Believe in Him and be saved!

It is not every contact with Christ that saves men; it is the arousing of yourself to come near to him, the determinate, the personal, resolute, believing touch of Jesus Christ which saves. We must believe for ourselves. The Spirit helps us, but we ourselves believe. Some of you sit still and hope that the Lord will visit you, and you wait by the pool till an angel comes and stirs the water, and all that kind of thing; but that is not according to the tenor of the gospel command. The gospel does not come to you and say, “Whosoever waits for impressions shall be saved;” but it says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; for he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Exercise the personal, voluntary, intentional act of faith and you shall be saved.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Touch," delivered November 4, 1877. Image by jd.echenard on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The Knowledge Of God

The most of the subjects which mortals study here will be forgotten in the world to come; the profoundest of them will be too trifling to be pursued amid angelic thrones. The honors of classical and mathematical attainments will shine but dimly amidst the glories of heaven, but the knowledge of Christ Jesus will still be priceless, and it will cause those who possess it to shine as the sun. He that knoweth Christ shall go on to sit at his feet and still to learn, and as he learns he will tell to principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God in the person of Jesus Christ. See ye, then, beloved, that the apostle for the sake of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord still counted all the things that he had once gloried in to be but loss.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Business-Like Account," delivered June 3, 1877. Image by Bert Kaufmann on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

When we shall be as the angels

As we shall resemble the angels in beauty, so no doubt we shall also equal them in strength: “Bless the Lord, ye his angels that excel in strength.” Thus saith the apostle, “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.” What kind of power that will be we may guess. There will be an enlarged mental capacity, a far more extensive spiritual range. So far as the new body is concerned, there will be an amount of power in it of which we have no conception. What we shall be, beloved, in the matter of strength, we cannot tell, but this we know, that we shall not need so constantly to stretch our weary frames upon the bed of rest, and to lie half our time in unconsciousness, for we shall serve him day and night in his temple; and this indicates a degree of unweariedness and physical endurance to which we are total strangers now. We shall in this also be as the angels of God.

Just then for a minute let your thoughts foresee that blessed personality which shall be yours when this present age is past. You suffer today, you are today despised and rejected; but as from yonder creeping caterpillar, or from this dried up chrysalis, there will arise a lovely creature with wings coloured like the rainbow, so from your poor groaning humanity there shall come forth a fair and lovely being; while your spirit also shall cast off the slough of its natural depravity, be rid of all the foulness and damage of its sojourn here below, and your whole man shall be restored a goodly fabric - a temple glorious to look upon, in which God shall dwell with you, and in which you shall dwell with God.

From a sermon entitled "The Angelic Life," delivered November 22, 1868. Image by John Talbot under Creative Commons License.

We shall give eternal praise

The sun shall grow dim with age, and the whole universe shall shrivel up like a scroll that is burnt in the flame; but God has selected immortal men who cannot die, and in these he has wrought a work which they never can forget, a work which has plunged them under solemn obligations to him which they never can discharge, bound them to himself by grateful ties of affection which nothing can dissolve. He has plucked us out of the horrible pit, and put us into such a place that throughout eternity it shall be our delight, cur very life, to praise and magnify his name.

Oh, how will we tell angels what he has done! How will we show forth in every street to the sacred inhabitants what grace has done for us, and how the love of God accomplished a mighty triumph over our sins! We will tell the cherubim and seraphim what God has done, and make them think they never saw God before till they beheld him working in men. Long adown the ages, when the morning star is laid asleep, we will tell our fellow immortals, of Golgotha, of Calvary, of Jesus and his love; we will repeat the story of the cross; we will publish abroad the story of the God that loved and died, and of the triumph of the pierced and crucified One when he entered the doors of our hearts and captured us by the force of his love. This then will be an everlasting sign unto the Lord our God. Let this encourage Christians.

From a sermon entitled "The Lord's Name And Memorial," delivered September 27, 1868. Image by Jeff under Creative Commons License.

The Love of Jesus Toward Us

Jesus does not love his own with a little of his love, nor regard them with some small degree of affection, but he says, “As the Father hath loved me, even so have I loved you,” and the Father’s love to the Son is inconceivably great, since they are one in essence, ineffably one. The Father cannot but love the Son infinitely, neither doth the Son ever love his people less than with all his heart. It is an affection which no angelic mind could measure, inconceivable, unknown.

