The Blood Heat of Christ’s Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, salvation, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh… – Romans 9:1-3

I wish all felt it, but there are generally some in every church who will never warm up to the right point. If we could once get the whole Church up to blood heat, we might be content. I never want you to get to fever heat, but to blood heat—the heat of the blood of Christ—to love as He loved! Oh, to get there and to stay there! Well, what would be the result, if we all felt as Paul did? The first effect would be likeness to Christ! After that manner He loved—He did become a curse for us! He entered under the awful shadow of Jehovah’s wrath for us. He did what Paul could wish but could not do. He passed under the awful sword that we might be delivered from its edge forever!

Brethren, I want you to feel that you would pass under poverty if you could save souls better by being poor! That you would gladly endure sickness if from your sick bed you could speak better for Christ than now! Yes, and that you would be ready to die if your death might give life to those dear to you! …Oh, to be willing to die if others may be saved from the eternal death! God give us just such a spirit as that! This should be our constant feeling—how else can we become like Christ? …When the Spirit of God has brought you to it, you will pray day and night for those whom you love! As you go down the road, something will suggest your praying for them. The very oaths and blasphemies so common in our streets will make you pray for sinners. A gracious meeting where some are saved will move you to prayer. A thousand things will lead you to pray, and that prayer will lead you to effort—to proper and fitting effort. It is wonderful how a man can talk to souls when he loves them! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm

Our Deep Love for the Lost Souls

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, salvation, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. – Romans 9:2

Our concern for souls must be worked in us by the Holy Spirit. It must come irresistibly upon us and become a master passion. Just as the birds, when the eggs are in the nest, have upon them a natural feeling that they must sit on those eggs and that they must feed those little fledglings which will come from the eggs—so if God calls you to win souls, you will have a natural love for them, a longing worked in you by the Holy Spirit so that the whole of your being will run out in that direction, seeking the salvation of men. The Apostle goes on to say that he had great heaviness—not only heaviness, but great heaviness. Was he, therefore, an unhappy man? By no means! He had great joy in other things, though he had great heaviness on this point…Whenever Paul’s thoughts turned towards his Jewish brethren, a great heaviness came upon him. It bore him down and he would have sunk under it if it had not been for sustaining grace. “O God,” he said, “shall my nation perish? Shall my people die? Shall my kinsmen be anathema? Shall it come to this, that they shall hear the Gospel in vain and perish, after all?” …He thought of his brethren and their unbelief—and then he thought of how they had been the enemies of Christ and, therefore, sorrow filled his heart. I could wish that in full many a professor the same sorrow reigned, for then there would be much more holy work done for souls! …Let other men’s sins grieve you! Let their eternal destiny be often on your mind! No better spur can be needed. You will labor for their good in proportion as you feel for them. I do not think that I can ask a better thing for the unconverted than that the converted may be in heaviness over them! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm

Mourning Over Sinners

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. – Romans 9:1,2

There was no sham about it. It is pretty easy to work yourself up into a state of feeling, but it was not passing emotion with Paul, it was deep, true, constant grief. He says, “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit.” He did not fancy that he felt, but he really was heart-broken for guilty souls. He did not sometimes get up into that condition or down into it, but he lived in it. “I lie not,” he says, “I do not speak more than the truth. I do not exaggerate.” For fear he should not be believed he asserts as strongly as is allowed to a Christian man— “I say the truth in Christ. I lie not.” His was true heaviness, real sorrow…Paul’s feeling was very gracious. It was not an animal feeling, or a natural feeling—it was a gracious feeling, for He says, “I say the truth in Christ.” When he was nearest to his Lord. When he felt most his union with Christ and communion with Him, then he felt that he did mourn over men’s souls.

It was truth in Christ that he was expressing because he was one with Christ! He had a love for sinners because his very soul was knit to Christ. He had a heaviness such as his Master knew when He, also, was very heavy and sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane, in the day of His passion. O Beloved, we need the Spirit of God to work this feeling in us! It is of no use to try to get it by reading books, or to pump yourself up to it in private—this feeling is the work of God! A soul-winner is a creation. As a Christian has to be created, so out of a Christian the soul-winner has to be fashioned. There has to be a careful preparation, a softening of the soul to make the worker know how naturally to care for the welfare of others. Paul had been trained and qualified for soul-saving work. He says that his conscience bore him witness that he spoke the truth and then he says the Holy Spirit bore witness with his conscience. May we have such a manifest love for sinners that we can ask the Holy Spirit to bear witness that we have it! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm

The Entreaty of the Holy Ghost

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

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Pleading with the Sinners

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, repentance, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren… – Romans 9:3

Do you know what is the greatest of sins? It is to be at enmity with God! The most damning of iniquities is to refuse Christ! Did God send out of His bosom His only-begotten Son to die for men and do men reject Him? Ah, this is worse than rejecting the Law! This is worse than rejecting the Gospel! It is a direct personal insult to the loving God—this rejecting the Son of God, His only Son, His bleeding, dying Son! Here sin reaches its climax and surpasses itself in infamy! These men rejected Christ and set up their phylacteries, their paying of tithes of anise and mint and cumin, their fasting thrice in the week and I know not what trifles besides, in insulting competition with the Savior! In the same manner at this hour, many persons value their external religiousness above faith in Jesus. They attend to the ceremonies of this church or of the other and refuse the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ! The greatest of sins lies there!

This grieved the Apostle, that they were mad against Him whom they ought to have loved, and were violent against Him in whom they should have believed, so that they had become a race anathematized from Christ! Paul says he could wish that he himself could stand in their place and take that anathema upon himself which he felt was upon them…Some in these days describe the penalty of sin as though it were a trifle. I beseech you, do not regard it as such! There is no hope of blessing for those who die impenitent anyhow or anywhere! They must depart, depart, depart, and that forever! O my Hearer, I beseech you, do not run the risk of the everlasting wrath of God! May God help you, by His infinite mercy, to feel how terrible a thing it is to be out of Christ, for our God is a consuming fire and it is written, “Beware you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver.” My brother, my sister, it is now or never with you. Seek the Lord while He may be found! Call upon Him while He is near! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm

The Plainly Written Truth of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

 …who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. – Romans 9:4,5

“Israel is my first-born,” says God…They had the first hold of all the spiritual gifts which the Lord bestowed upon the sons of men. They had, as it were, a monopoly of Light and Truth among them. The Jewish people had been singularly favored—they had seen God revealing His Son to them by types, by priests, by sacrifices, by the temple, by a thousand signs and marks. Verily the kingdom of God had come very near to them. But the privileges of the Jews were not greater than the privileges of men and women who hear the Gospel in these days, for Christ is not so well seen in bleeding bulls and rams and hyssop and scarlet wool as He is seen in the preaching of the Gospel! In the Gospel, God has torn the veil and made bare His heart to us in the Person of His dying Son.

You have no longer to search for the mind of God by mysterious hieroglyphs—it is written in plain letters and the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein! You have but to hear it and with the exercise of an ordinary understanding, the letter of its meaning may be comprehended. And if there is a willing heart, no matter how small the capacity of the mind, there is intellect enough to receive the saving Truth of God! You do not now live in the moonlight of the Jewish dispensation, but you bask in the noontide sunlight of the Truth of God! God, who spoke to our fathers by the Prophets, has, in these last days, spoken to us by His Son who is the express image of His Person and the brightness of His Glory! “See that you refuse not Him that speaks.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm

Plead for the Unsaved Nearest to You

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, salvation Leave a comment

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites… – Romans 9:3,4

These people for whom Paul was in so much concern were his kinsfolk according to the flesh. It is well said that charity must begin at home, for he that does not care for his own household is worse than a heathen and a publican. He who does not desire the salvation of those who are his own kin, “how dwells the love of God in him?” Christianity is expansive—it makes the bosom glow with love to all that God has made—but, at the same time, our love does not expand so as to lose force, and this is seen when it turns its power towards those who are nearest home. Is your husband unsaved? O Woman, love him to Christ! Is your child unconverted? O Parent, pray that child to Christ! Are your neighbors still out of Christ? Lay them on your heart as an intercessor before God on their account—and cease not to plead till they are saved!

We may regard those for whom he prayed, in the next light, as persons of great privileges—a very important point. They had privileges by birth— “who are Israelites.” Many of you are highly favored. You are not Israelites, but you are the children of godly parents which is much the same thing…You have the privilege of being born in the midst of holy and gracious influences—an advantage not to be despised. If there are any people we ought to pray for above others, it seems to me they are the unconverted who live in the light but will not see—who have the bread of Heaven upon the table before them but will not eat—who have Free Grace and dying love sounding in their ears, but yet refuse the wondrous message of Grace! Beloved, let us not rest unless we feel a deep concern for those who stand on a par with Israelites, since they have the privilege of being born under a Christian roof. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm