The Healthy Church

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

But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. – 1 Peter 4:7

The Church is never healthy except when she abounds in prayer. I have known prayer meetings that have been like the bells to the parish steeple-a very poor parish where there were never enough bells to ring a chime. The minister has had to pray twice and read a long chapter, in order to spin out the time, or to meet the want yet more efficiently, he has caned upon a brother who had the gift of supplicating for twenty-five minutes, and then concluded by asking pardon for his short comings…Shut up that house in which men have ceased to pray; or if you open it, let your opening be a meeting for hearty and earnest prayer. I have to mourn and confess in my own case, that I have had to feel in myself-and I think I can speak for many others-a want of prayerfulness with regard to missionary effort especially…We do pray for our own families, and our own congregations, but the heathens are across the sea, many miles away…Many Christians might see whole months pass with them without carrying the cause of the heathen, who are in darkness, before the throne of God; and how can we expect, while this unhealthiness exists among us, that God will bless our missionary operations. Zion must avail before she can bring forth children. She may use all her weapons but if she keeps back the great battering-ram of prayer, she will never break the walls of the spiritual Jericho. She may use every other instrument, but unless she takes John Bunyan’s weapon of “all-prayer,” she will never put to rout the great enemy of souls. Yes, my brethren, we want faithfulness, we want healthiness, we want a prayerful spirit given to us, then we may conclude that all is well with us. It shall be left to each individual heart, and each member of the Church, to answer for himself the question whether his own church is in a state of spiritual health taking these things as a test, namely, purity, soundness, unity, and prayerfulness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0314.cfm

Consecration to God—Illustrated by Abraham’s Circumcision

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

Contending for the Health of the Church

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

But speaking the truth in love, may (we) grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ… – Ephesians 4:15

I do not think the time will ever come when we shall all of us see eye to eye and shall all use the same terms and phrases in setting forth doctrinal truths. I do not imagine there ever will be a period, unless it should be in that long looked for millennium, when every brother is able to subscribe to every other brother’s creed; when we shall be identical in our apprehensions, experiences, and expositions of the gospel in the fullest sense of the word. But I do maintain there should be, and there must be if our churches are to be healthy and sound, a constant adherence to the fundamental doctrines of divine truth…if it should ever come to be a matter which casts doubts upon the divinity of Christ, or the personality of the Holy Ghost; if it should come to a matter of using gospel terms in a sense the most contrary to that which has ever been attached to them in any age of the truth; if it should ever come to the marring and spoiling of our ideas of Divine justice, and of that great atonement which is the basis of the whole gospel, as they have been delivered to us; then it is time, my brethren, once for all that the scabbard be thrown aside, that the sword be drawn. Against any who assails those precious vital truths which constitute the heart of our holy religion, we must contend even to the death…Verily there were giants at one time, when the sons of God saw the daughters of men and we may live to see gigantic heresies, when God’s own children may look upon the fair daughters of philosophy, and monster delusions shall stalk across the earth. A want of union about truth too clearly proves that the body of the Church is not in a healthy state…We must look to the preservation of the health of the Church. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0314.cfm

In Our Purity Alone We Stand

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

“He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. He sendeth forth His commandment upon earth: His word runneth very swiftly.”-Psalm 147:14.-15.

A Church can never be in a sound and satisfactory state for labor, she never can be in such a condition that God can smile upon her complacently, if she be mixed up with the world, if her sons and daughters be not sufficiently distinguished from the world to be manifestly God’s people…If we take into our churches those who are not converted, we swell our numbers, but we diminish our real strength. We might need to purchase a larger church-book, we might, perhaps, be able to parade our numbers before the world, and we might even flatter ourselves with our apparent prosperity till we intoxicate our own brain, but we should be going backward when we think we are going forward. We have not conquered the world; we have only yielded to it. We have not brought the world up to us, we have only brought ourselves down to it. We have not Christianized an ungodly generation, but we have adulterated Christianity. We have brought the chaste spouse of Christ to commit fornication among the people…If we could to-morrow bring into the Church a sufficient number of ungodly but moral men to double our numbers, to double our subscriptions, to double our places of worship, to enable us to double the number of our missionaries, we should, by succumbing to the temptation, procure a curse instead of a blessing. In our purity, and in our purity alone, we stand…Oh! that God might grant to each of us, who are the pastors of the Church, that unceasing vigilance and constant watchfulness whereby we shall be able to detect the wolves in sheep’s clothing, and whereby we shall be able to say calmly, sternly, yet lovingly, to those who come before us seeking communion, without satisfactory evident that they belong to the living family of God, “You must go your way until the Spirit of God hath touched your heart, for until you have received the living faith in Jesus, we cannot receive you into the number of His faithful ones.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0314.cfm

