The Holy Spirit

Every Eye Shall See Him

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

…every eye shall see Him… – Revelation 1:7

The Lord Jesus Christ will not come spiritually, for in that sense He is always here—He will come really and substantially, for every eye shall see Him—even those unspiritual eyes which gazed on Him with hate and pierced Him! Go not away and dream and say to yourself, “Oh, there is some spiritual meaning about all this.” Do not destroy the teaching of the Holy Spirit by the idea that there will be a spiritual manifestation of the Christ of God and that a literal appearing is out of the question! That would be altering the record. The Lord Jesus shall come to earth a second time as literally as He has come a first time! The same Christ who ate a piece of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb after He had risen from the dead—the same who said—“Handle Me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see I have”—this same Jesus, with a material body, is to come in the clouds of Heaven! In the same manner as He went up, He shall come down! He shall be literally seen. The words cannot be honestly read in any other way.

“Every eye shall see Him.” Yes, I do literally expect to see my Lord Jesus with these eyes of mine, even as that saint expected who long ago fell asleep, believing that though the worms devoured his body, yet in his flesh he would see God, whom his eyes should see for himself and not another! There will be a real resurrection of the body, though the moderns doubt it—such a resurrection that we shall see Jesus with our own eyes! We shall not find ourselves in a shadowy, dreamy land of floating fictions where we may perceive, but cannot see. We shall not be airy nothings—mysterious, vague, impalpable—but we shall literally see our glorious Lord, whose appearing will be no phantom show, or shadow dance! Never day more real than the Day of Judgement! Never sight more true than the Son of Man upon the Throne of His Glory! Will you take this statement home, that you may feel the force of it? We are getting too far away from facts, nowadays, and too much into the realm of myths and notions. “Every eye shall see Him”—in this there shall be no delusion! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1989.cfm

“Behold, He comes with clouds!”

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

Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen. – Revelation 1:7

Brothers and Sisters, do not your souls take fire as you think of the praises of Immanuel? Gladly would I fill the universe with His praise! Oh! for a thousand tongues to sing the glories of the Lord Jesus!

“Behold, He comes with clouds!” (John’s) adoration awoke his expectation, which all the while was lying in his soul as an element of that vehement heat of reverent love which he poured forth in his doxology. “Behold, He comes,” he said, and thus he revealed one source of his reverence. “Behold, He comes,” he said, and this exclamation was the result of his reverence… “Behold, He comes,” or is coming—he means to assert that He is even now on His way! As workmen are moved to be more diligent in service when they hear their master’s steps, so, doubtless, saints are quickened in their devotion when they are conscious that He whom they worship is drawing near. He has gone away to the Father for a while and so He has left us alone in this world—but He has said, “I will come again and receive you unto Myself”—and we are confident that He will keep His word! Sweet is the remembrance of that loving promise. That assurance is pouring its savor into John’s heart while he is adoring and it becomes inevitable, as well as most meet and proper, that his doxology should, at its close, introduce him to the Lord, Himself, and cause him to cry out, “Behold, He comes!” Having worshipped among the pure in heart, he sees the Lord. Having adored the King, he sees Him assume the Judgement Seat and appear in the clouds of Heaven! When once we enter upon heavenly things, we know not how far we can go, nor how high we can climb! John, who began with blessing the Churches, now beholds His Lord! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1989.cfm

For God’s Honor

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

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:19,20

Let us remember that by men who profess to be “bought with a price,” the name of Christ is compromised if their behavior is unseemly. If we are not holy and gracious, ungodly men are sure to say, “That is one of your believers in God; that is one of your Christians.” Do not let it be so. Every soldier in a regiment ought to feel that the renown of the whole army depends upon him, and he must fight as if the winning of the battle rested upon himself. This will cause every man to be a hero. Oh, that every Christian felt as if the honour of God and the church rested upon him, for in a measure it certainly does!

May we so seek God, that when we come to die, we may feel that we have lived for something; that although our hope has rested alone in what Jesus did, yet we have not made that an excuse for doing nothing ourselves. Though we shall have no good works in which to glory, yet may we bring forth fruit that shall be for the glory of our Lord. I feel I so desire to glorify God, body, soul, and spirit, while I breathe, that I would even do so on earth after I am dead. I would still urge my brethren on in our Lord’s cause…Let us so live that when we die, we live on, like Abel, who being dead yet speaketh. The only way to do this is to live in the power of the Immortal God, under the influence of His Holy Spirit: then out of our graves we shall speak to future generations. When Doctor Payson died, he desired that his body should be placed in a coffin, and that his hearers should be invited to come and see it. Across his breast was placed a paper bearing these words, “Remember the words which I spake unto you, being yet present with you.” May our lives be such that even if we are not public speakers, yet others may remember our example and so may hear what our lives spake while we were yet on earth. Your bodies and your spirits are God’s: oh, live to God, and glorify Him in the power of His Spirit as long as you have any breath. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm

Glorify God in Your Body

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

… therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:20

The Christian man’s body should glorify God by its chastity. Pure as the lily should we be from every taint of uncleanness. The body should glorify God by temperance also; in all things, in eating drinking, sleeping in everything that has to do with the flesh. “Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,” or as the apostle puts it elsewhere, “whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.” The Christian man can make every meal a sacrament, and his ordinary avocations the exercise of his spiritual priesthood. The body ought to glorify God by its industry. A lazy servant is a bad Christian. A working man who is always looking for Saturday night, a man who never spends a drop of sweat except when the master is looking on, does not glorify God in his body. The best Christian is the man who is not afraid of hard work when it is due, who works not as an eye-servant or man pleaser, but in singleness of heart seeks to glorify God. Our bodies used to work hard enough for the devil; now they belong to God, and we will make them work for Him. Your legs used to carry you to the theater; be not too lazy to come out on a Thursday night to the house of God. Your eyes have been often open upon iniquity, keep them open during the sermon: do not drop asleep! Your ears have been sharp enough to catch the word of a lascivious song let them be quick to observe the word of God. Those hands have often squandered your earnings in sinfulness, let them give freely to the cause of Christ. Your body was a willing horse when it was in the service of the devil, let it not be a sluggish hack now that it draws the chariot of Christ. Make the tongue speak His praises, make the mouth sing of His glory, make the whole man bow in willing subservience to the will of Him who bought it. As for your spirit, let that glorify God too. Let your private meditations magnify God; let your songs be to Him when no one hears you but Himself, and let your public zeal, let the purity of your conversation, let the earnestness of your life, let the universal holiness of your character, glorify God with your body and with your spirit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm

Our High Honor

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

For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:20

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. – John 11:25

Our body and our spirit are God’s and, Christian, this is certainly a very high honor to you. Your body will rise again from the dead at the first resurrection, because it is not an ordinary body, it belongs to God: your spirit is distinguished from the souls of other men; it is God’s Spirit, and He has set His mark upon it, and honored you in so doing. You are God’s, because a price has been paid for you. According to some, the allusion price here is to the dowry that was paid by a husband for his wife in ancient days. According to the Rabbis there were three ways by which a woman became the wife of a man, and one of these was by the payment of a dowry. This was always held good in Jewish law; the woman was not her own from the moment when the husband had paid to her father or natural guardian the stipulated price for her. Now, at this day, you and I rejoice that Jesus Christ has espoused us unto Himself in righteousness or ever the earth was; we rejoice in that language which He uses by the prophet Hosea, “I will betroth thee unto Me for ever;” but here is our comfort, the dowry money has been paid, Christ has redeemed us unto Himself, and Christ’s we are, Christ’s for ever and ever.

Remember that our Lord has paid all the price for us; there is no mortgage or lien upon us; we have therefore no right to give a portion of ourselves to Satan. And He has bought us entirely from head to foot, every power, every passion, and every faculty, all our time, all our goods, all that we call our own, all that makes up ourselves in the largest sense of that term; we are altogether God’s. Ah! it is very easy for people to say this, but how very difficult it is to feel it true and to act as such!…A real redemption demands real holiness. A true price, most certainly paid, demands from us a practical surrendering of ourselves to the service of God. From this day forth even for ever, “ye are not your own,” ye are the Lord’s. ~ C. H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm

The Holiness of Christians

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

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1Corinthians 6:19-20

Paul, who above all others, speaks most positively of salvation by grace, and is most clear upon the fact that salvation is not by the works of the law, is at the same time most intensely earnest for the holiness of Christians, and most zealously denounces those who would say, “Let us do evil, that good may come.” In this particular instance he sets the sin of fornication in the light of the Holy Spirit; he holds up, as it were, the seven-branched candlestick before it, and lets us see what a filthy thing it is. He tells us that the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and therefore ought not to be profaned; he declares that bodily unchastity is a sacrilegious desecration of our manhood, a violation of the sacred shrine wherein the Spirit takes up its dwelling-place; and then, as if this were not enough, he seizes the sin and drags it to the foot of the cross, and there nails it hand and foot, that it may die as a criminal; for these are his words: “Ye are not your own: for ye are bought with a price:” the price being the blood of Jesus. He finds no sharper weapon, no keener instrument of destruction than this. The redemption wrought on Calvary by the death of Jesus must be the death of this sin, and of all other sins, wherever the Spirit of God uses it as His sword of execution. Brethren and sisters, it is no slight thing to be holy. A man must not say, “I have faith,” and then fall into the sins of an unbeliever; for, after all, our outer life is the test of our inner life; and if the outer life be not purified, rest assured the heart is not changed. That faith which does not bring forth the fruit of holiness is the faith of devils. The devils believe and tremble. Let us never be content with a faith which can live in hell, but rise to that which will save us—the faith of God’s elect, which purifies the soul, casting down the power of evil, and setting up the throne of Jesus Christ, the throne of holiness within the spirit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm

That Man is Hopeful

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

Beginning at Jerusalem. – Luke 24:47

And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me… – John 16:9

Begin, dear friend, where you may expect opposition. That is a strange thing to advice, but I recommend it because the Savior advised it. If (the disciples) began at Jerusalem, they would awaken a ferocious opposition. But nothing is much better for the gospel than opposition. A man comes into the Tabernacle tonight, and as he goes away he says, “Yes, I was pleased and satisfied.” In that man’s case I have failed. But another man keeps biting his tongue, for he cannot endure the preaching. He is very angry. Something in the doctrine does not suit him, and he cries, “As long as I live I will never come here again.” That man is hopeful. He begins to think. The hook has taken hold of him. Give us time, and we will have that fish. It is no ill omen when a man gets angry with the gospel. It is bad enough, but it is infinitely better than that horrible lethargy into which men fall when they do not think. Some are not good enough even to oppose the gospel of Jesus Christ. Be hopeful of the man who will not let you speak to him, he is one that you must approach again. And if when he does let you speak to him, he seems as if he would spit on you, be grateful for it. He feels your words. You are touching him on a sore place. You will have him yet. When he swears that he does not believe a word of what you say, do not believe a word of what he says, for often the man who openly objects secretly believes. Just as boys whistle when they go through a churchyard in order to keep their courage up, so many a blasphemer is profane in order to silence his conscience. When he feels the hook, like the fish, the man will drag away from it. Give him line. Let him go. The hook will hold, and in due time you will have him. Do not despair. Do not think it a horrible thing that he should oppose you. You should rather be grateful for it, and go to God and cry that He will give you that soul for your hire. Begin courageously where you may expect opposition. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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