Monday, October 31, 2011

The false conversion and the true




















There is a spurious conversion which is not true conversion to God. A man may have another heart and yet he may not have a new heart. We read of King Saul that he had another heart, but he remained unsaved. A man may change his idols; he may change his sins, but may not be changed in heart. Drunkards have become sober, and renounced their intoxicating cups, which is so far so good, but they have presently become intoxicated with a conceit of their own virtue, and extolled themselves as models of purity. Ah, then! it is a poor gain to change drunkenness for self-righteousness. Both sins are deadly. A man may as easily go to hell by trusting in himself as by resigning himself to a besetting vice.

Hell has many gates, though heaven has but one. We must experience the change, which is according to the word of God, and so the text saith, “I turned my feet unto thy testimonies,” that is, to believe what God has revealed, to accept what God presents, to do what God commands, and to be what God would have us to be. May God give us to experience within and to manifest without such a radical turn as that.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Thinking And Turning," delivered July 5, 1874. Image by Jerry Kirkhart on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Setting out on a good errand





















Now-a-days we are willing to testify if we can do it very comfortably; but I love to hear of those good brethren who will walk many miles on the Sabbath day to preach the gospel, who are willing to sacrifice ease and comfort so that they may do good to others, just as these did.

Oh, for more enthusiasm in telling of the Savior’s love and hearing of it! We want nice cushions and very comfortable pews, don’t we now-a-days? When we were first converted we would stand anywhere in the crowd, if we could but hear the Savior’s name. I remember when I would have gone over hedge and ditch to hear about my Master, or to preach about him either. May our earnest love to him never grow cold, and our enthusiasm never depart. May a midnight’s walk be nothing to us if we may but declare even to unbelieving brethren what we have seen of our blessed Lord. It is a good message, and it is a good errand to go upon, when we go to tell of Jesus, and it will bring good to our own souls.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Jesus Near But Unrecognised." Image by Geof Wilson on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Seeing His blessing everywhere
































I must confess my Lord’s special favor towards me, the very stones in the street would cry out against me if I did not; he has indeed blessed all the work of my hands. Brethren, you have had a share in the blessing, have a share also in the praising. Sometimes the work of our hands has appeared to crumble to pieces, but then it has been rebuilt ere long in a better style; enemies have arisen, and they have been exceedingly violent, only to fulfill some special purpose of God, and increase our blessing against their wills; sickness has come only to yield discipline, we have been made weak that we might be strong, and brought to death’s door that we might know more of the divine life.

Glory be to God, our life has been all blessing from beginning to end, there has been no exceptional event all along; ever since we knew him he has dealt out blessing and blessing and blessing, and never a syllable of cursing. He has fulfilled to us the word, “Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.”


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Forty Years," delivered June 14, 1874. Image by Kevin Dooley on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

For He alone is worthy of glory






















It was a good argument of a simple-minded man that there could not be two gods, because the first God filled heaven and earth, and all places, and therefore there was not room for another. If God be everywhere, and fills all in all; there can be no other god; and if the glory of God be infinite, then there can be no second glory; and if the theme be boundless, then there is not room for a second. As all other gods but Jehovah must be idols, so all other glory save that which is in the Lord must be foolish and sinful.

Those men who really know the Lord feel that such is the greatness of his glory, that it takes up all our faculties, absorbs all our powers, demands indeed our whole energy, and we cannot spare time, or love, or skill, or power, or thought for any other topic. Let the Lord be gloried in, and him alone, because the Lord alone is worthy to be gloried in. He only is great, he is the blessed and only Potentate, from him only cometh our salvation, he is God alone, therefore in one rolling flood let all our glorying cheerfully flow at his feet.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Glorying in the Lord." Image by Luis Argerich  on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Shells of Religion































Many are content with the shells of religion, whereas it is the kernel only which can feed the soul. The bended knee is nothing, the prostrate heart is everything; the uplifted eye is nothing, the glance of the soul towards God is acceptable. The hearing of good words and the repeating of them in prayer or in song, will amount to very little; if the heart be absent the whole thing will be dead as a stone. We must be born again, baptism availeth nothing apart from that; we must live spiritually upon the slain Redeemer, the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper avail nothing if we do not feed upon Jesus. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” The inner nature, the soul, must be quickened, for “God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” I exhort you, brethren, to fear lest any of you come short of this, for if you do, you will come short of the rest which remaineth for the people of God.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Fearful of Coming Short," delivered June 7, 1874. Image by on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Monday, October 24, 2011

We are coming to a jubilee


















It was a glad day for Israel when the trumpets rang out the morning of the Jubilee, for every slave was free, and every debtor found his liabilities discharged. Back came each man’s lost inheritance, and the whole nation was glad. With sound of trumpet and of cornet they saluted the rising of the sun on the first day of that Jubilee year; but the jubilee year went by, and lands were mortgaged and forfeited, and slaves fell again into slavery, and bankrupts were again seized by their creditors. Ah, beloved, we are coming to a jubilee, of which the trumpets shall sound on for ever. We shall regain our once forfeited inheritance never to have it encumbered any more; we shall snap the fetters which have bound us, never to feel them again. “If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Eternal Day," delivered May 31, 1874. Image by Luis Argerich on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Let us trim our lamps
















It is of the greatest service to us all to be reminded that our life is but a vapor, which appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away. Through forgetfulness of this worldlings live at ease, and Christians walk carelessly. Unless we watch for the Lord’s coming, worldliness soon eats into our spirit as doth a canker. If thou hast this world’s riches, believer, remember that this is not thy rest, and set not too great a store by its comforts. If, on the other hand, thou dwellest in straitness, and art burdened with poverty, be not too much depressed thereby, for these light afflictions are but for a moment, and are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Look upon the things that are as though they were not. Remember you are a part of a great procession which is always moving by; others come and go before your own eyes, you see them, and they disappear, and you yourself are moving onward to another and more real world.... Our duty is to trim our lamps against the time when the Bridegroom comes; we are called upon to stand always ready, waiting for the appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, or else for the summons which shall tell us that the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, that the body must return to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who gave it.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Stephen's Death," delivered May 24, 1874. Image by Zach Dischner on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Determined to go through



















In the Garden, when the bloody sweat fell from his face, and he said, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” why did he not put away that cup? If it had pleased him he might have applied for twelve legions of angels, and they would have come to the rescue; why did he not summon that celestial body-guard? Was it not because he had wholly surrendered himself to the service of our salvation? Before his judges he might have saved himself. Why did he not? One word when he was before Pilate would have broken the spell of prophecy, but why like a sheep before her shearers was he dumb? Why did he give his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to those that plucked off the hair? Why did he condescend to die, and actually upon the cross pour out his heart’s blood? It was all because he had undertaken for us, and he would go through.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Ear Bored With An Aul." Image by Mike Behnken on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

We must seek in God's way



























No good can result from efforts made apart from faith in Jesus. However earnest and sincere we may be, we must fail in our search if we do not seek in God’s way. Would it not be wise after so many bitter disappointments to leave your own inventions? If they have done you no good, depend upon it they never will. You had better humble yourself as a little child, and learn from God what the plan of salvation is, and then obediently accept it. Come, poor soul, in humble obedience, read the sacred roll of inspiration, and say, “O Lord, show me what thou wouldst have me to do;” then will light break in upon you, and peace shall follow. Faith in Jesus is God’s way; it will be the height of folly to set up a method of your own in competition therewith.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "I Thought," delivered May 17, 1874. Image by Ernst Vikne on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The sin of sins



















In order that Jesus Christ, being appointed, should be fit for his office, it was necessary that he should become man. Man had sinned, and man must make reparation to the broken law. God would not accept an angel as a substitute, for the law had to do with man, and as the race had revolted, it must be through one of the race that God’s justice should be vindicated. But Jesus was God: how then could he become our Savior? Behold the mystery! God was manifest in the flesh. He descended to the manger of Bethlehem, he nestled in a woman’s bosom; for as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he himself also took part in the same. Sinner, behold your incarnate God, the Eternal one, dwells among dying men, veiled in their mortal flesh, that he may save men.

This is the greatest fact ever related in human ears. We hear it as a common thing, but the angels have never ceased to wonder since first they sang of it and charmed the listening shepherds. God has come down to man to lift man up to God. Surely it is the sin of sins if we reject a Savior who has made such a stoop in order to be perfectly qualified to save.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Savior You Need," delivered May 10, 1874. Image by Ernst Vikne on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Receive correction when it comes to you



















The Spirit of God often sends home the reproofs of Scripture to our hearts; while we are reading the word we feel that it searches us and rebukes us. So also the Lord will employ his ministers to chide us. Little is that ministry worth which never chides you. If God never uses his minister as a rod, depend upon it he will never use him as a pot of manna, for the rod of Aaron and the pot of manna always go together, and he who is God’s true servant will be both to your soul.

The Lord will also chide you through your own conscience, causing you to judge and condemn yourself. The Spirit of God will quicken your understanding, and then it will be said of you as of David, “David’s heart smote him.” It is hard hitting when the heart smites, for it comes to such close quarters, but blessed is that man who can thus be corrected: it is a sad sign when conscience is too dead to be of any service in this direction.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Lord Chiding his People," delivered May 3, 1874. Image by Ernst Vikne on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Monday, October 17, 2011

The door to each man's heart




















There is a door to each man’s heart, and we have to find it, and enter it with the right key, which is to be found somewhere or other in the word of God. All men are not to be reached in the same way, or by the same arguments, and as we are by all means to save some, we must be wise to win souls, wise with wisdom from above. We desire to see them conquered for Christ, but no warrior uses always the same strategy; there is for one open assault, another a siege, for a third an ambush, for a fourth a long campaign. On the sea there are great rams which run down the enemy, torpedoes under water, gunboats, and steam frigates; one ship is broken up by a single blow, another needs a broadside, a third must have a shot between wind and water, a fourth must be driven on shore, even thus must we adapt ourselves, and use the sacred force entrusted to us with grave consideration and solemn judgment, looking ever to the Lord for guidance and for power.

All the real power is in the Lord’s hands, and we must put ourselves fully at the disposal of the divine Worker, that he may work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure; so shall we by all means save some.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "By All Means Save Some," delivered April 26, 1874. Image by Sergio Lordao on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

The fullness of God in Jesus Christ



















Brethren, I am going to say nothing but what you all know, and I do not mean to garnish it with finery of words. The truth is that there are many who are barely Christians, and have scarcely enough grace to float them into heaven, the keel of their vessel grating on the gravel all the way; my prayer is that we may reach deep waters, and have so much grace that we may sail like a gallant bark on the broad ocean with a glorious cargo on board and all colors flying, so that there may be administered unto us an abundant entrance into the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For this everything is provided. Christ has not merely placed enough bread on the table to keep us from starving, his oxen and fatlings are killed, he has spread a royal festival. He has not provided a scanty garment which may barely hide your nakedness, but he has brought forth the best robe, and has procured earrings for your ears jewels for your necks, and a crown royal for your heads; for it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell for all his saints. If you have not these riches the fault lies with yourself. It is there, you might have it if you had but faith to take it.

