Showing the Processes of Grace

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” – -Matthew 21:19

Do you not know persons who are in appearance everything and in reality, nothing? O dark thought! may we not ourselves be such persons? See the man, he is strong in faith, even to presumption; he is joyous in hope, even to levity; he is loving in spirit, even to utter indifference about truth! How very glib he is in talk! How deep he is in theological speculation! Yet he has never entered the kingdom by the new birth. He has never been taught of God. The gospel has come to him in word only. He is a stranger to the work of the Holy Ghost. Are there not such persons? Are there not persons who are defenders of orthodoxy and yet are heterodox in their own conduct? Do we not know men and women whose lives deny what their lips profess?

I like to see our young friends, when they believe in Christ, proving their faith by holiness at home, by godliness abroad, and then coming forward and confessing their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That looks to be the sober and normal way of proceeding, for a man first to be, and then to profess to be; first to be lighted, and then to shine; first to repent and believe, and then to confess his repentance and his faith…Will it not be ruinous if conviction of sin is slighted, repentance slurred, faith imitated, the new birth counterfeited, and godliness feigned? Beloved, this will never do. We must have figs before leaves, acts before declarations, faith before baptism, union to Christ before union with the church. You cannot leap over the processes of nature, neither may you omit the processes of grace, lest haply your foliage without fruit become a curse without cure. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

What is Our True Profession?

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

And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fig tree withered away. – Matthew 21:19

There have been churches which have stood prominent in numbers and in influence; but faith, and love, and holiness have not been maintained, and the Holy Ghost has left them to the vain show of a fruitless profession; and there stand those churches, with the trunk of organization, and widely extended branches, but they are dead, and every year they become more and more decayed. We may have numbers of people coming to hear the Word, and a considerable body of men and women professing to be converted; but unless vital godliness is in their midst, what are congregations and churches? We might have a valued ministry, but what would this be without the Spirit of God? We might have many outward efforts; but what of these without the spirit of prayer, the spirit of faith, the spirit of grace and consecration? I dread lest we should ever come to be like a tree, precocious with a superlative profession, but yet worthless in the sight of the Lord, because the secret life of piety, and vital union to Christ, are gone. Better that the axe clears away every vestige of the tree than that it stands out against the sky an open lie, a mockery, a delusion.

My heart’s desire is that we may learn the lesson in detail and take it home each one to his own heart. May the Lord Himself speak to each one of us personally! May we tremble, lest, having a profession of godliness, we should wear it conspicuously, and yet should lack the fruitbearing which alone can warrant such a profession. The name of saintship, if it be not justified by sanctity, is an offence to honest men, and much more to a holy God. A pronounced and forward avowal of Christianity without a Christian life at the back of it is a lie, abhorrent to God and man, an offence against truth, a dishonour to religion, and the forerunner of a withering curse. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

A Lesson for the Nations

Sherry Character of Jesus, promises, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

And when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!”- Matthew 21:19

The blighted fig tree was a singularly apt simile of the Jewish state. The nation had promised great things to God. When all the other nations were like trees without leaves, making no profession of allegiance to the true God, the Jewish nation was covered with the leafage of abundant religious profession. Scribes, pharisees, priests and elders of the people were all sticklers for the letter of the law, and boaster of being worshippers of the one God, and strict observers of all His laws. Their constant cry was, “The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these.” “We have Abraham as our father” was frequently on their lips. They were a fig tree in full leaf. But there was no fruit upon them; for the people were neither holy, nor just, nor true, nor faithful towards God, nor loving to their neighbor. The Jewish church was a mass of glittering profession, unsupported by spiritual life. Our Lord had looked into the temple and had found the house of prayer to be a den of thieves. He condemned the Jewish church to remain a lifeless, fruitless thing; and it was so. The synagogue remained open; but its teaching became a dead form. Israel had no influence upon the age.

What a lesson is this to nations! Nations may make a profession, a loud profession, of religion, and yet may fail to exhibit that righteousness which exalteth a nation. Nations may be adorned with all the leafage of civilization, and art, and progress, and religion; but if there be no inner life of godliness, and no fruit unto righteousness, they will stand for a while, and then wither away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2107.cfm

The Bible

Sherry sermon Leave a comment

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

Once a Curse but Now a Blessing

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

“And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel, so will I save you and ye shall be a blessing…Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord.”—Zechariah 8:13, 22

The day is coming, yea it dawns already, when the whole world shall discern the true dignity of the chosen seed, and shall seek their company, because the Lord hath blessed them. In that day when Israel shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for their sins, the Jew shall take his true rank among the nations as an elder brother and a prince. The covenant made with Abraham, to bless all nations by his seed, is not revoked; heaven and earth shall pass away, but the chosen nation shall not be blotted out from the book of remembrance. The Lord hath not cast away His people; He has never given their mother a bill of divorcement; He has never put them away; in a little wrath He hath hidden His face from them, but with great mercies will He gather them. The natural branches shall again be engrafted into the olive together with the wild olive graftings from among the Gentiles. In the Jew, first and chiefly, shall grace triumph through the King of the Jews. O time, fly thou with rapid wing, and bring the auspicious day!..I think we do not attach sufficient importance to the restoration of the Jews. We do not think enough about it. But certainly, if there is anything promised in the Bible it is this. I imagine that you cannot read the Bible without seeing clearly that there is to be an actual restoration of the Children of Israel . . . For when the Jews are restored, the fullness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in; and as soon as they return, then Jesus will come upon Mount Zion with His ancients gloriously, and the halcyon days of the millennium shall then dawn; we shall then know every man to be a brother and a friend; Christ shall rule with universal sway. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://thejerusalemconnection.us/blog/2011/08/01/charles-h-spurgeon-and-the-restoration-of-israel/

God’s Word Claims Our Allegiance

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

Thus saith the LORD of hosts…Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD? – 2 Samuel 15:2,19

Such an authority has a “Thus saith the Lord,” that it is not to be despised without entailing upon the offender the severest penalty. Samuel came to Saul with “Thus saith the Lord,” and bade him destroy the Amalekites. He was utterly to cut them off, and not to spare so much as one of them. But Saul saved the best of the cattle and the sheep, and brought home Agag; and what was the result? His kingdom was taken from him and given to a neighbor of his that was better than he; and because he exalted himself beyond measure to do otherwise than according to the letter of God’s command, he was put away forever from having dominion over Israel. And mark this word: if any church in Christendom shall continue, after light is given and after plain rebuke is uttered, to walk contrary to the word of God, and to teach that which is inconsistent with Holy Scripture, as Saul was put away from the kingdom, so shall that church be put away from before the Lord of Hosts; and if any man, be he who he may, after receiving light from on high, continues willfully to shut his eyes, he shall not, if an heir of heaven, be rejected from eternal salvation, but he shall be cast off from much of the usefulness and comfort which he might otherwise have enjoyed. He knew his Master’s will and did it not: he shall be beaten with many stripes…O my brethren! I would that we trembled and stood more in awe of God’s word. I fear me that many treat the things of God as though they were merely matters of opinion but remember that opinion cannot govern in God’s house. God’s word, not man’s opinion, claims your allegiance. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0591.cfm

Jehovah’s Mighty Word

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

And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD… – Exodus 4:22

“Thus saith the Lord” is that with which we must confront the Lords enemies. When Moses went in before Pharaoh, the words which he used were not, “The elders of Israel have consulted, and thus have they bidden me say,” not “Our Father Abraham once said, and his words have been handed to us by long tradition”-such talk would have been readily resisted; but he confronted the haughty monarch with “Thus saith the Lord, Let My people go;” and it was the power of this divine word which rained plagues upon the fields of Zoan, and brought forth the captives, with silver and gold. Pharaoh might boast, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?” but ere long he knew that Jehovah’s Word was mightier than all the horsemen and chariots of Mizraim and was not to be resisted without terrible defeat. To this day, if we would break sinners’ hearts, our hammer must be “Thus saith the Lord;” and if we would woo them to obedience to King Jesus, our reasons must come from His own Word. I have often noticed in conversion, that, though sometimes a particular passage of the sermon may be quoted by the converted person as the means of enlightenment, yet in the majority of cases it is the text, or some passage of Scripture, quoted during the sermon, which is blessed to do the work. McCheyne says, “Depend upon it, it is God’s Word, not our comment upon God’s Word, that saves souls;” and so it is. Let us use much of Scripture, much of the pure silver of sacred revelation, and no human alloy. “What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0591.cfm