent is His gift; and that gift He is prepared to bestow upon all who come to Him for it. Is not this good news from a far country? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2866.cfm

Lord, Be Among Us!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit 9 Comments

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. -John 1:14

If the Lord be among us the consequences will be, first, the conservation of true doctrine. The true God is not with a lie: He will not give His countenance to falsehood. Those who preach other than according to His word abide not under His blessing; but are in great danger of His curse. If any man speak another gospel (which is not another, but there be some that trouble us), God is not with him, and any transient prosperity which he may enjoy, will be blown away as the chaff. God is with those who speak the truth faithfully, hold it devoutly, believe it firmly, and live upon it as their daily bread. May it always, be said of this church, “the Lord is there,” and therefore they are sound in the faith, reverent towards Holy Scripture, and zealous for the honor of Christ! Trust-deeds and confessions of faith are useful in their way, even as laws are useful to society; but as laws cannot secure obedience to themselves, so articles of belief cannot create faith, or secure honesty; and to men without conscience, they are not worth the paper they are written upon…Truth must be written on the heart as well as in the book. If the Lord be among His people, they will cling to the eternal verities, and love the doctrine of the cross, not by force of law, but because divine truth is the life of their souls.

If the Lord should depart from us, as He has gone from churches which are now apostate, what an abyss opens before us! If He should take His Holy Spirit from us, even as the glory departed from the temple at Jerusalem, then our ruin would become a thing to mention with dread, a case to be quoted for a warning to future generations. O Lord, our God, take not Thy flight! Abide with us, we pray Thee! Our only hope lies in Thy making the place of Thy feet glorious among us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Pray The Lord Keeps His Church

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

Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. -Psalm 121:4

A dead church is a reeking Golgotha, a breeding-place of evils, a home of devils. The tombs may be newly whitewashed, but they are none the less open sepulchres, haunts of unclean spirits. A church all alive is a little heaven, the resort of angels, the temple of the Holy Ghost. In some of our churches everybody seems to be a little colder than everybody else. The members are holy icicles. A general frost has paralyzed everybody; and though some are colder than others, yet all are below zero. There are no flowing rills of refreshment, but everything is bound hard and fast with the frost of indifference. Oh, that the Lord would send forth His wind, and melt the glaciers! Oh, that the Spirit of God would chase winter out of every heart and every church! No human power can keep a church from the frostbite which numbs and kills. Except the Lord be there, growth, life, warmth-are all impossible. Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest, but cry day and night to Him! O Lord, abide with us. Go forth with our armies. Make us to be the living children of the living God!”

Who is to keep the church pure? None but God Himself. If the Lord is there, holiness will abound, and fruits of the Spirit will be seen on all sides; but if the Lord be once withdrawn, then flesh and blood will rule, and gender towards corruption after its own manner; and the church will become a synagogue of formalists. Pray, my brethren, continually, that the Lord may dwell in our Zion, to maintain us in all holy obedience and purity of life.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm