Trust is the Lifeblood of Faith
For we live by faith, not by sight. – 2 Corinthians 5:7
Commit yourself to the merciful God; rest your hope on the gracious gospel; trust your soul on the dying and living Saviour; wash away your sins in the atoning blood; accept His perfect righteousness, and all is well. Trust is the lifeblood of faith; there is no saving faith without it. The Puritans were accustomed to explain faith by the word “recumbency.” It meant leaning upon a thing. Lean with all your weight upon Christ. It would be a better illustration still if I said, fall at full length, and lie on the Rock of Ages. Cast yourself upon Jesus; rest in Him; commit yourself to Him. That done, you have exercised saving faith.
Faith is not a blind thing; for faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It is not an unpractical, dreamy thing; for faith trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation. That is one way of describing what faith is…It is not the strength of your faith that saves you, but the strength of Him upon whom you rely! Christ is able to save you if you come to Him-be your faith weak or be it strong…My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy He is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am or shall be or feel or know, but in what Christ is, in what He has done, and in what He is now doing for me. Hallelujah! ~ C.H. Spurgeon
Covered and Protected
“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.” Psalm 91:4
A condescending simile indeed! Just as a hen protects her brood and allows them to nestle under her wings, so will the Lord defend His people and permit them to hide away in Him. Have we not seen the little chicks peeping out from under the mother’s feathers? Have we not heard their little cry of contented joy? In this way let us shelter ourselves in our God and feel overflowing peace in knowing that He is guarding us.
While the Lord covers us, we trust. It would be strange if we did not. How can we distrust when Jehovah Himself becomes house and home, refuge and rest to us?
This done, we go out to war in His name and enjoy the same guardian care. We need shield and buckler, and when we implicitly trust God, even as the chick trusts the hen, we find His truth arming us from head to foot. The Lord cannot lie; He must be faithful to His people; His promise must stand. This sure truth is all the shield we need. Behind it we defy the fiery darts of the enemy.
Come, my soul, hide under those great wings, lose thyself among those soft feathers! How happy thou art! ~ C.H. Spurgeon
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Jesus Came to Save Thee
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. – 1 Timothy 1:15
A profligate son had been a great grief to his father; he had robbed him and disgraced him, and at last he ended by bringing his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. He was a horrible wretch of a son: no one could have been more graceless. However, he attended his father’s funeral, and he stayed to hear the will read: perhaps it was the chief reason why he was there. He had fully made up his mind that his father would cut him off with a shilling, and he meant to make it very unpleasant for the rest of the family. To his great astonishment, as the will was read it ran something like this: “As for my son Richard, though he has fearfully wasted my substance, and though he has often grieved my heart, I would have him know that I consider him still to be my own dear child, and therefore, in token of my undying love, I leave him the same share as the rest of his brothers.” He left the room; he could not stand it; the surprising love of his father had mastered him. He came down to the executor the next morning, and said, “You surely did not read correctly?” “Yes, I did; there it stands.” “Then,” he said, “I feel ready to curse myself that I ever grieved my dear old father. Oh, that I could fetch him back again!” Love was born in that base heart by an unexpected display of love. May not your case be similar? Our Lord Jesus Christ is dead, but He has left it in His will that the chief of sinners are objects of His choicest mercy. Dying, He prayed, “Father, forgive them.” Risen He pleads for transgressors. Sinners are ever on His mind: their salvation is His great object. His blood is for them, His heart for them, His righteousness is for them, His heaven is for them. Come, O ye guilty ones, and receive your legacy. Put out the hand of faith and grasp your portion. Trust Jesus with your souls, and He will save you. God bless you. Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm
The Pure is Alloyed with the Base in the Church
“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” – Colossians 2:8
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one! – Job 14:4
God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. -John 4:24
“As it was with the worship of Israel of old, so it is now with that of the Christian church. The pure becomes alloyed with the base, that which is genuine with that which is spurious, divine revelation with human tradition, and the inspired decrees of heaven with the inventions and devices of the children of men. Some fallacies are perpetuated from generation to generation, until the deep hue of antiquity tinges them over, makes them look venerable and speciously invites a reverence and regard to which they never had any legitimate claim… But mark ye this, if the grace of God be once more restored to the church in all its fullness and the Spirit of God be poured out from on high, in all His sanctifying energy there will come such a shaking as has never been seen in our days.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
This Holy Fear, This Sacred Caution
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise… – Ephesians 1:13
A man who becomes a partaker of divine grace, and receives the new nature, is ever afterwards a partaker of daily helps from God’s Holy Spirit. God the Holy Ghost deigns to dwell in the bosom, of every man whom God has saved by His grace. Is not that a wonderful means of sanctifying? By what process can men be better kept from sin than by having the Holy Spirit Himself to dwell as Vice-regent within their hearts? The Ever- blessed Spirit leads believers to be much in prayer, and what a power for holiness is found in the child of grace speaking to the heavenly Father! The tempted man flies to his chamber, unbosoms his grief to God, looks to the flowing wounds of his Redeemer, and comes down strong to resist temptation. The divine Word also, with its precepts and promises, is a never-failing source of sanctification. Were it not that we every day bathe in the sacred fountain of eternal strength we might soon be weak and irresolute; but fellowship with God renews us in our vigorous warfare with sin. How is it possible that the doctrines of grace should suggest sin to men who constantly draw near to God? The renewed man is also by God’s Spirit frequently quickened in conscience; so that things which heretofore did not strike him as sinful are seen in a clearer light and are consequently condemned. I know that certain matters are sinful to me today which did not appear so ten years ago: my judgment has, I trust, been more and more cleared of the blindness of sin. The natural conscience is callous and hard; but the gracious conscience grows more and more tender till at last it becomes as sensitive as a raw wound. He who has most grace is most conscious of his need of more grace. The gracious are often afraid to put one foot before another for fear of doing wrong. Have you not felt this holy fear, this sacred caution? It is by this means that the Holy Spirit prevents your ever turning your Christian liberty into licentiousness, or daring to make the grace of God an argument for folly. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm
The Word Made Flesh
“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth”- John 1:14.
I cannot refrain from mentioning an incident connected with the perusal of the first chapter of John. I suppose there is not a passage in God’s Word which has not at some time or other been blessed to the conversion of a soul. Even the fifth chapter of Genesis, which is so uninteresting to the most of readers, because the verses continually end, “And he died,” “And he died,” “And he died,” has been blessed to one, who from the reiteration of the fact that men who lived nine hundred years nevertheless died, was led to think of his own death. Now, the first chapter of John was the means of the conversion of a celebrated writer, Junius the younger, one who did good service in the Church. His father, perceiving him to be an ungodly young man, put in his way as much as possible the New Testament, and the following is an extract from Junius’s account of his own life. “My father, who was frequently reading the New Testament, and had long observed with grief the progress I had made in infidelity, had put that book in my way in his library, in order to attract my attention, if it might please God to bless his design, though without giving me the least intimation of it. Here, therefore, I unwittingly opened the New Testament thus providentially laid before me. At the very first view, although I was deeply engaged in other thoughts, that grand chapter of the evangelist and apostle presented itself to me-‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.’ I read part of the chapter and was so greeted that I instantly became struck with the divinity of the argument, and the majesty and authority of the composition, as infinitely surpassing the highest flights of human eloquence. My body shuddered; my mind was in amazement, and I was so agitated the whole day that I scarcely knew who I was; nor did the agitation cease, but continued till it was at last soothed by a humble faith in Him who was made flesh and dwelt among us.”
Let me read it, giving another translation: “The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0414.cfm
He Hath Said 