Our Holy Worship

August 30, 2025August 30, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion: and unto Thee shall the vow be performed. – 65:1

Although we shall never cease to pray as long as we live here below, and are surrounded by so many wants, yet we should never so pray as to forget to praise. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is heaven,” must never be left out because we are pressed with want, and therefore hasten to cry, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It will be a sad hour when the worship of the church shall be only a solemn wail. Notes of exultant thanksgiving should ever ascend from her solemn gatherings. “Praise the Lord O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion.” “Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in Him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.” Let it abide as a perpetual ordinance, while sun and moon endure, “Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion.” Never think little of praise, since holy angels and saints made perfect count it their life-long joy, and even the Lord Himself saith, “Whoso offereth praise, glorifieth Me.’ The tendency, I fear, among us has been to undervalue praise as a part of public worship, whereas it should be second to nothing. We frequently hear of prayer-meetings, but seldom of praise-meetings. We acknowledge the duty of prayer by setting apart certain times for it; we do not always so acknowledge the duty of praise…In everything we are to give thanks; it is as much an apostolic precept as that other, “In everything, by prayer and supplication, make your requests known unto God.” I have often said to you, dear brethren, that prayer and praise are like the breathing in and out of the air, and make up that spiritual respiration by which the inner life is instrumentally supported. We take in an inspiration of heavenly air as we pray: we breathe it out again in praise unto God, from whom it came; if then, we would be healthy in spirit, let us be abundant in thanksgiving…”Praise the Lord; for the Lord is good: sing praises unto His name; for it is pleasant.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Only One Altar

August 29, 2025August 23, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Praise is awaiting You, O God, in Zion; and to You the vow shall be performed. – Psalm 65:1

Upon Zion there was erected an altar dedicated to God for the offering of sacrifices…The worship of God upon the high places was contrary to the divine command: “Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest: but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.” Hence the tribes on the other side of Jordan, when they erected a memorial altar, disclaimed all intention of using it for the purpose of sacrifice, and said most plainly, “God forbid that we should rebel against the Lord, and turn this day from following the Lord, to build an altar for burnt offerings, for meat offerings, or for sacrifices, beside the altar of the Lord our God that is before his tabernacle.”

In fulfillment of this ancient type, we also “have an altar whereof they have no right to eat that serve the tabernacle.” Into our spiritual worship, no observers of materialistic ritualism may intrude; they have no right to eat at our spiritual altar, and there is no other at which they can eat and live for ever. There is but one altar Jesus Christ our Lord. All other altars are impostures and idolatrous inventions. Whether of stone, or wood, or brass, they are the toys with which those amuse themselves who have returned to the beggarly elements of Judaism, or else the apparatus with which clerical jugglers dupe the sons and daughters of men. Holy places made with hands are now abolished; they were once the figures of the true, but now that the substance has come, the type is done away with. The all-glorious person of the Redeemer, God and Man, is the great center of Zion’s temple, and the only real altar of sacrifice. He is the Church’s head, the Church’s heart, the Church’s altar, priest, and all in all. “To Him shall the gathering of the people be.” Around Him we all congregate even as the tribes around the tabernacle of the Lord in the wilderness…So where Christ is the center, where His one sacrifice is the altar whereon all offerings are laid; and where the Church unites around that common center, and rejoices in that one sacrifice, there is the true Zion. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

The Mediatorial Office

August 28, 2025August 2, 2025Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. – Revelation 1:18

The mediatorial office which Christ now occupies is one of great power. He is “God over all, blessed for ever.” His dominion is over land and seas and over heaven and the regions of the dead. There is nothing hid from the energy of His power. He is Lord of all. “He hath the keys of hell and of death.” By the word “hell” may be meant here the entire invisible land, the whole realm of spirits: Christ is Lord there, adored in heaven and feared in hell. But, if we restrict the sense to the common meaning of the word in our language, He is Lord of hell. The devil despite his malignity can do nothing but what Christ permits him. He is a chained enemy; he may rave and rage, but he cannot injure the child of God. Christ hath him ever in check, and when He permits him to wander abroad, He makes the wrath of man and the wrath of devils to praise Him, and the remainder He doth restrain. Why dost thou fear therefore? Thou sayest, “I am a sinner-Satan will prevail against me.” But Christ saith “I am master of Satan, I am Lord of hell, he cannot prevail against thee.” He cannot leave hell unless Christ permits him, for Christ can turn the key and lock him in. He could not take thee there, for Christ has locked thee out and keeps the key. Thou art eternally and perpetually safe from all the machinations of the powers of darkness. And dost thou tremble at death? Is it that which alarms thee? Have the pains and groans and dying strifes sounded in thine ear till thou art timid and afraid? Then remember Christ hath the keys of death…Fear not, therefore, but remember that death is no longer death to the saints of God, they fall asleep in Jesus. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