But, Blessed But

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

“One who is righteous has many adversities, but the LORD rescues him from them all.” – Psalm 34:19

Scripture does not flatter us like the story books with the idea that goodness will secure us from trouble; on the contrary, we are again and again warned to expect tribulation while we are in this body…It is the earthly portion of the elect to find thorns and briers growing in their pathway, yes, to lie down among them, finding their rest broken and disturbed by sorrow.

But, bless-ed but, how it takes the sting out of the previous sentence! “But the LORD rescues him from them all.” Through troops of ills Jehovah shall lead His redeemed scatheless and triumphant. There is an end to the believer’s affliction, and a joyful end too. None of his trials can hurt so much as a hair of his head, neither can the furnace hold him for a moment after the Lord bids him come forth of it. The same Lord who sends the afflictions will also recall them when His design is accomplished, but He will never allow the fiercest of them to rend and devour His beloved.

Lord, we thank You now in the retrospect for the trials which we have endured. Some of us have been brought very low with physical pain and mental weariness, and others have been sore smitten with bereavement, losses and crosses, and persecutions; but there is not one out of all our trials which we could have afforded to have been without. No, Lord, all has been ordered well; there was a need-be for every twig of the rod, and we desire now to thank you that we can see in looking back, how all things have even now worked together for good, though we know we cannot see the end as yet. Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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The Necessary Result of Sin

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

Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. – Matthew 22:13

Ah, sirs, what will ye do if ye have no true grace in your hearts when you are taken away from the Lord’s table, taken away from the baptism in which you gloried, taken away from the doctrines of the gospel which you understood so well by head, but which you did not know in your heart…

The misery of hell is not a misery which God arbitrarily creates, it is the necessary result of sin, it is sin itself come to ripeness. Here you see the picture of the man who was insolent enough to come into the church without being a Christian, and now for ever he gnashes with his teeth against that glorious Majesty of heaven which it will never be in his power to injure, but which it will always be in his heart to hate; and this will be his hell-that he hates God; this his darkness-that he cannot see beauty in God; this the outerness of the darkness-that he cannot enter into God’s will. “Depart ye cursed,” is only love repelling that which is not lovely; it is only justice given to a man what his fallen nature craved after. “Get away from Me, ye did not honour Me; when ye did come to Me it was with your lips only. Go where your hearts were; depart from Me, you cursed.”

Oh, may God grant that not one here may come under the lash of this terrible parable, but may we be found of the Lord in peace in the day of His appearing. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0976.cfm

Speechless

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, confession of sin, prayer, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

…And he was speechless. – Matthew 22:12

Why is he silent? Surely it was because he was convicted of open, undeniable disloyalty…He was speechless; he could not have chosen a worse place, nor a more impertinent method of ventilating his disloyalty than that which he selected; there was nothing he could say in self-defense. At that moment, when the King looked him through and through, he saw the full horror of his position; his loins were loosed, like Belshazzar of old when he saw the handwriting on the wall; he saw now that his time to insult was over, and the day of retribution had come. He was taken in the very fact and could not escape. He had been guilty of a superfluity of naughtiness, of an unnecessary extravagance of wickedness in coming into the feast to air his pride. He had committed a suicidal intrusion. He might have kept himself away at any rate, and not have thrust himself into the Judge’s presence. He saw now that the cause of sedition was hopeless, the King was there, and he was in his power and none could rescue him. Why did he not burst into tears? Why did he not confess the wrong? Why did he not say, “My king, I have insulted thee, have pity upon me”? His proud heart would not let him. Sin made him incapable of repentance.

He stood speechless. It was not only that he had no excuse, but he would not confess his wrong. Have I anyone here in such a condition of heart, that while he has been sinning by making a false profession, and knows it, yet he sullenly refuses to confess his fault? Yield thee, man! Yield at once. Fall at the King’s feet at once. Even if you are not a hypocrite, if you have any suspicion that you are, fall down and say, “My King, make me sincere; I submit myself to Thy will, and am ready to put on the wedding badge; if there is any method by which I can honour Thy Son, I cavil not at it; let me wear His colours, and be known by all men to be truly a lover of the great Prince.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0976.cfm