Too often we sit down like beggars on the dunghill, and groan and cry because of the poverty of our nature when we ought to be rejoicing in the Lord. I thank God that we can groan, for that is something; but there is a more excellent way, a better gift to be earnestly coveted. In Christ ye are rich to the fullness of riches; get ye up, I pray you, to the high places, and realize for yourselves the fullness of God in Christ Jesus.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Fulness of Christ, The Treasury of the Saints," delivered April 19, 1874. Image by Geof Wilson on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Remember what He was






















His royal face was marred with “wounds which could not cease to bleed, trickling faint and slow,” yet that "noblest brow and dearest” had once been fairer than the children of men, and was even then the countenance of Immanuel, God with us. Remember these things, and you will gaze upon him with enlightened eyes and tender hearts, and you will be able the more fully to enter into fellowship with him in his griefs. Remember whence he came, and it will the more astound you that he should have stooped so low. Remember what he was, and it will be the more marvellous that he should become our substitute.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Crown of Thorns," delivered April 13, 1874. Image by Will Hale on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Preaching set on fire


The Holy Spirit is divine, and consequently he knows how to influence all kinds of men, and he can by the instrumentalities now in use reach just as many as he pleases. I recollect well when I first preached in London a remark made by a friend, which very greatly encouraged me at the time, and has proved true in my experience. When he heard that my little country chapel had been filled by the inhabitants of the village in which I had preached, he gave me hope of filling a far larger place in London: “For,” said he, “what will draw two hundred will draw two thousand, and what was useful to a few may be made just as useful to a multitude.” I saw at once that it was so.

When we are dealing with spiritual forces we have not to calculate by pounds and ounces, or by so many horse power. We have not to think of quantity. As an illustration: give me fire, I will not bargain for a furnace, give me but a single candle, and a city or a forest may soon be in a blaze. A spark is quite sufficient to begin with, for fire multiplies itself: So give us the truth, a single voice, and the Holy Spirit with it, and none can say where the sacred conflagration will end. One Jonah sufficed to subdue all Nineveh by one monotonous sentence oft repeated, and despite the weakness of our present instrumentality, if God does but bless the gospel, there is no reason why it should not speedily be felt by the whole of London.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Additions to the Church," delivered April 5, 1874. Image by Jan Tik on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Humbled by His mercies





















And let us here remark that nothing humbles a man like the mercy of God. Unkind, ungenerous remarks do not humble the soul, they rather gender pride. Under the criticisms of unkindness a man who is a man finds all that is strong within him coming to the front, and, as in Job’s case, self-assertion straightway leads the van. Reproach and rebuke tend rather to make men proud than humble, love is the melting power. Nothing weighs a man down like a load of blessing. When you see God blotting out your sin, accounting you righteous in his sight, for Jesus’ sake, and saying to you, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee,” where is boasting then? It is excluded. Love shows boasting to the door, and bars its return.

Peter was ready enough to speak of what he had done, but in the presence of his loving Lord, when be saw his ship sinking through the plenteous draught of fishes, he knelt down and cried in deep humiliation, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Marrow and Fatness," delivered March 29, 1874. Image by Hamed Saber on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Let us not displease His heart





















Cross, crabbed, morose natures do not please the Lord. Unkind husbands, fractious wives, rebellious children, and domineering parents are far from pleasing him. God cannot smile upon oppression, craftiness, greed, or the grinding of the poor. Neither is “covetousness, which is idolatry,” pleasing with God. He that is covetous, angers the great Giver of all good, whose liberal soul cannot endure churls and misers. The like is true of all worldliness; the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, these are things which God condemns; in them he hath no pleasure whatsoever.

O ye believers, I pray ye purge yourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, and as for the deeds of darkness, have no fellowship with them, but rather reprove them. Come ye out from among them, be ye separate, touch not the unclean thing, and then will you please your heavenly Father.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Christian's Motto," delivered March 22, 1874. Image by Paul Bica on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Monday, October 10, 2011

The business of the preacher



















Let every unconverted person recollect that God knows what his excuse is for turning a deaf ear to the voice of a dying Savior’s love. You may not have spoken it to yourself so as to put it into words; you might not even dare to do so, lest your conscience should be too much startled: but God knows it all. He sees the hollowness, the folly, and the wickedness of your excuses. He is not deceived by your vain words, but makes short work with your apologies for delay. Remember the parables of our Lord, and note that when the man of one talent professed to think his master a hard man, he took him at his word, and out of his own mouth condemned him; and in the case of the invited guests who pleaded their farms and their merchandise as excuses, no weight was attached to what they said, but the sentence went forth, “None of these men that are bidden shall taste of my supper.” God knows the frivolity of your plea for delay, he knows that you yourself are doubtful about it, and dare not stand to it so as to give it anything like a solemn consideration. Very hard do you try to deceive yourself into an easy state of conscience concerning it, but in your inmost soul you are ashamed of your own falsehoods.

My business at this time is, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to deal with your consciences, and to convince you yet more thoroughly that delay is unjustifiable, for the gospel has present demands upon you, and you must not say, “The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Now, A Sermon For Young Men And Young Women," delivered March 19, 1874. Image by Andreas Levers on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

The best news man ever heard



"Ye are brought with a price."

To every man of whom this may be said, it is the best news he ever heard. An angel sent from heaven could not bring to any man or woman here a more delightful message than this, “Thou art bought with a price, even with the precious blood of Christ.” “Ye are Christ’s,” says the apostle in the chapter we read to you (1 Corinthians 3.), and he seemed as if his heart glowed as he said it. He even made it the climax of a remarkable burst of eloquence. “Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”

To be bought with a price is the grandest distinction of our manhood, and lifts us above angels themselves. It puts great honor upon the saints, even as the Lord has said, “Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable and I have loved thee."

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Redemption And Its Claims," delivered March 8, 1874. Image by Kevin Dooley on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Friday, October 7, 2011

He takes away the hunger of the heart



























Faith saves us just as the mouth saves from hunger. If we be hungry, bread is the real cure for hunger, but still it would be right to say that eating removes hunger, seeing that the bread itself could not benefit us, unless the mouth should eat it. Faith is the soul’s mouth, whereby the hunger of the heart is removed. Christ also is the brazen serpent lifted up; all the healing virtue is in him; yet no healing virtue comes out of the brazen serpent to any who will not look; so that the looking is rightly considered to be the act which saves. True, in the deepest sense it is Christ uplifted who saves, to him be all the glory; but without looking to him ye cannot be saved, so that “There is life in a look,” as well as life in the Savior to whom you look. Nothing is yours until you appropriate it.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Saving Faith," delivered March 15, 1874. Image by Kevin Dooley on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

An offensive salvation





















Pride is woven into man’s nature. The prodigal became a prodigal through his love of independence, he desired his own portion of goods to do as he liked with. After he became a prodigal his time was occupied with spending — he spent his money riotously; he loved to play the fine gentleman and spend. Even when the prodigal came to himself the old idea of paying was still to him, and he desired to be a hired servant, so that if he could not pay in money he would pay in labor.

We do not like to be saved by charity, and so to have no corner in which to sit and boast. We long to make provision for a little self-congratulation. You insult a moral man if you tell him that he must be saved in the same way as a thief or a murderer, yet this is no more than the truth. For a woman of purity to be told that the same grace which saved a Magdalene is necessary for her salvation is so humbling, that her indignation is roused, and yet it is the fact, for in every case salvation is “without money and without price.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Without Money And Without Price," delivered March 8, 1871. Image by paul bica on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Voice of the Spirit Himself




















The law of God is not given to us to be laid by upon the shelf to be obeyed at some future period of life, and the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not so intended for the eleventh hour as to be lightly trifled with during the first ten. Wherever the Holy Ghost exhorts, he speaks in the present tense, and bids us now repent, or now believe, or now seek the Lord.

I pray you ever remember whenever you read the Bible, that it is the Spirit of the living God who there admonishes you to immediate obedience. The calls of the inspired word are not those of Moses, or David, or Paul, or Peter, but the solemn utterances of the Holy Ghost speaking through them. With what a dignity does this truth invest Holy Scripture, and with what solemnity does it surround our reading of it! Cavilling at Scripture, trifling with it, disputing its doctrines, or neglecting its admonitions, we grieve the Spirit of God; and this is very dangerous ground to trespass on, for although he is longsuffering and pitiful, yet remember it is of the sin against the Holy Ghost that it is said, “It shall never be forgiven.” Not every sin against the Holy Ghost is unpardonable; God be thanked for that; but still there is a sin against the Holy Spirit: which shall never be forgiven: therefore do we tread, I say, on very delicate ground when we vex him, as we do if at any time in reading his word we count his teachings to be light matters.

Beware, I say, ye men of England, who have your Bibles in your houses among whom the word of the Lord is common as wheaten bread, beware how ye treat it; for in rejecting it ye reject not alone the voice of apostles and prophets, but the voice of the Holy Spirit himself.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Entreaty of the Holy Ghost," delivered March 1, 1874. Image by nosha on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Our fondest connection
























What if I have to rend some fond connection? Jesus, thou art better to me than husband, wife, or child. If it must be so that she who lies in my bosom shall count me for her enemy thou shalt be in my heart, my Savior, better than a Rachel, or a Rebekah. Yes, if it must be so that the father shall say, “You shall never darken my doors again if you follow Christ,” he must say it, for when father and mother forsake me the Lord will take me up. The immediate joy will recompense for the immediate loss, yea, doubtless you may count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord, and yet remain a gainer.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Counting The Cost," delivered February 22, 1874. Image by Steve-h on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Monday, October 3, 2011

My Lord and my God






















And first, dear friends, we ought to say to Jesus, “Lord, Lord,” in reference to his divinity. How can we be saved if we do not? Jesus Christ of Nazareth is to us Lord and God. We do not hesitate to use the language of Thomas when he put his finger into the print of the nails, and to say to him, “My Lord and my God.” Let others say of him what they will, and make him to be a mere man, or a prophet, or a delegated God, such talk is nothing to the point with us; we believe him to be very God of very God, and worship him this day as he is enthroned in the highest heavens, believing him to be worthy of the adoration which is due to God alone....

Compromise must always be impossible where the truth is essential and fundamental. There are some points in which we may agree to differ, but these are points in which there can be no mutual concessions or tonings down of statement. Christ Jesus is either God or he is not, and if he be God, as we believe he is, then those who reject his deity cannot be true believers in him, and, therefore, must miss the benefits which he promises to those who receive him. I cannot conceive any man to be right in religion if he be not right in reference to the person of the Redeemer. “You cannot be right in the rest unless you think rightly of him.” If you will not have him to be your God, neither will he save you. Let his abundant miracles, his divine teaching, his unique character, and his resurrection convince you that “the Word was God,” and is in all respects equally divine with the Father and the Spirit.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Sieve." Image by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

The Scepter Belongs To Christ






















The scepter belongs to Christ. All sceptres belong to him. He will come by-and-by and verify his title to them. Have you not seen the picture that represents Nelson on board a French man-of-war, receiving the swords of the various captains he has conquered, while there stands an old tar at his side putting all these swords underneath his arm as they are brought up. I have often pictured to myself our great Commander, the only King by divine right, coming back to this our earth, and gathering up the sceptres of the kings in sheaves, and putting them on one side, and collecting their crowns; for he alone shall reign King of kings and Lord of lords.

When the last and greatest of all monarchs shall come a second time, “without a sin-offering unto salvation” — oh, the glory of his triumph! He has a right to reign. If ever there was a king by nature, and by birth, it is the Son of David; if ever there was one who would be elected to the monarchy by the suffrages* of all his subjects, it is Jesus.


* - i.e., the votes


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Shiloh." Image by Paul Bica on Flickr under Creative Commons License.