The Watched Christian

Sherry Christian Life 7 Comments

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. – Romans 12:2

The more the Church is distinct from the world in her acts and in her maxims, the more true is her testimony for Christ, and the more potent is her witness against sin. We are sent into this world to testify against evils; but if we dabble in them ourselves, where is our testimony? If we ourselves be found faulty, we are false witnesses; we are not sent of God, our testimony is of none effect. I do not hesitate to say there are tens of thousands of professing Christians, whose testimony before the world is rather injurious than beneficial. The world looks at them, and says, “Well, I see: you can be a Christian, and yet remain a rogue.”… Now, what is all that? It is just this,-that the world has found out that the Church visible is not the unmixed Church of Christ, since it is not true to its principles, anal does not stand up for the uprightness and integrity which are the marks of the genuine Church of God.

Many Christians forget that they are bearing a testimony: they do not think that anybody notices them. Ay, but they do. There are no people so much watched as Christians. The world reads us up, from the first letter of our lives to the end; and if they can find a flaw-and, God forgive us, they may find very many-they are sure to magnify the flaw as much as ever they can. Let us therefore be very watchful, that we live close to Christ, that we walk in His commandments always that the world may see that the Lord hath put a difference …between you and the world. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm

Things That Accompany Salvation

Sherry sermon 4 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

At Our Dying Hour

Sherry Christian Life, promises, salvation 4 Comments

He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. Mark 16:16

The last time the cholera visited London with severity, though I had many engagements in the country, I gave them up to remain in London. It is the duty of the minister always to be on the spot in times of visitation and disease. I never saw more conspicuously in my life the difference between the man that feareth God and the man that feareth Him not, than I did then. Called up one Monday morning at about half-past three, to go and see a man who was dying, I went to him and entered the place where he was lying. He had been down to Brighton on the Sunday morning on an excursion, and came back ill; and there he lay on the borders of the tomb. I stood by his side, and spoke to him. The only consciousness he had was a foreboding of terror, mingled with the stupor of alarm: soon even that was gone, and I had to stand sighing there with a poor old woman who had watched over him, hopeless altogether about his soul. I went home. I was called away to see a young woman; she was also in the last extremity, but it was a fair, fair sight: she was singing, though she knew she was dying; talking to those round about her, telling her brothers and sisters to follow her to heaven, bidding good-bye to her father, smiling as if it were a marriage-day. She was happy and blessed. I then saw very clearly, that if there is not a difference in the joy of life there is a difference when we come to the dying hour.

To-day you are either a friend to God or an enemy to Him. You are at this hour either quickened or dead, and oh! remember, when death comes it is either heaven or hell with you,-either angels or fiends must be your companions, and either the flames must be your bed and fiery coverlet, or else the glories of eternity must be your perpetual inheritance. Remember, the way to heaven is open. “He that believeth in the Lord Jesus shall be saved.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm

The Gospel’s Reception

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. – 2 Corinthians 4:4-3

Two men go up to the temple to worship, they take their seats side by side in God’s house; the Word is preached to them both; they both hear it, perhaps with like attention; the one goes his way to forget, the other remembers. They come again: the one listens, and the minister is to him as one that playeth a goodly tune upon an instrument: the other listens and weeps; he feels that the word is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. It comes home to his conscience; it pierces him, cuts him to the quick; every word seems to be as an arrow shot from the bow of God and finding a target in his conscience. And now they come again. The one feels the word at last to be his; he has been led to repentance and faith in Christ through it, and now comes up to sing God’s praises as His accepted child; while the other remains to sing as a mere formalist-to join in worship in which he feels but little interest-to lift up his voice in a prayer when his heart is far absent. If I had here this morning a heap of steel filings and of ashes mixed together, and I wanted to detect the difference between the two, I should have nothing to do but to thrust in a magnet; the filings would be attracted and the ashes would remain. So with this congregation. If I would know to-day who are those who are of God’s Israel, and who are still the baseborn Egyptians, there is nothing needed but to preach the gospel. The gospel finds out God’s people. it has an affinity to them. When it comes to them they receive it, God’s Holy Spirit opening their hearts; they lay hold of it and rejoice in it; while those who are not God’s, who have no part or interest in the redemption of Christ, hear it in vain and are even hardened by it and go their way to sin with a higher hand, after all the warnings they have received.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm

Every Providence is a Blessing

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

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

It is true, that to the naked eye one event happens to both (the renewed and the unrenewed man): the righteous suffer as well as the wicked, and they go to the grave which is appointed for all living; but if we could look more closely into God’s providence, we should see lines of light dividing the path of the godly from the lot of the transgressor. To the righteous man every providence is a blessing. A blessing is wrapped up in all our curses and in all our crosses. Our cups are sometimes bitter, but they are always healthful. Our woe is our weal. We are never losers by our losses, but we grow rich towards God when we become poor towards men. To the sinner, however, all things work together for evil. Is he prosperous? He is as the beast that is fattened for the slaughter. Is he healthy? He is as the blooming flower that is ripening for the mower’s scythe. Does he suffer? His sufferings are the first drops of the eternal hail-storm-of divine vengeance. Every thing to the sinner, if he could but open his eyes, hath a black aspect. The clouds are to him big with thunders, and the whole world is alive with terror. If earth could have its way it would shake off from its bosom the monsters that forget God. But to the righteous all things work together for good. Come foul, or come fair, all shall end well; every wave speeds him to his desired haven, and even the rough blast swells his sails, and drives him the more swiftly towards the port of peace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm

God’s Just Dealings with Two Different Men

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

Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God – Romans 3:24-25

The Lord is never severe beyond what justice demands, nor gracious beyond what justice allows. Here comes the unrenewed, the ungodly man, he brings up his good works, his prayers, his tears; the Lord will judge him according to his works, and woe worth the day to him; it will be a day of sorrow indeed, for he will soon discover his best perfections are as filthy rags, and that all his good works only seemed to be good because he was in the dark, and could not see the spots that defiled them. Another man approaches, it is the renewed man. God deals with him justly, it is true, but not according to the scale of the law, He looks at that man as accepted in Christ Jesus, justified through Christ’s righteousness and washed in His blood, and now He deals with that man, not as a judge with a criminal, nor as a king with a subject, but as a father with a child. That man is taken to Jehovah’s bosom; his offense is put away, his soul constantly renewed by the influence of divine grace, and the dealings of God with him are as different from the dealings of God with another man, as the love of a husband differs from the sternness of an incensed monarch. On the one hand, it is simple justice; on the other hand, fervent love; on the one hand, the inflexible severity of a judge, and on the other hand, the unbounded affection of a parent’s heart. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm

The Distinction

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

… that ye may know that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. – Exodus 11:17

Between the righteous and the wicked, there is an essential distinction of nature. There are some of you, who imagine that the only difference between the true Christian and another, is just this,-that the one is more attentive to his place of worship-that he is more regular in the practice of ceremonies-that he could not live without private prayer, and the like. Permit me to assure you, that if there is no greater difference than this between you and another man, you are not a child of God. The distinction between the unconverted and the converted, is far wider than this. It is one not of dress or of outward form but of essence and of nature…You must be born again; there must be a new nature put into you; a spark of divinity must fall into your bosom, and must burn there… God by His infinite power has quickened His people: He has brought them out of their old nature, they now love the things which they once hated, and they hate the things they once loved. Old things with them are “passed away; behold all things are become new.” The change is not that they speak more solemnly and religiously, or that they have left off going to the theater, or that they do not spend their lives in the frivolities of the world: that is not the change-it is a consequence of it, but the change is deeper and more vital than this; it is a change of the man’s very essence. He is no more the man that he once was. he is “renewed in the spirit of his mind,” born over again, regenerated, re-created: he is a stranger and a foreigner here below, he no more belongs to this world, but to the world to come. The Lord, then, in this respect, hath put a difference between Israel and Egypt.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm