the unbelieving life

A Question to You, Scorner of God’s Children

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. – John 10:28

Have you ever succeeded in stopping the work of grace in the heart of any one? You tried to laugh it out of your wife, but if she really was converted, you never would laugh it out of her. You may have tried to vex your little child; but if grace be in that child, I defy you and your master the devil to get it out. Ay, young man, you may laugh at your shopmate, but he will beat you in the long run. He may sometimes be abashed, but you never will turn him. If he is a hypocrite you will, and perhaps there will be no great loss, but if he be a true soldier of Christ, he can bear a great deal more than the laugh of an emptyheaded being like yourself. You need not for a moment flatter yourself that he will be afraid of you. He will have to endure a greater baptism of suffering than that, and he will not be cowed by the first shower of your poor, pitiful, malicious folly. And as for you, sir merchant, you may persecute your man, but see if you will get him to yield. Why, I know a man whose master had tried very hard to make him go against his conscience; but he said, “No, sir.” And the master thought, “Well, he is a very valuable servant; but I will beat him if I can.” So he threatened that if he did not do as he wished he would turn him away. The man was dependent on his master. and he knew not what he should do for his daily bread. So he said to his master honestly at once, “Sir, I don’t know of any other situation, I should be very sorry to leave you, for I have been very comfortable, but if it comes to that, sir, I would sooner starve than submit my conscience to any one.” The man left, and the master had to go after him to bring him back again. And so it will be in every case. If Christians are but faithful they must win the day. It is no use your kicking against them; you cannot hurt them. They must, they shall be conquerors through Him that hath loved them. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0202.cfm

Its Useless, O Puny Man

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 1 Comment

“It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” – Acts 26:14

There is a figure here; there is an allusion to the ox goad. When the ox was yoked for ploughing, if he did not move on in as sprightly a manner as was desired, the husbandman pricked him with a long rod that ended with an iron point. Very likely, as soon as the ox felt the goad, instead of going on, he struck out as hard as he could behind him. He kicked against the goad, sending the iron deep into his own flesh. Of course the husbandman who was guiding him kept his goad there still, and the more frequently the ox kicked, the more he was hurt. But go he must. He was in the hand of man, who must and will rule the beast. It was just his own option to kick as long as he pleased, for he did no harm to his driver, but only to himself.

And when you have persecuted Christ in order to stop the progress of His gospel, let me ask you, have you ever stopped it at all? No; and ten thousand like you would not be able to stop the mighty onward rush of the host of God’s elect… “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” But what said the Almighty? He did not even get up to combat with them. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath and vex them in His sore displeasure. Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.” The church cares not for all the noise of the world. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though waters thereof roar, and be troubled, and though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.” Ah, in your hosts ye have not prevailed, and think ye, O puny man, that one by one, ye shall be able to conquer? Your wish may be strong enough, but your wish can never be accomplished. You may desire it anxiously, but you shall never attain thereto.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0202.cfm

A Word to Mockers and Despisers of Christians

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 5:10

You have got a poor man who works for you, who wears a fustian jacket. He is nobody. You may laugh at him. He will not tell anybody, or even if he does, you will not be called to book about it, because he is nobody. You dare not laugh so at a duke or an earl. You would mind your behavior if you were in such company as that; but because this is a poor man, you think you have a license given you to laugh at his religion. But remember, that beneath the fustian jacket there is Jesus Christ Himself. Inasmuch as you have done this unto one of the least of His brethren, you have done it unto Him. Has the thought ever struck you, that when you laughed you were laughing, not at him, but at his Master? Whether it struck you or not it is a great truth, that Jesus Christ takes all the injuries which are done to His people as if they had been done to Him… If ye could see Christ enthroned in heaven, reigning there in the splendours of His majesty, would ye laugh at Him? If ye could see Him sitting on His great throne coming to judge the world, would ye laugh at Him? Oh! as all the rivers run into the sea, so all the streams of the churches’ suffering ran into Christ. If the clouds be full of rain they empty themselves upon the earth, and if the Christian’s heart be full of woes it empties itself into the breast of Jesus. Jesus is the great reservoir of all His people’s woes, and by laughing at His people you help to fill that reservoir to its brim. and one day will it burst in the fury of its might and the floods shall sweep you away, and the sand foundation upon which your house is builded shall give way, and then what shall ye do when ye shall stand before the face of Him whose person ye have mocked and whose name ye have despised?~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0202.cfm

A special post for these days~

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, sermon, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit, the unbelieving life 3 Comments

Full sermon text -if you can, read this with “virus” replacing “cholera” just as the narrator did to bring this message up to date.

Are You There in the Land of the Living?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 4 Comments

But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved) – Ephesians 2:4, 5

Ah! Beloved, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” God has given us a life that is more precious than the Koh-i-noor, a life that will outlast the sun and moon. When all things that are shall be like old ocean’s foam, which dissolves into the wave that bears it, and is gone for ever; we shall live, and we shall live in Christ, and with Christ, glorified for ever. When the moon has become black as sackcloth of hair, the life that is within us shall be as bright as when God first gave it to us. Thou hast the dew of thy youth, O child of God; and thou shalt have yet more of it, and be like thy Lord, when He shall take thee away from every trace of death, and the corrupt atmosphere of this poor world, and thou shalt dwell with the living God in the land of the living, for ever and for ever!

The practical outcome of all this, that some of you do not know anything at all about it. If you do not, let the fact impress you. If there be a divine life to which you are a stranger, how long will you be a stranger to it? If there be a spiritual death, and you are dead, be startled; for within a little while God will say, “Bury my dead out of my sight.” And what will happen to you when the word of God is, “Depart, depart, depart, depart,” and unto the graveyard of souls, to the fire that never shall be quenched, you and the rest of the dead are taken away? “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” and, unless we are made alive unto Him, He cannot be our God either here or hereafter. The Lord impress this solemn truth on all your hearts by His own spirit; for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2267.cfm

Made to See the Blackness of Our Sin

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 5 Comments

…the law entered, that the offence might abound. _ Romans 5:20

When the law enters a man’s heart, it brings his sin out in very strong relief. He never saw his sin to be so black as he now sees it to be. A stick is crooked, but you do not notice how crooked it is until you place a straight rule by the side of it. You have a handkerchief, and it seems to be quite white; you could hardly wish it to be whiter; but you lay it down on the newly-fallen snow, and you wonder how you could ever have thought it to be white at all. So the pure and holy law of God, when our eyes are opened to see its purity, shows up our sin in its true blackness, and in that way it makes sin to abound; but this is for our good, for that sight of our sin awakens us to a sense of our true condition, leads us to repentance, drives us by faith to the precious blood of Jesus, and no longer permits us to rest in our self-righteousness.

A little while ago, I met with a brother who said to me, “You cannot too forcibly describe the anguish of a convicted conscience; for,” said he, “I remember when I reckoned how long it would be before I must, in the ordinary course of nature, be in hell. I said to myself, ‘Suppose I live to be eighty years of age, yet how short a time it will be before I must be enduring the infinite wrath of God.'” Yes, that is the effect that the law of the Lord often produces upon a man when it enters his heart. It brings a mirror before him, and says to him “Look in there, and see not only what you have done, but also what is the just consequence of your evil deeds.” A man no longer cavils at God’s justice when the law once gets inside his heart; it shuts his mouth except for groans and sighs, and he has plenty of them…Let us thank God if ever we have experienced the entrance of His law into our hearts: for, although it makes sin to abound, is makes grace much more abound. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3115.cfm

The Law Enters

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 1 Comment

“Moreover, the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”- Romans 5:20

Paul writes, “I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” But, as soon as he found that there was a law against a certain sin, by some unhallowed instinct of his unrenewed nature, he wanted to do the very thing that he was forbidden to do. It was like that with us, the first effect of the entrance of the law of God into our hearts was to develop the sin that was already within us. “That is a dreadful thing,” says one. Yes, it is; but look at the matter from another aspect. Here is a man who has within him a dire disease which will be fatal if it is allowed to remain, so the physician gives him some medicine which throws the disease out. The man used to have a beautiful complexion, but after he has taken that medicine, his face is covered with blotches. Is that a bad thing? Yes, the blotches are bad, but the hidden disease was worse. While that disease was concealed within his system, and was killing him, he probably did not even know that is was there. He knew that he was not well, and perhaps thought that he was dying as the result of some other complaint; but now he sees what the disease is, and everybody sees it, and now that which looked like an evil thing may turn out to be for real good to the man. So does it often happen mentally, morally, and spiritually. A man’s wicked heart is full of enmity against God, yet he thinks-and perhaps he is right in thinking-that he is outwardly a strictly moral man; but, lo! the law of God, with its requirements of perfect purity and absolute obedience, enters his heart, and he rebels against it, and now the sin is apparent, even to himself. It is likely now that this man will repent of sin, it is highly probable that this development of his latent sin will lead him to form a different opinion of himself from any that he ever had before; and therefore, though the sin is evil, and the development of it is evil, yet, where sin abounded, grace shall much more abound, and so good shall come out of the evil after all. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3115.cfm