Chaff and Tares

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, salvation 3 Comments

Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. – Matthew 22:8

We have some in our churches that are not so good as chaff, for they do not seem to have been near the wheat at all; they are nothing better than tares. They have come into our churches, just as they would into a trade-association, because they think it will improve their business. It gives respectability to their name to take the sacrament; it makes them esteemed to have been baptized, or to be a member of a Christian church; and so they come in by shoals after the loaves and fishes, but not after Jesus Christ. Ah! hypocrite, thou makest light of Christ if thou thinkest that He is a stalkinghorse to get thee wealth. If thou dreamest that thou art to saddle and bridle Christ, and ride to wealth upon Him, thou makest a grand mistake, for He was never meant to carry men anywhere except to heaven. If you suppose that religion was intended to gild your homes, to carpet your floors, and line your purses, you have greatly erred. It was intended to be profitable to the soul; and he who thinks to use religion to his own personal advantage thinks lightly of Christ: and at the last day this crime shall be laid to his charge-that he has made light of it; and the King shall send His armies to cut him in pieces, among those who have despised His Majesty, and would not obey His laws.

Oh! dear friends, if you once knew what a blessed Master Christ is, if you once knew what a blessed thing the gospel is, if you could once be brought to believe what a blessed God our God is, if you could only have one hour’s enjoyment such as the Christian experiences, if you could only have one promise applied to your heart, you would never make light of the gospel again. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0098.cfm

Slighters of Jesus

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, salvation 3 Comments

And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. – Matthew 22:12.13

I have seen some men weep beneath a powerful sermon; I have marked the tears chase each other-tears, blessed tell-tales of emotions within. I have sometimes said to myself, it is marvelous to see these people weep under some telling word from God, which is alarming them, as if Sinai itself were thundering in their ears. But there is something more marvelous than men’s weeping under the word. It is the fact that they soon, too soon, wipe all their tears away. But ah! my dear hearer, recollect that if thou hearest of these things and shakest off a solemn impression, thou art, in doing that, slighting God and making light of His truth; and take heed how you do that, lest your own garments be red with the blood of your soul, and it be said, “Oh, Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.”

He who gives Christ a little of his affections, makes light of Christ; for Christ will have the whole heart or none at all. He who gives Christ a portion, and the world a portion, despises Christ, for he seems to think that Christ does not deserve to have the whole. And inasmuch as he says that, or thinks that, he hath mean and unholy thoughts of Christ. Oh! carnal man, thou who art half religious, and half profane; thou who art sometimes serious, but as often frivolous; sometimes apparently pious, but yet so often unholy, thou makest light of Christ…The self-righteous man who sets himself up as a partner with Christ in the matter of salvation, notwithstanding all his trumpery good works, is such a ringleader among despisers, that I would gibbet him in the very middle of them, and bid all like him tremble, lest they also be found slighters of Jesus.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0098.cfm

Ah! Poor Soul, When Thou Art Once in Hell…

Sherry Attributes of God, salvation 3 Comments

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out. – Luke 13:28

(T)hou makest light of heaven-that place to which the blest ones long to go, where glory reigns without a cloud, and bliss without a sigh. Thou puttest the crown of everlasting life beneath thy feet; thou treadest the palm-branch beneath thine unhallowed foot and thou thinkest it little to be saved, and little to be glorified. “Ah! poor soul, when thou art once in hell, and when the iron key is turned for ever in the lock of inevitable destiny, thou wilt find hell to be a something not so easy to despise; and when thou hast lost heaven and all its bliss, and canst only hear the song of the blessed, sounding faintly in the distance, increasing thy misery by contrast with their joy, then thou wilt find it no little thing to have made light of heaven. Every man who makes light of religion makes light of these things. He misjudges the value of his own soul, and the importance of its eternal state.

“Oh! sir,” says one, “I never indulge in any words hostile to God’s truth, I never laugh at the minister, nor do I despise the Sabbath.” Stop, my friend, I will acquit thee of all that; and yet I will solemnly lay to thy charge this great sin of making light of the gospel. Hear me then!…Ah, my hearers, you are guilty of making light of God’s gospel, when you sit under a sermon without attending to it! Oh! what would lost souls give to the hear another sermon! What would yonder dying wretch who is just now nearing the grave, give for another Sabbath! And what will you give, one of these days, when you shall be hard by Jordan’s brink, that you might have one more warning, and listen once more to the wooing voice of God’s minister! We make light of the gospel when we hear it, without solemn and awful attention to it.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0098.cfm

Make Light of God, Sinner?