From a sermon entitled "The Faithfulness of Jesus," delivered May 10, 1868. Image by Andréia Bohner under Creative Commons License.

The King In His Beauty

Ed. note - I tried to find the best and most fitting photograph I could for this post, but none can match the subject.

The King this day wears the beauty of an intercessor who can never fail, of a Prince who can never be defeated, of a conqueror who has vanquished every foe, of a Lord who has the heart’s allegiance of every subject, of a well-beloved who is adored in the depths of all regenerate hearts. Jesus wears all the beauty which the pomp of heaven can bestow upon him, all the glory which ten thousand times ten thousand angels can minister to him. The chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; Jesus is in the midst of them as in the holy place.

You cannot with your utmost stretch of imagination conceive the beauty which now adorns our King; yet, brethren, there will be a further revelation of it when he shall appear on earth in his glory, for he is yet to descend from heaven in great power. “We believe that thou shalt shortly come to be our Judge.” We expect to see the King on earth again, it may be as a King to rule over all the nations; it may be, it must be, as a Judge to separate the people as the shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats. Oh, the splendor of that glory! It will ravish his people’s hearts, but those who in derision crowned him, mocking thus his gracious claim, shall weep and wail because of him, when they shall look on him whom they have pierced but find no salvation, seeing they rejected him in the day of grace. Amidst the splendours of that day, it shall be the joy of the Christian to see the King in his beauty.

From a sermon entitled "The King In His Beauty," delivered May 26, 1867. Image by Stian Rødven Eide under Creative Commons License.

A Merry Christmas!

“And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.” -Luke 1:46, 47.

Observe, this morning, the sacred joy of Mary that you may imitate it. This is a season when all men expect us to be joyous. We compliment each other with the desire that we may have a “Merry Christmas.” Some Christians who are a little squeamish, do not like the word “merry.” It is a right good old Saxon word, having the joy of childhood and the mirth of manhood in it, it brings before one’s mind the old song of the waits, and the midnight peal of bells, the holly and the blazing log. I love it for its place in that most tender of all parables, where it is written, that, when the long-lost prodigal returned to his father safe and sound, “They began to be merry.” This is the season when we are expected to be happy; and my heart’s desire is, that in the highest and best sense, you who are believers may be “merry.”

Mary’s heart was merry within her; but here was the mark of her joy, it was all holy merriment, it was every drop of it sacred mirth. It was not such merriment as worldlings will revel in today and tomorrow, but such merriment as the angels have around the throne, where they sing, “Glory to God in the highest,” while we sing “On earth peace, goodwill towards men.” Such merry hearts have a continual feast. I want you, ye children of the bride-chamber, to possess today and tomorrow, yea, all your days, the high and consecrated bliss of Mary, that you may not only read her words, but use them for yourselves, ever experiencing their meaning: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.”

From a sermon entitled "Mary's Song," delivered December 25, 1864. Image: Adoration of the Shepherds, by Michelangelo Caravaggio; Public Domain.

The birth of Christ in our hearts

Dost thou understand him as the sin-bearer, taking away transgression? Canst thou see him bleeding as the substitute for men? Dost thou accept him as such? Does thy faith put all her dependence upon what he did, upon what he is, upon what he does? Then Christ is conceived in thee, and thou mayest go thy way with all the joy that Mary knew; and I was half ready to say, with something more; for the natural conception of the Savior’s holy body was not one-tenth so meet a theme for congratulation as the spiritual conception of the holy Jesus within your heart when he shall be in you the hope of glory.

My dear friend, if Christ be thine, there is no song on earth too high, too holy for thee to sing; nay, there is no song which thrills from angelic lips, no note which thrills Archangel’s tongue in which thou mayest not join. Even this day, the holiest, the happiest, the most glorious of words, and thoughts, and emotions belong to thee. Use them! God help thee to enjoy them; and his be the praise, while thine is the comfort evermore. Amen.

From a sermon entitled "Mary's Song," delivered December 25, 1864. Image by Pieter Paul Rubens, "The Adoration of the Shepherds;" in the public domain.

