A Heavenly Escort

January 31, 2015December 18, 2014Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 5 Comments

And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest. -Genesis 28:15

Do we need journeying mercies? Here are choice ones–God’s presence and preservation. In all places we need both of these, and in all places we shall have them if we go at the call of duty, and not merely according to our own fancy. Why should we look upon removal to another country as a sorrowful necessity when it is laid upon us by the divine will? In all lands the believer is equally a pilgrim and a stranger; and yet in every region the Lord is His dwelling place, even as He has been to His saints in all generations. We may miss the protection of an earthly monarch, but when God says, “I will keep thee,” we are in no real danger. This is a blessed passport for a traveler and a heavenly escort for an emigrant.

Jacob had never left his father’s room before; he had been a mother’s boy and not an adventurer like his brother. Yet he went abroad, and God went with him. He had little luggage and no attendants; yet no prince ever journeyed with a nobler bodyguard. Even while he slept in the open field, angels watched over him, and the Lord God spoke to him. If the Lord bids us go, let us say with our Lord Jesus, “Arise, let us go hence.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://bible.christiansunite.com/Faiths_Checkbook/faith0130.shtml

We Know Where the Road Ends

January 30, 2015February 20, 2020Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises 6 Comments

“He led them forth by the right way–that they might go to a city of habitation!” Psalm 107:7

Life is ever changing. Who can tell what may come next? Today it is fair–the next day there may be the thundering storm. Today I may need nothing–tomorrow I may be like Jacob, with nothing but a stone for my pillow and the heavens for my curtains.

But what a happy thought it is: though we do not know where the road winds–we know where it ends!

We may have to go through trial and affliction; the pilgrimage may be a tiresome one–but it is safe. We cannot trace the river upon which we are sailing–but we know it ends in floods of bliss! We cannot track the roads–but we know that they all meet in the great metropolis of Heaven! God help us to pursue the true pilgrimage of a pious life! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Worldly Wisdom, I Will Try Thee

January 29, 2015February 20, 2020Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, salvation 5 Comments

“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”- 1Cr 1:23-24

What contempt hath God poured upon the wisdom of this world! How hath He brought it to nought, and made it appear as nothing. He has allowed it to work out its own conclusions, and prove its own folly. Men boasted that they were wise; they said that they could find out God to perfection; and in order that their folly might be refuted once and forever, God gave them the opportunity of so doing. He said, “Worldly wisdom, I will try thee. Thou sayest that thou art mighty, that thine intellect is vast and comprehensive, that thine eye is keen, and thou canst find all secrets; now, behold, I try thee; I give thee one great problem to solve. Here is the universe; stars make its canopy, fields and flowers adorn it, and the floods roll o’er its surface; My name is written therein; the invisible things of God may be clearly seen in the things which are made. Philosophy, I give thee this problem-find Me out. Here are my works-find Me out. Discover in the wondrous world which I have made, the way to worship Me acceptably. I give thee space enough to do it-there are data enough. Behold the clouds, the earth, and the stars. I give thee time enough; I will give thee four thousand years, and I will not interfere; but thou shalt do as thou wilt with thine own world. I will give thee men enough; for I will make great minds and vast, whom thou shalt call lords of earth; thou shalt have orators, thou shalt have philosophers. Find Me out, O reason; find Me out, O wisdom; find Me out, if thou canst; find Me out unto perfection; and if thou canst not, then shut thy mouth forever, and then will I teach thee that the wisdom of God is wiser than the wisdom of man; yea, that the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0007.cfm

God Loves Us Still

January 28, 2015February 20, 2020Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, salvation, The Father 4 Comments

We love Him, because He first loved us. -1 John 4:19

We call God a Father… He has the most troublesome family in the whole world-unbelieving, ungrateful, disobedient, forgetful, rebellious, wandering, murmuring, and stiffnecked. Well it is that He is longsuffering, or else He would have taken not only the rod, but the sword to some of us long ago. But there was nothing in us to love at first, so, there cannot be less now. John Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it too, of a good woman who said, in order to prove the doctrine of Election, “Ah! sir, the Lord must have loved me before I was born, or else He would not have seen anything in me to love afterwards.” I am sure it is true in my case, and true in respect to most of God’s people; for there is little to love in them after they are born, that if He had not loved them before then, He would have seen no reason to choose them after; but since He loved them without works, He loves them without works still; since their good works did not win His affection, bad works cannot sever that affection; since their righteousness did not bind His love to them, so their wickedness cannot snap the golden links. He loved them out of pure sovereign grace, and He will love them still. But we should have been consumed by the devil, and by our enemies-consumed by the world, consumed by our sins, by our trials, and in a hundred other ways, if God had ever changed. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm

But for God’s Unchanging Love

January 27, 2015February 20, 2020Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, salvation 2 Comments

We love Him because He first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

(B)ut for God’s unchanging love I should have been a faggot in the fire. (T)here is a way of being consumed in this world; there is such a things as being condemned before you die-“condemned already;” there is such a thing as being alive, and yet being absolutely dead. We might have been left to our own devices, and then where should we have been now? Revelling with the drunkard, blaspheming Almighty God. Oh? had He left you, dearly beloved, had He been a changing God, ye had been amongst the filthiest of the filthy, and the vilest of the vile. Cannot you remember in your life, seasons similar to those I have felt? I have gone right to the edge of sin; some strong temptation has taken hold of both my arms, so that I could not wrestle with it. I have been pushed along, dragged as by an awful satanic power to the very edge of some horrid precipice. I have looked down, down, down, and seen my portion; I quivered on the brink of ruin…A strong arm hath saved me. I have started back and cried, O God! could I have gone so near sin, and yet come back again? … Oh! is it possible I should be here this morning, when I think of the sins I have committed, and the crimes which have crossed my wicked imagination? Yes, I am here, unconsumed, because the Lord changes not. Oh! if He had changed, we should have been consumed in a dozen ways; if the Lord had changed, you and I should have been consumed by ourselves; for after all, Mr. Self is the worst enemy a Christian has. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm

Be a Person of Prayer

January 26, 2015February 20, 2020Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, salvation 6 Comments

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. -Genesis 32:24

Ah! poor Jacob! I should not choose Jacob’s lot if I had not the prospect of Jacob’s blessing; for a hard lot his was. He had to run away from his father’s house to Laban’s; and then that surly old Laban cheated him all the years he was there-cheated him of his wife, cheated him in his wages, cheated him in his flocks, and cheated him all through the story. By-and-bye he had to run away from Laban, who pursued him and overtook him. Next came Esau with four hundred men to cut him up root and branch. Then there was a season of prayer, and afterwards he wrestled, and had to go all his life with his thigh out of joint… Never was man more tried than Jacob, all through the one sin of cheating his brother. All through his life God chastised him. But I believe there are many who can sympathize with dear old Jacob. They have had to pass through trials very much like his. Well, cross-bearers! God says, “I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Poor tried souls! ye are not consumed because of the unchanging nature of your God.

Fear not saith God, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob,” men of peculiar trials, “are not consumed.” Jacob was a man of prayer-a man who wrestled, and groaned, and prayed… Sons of God cannot live without prayer. They are wrestling Jacobs. They are men in whom the Holy Ghost so works, they can no more live without prayer than I can live without breathing. They must pray. Sirs, mark you, if you are living without prayer, you are living without Christ; and dying like that, your portion will be in the lake which burneth with fire. God redeem you, God rescue you from such a lot! But you who are “the sons of Jacob,” take comfort, for God is immutable. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm