Be Alarmed for Fear of a Fall

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy – Jude 1:24

I am quite sure that you know nothing of true holiness if you can look forward to any future indulgence of sensual appetites with a certain degree of delightful anticipation. Have I a man here, a professed Christian, who has formed some design in his mind to indulge the flesh, and to enjoy forbidden dainties when an opportunity occurs? Ah, sir! if thou canst think of those things that may come in thy way without tremor, I suspect thee: I would thou wouldst suspect thyself. Since the day that some of us knew Christ, we have always woke up in the morning with a fear lest we should that day disown our Master. And there is one fear which sometimes haunts me, and I must confess it; and were it not for faith in God, it would be too much for me. I cannot read the life of David without some painful emotions. All the time he was a young man, his life was pure before God, and in the light of the living it shone with a glorious lustre; but when grey hairs began to be scattered on his head, the man after God’s heart sinned. I have sometimes felt inclined to pray that my life may come to a speedy end, lest haply in some evil hour, some temptation should come upon me, and I should fall. And do you not feel the same? Can you look forward to the future without any fear? Does not the thought ever cross your mind,-” He that thinketh he standeth may yet fall.” And the very possibility of such a thing,-does it not drive you to God’s mercy-seat, and do you not cry, “Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe”? There is no doxology in Scripture which I enjoy more than that one at the end of the Epistle of Jude: “Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to Him be glory.” I say to you, you are a stranger to holiness of heart if you can look forward to a future fall without great alarm. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2902.cfm

Are You a Stranger to Holiness?

Sherry Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, repentance Leave a comment

He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy. -Proverbs 28:13

(T)hat man is destitute of true holiness who can look back upon his own past sin without sorrow. Oh, to think of our past lives! There were some of us who knew the Lord at fifteen years of age, but those fifteen years of unregeneracy – we can never forget them! Others may say, “We did not know Him till we were fifty or sixty.” Ah, my dear brethren! you have much to weep over, but so have those of us who knew the Lord in early life. I can look back upon God’s mercy with delight, but I hope I shall never be able to look back upon my sins with complacency. Whenever a man looks to any of his past faults and shortcomings, it ought to be through his tears. Some men recall their past lives, and talk of their old sins, and seem to roll them under their tongues as a sweet morsel. They live their sins over again. As it was said of Alexander –

“He fought his battles o’er again,
And twice he slew the slain.”

There are those who revel in the memory of their iniquities. They live their life in imagination over again. They recollect some deed of lewdness, or some act of infamy; and, as they think it over, they dare not repeat it, for their profession would be spoiled; but they love the thought, and cultivate it with a vicious zest. Thou are no friend to true holiness, but an utter stranger to it unless the past causes thee profound sorrow, and sends thee to thy knees to weep and hope that God, for Christ’s sake, has blotted it out. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2902.cfm

Heart-work Carried Out Into Life-work

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. -Hebrews 12:28

Sirs, you may say what you will about what you dream you have felt, you may write what you please about what you fancy you have experienced; but if your own outward life be unjust, unholy, ungenerous, and unloving, you shall find no credit among us as to your being in Christ: “Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.” The moment you know a man who is drunk on a Saturday night, and then enjoys So-and-so’s preaching on a Sunday; the moment you know a man who can tell you what a child of God should be, and then appears himself exactly what he should not be, just quit his company, and let him go to his own place, and where that is, Judas can tell you. Oh, beware of such high-fliers, with their waxen wings, mounting up to the very sun,-how great shall be their fall when He that searches all hearts shall open the book, and say, “I was an hungred, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink. Inasmuch as ye did it not. to one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me.”

Heart-work, carried out afterwards into life-work,-this is what the Lord wants. You may perish as well with true doctrines as with false, if you pervert the true doctrine into licentiousness. You may to go to hell by the cross as surely as you may by the theatre, or by the vilest of sin. You may perish with the name of Jesus on you lips, and with a sound creed sealed on your very bosom, for “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2902.cfm

Living on the Word

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

 

Holiness vs. Morality

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

For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. – 1 Thessalonians 4:7

Holiness excludes immorality, but morality does not amount to holiness; for morality may be but the cleaning of the outside of the cup and the platter, while the heart may be full of wickedness. Holiness deals with the thoughts and intents, the purposes, the aims, the objects, the motives of men. Morality does but skim the surface, holiness goes into the very caverns of the great deep; holiness requires that the heart shall be set on God, and that it shall beat with love to Him. The moral man may be complete in his morality without that. Methinks I might draw such a parallel as this: Morality is a sweet, fair corpse, well washed and robed, and even embalmed with spices; but holiness is the living man, as fair and as lovely as the other, but having life. Morality lies there, of the earth, earthy, soon to be food for corruption and worms; holiness waits and pants with heavenly aspirations, prepared to mount and dwell in immortality beyond the stars. These twains are of opposite nature: the one belongs to this world, the other belongs to that world beyond the skies. It is not said in heaven, “Moral, moral, moral art Thou, O God!” but “Holy, holy. holy art Thou. O Lord!” You note the difference between the two words at once. The one, how icy cold; the other, oh, how animated! Such is mere morality, and such is holiness! Moralist! -I know I speak to many such, -remember that your best morality will not save you; you must have more than this, for without holiness, -and that not of yourself, it must be given you of the Spirit of God, -without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2902.cfm

Pursue Holiness

Sherry Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord – Hebrews 12:14

There has been a desperate attempt made by certain Antinomians to get rid of the injunction which the Holy Spirit here means to enforce. They have said that this is the imputed holiness of Christ. Do they not know, when they so speak, that, by an open perversion, they utter that which is false? I do not suppose that any man in his senses can apply that interpretation to the context, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness.” Now, the holiness meant is evidently one that can be followed like peace; and it must be transparent to any ingenuous man that it is something which is the act and duty of the person who follows it. We are to follow peace; this is practical peace, not the peace made for us, but “the fruit of righteousness which is sown in peace of them that make peace.” We are to follow holiness,-this must be practical holiness; the opposite of impurity, as it is written, “God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.” The holiness of Christ is not a thing to follow; I mean, if we look at it imputatively. That we have at once; it is given to us the moment we believe. The righteousness of Christ is not to be followed; it is bestowed upon the soul in the instant when it lays hold of Christ Jesus. This is another kind of holiness. It is, in fact, as every one can see who chooses to read the connection, practical, vital holiness which is the purport of this admonition. It is conformity to the will of God, and obedience to the Lord’s command. It is, in fine, the Spirit’s work in the soul, by which a man is made like God, and becomes a partaker of the divine nature, being delivered from the corruption which is in the world through lust. No straining, no hacking at the text can alter it. There it stands, whether men like it or not… and it means no other than what it says: “Without holiness,”-practical, personal, active, vital holiness,-“no man shall see the Lord.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2902.cfm

Your Good Works Before Men

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 4 Comments

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. – Matthew 5:16

It is by such works that the mouths of gainsayers are to be stopped. One holy action is a better argument against blasphemers than a thousand eloquent discourses. You are our replies to sceptics-you who having been rescued from sin maintain a life of holiness. When they see the men that are healed, standing with Peter and John, they can say nothing against them. Oh, by your works confound gainsayers! These works, too, bring glory to God. “That they, seeing your good works may glorify your Father which is in heaven.” And these works also ensure peace to your own conscience, and have much to do with your close communion with God. “How can two walk together except they be agreed?” If ye walk contrary to Him He will walk contrary to you. Your sins will separate between you and your God, but the Holy Spirit, where He maintains holiness, maintains peace and communion in the soul. “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” “If ye keep My commandments,” saith the Savior, “Ye shall abide in My love”-you shall abide in the conscious fellowship of that love, and in the enjoyment of it. May God help you, may God help you, for His name’s sake.

(Look ye here, ye who say you believe in Christ and are living in sin: what does this make of your boastings? Look you here, ye that say “I have only to believe by-and-by, and I may live as I like, and yet be saved.” Is it so? Is it so? “If the righteous scarcely be saved, where will the ungodly and the wicked appear?” …The salvation of Christ is not a salvation in sin, but a salvation from sin.) ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1029.cfm