He became bone of our bone

Let us dream no longer in somber sadness that we cannot draw near to God so that he will really hear our prayer and pity our necessities, seeing that Jesus has become bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, born a babe as we are born, living a man as we must live, bearing the same infirmities and sorrows, and bowing his head to the same death.

O, can we not come with boldness by this new and living way, and have access to the throne of the heavenly grace, when Jesus meets us as Immanuel, God with us? Angels sung, they scarce knew why. Could they understand why God had become man? They must have known that herein was a mystery of condescension; but all the loving consequences which the incarnation involved even their acute minds could scarce have guessed; but we see the whole, and comprehend the grand design most fully. The manger of Bethlehem was big with glory; in the incarnation was wrapped up all the blessedness by which a soul, snatched from the depths of sin, is lifted up to the heights of glory. Shall not our clearer knowledge lead us to heights of song which angelic guesses could not reach?

From a sermon entitled "Mary's Song," delivered December 25, 1864. Image: one of the 18 Renaissance stained glass windows of the Cathedral of Auch by Arnaud de Moles; in the public domain.

Prayer which sets forth His glory

Why God has been pleased to command us to pray at all it is not difficult to discover, for prayer glorifies God, by putting man in the humblest posture of worship. The creature in prayer acknowledges his Creator with reverence, and confesses him to be the giver of every good and perfect gift; the eye is lifted up to behold the glory of the Lord, while the knee is bent to the earth in the lowliness of acknowledged weakness.

Though prayer is not the highest mode of adoration, or otherwise it would be continued by the saints in heaven, yet it is the most humble, and so the most fitting, to set forth the glory of the perfect One as it is beheld by imperfect flesh and blood. From the “Our Father,” in which we claim relationship, right on to “the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,” which we ascribe to the only true God, every sentence of prayer honors the Most High. The groans and tears of humble petitioners are as truly acceptable as the continual “Holy, holy, holy,” of the Cherubim and Seraphim; for in their very essence all truthful confessions of personal fault are but a homage paid to the infinite perfections of the Lord of hosts. More honored is the Lord by our prayers than by the unceasing smoke of the holy incense of the altar which stood before the veil.

From a sermon entitled "The Power Of Prayer And The Pleasure Of Praise," delivered May 3, 1863. Flickr photo by piX1966; some rights reserved.

This world is not our home

Lay not fast hold upon the things of earth. He who is but a lodger in an inn must not live as though he were at home. Keep thy tent ready for striking. Be thou ever prepared to draw up thine anchor, and to sail across the sea and find the better port, for while Jesus beckons, here we have no continuing city. No true wife hath rest save in the house of her husband. Where her consort is, there is her home — a home which draws her soul towards it every day. Jesus, I say, invites us to the skies. He cannot be completely content until he brings his body, the Church, into the glory of its Head, and conducts his elect spouse to the marriage feast of her Lord.

Besides the desires of the Father and the Son; all those who have gone before, seem to be leaning over the battlements of heaven to-night, and calling, “Courage, brothers! Courage, brothers! Eternal glory awaits you. Fight your way, stem the current, breast the wave, and come up hither. We without you cannot be made perfect: there is no perfect Church in heaven till all the chosen saints be there; therefore come up hither.” They stretch out their hands of fellowship; they look with glistening eyes of strong affection upon us, and still again they say, “Come up hither.” Warriors who wear your laurels, ye call us to the brow of the hill where the like triumphs await us. The angels do the same tonight. How they must wonder to see us so careless, so worldly, so hardened! They also beckon us away, and cry from their starry seats, “Beloved, ye over whom we rejoiced when you were brought as prodigals to your Father’s house, ‘Come up hither,’ for we long to see you; your story of grace will be a strange and wondrous one — one which angels love to hear.

From a sermon entitled "The Voice from Heaven," delivered November 23, 1862. Flickr photo by Michael ; some rights reserved.

A faithful Creator

With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him? When He balanced the clouds, and laid the foundations for the earth, who taught Him the laws of gravity? Who has weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Was He not alone? No parliament of angels bowed at His right hand, for He created even them. No archangel bowed his head and offered advice to the Most High, for the archangel himself is but a creature. Cherubim and seraphim might sing when the work was over, but help in the work they could not. Look now, what star did the angels make? What spot of earth is the creation of an archangel? Look to the heavens above or to the deeps beneath, where do you see the impress of any hand but God’s, and that hand a solitary one?...

Roll then your burden on your God if you are alone, for alone with Him you have the best of company. If you had the hosts of heaven with you, what would you be without your God? If all the Church were at your back, terrible as an army with banners, your defeat would be certain if the Holy Ghost did not dwell in you. I tell you, man, if all the saints and angels in earth and heaven should unite to speed you in your object, yet, if your God should stand aloof from you, you would labor in vain and spend your strength for nothing. But with Him you shall prevail though all men forsake you.

From a sermon entitled "Creation - An Argument For Faith," delivered July 27, 1862. Flickr photo by Vera & Jean-Christophe; some rights reserved.

The angels keep watch

Unseen by us, the angels of God keep watch and ward around us. They bear up the Church’s foot lest she dash it against a stone. They cover her head in the day of battle lest the fiery shafts should penetrate her helmet; by night and by day the watchers of God keep constant guard over the blood-royal of heaven. Let us not be deceived in this matter, thinking that we have to deal here with a fancy or a myth. Angels have more to do with this world than we dream. They are more potent influences for the saints’ good than ever we have known, for they are the ten thousand chariots of God, the ten thousand times ten thousand saints of the Most High who stand in their battle array this day. If your eyes be opened, you will be able to say with the Prophet - “More are they that are with us than they that be with them.”

Reckon the angels as your friends; put them not down as though they were weak and feeble, but believe them to be strong, and then ye shall not doubt but that the Church shall be preserved as the apple of God’s eye.

From a sermon entitled "The Lord's Care Of His People," delivered April 27, 1862. Flickr photo by Tobias; some rights reserved.

Give God praise

Is it not heaven’s employment to praise him? And what can make earth more like heaven, than to bring down from heaven the employment of glory, and to be occupied with it here? Come, believer, when thou prayest, thou art but a man, but when thou praisest, thou art as an angel. When thou asketh favor, thou art but a beggar, but when thou standest up to extol, thou becomest next of kin to cherubim and seraphim. Happy, happy day, when the glorious choristers shall find their numbers swelled by the addition of multitudes from earth! Happy day when you and I shall join the eternal chorus. Let us begin the music here. Let us strike some of the first
notes at least; and if we cannot sound the full thunders of the eternal hallelujah, let us join as best we may. Let us make the wilderness and the solitary place rejoice, and bid the desert blossom as the rose.

From a sermon entitled "Magnificat," delivered October 14, 1860. Flickr photo by mdprovost; some rights reserved.

God has made you His child

Consider again, I pray you, what a dignity God hath conferred upon you — even upon you in making you his son. The tall archangel before the throne is not called God’s Son, he is one of the most favored of his servants, but not his child. I tell thee, thou poor brother in Christ, there is a dignity about thee that even angels may well envy. Thou in thy poverty art as a sparkling jewel in the darkness of the mine. Thou in the midst of thy sickness and infirmity art girt about with robes of glory, which make the spirits in heaven look down upon the earth with awe. Thou movest about this world as a prince among the crowd. The blood of heaven runs in thy veins; thou art one of the blood royal of eternity — a son of God, descendant of the King of kings. Speak of pedigrees, the glories of heraldry — thou hast more than heraldry could ever give thee, or all the pomp of ancestry could ever bestow.

From a sermon entitled "The Sons of God," delivered October 7, 1860. Flickr photo by David K; some rights reserved.

Servants of Christ

The way to heaven is, through faith in Christ; but after we have believed in Christ the legitimate tendency of faith is active service. Although the Christian shall go to heaven through the blood of Christ, yet as a pilgrim he must walk there, and although he overcomes through the blood of the Lamb, yet as a warrior he must fight if he would reign. Active service is expected of every Christian. Christ does not put his children on a bed, and then carry them to heaven along a lazy road; but he gives them life and bids that life develop itself; he gives them strength, and commands them to use the strength in working out their own salvation. While he works in them, they are passive, but he then bids them be active and work out what he has beforehand wrought in.

He is no Christian who does not seek to serve his God. The very motto of the Christian should be “I serve.” Christ’s people are Christ’s servants and as the angels in heaven delight to fly at God’s behests, so do the children of God delight to run in the way of his commands. Hence, then, if the knees be weak and the hands be weak, it is little that we can do. We cannot run with the weak knee; we cannot labor with the weak hand. How can we, the servants of Christ, how can ye lift the heavy burdens which ye have to carry, if your hands be weak and your knees totter? How can ye pull down the walls of your enemies if your hands tremble? How can ye smite your
foemen with the sword of faith if your arm be weak? Look well, then, to this, for herein ye suffer exceeding loss; if in active service ye lose power and strength.

From a sermon entitled, "Weak Knees and Feeble Hands," delivered March 20, 1859; Flickr photo by Lida Rose; some rights reserved.

The Exaltation of Christ

Look at him! Can your imagination picture him? Behold his transcendent glory! The majesty of kings is swallowed up; the pomp of empires dissolves like the white mist of the morning before the sun, the brightness of assembled armies is eclipsed. He in himself is brighter than the sun, more terrible than armies with banners. See him! See him! Oh! hide your heads, ye monarchs; put away your gaudy pageantry, ye lords of this poor narrow earth! His kingdom knows no bounds; without a limit his vast empire stretches out itself. Above him all is his, beneath him many a step are angels, and they are his; and they cast their crowns before his feet. With them stand his elect and ransomed, and their crowns too are his. And here upon this lower earth stand his saints, and they are his, and they adore him; and under the earth, among the infernals, where devils growl their malice, even there is trembling and adoration; and where lost spirits, with wailing and gnashing of teeth for ever lament their being, even there, there is the acknowledgement of his Godhead, even though the confession helps to make the fire of their torments.

In heaven, in earth, in hell, all knees bend before him, and every tongue confesses that he is God. If not now, yet in the time that is to come this shall be carried out, that every creature of God’s making shall acknowledge his Son to be “God over all, blessed for ever. Amen.” Oh! my soul anticipates that blessed day, when this whole earth shall bend its knee before its God willingly; I do believe there is a happy era coming, when there shall not be one knee unbent before my Lord and Master. I look for that time, that latter-day glory, when kings shall bring presents, when queens shall be the nursing mothers of the church, when the gold of Sheba and the ships of Tarshish, and the dromedaries of Arabia shall alike be his, when nations and tribes of every tongue shall

“Dwell on his name with sweetest song,
And infant voices shall proclaim
Their early blessings on his name.”

From a sermon entitled "The Exaltation of Christ," delivered November 2, 1856.

Photo by Paul Thomas; some rights reserved.

The Incarnation of the Son

Talk ye of the sun, moon, and stars; consider ye the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars that he hath ordained; but all the wonders of the universe shrink into nothing, when we come to the mystery of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a marvellous thing when Joshua bade the sun to stand still, but more marvellous when God seemed to stand still, and no longer to move forward, but rather, like the sun upon the dial of Ahaz, did go back ten degrees, and veil his splendor in a cloud. There have been sights matchless and wonderful, at which we might look for years, and yet turn away and say, “I cannot understand this; here is a deep into which I dare not dive; my thoughts are drowned; this is a steep without a summit; I cannot climb it; it is high, I cannot attain it!” But all these things are as nothing, compared with the incarnation of the Son of God.

I do believe that the very angels have never wondered but once and that has been incessantly ever since they first beheld it. They never cease to tell the astonishing story, and to tell it with increasing astonishment too, that Jesus Christ. the Son of God, was born of the Virgin Mary, and became a man. Is he not rightly called Wonderful? Infinite, and an infant — eternal, and yet born of a woman — Almighty, and yet hanging on a woman’s breast supporting the universe, and yet needing to be carried in a mother’s arms — king of angels, and yet the reputed son of Joseph — heir of all things and yet the carpenter’s despised son. Wonderful art thou O Jesus, and that shall be thy name for ever.

From a sermon entitled, "His Name — Wonderful!," delivered September 19, 1858.