Sherry Christian Life 3 Comments

And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. – Matthew 22:3

There is no such thing as true natural religion apart from Christ; it is a lie and a falsehood, it is the refuge of a man who is not brave enough to say he hates God, but it is only a refuge of lies; for he who denieth Christ in that act offendeth God, and shutteth up heaven’s gates against himself. There is no loving the Father except through the Son; and there is no acceptable worship of the Father, except through the Great High Priest the Mediator, Jesus Christ. Oh! my friend, remember thou hast not merely despised the gospel, but thou hast despised the gospel’s God. In laughing at the doctrines of revelation, thou hast laughed at God; in reviling the truth of the gospel, thou hast reviled God Himself, thou hast bent thy fist in the face of the Eternal; thine oaths have not fallen upon the church, they have fallen upon God Himself. Oh! remember, ye that mock at the message of Christ! Oh! remember, ye that turn away from the ministry of truth! God is a mighty one; how severely can He punish! God is a jealous God; oh! how severely will He punish! Make light of God, sinner? Why, this above all things is a damning sin, and in committing it, it may be thou wilt one day sign thine own death-warrant; for making light of God, of Christ, and of His holy gospel, is destroying one’s own soul, and rushing headlong to perdition. Ah! unhappy souls, most unhappy must ye be, if ye live and die making light of Christ, and preferring your farms and your merchandise to the treasures of the gospel.

(The man who lightly esteems the gospel makes light of hell; he thinks its fires are not hot, and its flames not such as Christ has described them; he makes light of the burning tears that scald despairing cheeks for ever; he makes light of the yells and shrieks that must be the doleful songs and terrible music of perishing souls. Ah! it is no wise thing to make light of hell.) ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0098.cfm

A Mighty Savior

Sherry sermon 2 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

Making Light of the King’s Only Son

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

But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. – Matthew 22:7

Ah! sinner, when thou makest light of the gospel, thou makest light of Christ-of that Christ before whom glorious cherubs bow themselves-of that Christ at whose feet the high archangel thinks it happiness to cast his crown; thou makest light of Him with whose praise the vault of heaven rings; thou makest light of Him whom God makes much of, for He has called Him, “God over all, blessed for ever.” Ah! it is a solemn thing to make light of Christ. Despise a prince, and ye shall have little honour at the king’s hand for it; but despise the Son of God, and the Father will have vengeance on you for His slighted Son. Oh! my dear friends, it seems to me to be a sin, not unpardonable, I know, but still most heinous, that men should ever despise my blessed Lord Jesus Christ and treat Him with cruel scorn. Make light of Thee, sweet Jesus! Oh! when I see Thee with Thy shirt of gore, wrestling in Gethsemane, I bow myself o’er Thee, and I say, “O, Redeemer, bleeding for sin, can any sinner make light of Thee?” When I behold Him with a river of blood rolling down His shoulder, beneath the cursed flagellation of Pilate’s whip, I ask, “Can a sinner make light of such a Saviour as this?” And when I see Him yonder, covered with His blood, nailed to a tree, expiring in torture, shrieking, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” I ask myself, “Can any make light of this?” Ay, if they do, then, indeed, it were sin enough to damn them, if they have no other sin-that they have lightly esteemed the Prince of Peace, who is glorious and altogether lovely. Oh! my friend, if thou makest light of Christ, thou hast insulted the only One who can save thee-the only One who can bear thee across the Jordan-the only One who can unbolt the gates of heaven and give thee welcome. O, sinner, think of thy sin, if thou art making light of Him, for then art thou making light of the King’s only Son.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0098.cfm

Making Light of Christ

Sherry Character of Jesus, salvation 10 Comments

But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise – Matthew 22:5

Man is not much changed since the days of Adam…There are still men who answer the character given to others, in His day, by the Saviour, “They go their way, one to his farm, another to his merchandise,: making light of the glorious things of the gospel…I believe that to think lightly of Christ is a sin; and at all risks of being falsely called legalist, or free-willer, by those who are wise above what is written, I shall charge it upon you as such, for I hope I shall never belong to that class of Calvinists who do the devil’s work by excusing sinners in their sins.

These men refused to come; they went-“One to his farm, another to his merchandise,” and so made light of the messenger; and every sinner who neglects the great salvation of Jesus Christ, makes light of the gospel minister, which is no little insult in God’s esteem… Oh! to despise the gospel of the blessed God, how mad! how worse than folly! Despise the stars, and thou art a fool; despise God’s earth, with its glorious mountains, with its flowing rivers, and its fair meads, and thou art a maniac; but despise God’s gospel, and thou art ten thousand maniacs in one. Make light of that, and thou art far more foolish than he who sees no light in the sun, who beholds no fairness in the moon, and no brilliancy in the starry firmament. Trample, if you please, His lower works; but oh! remember, when you make light of the gospel, you are making light of the masterpiece of your great Creator-that which cost Him more than to create a myriad of worlds-the bloody purchase of our Saviour’s agonies. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0098.cfm