“If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” (1 John 4:11) Our love ought to follow the love of God in one point, namely, in always seeking to produce recon- ciliation. It was to this end that God sent His Son. Has anybody offended you? Seek reconciliation. “Oh, but I am the offended party.” So was God, and He went straight away and sought reconciliation. Broth- ers and sisters, do the same. “Oh, but I have been insulted.” Just so, so was God, all the wrong was to- wards Him, yet He sent His Son. “Oh, but the party is so unworthy.” So are you, but “God loved you and sent His Son.” Go and write according to that copy. I do not mean that this love is to come out of your own heart originally, but I do mean that it is to flow out of your heart because God has made it to flow into it. You are one of those basins of the fountain; love has poured into you from above, let it run over to those who are below. Go forth at once and try and make reconciliation, not only between your- self and your friend, but between every man and God. Let that be your objective. GiGi❤️ Taken from: A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 18, 1883, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
0 Comments
“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” (Psalm 143:8) What is it that we face today? Do we actually believe that it is too hard for God? Is that why we keep trying to fix it? Is our inability to let go and give it wholly and completely over to God the reason we have been struggling with this one thing, it seems like forever. “The essence of faith is trust, reliance, dependence. Fling away every other confidence of every sort, save confidence in Jesus. Do not allow a ghost of a shade of a shadow of a confidence in anything that you can do, or in anything that you can be; but look alone to him whom God has set forth to be the propitiation for sin. This I do at this very moment; will you not do the same? Oh, may the sweet Spirit of God lead you now to trust in Jesus!” Charles Spurgeon Dear Lord, help us to trust you, right now, “all other ground is sinking sand.” GiGi❤️ “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11) THE law commands love, indeed, all its precepts are summed up in that one word, “love.” More widely read it runs like this, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Yet all this amounts only to, “You shall love.” Since the Fall, man has become man’s bitterest foe upon the earth, and the world is full of hate, slandering, struggles, fighting, wounding, and slaying. All that the law can do is to show the wrong of war and hatred and threaten punishment, but it cannot supply an unregenerate heart with a fountain of love. Man remains unloving and unlovable till the gospel takes him in hand, and by grace accomplishes that which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. Love is winning many hearts to the kingdom of God, and its reign shall extend till love shall rule over the whole earth. And so the kingdom of God shall be set up among men, and God shall dwell among them. At the present moment love is the distinguishing mark of the people of God. Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love, one to another.” You shall love! GiGi❤️ Taken from: A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 18, 1883, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. “Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." (1 Corinthians 13:7) The grace of charity, or love, is absolutely essential to true godliness. So essential is it that, if we have everything and not charity, it profiteth us nothing. The absence of charity is absolutely fatal to vital godliness…for if you excelled in every spiritual gift, yet if you had not charity, all the rest would profit you nothing whatsoever. One would think that such excellent gifts might benefit us a little, but no, the apostle sums them all up, and said of the whole, "it profiteth me nothing." I pray that this may be understood of us at the very beginning, lest we should manage to slip away from the truth taught us by the Holy Ghost in this place, and should excuse ourselves from being loving by the notion that we are so inconsiderable that such high virtue cannot be required of us, or so feeble that we cannot be expected to attain to it. You must attain it, or you cannot enter into eternal life, for if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his, and the Spirit of Christ is sure to beget the charity of our text, which "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." From Charles Spurgeon, A Sermon (No. 1617) Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, September 4th, 1881, by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington GiGi❤️ “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” (1 John 4:16) You must have noticed how continually John blends faith with knowledge and love, as in the sixteenth verse of this chapter: “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.” All through this Epistle, he constantly repeats the words “we know,” “we know,” “we know,” “we know;” and perhaps even more frequently he uses the word “love.” Knowledge, faith, and love are plaited together so closely that they cannot be separated. They are intertwisted and united like the warp and the woof of a fabric, and so they become really one. To know Christ, to trust Christ, to love Christ, these are among the elementary principles of piety. Without all of these graces, there is no true religion; but if these things are in us, and abound, they make us to be neither barren nor unfruitful. Taken from Charles Haddon Spurgeon August 15, 1880, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 47 GiGi❤️ “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:14-15)
“So when men have said, "There is no Christ—there is no truth in religion," we have replied to them, "Have we not sat under his shadow with great delight? Was not his fruit sweet to our taste? Go away with your skepticisms to those who do not know whom they have believed. We have tasted and handled the good word of life. What we have seen and heard, that we do testify; and whether men receive our testimony or not, we cannot but speak it, for we speak what we do know, and testify what we have seen." That, my brethren, is the sure way to be decided.” Charles Spurgeon GiGi❤️ “What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.” (Luke 12:3) Never try to be what you are not, or if you must for a while be in that position, count that you are unfortunate, and escape from it as soon as you can. Never do what you are ashamed of; it doesn’t matter if no one sees. Think always that God sees, and with God for a witness you have enough observers. Only do in secret what you would have done if all eyes were fixed on you, and you were observed even by your most cruel critics. Never stifle conscience. Carry out your convictions. If the skies fall, stand upright. What God's Holy Spirit tells you, do. GiGi❤️ Excerpt from C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington On Lord's-day Evening, June 26th, 1870. ”If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8) “It is not that you may deceive the Lord for a little time, and then afterwards be discovered No; you cannot mislead him, even for an instant. He reads us as he reads a book. He sees through us as looking through a sheet of clear glass. The instant thought that flitters across the mind like a stray bird, leaving nor track nor trace, God observes it, and knows it altogether. To pretend to be other than we are before God is a hideous madness. Surely, Satan himself must laugh in his sleeve at those who come before God with words of praise on their lips and there is no devotion in their hearts: it is the comedy of a tragic blasphemy…May God grant that we may never play the fool in this way; for playing the fool it is, to hope to appear otherwise before him than what we really are deep down in our hearts…I charge you, above all things, be true.” Charles Spurgeon GiGi❤️ “The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment.” (Proverbs 12:19) We do not have to debate TRUTH. Either a person yearns for it and will be drawn to it, or they will reject it, regardless of faith in action or reasoning. “They tell us that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not true; but when we are able to reply that we have tried it and proved it, what answer is there to such reasoning? “ Charles Spurgeon Truth will speak for itself. GiGi❤️ “O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth?” — Jeremiah 5:3 If we offer the Lord our best today, He will know it. He knows our heart and its intent. O Lord, are not your eyes such that you can detect what is truth and what is deceit? You spy out the truth. That which is brought to you as worship, you can tell whether it is sincere or not. You can see the pretender's face through his mask, and read his heart through his outward profession. Your eyes spy out the facts which lie beneath the outside appearances. You can discern between the righteous and the wicked. Yes, God is the detector of shams and counterfeits, and by his infallible judgment the precious shall be severed from the vile; “for the Lord is a God of judgment, and by him actions are weighed.” God has but to search with a lantern to find a truthful man, for “the Lord knoweth them that are his.” Charles Spurgeon God knows what’s real and what’s not real. If we will submit to His Holy Spirit we too will have discernment. GiGi❤️ |
Archives
August 2024
|