Work and Wait, Looking Up

July 12, 2025July 12, 2025Sherry Christian Life 1 Comment

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. – James 5:7

The first thing that a farmer does by way of seeking gain on his farm is to make a sacrifice which could seem immediately to entail on him a loss. He has some good wheat in the granary, and he takes out sacks full of it, and buries it; he is so much the poorer, is he not? At any rate, there is so much the less to make bread for his household. He cannot get it again; it is under the clods, and there it must die, for unless it dies, it brings not forth fruit! You must not expect, as soon as you become a Christian, that you shall obtain all the gains of your religion. Perhaps you may lose all that you have for Christ’s sake; some have lost their lives; they have sown their house and land, relatives, comfort, ease, and at last they have sown life itself in Christ’s field, and they seemed, for the time, to be losers. But verily I say unto you this day, if you could see them in their white robes before the throne of God, rejoicing, you would see how rich a harvest they have reaped, and how the sowing which seemed a loss at first has ended, through God’s abundant grace, in the greatest eternal gain! Have patience, brothers and sisters, have patience! That is a false religion that aims at present worldly advantages; he who becomes religious for the loaves and fishes, when he has eaten his loaves and fishes, has devoured his religion! There is nothing in such piety but pretension; if you can be bought, you can be sold; if you have taken it up for gain, you will lay it down for what promises you a better bargain! Be willing to be a loser for Christ, and so prove you are His genuine follower!

“I am to wait,” says a sufferer, “for God’s help, and for the graces that come by affliction. But I must wait with my eyes upward, for all the plowing of affliction will not profit me, and all the sowing of meditation will not speed me unless God sends His gracious Spirit like showers of heavenly rain. If I am a worker, I must work; when I wait, I must wait always looking upward.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1025.cfm

Have Long Patience

July 11, 2025July 11, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. – James 5:7

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, our waiting, if it is the work of the Holy Spirit, must have this long patience in it. Are you a sufferer? There are sweet fruits to come from suffering! “Not for the present seems it to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them who are exercised thereby.” Have long patience for those peaceable fruits; you shall be brought out of your trouble, deliverance will be found for you out of your affliction when the discipline for which you were brought into it has been fulfilled. Have a lot of patience however, for not the first month does the farmer find a harvest. If he has sown in the winter, he does not expect he will reap in the early spring; he does not go forth with his sickle in the month of May and expect to find golden sheaves. He waits. The moons wax and wane; suns rise and set; but the farmer waits until the appointed time is come. Truth, like the grain of mustard seed, does not wax into a tree tomorrow, being sown today—it takes its time. Or, like the leaven in the measure, it does not work in the next moment; it must have its time. If you have some principle to teach that is now obnoxious, go on with it; perhaps you may never see it popular in your day, but do not mind the fickle winds, or fret yourself because of the nipping frosts. The truth of God is mighty, and it will prevail, though it may have a hard fight before it wins the victory! Wait O sufferer, until the night is over! Watch after watch, you have already passed through; the morning breaks; tarry you a little longer, for if the vision tarries it shall come. “You shall stand in your lot in the end of the days.” Before long you shall have a happy exit out of your present trials! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1025.cfm

Sowing the Seed, Patiently Waiting for the Fruit, and Finally Reaping the Harvest

July 10, 2025July 10, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waited for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. – James 5:7-8

(The farmer) waits with a reasonable hope for the precious fruit of the earth and has long patience for it until he receives the early and latter rain. He expects the harvest because he has plowed the fields and sown the grain; if he had not, he would not be an example for our imitation; had he left his fields fallow, never stirred the clods, and never cast in among them the golden seed, he would be an idiot if he were expecting the soil to produce a harvest by itself! Away with the folly of those who flatter their souls with a prospect of good things in times to come while they neglect the opportunity of sowing good things in the time present! They say they hope it will be well with them at the end—but since it is not well with them now, why should they expect any change—much less a change contrary to the entire order of providence? Is it not written, “He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption”? Do you expect to sow to the flesh and reap salvation? That is a blessing reserved for him who sows to the Spirit, for he who sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. As for the man who scatters nothing but the wild oats of sin; that simply lives to indulge his own passions and determinately resolves to neglect the things that make for his peace; he can but upbraid himself if he expects to reap anything good of the Lord. They who sow to the wind shall reap the whirlwind; they who sow nothing shall reap nothing; they who sow sparingly shall reap sparingly. If you are a believer, to you shall be the promise; you shall share the victories and spoils of your Lord. If you are a careless, godless worldling, to you shall eat the fruit of your deeds, and sad and bitter shall be those grapes of Gomorrah that you shall have to eat. The farmer waits with a reasonable hope; he does not look for grain where he has cast in garlic. Unless you are a fool, you will, like he, count only on the fruit of your own sowing. While he waits with a patient hope, he is, no doubt, all the more patient of the issue, because his hope is so reasonable, and not only does he wait with patience, but some stress is put upon the length of it— “And has long patience for the precious fruit of the earth.” …It is only those who by God’s grace have been enabled to sow abundantly, though they have gone forth weeping, who shall afterwards come again rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1025.cfm

By this Divine Remedy

July 9, 2025July 9, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 2 Comments

…with His stripes we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5

By this Divine remedy our life is healed of its rebellion. This medicine has worked within the heart, and it has also worked outside in the life. Now has the drunk become sober and he hates the cup he used to love. Now has the swearer’s foul mouth been washed and his lips, once so polluted, are like lilies dropping sweet, smelling myrrh. Now has the cruel and unkind one becomes tender, gentle and loving—the false has become true, the proud bends his neck in humility, the idle has become a diligent servant of Christ! The transformation is wonderful and this is the secret, “With His stripes we are healed.”

Yet again, our consciousness assures us that we are healed. We know that we are healed, and we rejoice in the fact— and we are not to be argued out of it. There seems to be a theory, held by some people, to the effect that we cannot tell whether we are saved or not. When we have had a disease in our body, we can tell whether we have been healed or not, and the marks and evidence of the supernatural change that takes place within the spirit are as apparent, as a usual rule, and certainly as positive and sure as the changes worked in the body by healing medicine! We know that we are healed. I am not talking to you of a thing which I do not know personally for myself. When the text says, “We,” my heart says, “I,” and I am longing that everybody here should be able to put his own seal to it and say, “That is true! With His stripes we are healed! With His stripes we are healed! With His stripes we are healed!” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2499.cfm

Our Cry

July 8, 2025July 9, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation Leave a comment

…and with His stripes we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5

And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again. – 2 Corinthians 5:15

(T)hose who have believed in the stripes of Jesus are witnesses to the instant and perfect efficacy of the medicine. We can, many of us, speak from experience, since we can say that “we are healed.” HOW are we healed?

Well, first, our conscience is healed of every smart. God is satisfied with Christ and so are we. If, for Christ’s sake, He has put away sin without dishonor to Himself, then are we, also, perfectly content and full of rejoicing in the Atonement and we need nothing else to keep our conscience quiet.

By these same wounds of Christ our heart is healed of its love of sin. It was once in love with sin, but now it hates all iniquity. If our Redeemer died because of our sin, how can we live any longer therein? All our past thoughts concerning sin are turned upside down or reversed. Sin once gave us pleasure, but now it gives us the utmost pain and we desire to be free from it, and to be perfectly holy—there is no evil that we would harbor in our bosoms. It did seem an amazing thing that we should look to Christ and so find pardon and that at that same moment we should be totally changed in our nature as to our view of sin, yet it did so happen! While sin was on us, we felt as if we had no hope and, therefore, we went on in sin. But when sin was pardoned, then we felt great joy and, consequently, gratitude and love to God. Our cry is, “Death to sin, now that Christ has died for sin!” “If the One died for all, then all died” and, as in Christ we died to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2499.cfm

The Grandest of All Truths

July 7, 2025July 7, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

By His stripes we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Leviticus 17:11

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit… – 1 Peter 3:18

Remember that the sufferings of Christ were vicarious. He stood in our place that we might stand in His place. He took our sin upon Himself and, being found with that sin upon Him, He was made to bear the penalty that was due to it. And He did bear it—and this is the way whereby we are healed—by Jesus Christ, Himself, taking our infirmities and bearing our sicknesses. This Doctrine of Substitution is the grandest of all Truths of God and though all these years I have continued to preach nothing else but this, what better news can I tell a poor sinner than that the Savior has taken his sins and borne his sorrows for him? Take away the Doctrine of the Substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ and you have torn out the very heart of the Gospel! “The blood is the life thereof” and you have no living Gospel to preach if Atonement by blood is once put into the background! But, O poor Soul, if you believe that Jesus is the Christ and that Christ took your sins and bore them in His own body on the tree where He died, “the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God,” you are saved, and saved forever!

Does someone enquire, “How am I to get this Atonement applied to my soul?” …If you believe on Jesus Christ—if you will accept the testimony of God concerning His Son whom He has set forth to be the Propitiation for sin—and rely upon Him, alone, for salvation, you shall be saved! …Trust yourself with Him who died for you, and you are saved! And, continuing to trust Him, you shall daily feel the power of His expiation, the marvelous healing that comes by His stripes! Repentance is the first symptom of that healing. When the proud flesh begins to yield; when the wretched gathering commences to break and the soul that was formerly swollen through trying to conceal its sin bursts with confession and acknowledgment of its transgression— then is it being healed by the stripes of Jesus! This is God’s wondrous remedy for the soul-sickness of sin! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2499.cfm