The Marks of a Living Church

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises 3 Comments

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. -Ephesians 5:1-2

Where God is present, the preservation of purity will be found. The church is nothing if it is not holy. It is worse-it is a den of thieves. Setting the seal of its pestilent example upon evil living, it becomes the servant of Satan, and the destroyer of souls. 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If the Lord is there, holiness will abound, and fruits of the Spirit will be seen on all sides; but if the Lord be once withdrawn, then flesh and blood will rule, and gender towards corruption, after its own manner; and the church will become a synagogue of formalists.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.

Where God is, there is the constant renewal of vitality. 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. ~  C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Abide with Us, We Pray Thee!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. -Acts 20:28

Brethren, we as a church have grown to great numbers, and we are not deficient either in gifts or in graces, or in work for our Lord; but let me solemnly remind you always that our chief, our only strength, must always lie in this-“the Lord is there.” 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.

If the Lord be among us, the consequences will be…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…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. No subscription to articles can keep out the unscrupulous. Wolves leap into the fold however carefully you watch the door…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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Immanuel Shall Come to Thee, O Israel!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father 3 Comments

After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God!…‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” -Revelation 19:1,9

Flying forward, as with a dove’s wing, to the future that is drawing near, we bethink us of the truth that there is to be a millennial age-a time of glory, and peace, and joy, and truth, and righteousness. But what is to be the glory of it? Why this, “Jehovah-shammah, the Lord is there!” The Lord Jesus Christ will come, and begin His personal reign on earth among His ancients. In like manner as He went up into heaven, and the disciples saw Him, so will He descend a second time, to be seen here among men; and His glorious presence shall fashion the golden age, the thousand years of peace. Then shall the nations shout “The Lord is come.” What hallelujahs will then rise to heaven! Welcome, welcome, son of God! How will all His faithful ones rejoice with joy unspeakable, and sing and sing again; for now the day of their reward has come, and they shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father! In all the glory of the latter days everything is wrapped up in this one word, “the Lord is there.”

“Oh, come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight!
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

 

The Lord is in His Church

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 3 Comments

…to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. -Ephesians 3:21

(T)here is a special place where God dwells among men, and that is in His church. He has but one church, chosen by eternal election, redeemed by precious blood, called out by the Holy Ghost, and quickened into newness of life-this, as a whole, is the dwelling place of the covenant God. Because God is in this church, therefore the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. “The Lord is there” might be said of the church in all ages. I have seen the crypts and underground chapels of the catacombs, and it made one feel that they were glorious places, when we remembered that the Lord God was there, by His Spirit, with His suffering people. When holy hymn and psalm and solemn prayer went up from the very bowels of the earth, from men who were hunted to the death by their foes-the Lord was there. In those dreary excavations, unvisited by sunlight and wholesome air, God was as He was not in the palaces of kings, and is not in the cathedrals of priests. In this land of ours, when a few people met together, here and there, to hear the gospel and to worship, they made cottages, caves, and hollows in the woods, to be “holiness unto the Lord.” Ay, and when crowds met beneath your gospel oaks, or gathered together by the hillside to listen to the pure word of grace, the Lord was there, and souls were saved and sanctified. When the Puritans solemnly conversed together of the things of God, and held their little conventicles for fear of their adversaries-God was there. On Scotland’s bleak moors and mosses, when the Covenanters gathered in the darkness and the storm, for fear of Claverhouse and his dragoons-God was there…And so onward, to this very day, wheresoever the chosen of God lift up holy hands and worship Him, whether it be in cathedral or in barn, beneath the blue sky or beneath a thatched roof, anywhere and everywhere when the heart is right, and the soul adores the living Lord, this is the special glory of the place…the Lord is there.”~ C.H.Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

The Hand of God in the History of a Man

Sherry sermon 3 Comments

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

Jehovah Shammah and Immanuel

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father 5 Comments

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,”which is translated, “God with us.”- Matthew 1:23

The nearest approach of Godhead to our manhood was when there was found, wrapped in swaddling bands and lying in a manger, that child who was born, that Son who was given whose name was called “Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” As for thee, O Bethlehem favored above all the towns of earth, out of thee He came, who is Immanuel, God with us! Verily Thy name is Jehovah-shammah. All along, through thirty years and more of holy labor, ending in a shameful death, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. In the gloom of Gethsemane, among those sombre olives, when Jesus bowed, and in His prayer sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground, He was “seen of angels” as the Son of God bearing human sin. Speak of Gethsemane, and we tell you God was there. Before Herod, and Pilate, and Caiaphas, and on the cross-the Lord was there. Though in a sense there was the hiding of God, and Jesus cried, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” yet in the deepest sense Jehovah was there, bruising the great sacrifice. The thick darkness made a veil for the Lord of glory, and behind it He that made all things bowed His head and said, “It is finished.” God was in Christ Jesus on the cross, and we, beholding Him, feel that we have seen the Father. O Calvary, we say of thee, “The Lord is there.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

The Gate of Heaven

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, prayer, promises 3 Comments

You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. -Psalm 16:11

Do we reckon the presence of the Lord to be the greatest of blessings? If in any gathering, even of the humblest people, the Lord God is known to be present in a peculiarly gracious manner, should we make a point of being there?..Will you permit these thoughts to saturate you for a little space? I have spoken them with the desire that each one of us may ask himself, “Is the presence of God my delight?” If so, I am His, and He will be with me. On the contrary, Is the presence of God a matter of indifference, or even of dread? Then my condition is one of guilt, disease, and danger. May the Lord, of His infinite mercy, set me right!

God’s saints in divers places found choice spots where they could converse with heaven. In the first days our gracious God spake with His chosen ones in their daily walk, as Enoch; or under the oak, as Abraham; or by the brook, as Jacob; or before the bush, as Moses; or near the city wall, as Joshua. Wherever it might be, the place became to them the gate of heaven, for the Lord was there. Amid a torrent of sin and sorrow, you may cross the stream of time upon the stepping-stones of the places marked “Jevohah-Shammah”. The Lord’s delights were with the sons of men, and to them nothing brought such bliss as to find that still the Lord would be mindful of man, and visit him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm