Spurgeon

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Sprinkled afresh

When Christ is with us we are safe, for what wolf can rend a sheep when it is close to the shepherd’s hand? When we are away from Jesus, we are not only in peril, but are already despoiled; to lose fellowship with Jesus is loss enough in itself, even if no further calamity occur. Ships without a pilot, cities without watchmen, babes without a nurse, are we without Jesus. We cannot do without him, the less we attempt it the better. Samson without his locks is the sad type of a believer out of fellowship.
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Petty Wars Over Abstruse Points And Unimportant Questions (audio reading)


Read by John Smith a dear friend and brother in Christ.

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Free Will—A Slave


Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 2, 1855, by the
REV. C. H. Spurgeon
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

“And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”—John 5:40.

This is one of the great guns of the Arminians, mounted upon the top of their walls, and often discharged with terrible noise against the poor Christians called Calvinists. I intend to spike the gun this morning, or, rather, to turn it on the enemy, for it was never theirs; it was never cast at their foundry at all, but was intended to teach the very opposite doctrine to that which they assert. Usually, when the text is taken, the divisions are: First, that man has a will. Secondly, that he is entirely free. Thirdly, that men must make themselves willing to come to Christ, otherwise they will not be saved. Now, we shall have no such divisions; but we will endeavour to take a more calm look at the text; and not, because there happen to be the words “will,” or “will not” in it, run away with the conclusion that it teaches the doctrine of free-will. It has already been proved beyond all controversy that free-will is nonsense. Freedom cannot belong to will any more than ponderability can belong to electricity. They are altogether different things. Free agency we may believe in, but free-will is simply ridiculous. The will is well known by all to be directed by the understanding, to be moved by motives, to be guided by other parts of the soul, and to be a secondary thing. Philosophy and religion both discard at once the very thought of free-will; and I will go as far as Martin Luther, in that strong assertion of his, where he says, “If any man doth ascribe aught of salvation, even the very least, to the free-will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright.” It may seem a harsh sentiment; but he who in his soul believes that man does of his own free-will turn to God, cannot have been taught of God, for that is one of the first principles taught us when God begins with us, that we have neither will nor power, but that he gives both; that he is “Alpha and Omega” in the salvation of men.

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Charles H. Spurgeon ~ Quotes On Love For Brethren

Thank you Sister Rain for sharing this.

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Enjoying God’s Creation — Charles Spurgeon

 

“Where the birds make their nests; The stork has her home in the fir trees. The high hills are for the wild goats; The cliffs are a refuge for the rock badgers.” — Psalm 104:17-18.

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)


Psalm 104 is all through a song of nature, the adoration of God in the great outward temple of the universe. Some in these modern times have thought it to be a mark of high spirituality never to observe nature; and I remember sorrowfully reading the expressions of a godly person, who, in sailing down one of the most famous rivers in the world closed his eyes, lest the picturesque beauties of the scene should divert his mind from scriptural topics. This may be regarded by some as profound spirituality; to me it seems to savor of absurdity. There may be persons who think they have grown in grace when they have attained to this; it seems to me that they are growing out of their senses. To despise the creating work of God—what is it but, in a measure, to despise God Himself? “Whoso mocketh the poor despiseth his Maker.”

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Judging Others: The Verse Pagans Love to Quote

Re-posting an old but important post.

Grace to You – John MacArthur

It should be noted that this passage has erroneously been used to suggest that believers should never evaluate or criticize anyone for anything. Our day hates absolutes, especially theological and moral absolutes, and such simplistic interpretation provides a convenient escape from confrontation. Members of modern society, including many professing Christians, tend to resist dogmatism and strong convictions about right and wrong. Many people prefer to speak of all-inclusive love, compromise, ecumenism, and unity. To the modern religious person those are the only “doctrines” worth defending, and they are the doctrines to which every conflicting doctrine must be sacrificed. Continue reading →

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What is it to Preach the Gospel?

Charles Spurgeon

For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! — 1 Corinthians 9:16

The greatest man of apostolic times was the apostle Paul — no question about that. Paul was the greatest man in everything he did and if you go back to the time when his life was not lived in Christ, through Christ and for Christ, he was even great in what he did then. Someone said Paul was great in everything he did whether it was good or whether it was bad because he did nothing half way. If you consider him as a sinner, he was exceeding sinful — that’s what he said, ‘exceeding sinful.’ If you consider him as a persecutor, he was mad against Christians — he persecuted them even in strange cities. He was not content to persecute those at home — he had to travel even to Damascus with letters giving him permission to destroy the people of Christ. If you consider the apostle as a convert, his conversion was remarkable; he met Christ in a real and personal way on the road to Damascus, blinded by the light, falling into the dust, looking up into that light, crying, ‘Lord what wilt Thou have me to do?’ If you consider this man as a preacher of the gospel, he stands out as the prince of preachers, the greatest of them all, crying, ‘I am ready to preach the gospel to them that are at Rome also; I am determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.’ ‘God forbid,’ he said, ‘that I should glory save in the cross of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.’ Whatever Paul did, he did with all his heart; he did nothing halfway. if he was rebelling, he was rebelling; if he was bowing, he was bowing; if he was worshipping, he was worshipping; if he was preaching the gospel, he was preaching the gospel. There was no nonsense in anything he did when it came to speaking about God. When he wrote this text, ‘for though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel,’ he writes it with an unshaking hand; he writes it with a firmness, with a dedication and with a determination! ‘I preach the gospel. Yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.’ No nonsense in anything connected with the praise of God, with the worship of God, with the glory of God, or with the gospel of God. Now we need to learn this.

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How to be sure

BY C H Spurgeon

How tragic it would be if we went through life thinking we were saved and then woke up on Judgment Day to find out we were mistaken! But the Bible teaches that this will be the case with many people. Christ said, “Many will say unto Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt.7:22-23).However, we do not have to go through life without the assurance of salvation. In 1 John 5:13 the apostle says, “These things have I written unto you…that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” How then can we have this assurance? This is the most important question we will ever face in life because our eternal destiny is at stake! The Bible teaches that those who remain unsaved will spend eternity in a place of perpetual torment (Matt. 25:46; Rev. 14:9-11). The reason for this is because their sin has not been paid for, and God’s perfect justice requires that payment be made for sin (Rom. 6:23). Therefore, it is vital that we know the answer to this question. This is why the Apostle Peter wrote, “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure” (2 Pet. 1:10).

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A Solemn Warning for All Churches

 

A Sermon
(No. 68)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 24, 1856, by the
REV. C. H. Spurgeon
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

“Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy.”—Revelation 3:4.

MY LEARNED and eminently pious predecessor, Dr. Gill, is of opinion that the different churches spoken of in the Book of Revelation are types of different states through which the church of God shall pass until it comes into the Philadelphia state, the state of love, in which Jesus Christ shall reign in its midst, and afterwards, as he thinks, shall pass into the state of Laodicea, in which condition it shall be when suddenly the Son of Man shall come to judge the world in righteousness and the people in equity. I do not go with him in all his suppositions with regard to these seven churches as following each other in seven periods of time; but I do think he was correct when he declared that the church in Sardis was a most fitting emblem of the church in his days, as also in these. The good old doctor says, “When we shall find any period in which the church was more like the state of Sardis as described here, than it is now?” And he points out the different particulars in which the church of his day (and I am sure it is yet more true of the church at the present day) was exactly like the church in Sardis. I shall use the church in Sardis as a figure of what I conceive to be the sad condition of Christendom at the present moment. My first point will be general defilement—there were but “a few names” in Sardis who had not “defiled their garments;” secondly, special preservation—there were a few who had not defiled their garments; and thirdly, a peculiar reward—”And they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy.”

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What is conviction of sin?

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled

“An Old-Fashioned Conversation,” delivered March 16, 1873.

The Lord shuts us up to hopelessness and helplessness in order that he may come, as a God of grace, and display his abounding mercy. All our hope lies in him, and all other hopes are delusions. The great work in conversion is not to make people better, so that they may come to God on a good footing, it is to strip them completely and lay them low, so that God may come to them when they are on a bad footing, or rather on no footing at all, but down in the dust at his feet. The Son of man is come to seek and to cave that which is lost, but it wants* God himself to convince men that they are lost; and the Spirit’s work of soul-humbling is just this – to get man to feel so diseased that he will accept the physician; to get him to feel so poor that he will accept the charity of heaven; to get him to know that he is so stripped, that he will no longer be proud of his fig leaves, but will be willing to take the robe of righteousness which Christ has wrought out.

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All of Grace

 

 C.H. Spurgeon

OF THE THINGS which I have spoken unto you these many years, this is the sum. Within the circle of these words my theology is contained, so far as it refers to the salvation of men. I rejoice also to remember that those of my family who were ministers of Christ before me preached this doctrine, and none other. My father, who is still able to bear his personal testimony for his Lord, knows no other doctrine, neither did his father before him.
I am led to remember this by the fact that a somewhat singular circumstance, recorded in my memory, connects this text with myself and my grandfather. It is now long years ago. I was announced to preach in a certain country town in the Eastern Counties. It does not often happen to me to be behind time, for I feel that punctuality is one of those little virtues which may prevent great sins. But we have no control over railway delays, and breakdowns; and so it happened that I reached the appointed place considerably behind the time. Like sensible people, they had begun their worship, and had proceeded as far as the sermon.

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A Shepherd Secures Them

C.H. Spurgeon

They shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. (Zephaniah 3:13)

Yesterday we thought of the afflicted and poor people whom the Lord left to be a living seed in a dead world. The prophet says of such that they shall not work iniquity nor speak lies. So that while they had neither rank nor riches to guard them, they were also quite unable to use those weapons in which the wicked place so much reliance: they could neither defend themselves by sin nor by subtlety.

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The Great Heart Changer

By Charles Spurgeon

Source : http://www.gracegems.org/Video.htm

 

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Grace: Glorifying God, saving sinners

Grant Swart

These are two excerpts which I borrowed from Charles Spurgeon’s address to the inaugural ceremony of the opening of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. Spurgeon presided over the ceremony in which he had invited other prominent pastors to expound on the Doctrines of Grace.

The record of the entire proceedings of that day are a lengthy read, but well worth the time. From these and other similar expositions it is clear that those who deny or adapt the Doctrines of Grace, also then deny or adapt the Word of God, the essence of the Christian Faith and the perfection of the sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Excerpt 1, on the origin of the Doctrines of Grace and the reason why different understandings of biblical doctrine cannot all be accepted by the true church: !

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Mohamedanism, or to the fierce doctrines of Budha……

  C. H. Spurgeon

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, September 16, 1855,
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

Storming the Battlements

“Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the Lord’s.”—Jeremiah 5:10.

E HAVE BEEN talking very freely during this last week of “glorious victories,” of “brilliant successes,” of “sieges,” and of “stormings.” We little know what the dread reality is of which we boast. Could our eyes once behold the storming of a city, the sacking of a town, the pillage of the soldiery, the barbarous deeds of fury, when the blood is up and long delay has maddened their souls; could we see the fields saturated with blood, and soaked with gore; could we spend one hour amongst the corpses and the dying; or if we could only let the din of battle, and the noise of the guns reach our ears, we should not so much rejoice, if we had anything of fellow feeling for others as well as for ourselves. The death of an enemy is to me a cause of regret as well as the death of a friend. Are not all my brethren? and doth not Jesus tell me so? Are we not all made of one flesh? and hath not God “made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the face of the earth?” Let us, then, when we hear of slaughtered enemies, and of thousands that have fallen, cease to rejoice in their death.

It would betray a spirit utterly inconsistent with the Christian religion, more akin to Mohamedanism, or to the fierce doctrines of Budha, but not in the least to be brought into compatibility with the truths of the gospel of the glorious God. And yet with all that, far be it from me to check any gladness which this nation may experience, now that it hopes that the incubus of war may at last be removed.

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