The Holy Spirit Lightens

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

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. – John 14:26

There is one blessed person of the divine Unity who makes it His especial office to teach us. If you go to God for wisdom, you only go for that which it is His nature and His office to give. The Holy Ghost is given to this end: “He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” When you go to God, you may say to Him these words, “O Father, you have been pleased to reveal to us the Holy Spirit, who is to lighten our darkness, and to remove our ignorance. Oh, let that Spirit of Thine dwell in me; I am willing to be taught by Thy Spirit, through Thy Word, or through Thy ministers, but I come first to Thee because I know that Thy Word and Thy ministers, apart from Thyself, cannot teach me anything. O Lord, teach Thou me.” I do not mean by any word of mine to make you think little of Scripture-God forbid! -nor little of those who may speak to you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, but I did mean to make you look even at that Book, and at God’s ministers, as being subservient to the Holy Ghost Himself. Go to Him; ask Him: for there in the Book is the letter that killeth; He, He alone can make you to know the living essence and the quickening power of that Word. Without the Holy Ghost, my dear hearer, you must still be as blind with the light as you would have been without it. You will be as foolish after having been taught the gospel in the theory of it, as you were before you knew it. Let the Holy Spirit, however, teach you, and you shall know all things that are necessary for this life and godliness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm

Go to God

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. – James 1:5

“Let him ask of God.” Now, you perceive, that the man is directed at once to God, without any intermediate object, or ceremony, or person. You are not told here to seek direction from good books; they may become very useful as auxiliary helps, but the best of human books, if followed slavishly, will mislead…When a man is really under concern of soul, he is in a condition of considerable danger. Then it is that an artful false teacher may get hold of him and cozen him into heresy and unscriptural doctrine. Hence the text does not say, “If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask his priest;” that is about the worst thing he can do; for he who sets himself up for a priest, is either a deceiver or deceived. “Let him ask of God,” that is the advice of the Scripture. We are all so ready to go to books, to go to men, to go to ceremonies, to anything except God. Man will worship God with his eyes, and his arms, and his knees, and his mouth-with anything but his heart-and we are all of us anxious, more or less, until we are renewed by grace, to get off the heart-worship of God. Juan de Valdey says, that, “Just as an ignorant man takes a crucifix and says, ‘This crucifix will help me to think of Christ,’ so he bows before it and never does think of Christ at all, but stops short at the crucifix; so,” says he, “the learned man takes his book and says, ‘This book will teach me the mysteries of the kingdom,’ but instead of giving his thoughts to the mysteries of godliness, he reads his book mechanically and stops at the book, instead of meditating and diving into the truth.” It is the action of the mind that God accepts, not the motion of the body; it is the thought communing with Him; it is the soul coming into contact with the soul of God; it is the spirit-worship which the Lord accepts. Consequently, the text does not say, “Let him ask books,” nor “ask priests,” but, “let him ask of God.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm

Medicine for the Distracted 

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

Sermon Text

Ask of God

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If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. – James 1:5

When God is making you feel the burden of your guilt, you suppose that now He has forgotten to be gracious, whereas it is now that He is gracious to you in very deed and is using the best means of making you understand and value His grace. The way of life is a new road to you, poor seeking soul, and therefore you lack wisdom in it and make many mistakes about it. The text lovingly advises, “Ask of God;” “Ask of God.” 

Many lack wisdom because, in addition to all their fears and their ignorance, they are fiercely attacked by Satan. John Bunyan tells us of Apollyon, that he said, “No king will willingly lose his subjects.” Of course, he will not; and Apollyon, as he sees his subjects one after another desert him to enlist under the banner of King Jesus, howls at his loses, and he leaves no stone unturned to keep souls back from mercy. Just at that critical moment he says to himself, “It is now or never. If I do not nip these buds, they will become flowers and fruits; but if I can bring in a withering frost, I shall kill the young plant.” The great enemy makes a dead set at anxious souls…”Now,” saith he to all is servants, “shoot your arrows at that awakened soul; it is about to escape from me: empty your quivers, ye soldiers of the pit; launch your hot temptations, ye fiends of hell! Sting that soul with infidel insinuations and hideous blasphemies, for if I once lose it, I have lost it forever; therefore, hold it, ye princes of the pit, hold it fast, if ye can.” Now, in such a plight as that, with your foolish heart, and the wicked world, and the evil one, and your sins in dreadful alliance to destroy you, what could such a poor timid one as you do, if it were not for this precious word, “If any of you”-that must mean you-“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not”? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm

Made Foolish

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

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. – James 1:5

Many persons are made foolish, so that they lack wisdom through their despair. Probably, nothing makes a man seem so much like a maniac as the loss of hope. When the mariner feels that the vessel is sinking, that the proud waves must soon overwhelm her, then he reels to and fro, and staggers like a drunken man, because he is at his wits’ end. Ah! poor heart, when thou seest the blackness of sin, I do not wonder that thou art driven to despair; and when thy sins come howling behind thee, like so many ravenous wolves, all seeking to devour thee, I do not marvel that thou shouldst be ready even to lay violent hands upon thyself. It is no strange thing for men to be sorely tempted when they are under a sense of sin. And now thou knowest not what to do. If thou couldst be calm and quiet, we could tell you plainly the way of peace, and you might understand that there is no reason for despair, since Jesus died and rose again, and is “able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him;” but you cannot give us a calm hearing, for you are distracted, and you think that this comfort applies to everybody but you. You lack wisdom because you are in such a worry and turmoil. As John Bunyan used to say, you are much troubled up and down in your thoughts. I pray you, then, ask wisdom of God, and even out of the depths if you cry unto Him, He will be pleased to instruct you and bring you out into a safe way. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm

The Simplicity of Salvation

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

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. – Ephesians 2:8,9

The natural heart rebels against the simplicity of the way of salvation. “What! am I to do nothing but simply accept the righteousness already finished? Am I to leave off doing, and merely to look unto Him who was nailed to the tree, and find all my salvation in Him? “Well, then,” saith the proud heart, “I cannot understand it.” I cannot understand it because I doth not love it. Now, soul, if this be thy difficulty, and I believe, in nine cases out of ten, a proud heart is at the root of all difficulty about the sinner’s coming to Christ-if this it is which turns you aside and makes you foolish, then go to God about it, and seek wisdom from Him. He will show you the folly of this pride of yours and teach you that simply to trust in Jesus is at once the safest and most suitable way of salvation. He will make you see that if the way of salvation had been by doing, the method would not have suited you, for what could you do? If it had been by feeling, it would not have suited you either, for what can your hard heart feel? How can you make yourself tender of heart? But, seeing that it is by faith, it is therefore by grace. O that you may be made wise enough to stoop and kiss the silver sceptre which is outstretched to you, to come and buy this wine and milk, without money and without price, and accept with your whole heart, with intense joy, this perfect righteousness, this finished salvation which Christ hath wrought out and brought in for every seeking soul. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm

Made Wise

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

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”- James 1:5

Much tempted and severely tried saints are frequently at their wits’ end, and though they may be persuaded that in the end good will come out of all their afflictions, yet for the present they may be so distracted as not to know what to do. How fitly spoken and how seasonable is this word of the apostle, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God;” and such wisdom shall the Lord afford His afflicted sons, that the trying of their faith shall produce patience, and they themselves shall count it all joy that they have fallen in divers trials…The promise is not to be limited to any one particular application, for the word, “If any of you,” is so wide, so extensive, that whatever may be our necessity, whatever the dilemma which perplexes us, this text consoles us with the counsel, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” …You cannot work long for your heavenly Lord without perceiving that you need a greater wisdom than you own. Why, even in directing an enquirer to the cross of Christ, simple work as that may seem to be, we shall often discover our own inability and folly. In rebuking the backslider, in comforting the desponding, in restoring the fallen, in guiding the ignorant, we shall need to be taught of God, or else we shall meet with more failures than successes. To every honest Christian worker this text speaks with all the soft melody of an angel’s whisper. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” Thy lips shall overflow with knowledge, and thy tongue shall drop with words of wisdom, if thou wilt but wait on God and hear Him before thou speakest to thy fellow men. Thou shalt be made wise to win souls if thou wilt learn to sit at the Master’s feet, that He may teach thee the art which He followed when on earth and follows still. ~ C.H, Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm