Our Divine Communion

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me…As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle… – Job 29:2,4

Job had lost divine communion: so it seems, for he mourned the days of his youth, when the secret of God was upon his tabernacle. Who shall tell to another what the secret of God is? Believing hearts know it, but they cannot frame to pronounce aright the words that could explain it, nor can they convey by language what the secret is. The Lord manifests Himself unto His people as He doth not unto the world. We could not tell the love passages that there are between believers and their Lord; even when they are set to such sweet music as the Song of Solomon, carnal minds cannot discern their delights. They cannot plough with our heifer, and therefore they read not our riddle. As Paul in heaven saw things which it were unlawful for a man to utter, so the believer sees and enjoys in communion with Christ what it would not only be unlawful but impossible for him to tell to carnal men. Such pearls are not for swine. The spiritual discerneth all things, but he himself is discerned of no man. Now, it is a high privilege, beyond all privileges, to enter into familiar intercourse with the Most High, and the man who has once possessed it, and has lost it, has a bitterer cause for regret than if, being rich, he had lost his wealth; or being famous, he had lost esteem; or being in health, he were suddenly brought to the bed of languishing. No loss can equal the loss of Thee, my God! No eclipse is so black as the hiding of Thy face! No storm is so fierce as the letting forth of Thine indignation! It is grief upon grief to find that Thou art not with me as in the days of old. Wherever, then, these regrets do exist, if the men’s hearts are as they should be, they are not mere hypocritical or superficial expressions, but they express the bitterest experiences of our human existence. “Oh that I were as in months past” is no sentimental sigh, but the voice of the innermost spirit in anguish, as one who has lost his firstborn. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

Desiring His Light

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

Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; When His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness… – Job 29:2,3

The joy of the Lord is our strength, the joy of the Lord is Israel’s excellency; it is the heaven of heaven, it is heaven even upon earth; and, consequently, to lose it, is a calamity indeed. Who that has once been satisfied with favor, and full of the blessing of the Lord, will be content to go into the dry and thirsty land, and live far off from God? Will he not rather cry out with David, “My soul thirsteth for God; when shall I come and appear before God?” Surely his agonising prayer will be, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit.” Love to God will never be content if His face be hidden. Until the curtain be drawn aside and the King’s face be seen through the lattices, the true spouse will spend her life in sighing, mourning like a dove bereaved of its mate.

Job deplored the loss of divine illumination. “By His light,” he says, “I walked through darkness,” that is to say, perplexity ceased to be perplexity; God shed such a light upon the mysteries of providence, that where others missed their path, Job, made wise by heaven, could find it. There have been times when, to our patient faith, all things have been plain. “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine;” but, if we walk far off from God, then, straightway, even the precious truth of God is no more clear to us, and the dealings of God with us in providence appear to be like a maze. He is wise as Solomon who walks with God, but he is a very fool who trusts his own understanding. All the wit that we have gathered by observation and experience will not supply us with sufficiency of common sense if we turn away from God. Israel, without consulting God, made a league with her enemies; she thought the case most plain when she entered into hasty alliance with the Gibeonites, but she was duped by cunning because she asked not counsel of the Lord. In the simplest business we shall err, if we seek not direction from the Lord; yet, where matters are most complicated, we shall walk wisely, if we wait for a voice from the oracle, and seek the good Shepherd’s guidance. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

Bitter Regrets

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

“Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me when His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle.”-Job 29:2,3,4

Job’s soul was depressed; he had lost the light of God’s countenance; his inward comforts were declining, his joy in the Lord was at a low ebb, this he regretted far more than anything besides. No doubt he deplored the departure of those prosperous days when, as he words it, his root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon his branch; but, much more did he bemoan that the lamp of the Lord no more shone upon his head, and the secret of God was not upon his tabernacle…We may, without violence, appropriate Job’s words to ourselves; for I fear that many of us can with great propriety take up our wailing and mourn for the days of our espousals, the happy days of our first love…Regrets such as those expressed in the text are and ought to be very BITTER. If it be the loss of spiritual things that we regret, then may we say from the bottom of our hearts, “Oh that I were as in months past.”

There are days with Christians when they can see God’s hand all around them, checking them in the first approaches of sin, and setting a hedge about all their ways…But when they fall into laxity of spirit, and walk at a distance from God, they are not so preserved. Though kept from final and total apostasy, yet they are not kept from very grievous sin; for, like Peter who followed afar off, they may be left to deny their Master, even with oaths and cursings. If we have lost that conscious preservation of God, which once covered us from every fiery dart; if we no longer abide under the shadow of the Almighty and feel no longer that His truth is our shield and buckler, we have lost a joy worth worlds, and we may well deplore it with anguish of heart… I beseech you be not high minded, lift not up your horn on high, speak not so exceeding proudly, bow before the Christ of God, and ask Him to give you the new life; for even if that new life have declined and become sickly, it is better than the death in which you dwell. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm

True Christian Worship

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

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”-John 4:23-24.

True Christian worship addresses God, not merely as Creator and Preserver, or as the great Lord of the Universe, but as one who is very near of kin to us, our Father, beloved of our souls. Jesus likewise states that gospel worship is to be of a kind which does not result from the man himself merely, but comes from God, and is a work of grace. This is implied in the sentence, “The Father seeketh such to worship Him,” as if no true worship would come from any man unless God sought it. True devotion under the Christian dispensation is not merely human but also divine. These are very grave points, and draw a broad line of distinction between the living worship of the chosen of God and the dead formal worship of the world which lieth in the wicked one.

Furthermore, the Savior goes on to say that they who worship God are to worship Him “in spirit.” No longer with the visible sacrifice of a lamb, but inwardly trusting in Him who is the Lamb of God’s Passover; no more with the sprinkled blood of goats, but heartily relying upon the blood once shed for many; no longer worshipping God with ephod, breastplate, and mitre, but with prostrate soul, with uplifted faith, and with the faculties not of the body but of the inward spirit. We who worship God under this Christian dispensation are no longer to fancy that bodily exercise in worship profiteth anything, that genuflexions and contortions are of any value, but that acceptable worship is wholly mental, inward, and spiritual. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0695.cfm

Keep Not Back

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

I will say to the…south, Keep not back… – Isaiah 43:6

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. – Romans 10:9

If you have the love of Jesus Christ in your soul, confess it, tell it to others. Never be ashamed of your Lord and Master. Come and unite with His church and people…I should like to have you become perfect, and the nearer perfection the better-but still if you make no profession of faith till you are sinless, it will not be this side of the grave. Nay, confess Christ, for is it not written: “He that with his heart believeth, and with his mouth maketh confession of Him, shall be saved”? Do not forget the confession of the mouth. “Keep not back.” And when you have done that, if there be any Christian excellency that can be reached, do not despair of reaching it. “Keep not back.” And if perfection itself be attainable, never be content till you get it. If you are a child of God, you never will be self-satisfied, you will be always crying: “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” O that you may never be content with yourself! Self-satisfaction is the death of progress. You have come into the lowest seat at the feast, but Jesus saith: “Friend, come up higher;” and when you get into a higher room, and enter into closer communion with Him, He will say to you, “Friend, come up higher.” Do not hesitate to climb higher in grace and fellowship. Let your prayer be, “Nearer to Thee, my God, nearer to Thee.” Be insatiable in the longings of your soul; hunger and thirst after righteousness; covet earnestly the best gifts. Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1007.cfm

God’s First Words to the First Sinner 

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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

Give Up All That Opposes Christ

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

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. – Isaiah 55:7

It is possible, dear friends, that your opposition to Jesus Christ has taken the form of the love of a favourite sin. Now, there is nothing more certain than this, that you cannot be saved and keep your sins: they must be parted with. No man can carry fire in his bosom and yet be safe from burning. While you drink the poison, it must and will work death in you. The thief cannot expect mercy while he keeps the goods he has stolen…Most men in their heart of hearts would like to have their sins and go to heaven too. But that cannot be; while God is just, and heaven is holy, and truth is precious, it cannot be. What then? “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” Give up, give up; give up your sin…The sins of the flesh are a deep ditch, and the abhorred of the Lord fall therein; but as thou lovest thy soul, O young man, escape like a bird from the fowler’s snare. Here is the message of God to thee: “Give up, give up thy sin.” Perhaps though you hear the summons, you trifle with it, and reply, “Yes; I mean to give them all up, and I hope by so doing I shall find my way to heaven. I shall deserve well of my Maker when I have denied myself all sinful pleasures.” But stop; let me not deceive you: this is not all. I fear that some men are not improved in their hearts when they are altered in their outward behavior. I am glad of the outward improvement, but I have sometimes fancied that they have only changed their sins but not given them up. They show no leprosy in their skin, but it lies in their bone and their flesh. It is little use merely to shift the region in which sin sets up its throne if its dominion is still undestroyed…All sin must be cast out of the throne of the heart, and whatever righteousness that is not Christ’s righteousness must go with it. I would fain put the sword-point to thy heart, O sinner, and say, “Give up all that opposes Christ;” for if thou do not give it up, thy soul will be lost. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1007.cfm