The Great Redeemer Lives

August 27, 2025August 2, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:18

The Lord in the glory of His tenderness mentions…His atoning death. He says, “I was dead,” the original more correctly rendered is “was made dead.” Here we come upon the human nature of our Redeemer. As God and as man He had two natures, but He was not two persons. As one person He ever lives, and yet He was made to die. He came into this world in human form that He might be capable of death; the pure spirit of God could not die, it was not possible that He, the I AM, could be subject to death; but He allied Himself with humanity, and in that human form Jesus could die, and did die. In very deed, and truth, and not in semblance; Jesus bowed His head, and gave up the ghost, and they laid His corpse in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Here to the child of God is a fruitful source of consolation. He died, then the atonement is complete; without the shedding of blood there is no remission, but the death of the Son of God brings plenteous pardon. There must be in the death of such a one of sufficient merit to remove guilt and cleanse transgression. Is it not written, “He hath washed us from our sins in His own blood?” Dost thou not hear that song in heaven? Will not its music make thee glad? His own blood hath washed thee; if thou believest in Him thou art clean. Look to Calvary, and as thou lookest there and perceivest that He was dead, “fear not.”

And then the master declared His endless life, “I am alive for evermore.” He who offered up the atonement lives again to claim the effect of His sacrifice. He has presented the meritorious sacrifice, and now He has gone to heaven to plead the sacrifice before the throne of God, and to lay claim to the place which He has prepared for them that love Him. Thou hast no dead Savior to trust to: thou reliest in Him who once died-this is comfort to thee, but He lives, the great Redeemer lives. He has risen from the tomb; He has climbed the hills of heaven; He sits at the right hand of the Father, prepared to defend His people. If thou hadst a Christ in the sepulcher that were sorrow upon sorrow; but thou hast a Christ in heaven, who can die no more. Be thou of good cheer. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Only God is First and Last

August 26, 2025August 2, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:17,18

As to the Lord’s person, Jesus revealed to His disciple that He was most truly divine. “I am the first and the last.” This language can be used of none but God Himself; none but He is first; none but He is last; none but God can be first and last. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ was evidently first. He existed before He was born into the world. We read, “a body hast Thou prepared Me.” Then Christ was a previously existing one for whom that body was prepared; and He it is who said, “Lo, I come, to do Thy will O God.” He came into the world, but He had from old eternity dwelt in the bosom of the Father. John the Baptist was born into the world before the Savior, of whom he was the forerunner, but what does he say? His testimony is “He, coming after me, is preferred before me, for He was before me.” He is first in order of honor because first in order of existence. John was the elder as man, but as God the Lord Jesus is from everlasting. Go back in history as far as you will; with one leap ascend to the days of Moses, and there is Christ before you, for we read: “Let us not tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents.” There was Christ, then, in the wilderness vexed by the people. He it was whose voice then shook the earth, but who will yet shake not the earth only but also heaven.

By the words “the first and the last” are signified, in most languages, the sum and substance of all things. We say sometimes the top and the bottom of it is so and so; we mean that it is the whole of it. And the Greeks were wont to say, “This is the prow and stern of the business,” meaning that it is the whole. And so Jesus Christ, in being first and last, is all in all. And, truly, it is so in the working of redemption and salvation; He begins, carries on, completes; He asks no creature help and will have none. To us He is the author and the finisher of our faith, the alpha of our first comfort, and the omega of our final bliss. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

The Right State for Celestial Instructions

August 25, 2025August 2, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:17,18

In order to complete the cure of His servant our Lord went on to give him fuller instruction in that very matter which had overpowered him. Sometimes like cures like. If in a certain sense it is true of divine revelations, that “shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,” it is assuredly true that “drinking largely sobers us again.” If a glimpse of Christ makes holy men to faint, a clearer sight of Him will set them on their feet again. Our Lord went on to instruct John in the glory of His person and power, that his fears might be removed. And truly, brethren, John was in a right state for such celestial instruction; he who is lowly is ready to learn mysteries. He was like wax ready for the seal; or as paper cleansed of all other writing. Because we think we know, we know not; but the death of the pride of knowledge is the birth of true understanding. The Lord loves best for pupils those who lie lowest before Him. “The meek will He guide in judgment, the meek will He teach His way.” “With the lowly is wisdom.” Where Jesus is the teacher, and instructs the heart in the things concerning Himself, the soul is made to inherit substance, and its treasures are filled. Blessed are the men who are taught by Him who is the wisdom of God, even though while they watch at the posts of His doors they lie as dead men; they are blessed, for they shall find life, and obtain favor of the Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm