The Holy Spirit

Only By His Spirit

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 4 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

(Y)ou must know Christ as your Redeemer before you can follow Him as your Exemplar. Much is said about the example of Jesus, and we scarcely find a man now who does not believe that our Lord was an excellent and holy Man, much to be admired. But excellent as was His example, it would be impossible to imitate it, had He not also been our sacrifice. Do ye this morning know that His blood was shed for you? Can ye join with me in this verse,-

“O the sweet wonders of that cross,
Where God the Saviour lov’d and died;
Her noblest life my spirit draws
From His dear wounds and bleeding side.”

If so, you are in a fair way to imitate Christ. But do not seek to copy Him until you are bathed in the fountain filled with blood drawn from His veins. It is not possible for you to do so; your passions will be too strong and corrupt, and you will be building without a foundation, a structure, which will be about as stable as a dream. You cannot mould your life to His pattern until you have had His Spirit, till you have been clothed in His righteousness.

…It was a maxim of the old philosophers, that, three times in the day, we should go over our actions. So let us do; let us not be forgetful; let us rather examine ourselves each night, and see wherein we have done amiss, that we may reform our lives. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0021.cfm

Be Like Christ for Your Own Sake

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

He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. -1 John 2:6

Why should Christians imitate Christ? The answer comes very naturally and easily, Christians should be like Christ, first, for their own sakes. For their honesty’s sake, and for their credit’s sake, let them not be found liars before God and men. For their own healthful state, if they wish to be kept from sin and preserved from going astray, let them imitate Jesus. For their own happiness’ sake, if they would drink wine on the lees well refined; if they would enjoy holy and happy communion with Jesus; if they would be lifted up above the cares and troubles of this world, let them imitate Jesus Christ. Oh! my brethren, there is nothing that can so advantage you, nothing can so prosper you, so assist you, so make you walk towards heaven rapidly, so keep your head upwards towards the sky, and your eyes radiant with glory, like the imitation of Jesus Christ. It is when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you are enabled to walk with Jesus in His very footsteps, and tread in His ways, you are most happy and you are most known to be the sons of God. For your own sake, my brethren, I say, be like Christ.

…”Yes, I love Thee, I know that I love Thee. Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee,” can the Christian say. “Well, then,” says Jesus, looking down with a glance of affectionate approbation, “since thou lovest Me, keep My commandments.” O beloved, what mightier reason can I give than this? It is the argument of love and affection. Be like Christ, since gratitude demands obedience; so shall the world know that ye have been with Jesus.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0021.cfm

Imitate Jesus in Your Prayer Time

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

Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. -Luke 6:12

When no eye seeth you except the eye of God, when darkness covers you, when you are shut up from the observation of mortals, even then be ye like Jesus Christ. Remember His ardent piety, His secret devotion-how, after laboriously preaching the whole day, He stole away in the midnight shades to cry for help from His God. Recollect how His entire life was constantly sustained by fresh inspirations of the Holy Spirit, derived by prayer. Take care of your secret life; let it be such that you will not be ashamed to read at the last great day. Your inner life is written in the book of God, and it shall one day be open before you. If the entire life of some of you were known, it would be no life at all; it would be a death. Yea, even of some true Christians we may say it is scarce a life. It is a dragging on of an existence-one hasty prayer a day-one breathing, just enough to save their souls alive, but no more. O, my brethren, strive to be more like Jesus Christ. These are times when we want more secret prayer…

Ye who love God, of every place and every denomination, wrestle for your ministers; pray for them; for why should not God even now put out His Spirit? What is the reason why we are to be denied Pentecostal seasons? Why not this hour, as one mighty band, fall down before Him and entreat Him, for His Son’s sake, to revive His drooping church? Then would all men discern that we are verily the disciples of Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0021.cfm

What a Christian Should Be

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

And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?…and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. -Acts 4:7,13

A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ. You have read lives of Christ, beautifully and eloquently written, and you have admired the talent of the persons who could write so well; but the best life of Christ is His living biography, written out in the words and actions of His people. If we, my brethren, were what we profess to be; if the Spirit of the Lord were in the heart of all His children, as we could desire; and if, instead of having abundance of formal professors, we were all possessors of that vital grace, I will tell you not only what we ought to be, but what we should be: we should be pictures of Christ, yea, such striking likenesses of Him that the world would not have to hold us up by the hour together, and say, “Well, it seems somewhat of a likeness;” but they would, when they once beheld us, exclaim, “He has been with Jesus; he has been taught of Him; he is like Him; he has caught the very idea of the holy Man of Nazareth, and he expands it out into his very life and every day actions.”

…(T)he Christian man; though he feels he never can mount to the heights of complete excellence, and perceives that he never can on earth become the exact image of Christ, still holds it up before him, and measures his own deficiencies by the distance between himself and Jesus. This will he do; forgetting all he has attained, he will press forward, crying, Excelsior! going upwards still, desiring to be conformed more and more to the image of Christ Jesus.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0021.cfm

Bold for Our Master’s Cause

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, The Holy Spirit 4 Comments

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. -Acts 4:13

Behold! what a change divine grace will work in a man, and in how short a time. That same Peter, who so lately followed his Master afar off, and with oaths and curses denied that he knew His name, is now to be found side by side with the loving John, boldly declaring that there is salvation in none other name save that of Jesus Christ, and preaching the resurrection of the dead, through the sacrifice of His dying Lord. The Scribes and Pharisees soon discover the reason of his boldness. Rightly did they guess that it rested not in his learning or his talents, for neither Peter nor John had been educated; they had been trained as fishermen; their education was a knowledge of the sea-of the fisherman’s craft; none other had they; their boldness could not therefore spring from the self-sufficiency of knowledge, but from the Spirit of the living God. Nor did they acquire their courage from their station; for rank will confer a sort of dignity upon a man, and make him speak with a feigned authority, even when he has no talent or genius; but these men were…private men, who stood in no official capacity; men without rank or station. When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and private individuals, they marveled, and they came to a right conclusion as to the source of their power-they had been dwelling with Jesus. Their conversation with the Prince of light and glory, backed up, as they might also have known, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, without which even that eminently holy example would have been in vain, had made them bold for their Master’s cause. Oh! my brethren, it were well if this condemnation, so forced from the lips of enemies, could also be compelled by our own example. If we could live like Peter and John; if our lives were “living epistles of God, known and read of all men;” if, whenever we were seen, men would take knowledge of us, that we had been with Jesus, it would be a happy thing for this world, and a blessed thing for us…that men may perceive that you are disciples of the Holy Son of God.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0021.cfm

The God of Nature

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

The LORD hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. -Nahum 1:3

Wherever I look abroad in nature I love to discern my Father’s name spelled out in living characters; and if we had any fields a little greener than Moorfields, Smithfield, and Spafields, I would do as Isaac did, go into the fields at eventide and muse and meditate upon the God of nature. I thought in the cool of last evening I would muse with my God, by His Holy Spirit, and see what message He would give me. There I sat and watched the clouds, and learned a lesson in the great hall of Nature’s college. The first thought that struck me was this, as I saw the white clouds rolling in the sky, soon shall I see my Saviour mounted on a great white throne, riding on the clouds of heaven, to call men to judgment. My imagination could easily picture the scene, when the quick and the dead should stand before His great white throne, and should hear His voice pronounce their changeless destiny. I remembered, moreover, that text in the Proverbs, “He that observeth the wind shall not sow and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” I thought how many a time myself and my brother ministers have regarded the clouds. We have listened to the voice of prudence and of caution we have regarded the clouds, we have stops when we ought to have been sowing because we were afraid of the multitude, or we refused to reap and take in the people into our churches, because some good brother thought we were too hasty about the matter. I rose up and thought to myself, I will regard neither the clouds nor the winds, but when the wind blows a hurricane I will throw the seed with my hands, if peradventure the tempest may waft it further still; and when the clouds are thick, still I will reap, and rest assured that God will preserve His own wheat, whether I gather it under clouds or in the sunshine. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0036.cfm

Afflictions Are No Proof of Sonship

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

I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. -Isaiah 48:10

(W)hen there seemed in the chapter but little need of the mention of the doctrine of God’s choosing His people, on a sudden the Holy Spirit moves the prophet’s lips and bids him utter this sentiment, “I have chosen thee;” I have chosen thee by My eternal, sovereign, distinguishing grace; I have chosen thee in covenant purposes; I have chosen thee according to My electing love; “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.”

…No tribulation ever proves us to be children of God, except it be sanctified by grace, but affliction is the common lot of all men-man is born to it, even as the sparks fly upward; and you must not infer, because you happen to be troubled, because you are poor, or sick, or tried in your minds, that therefore you are a child of God. If you do imagine so, you are building on a false foundation; you have taken a wrong thought, and you are not right in the matter at all…

There are trials in the pathway of the ungodly, there are troubles they have to suffer which are quite as acute as those of the children of God. Oh! trust not in your troubles; fix your thoughts on Jesus; make Him the only object of your trust, and let the only test be this, “Am I one with Christ? Am I leaning upon Him?” If so, whether I am tried or not, I am a child of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0035.cfm