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
Lord, Be Among Us!
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. -John 1:14
If the Lord be among us the consequences will be, first, the conservation of true doctrine. The true God is not with a lie: He will not give His countenance to falsehood. Those who preach other than according to His word abide not under His blessing; but are in great danger of His curse. If any man speak another gospel (which is not another, but there be some that trouble us), God is not with him, and any transient prosperity which he may enjoy, will be blown away as the chaff. God is with those who speak the truth faithfully, hold it devoutly, believe it firmly, and live upon it as their daily bread. May it always, be said of this church, “the Lord is there,” and therefore they are sound in the faith, reverent towards Holy Scripture, and zealous for the honor of Christ! Trust-deeds and confessions of faith are useful in their way, even as laws are useful to society; but as laws cannot secure obedience to themselves, so articles of belief cannot create faith, or secure honesty; and to men without conscience, they are not worth the paper they are written upon…Truth must be written on the heart as well as in the book. If the Lord be among His people, they will cling to the eternal verities, and love the doctrine of the cross, not by force of law, but because divine truth is the life of their souls.
If the Lord should depart from us, as He has gone from churches which are now apostate, what an abyss opens before us! If He should take His Holy Spirit from us, even as the glory departed from the temple at Jerusalem, then our ruin would become a thing to mention with dread, a case to be quoted for a warning to future generations. O Lord, our God, take not Thy flight! Abide with us, we pray Thee! Our only hope lies in Thy making the place of Thy feet glorious among us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm
Pray The Lord Keeps His Church
Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. -Psalm 121:4
A dead church is a reeking Golgotha, a breeding-place of evils, a home of devils. The tombs may be newly whitewashed, but they are none the less open sepulchres, haunts of unclean spirits. A church all alive is a little heaven, the resort of angels, the temple of the Holy Ghost. In some of our churches everybody seems to be a little colder than everybody else. The members are holy icicles. A general frost has paralyzed everybody; and though some are colder than others, yet all are below zero. There are no flowing rills of refreshment, but everything is bound hard and fast with the frost of indifference. Oh, that the Lord would send forth His wind, and melt the glaciers! Oh, that the Spirit of God would chase winter out of every heart and every church! No human power can keep a church from the frostbite which numbs and kills. Except the Lord be there, growth, life, warmth-are all impossible. Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest, but cry day and night to Him! O Lord, abide with us. Go forth with our armies. Make us to be the living children of the living God!”
Who is to keep the church pure? None but God Himself. If the Lord is there, holiness will abound, and fruits of the Spirit will be seen on all sides; but if the Lord be once withdrawn, then flesh and blood will rule, and gender towards corruption after its own manner; and the church will become a synagogue of formalists. Pray, my brethren, continually, that the Lord may dwell in our Zion, to maintain us in all holy obedience and purity of life.~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm
Empowered Saints
Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. -Ephesians 6:10
With God there is power in the ministry, power in prayer, power in all holy work. We may do a vast deal of work, and yet nothing may come of it; and, on the other hand, we may only be able to do comparatively little, and yet great results may flow therefrom: for results depend not on the quantity of the machinery, but on the presence of the Lord.
Do you not all know persons who are not peculiarly gifted, and yet are eminently useful? You do not remark anything about them that is specially noticeable, and yet their whole career enlists attention by its power. Their words tell, for there is character behind them. A consistent life gives force to a plain testimony. It is not so much what is said as who says it. But that is not all: God Himself is at the back of the man who is living for Him. He causes him to speak in His name, so that none of his words fall to the ground. Is it not said of the godly, “His leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”? This is so with every church where the Lord abides. His presence makes it a power with its children and adherents, a power with the neighborhood, and a power with the age. Its example, its testimony, its effort tells. God uses it, and therefore it answers its end. The power is with God; but the church is the instrument by which that power exercises itself. He uses a living people for the display of living power, and He gives to them both life and power, more and more abundantly. As we desire power with which to labor for God, we must pray that the God of power will remain in our midst. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm
Make Every Place the House of God
And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD. -Psalm 40:3
I often feel sorry when the Sabbath is nearly over and so do many of you. I know you wake on Monday morning and take those shutters down again, or go off to that workshop where you suffer so much ridicule, or return to the ordinary grind of daily labor, and mix up with so many of the ungodly; and you do it mournfully. Now, pray that you may keep up the Sabbath tone all the week. Make every place, wherever you go, to be the house of God. A dear brother of ours went to a shop where he worked with four ungodly men, but his Lord went with him. It was not long before we had the privilege of baptizing that friend’s master and all his shopmates, for the Lord was there. The other day there came a fresh man to work who could not bear to hear a word upon religion, but our brother was the means of his conversion, and the new man is coming among us, warm with his first love. Our brother makes up his mind that he is not to be conquered by any scoffers, but on the contrary he is determined to conquer them for Christ. He will not yield to the influences of sin, but he resolves, in the name of the Lord, that evil influences shall yield to the power of truth, and to the attractions of the cross. Write across your workshop, “The Lord is here.” If you cannot do if literally, do it spiritually, “Jehovah-shammah, the Lord is there.”~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm
Friend, is God in Your House?
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. -1 Peter 3:7
What a delightful family we belong to if it can be said of our house, “Jehovah-shammah, the Lord is there”! Has it a thatched roof and a stone floor? What matters? The father of the family lives near to God, and his wife rejoices to be his fellow-helper in prayer, while the children grow up to honest toil and honorable service. Assuredly that cottage home is dear to God, and becomes a place where angels come and go. Because God is there, every window looks towards the Celestial City. It is a comfort that we need not go across the road to morning prayer, or step out every evening to worship, for we are priests ourselves, and have a family altar at home, whereon the incense burns both morning and night. We talk not of matins and vespers, but we glory that “the Lord is there” when we bow the knee as a household. What is more delightful than to gather round the family hearth, to hear the Scriptures read, and listen to the senior, as he talks to the younger ones of what God has done for him, and what the Lord is waiting to give to all who trust Him? Free from all formality, family prayer makes a house a temple, a family a church, and every day a holy day. Truly, I may say of families of this kind, wherever they dwell, that it is none other but the house of God, and it is the very gate of heaven”; for “the Lord is there.” Friend, is God in your house? If it has no family prayer, it has no roof to it. There is no true joy in domestic life unless the Lord be there. All else is fiction; God alone is true delight. I charge you, if your homes are not such that God could come to them, set your houses in order, and say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Will you dare to dwell where God could not lodge with you? May all men say of your home, “The Lord is there”!~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm
The Lord is Graciously Near
Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon His name. -Malachi 3:16
Dear friends, I thank God that you and I know what it is to enjoy the presence of God in a great many different ways. When two or three of the people of God meet together, and talk to one another about the things of God, the Lord is never away. You remember that blessed text, “They that feared the Lord spake often one to another.” They had holy talks about heavenly things. It was such sweet conversation, that the Lord Himself turned eaves-dropper, and hearkened and heard. What He heard pleased Him so well that He there and then made a note of it; yea, and wrote it down, and ordered that “a book of remembrance” should be preserved “for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name.” Was not this sure evidence of His most gracious presence? John Bunyan knew that God was there when he went about tinkering, and came to Bedford, and there were three godly women sitting in the sun, at work; and as they worked they talked so sweetly that the tinker stood and listened, and was drawn to better things. By such means he became a believer and a preacher, and the writer of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which has so refreshed us all. The Lord was there, and therefore he dreamed a heavenly dream in the Bedford jail. Wherever His people meet, the Lord is graciously near. “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm
He Hath Said 