God has given you an anchor

This world is like a sea, restless, unstable, dangerous, never at one stay. Human affairs may be compared to waves driven with the wind and tossed. As for ourselves, we are the ships which go upon the sea, and are subject to its changes and motions. We are apt to be drifted by currents, driven by winds, and tossed with tempests: we have not yet come to the true terra firma, the rest which remaineth for the people of God; God would not have us carried about with every wind, and therefore he has been pleased to fashion for us an anchor of hope most sure and stedfast, so that we may outride the storm.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Anchor," delivered May 21, 1876. Image by Stefano on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

What is conviction of sin?

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 save 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.

Conviction is sent to kill the man, to break him in pieces, to bury him, to let him know his own corruption; and all this as a preliminary to his quickening and restoration. We must see the bones in the valley to be dead and dry, or we shall not hear the voice out of the excellent glory, saying, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘Ye dry bones live!’” May God in his mercy teach us what all this means, and may we all experience an old-fashioned conversion.

* - that is, it requires

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "An Old-Fashioned Conversation," delivered March 16, 1873. Image by szeke on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

If a man can still pray

Now, while a man can pray he is never far from light; he is at the window, though, perhaps, as yet the curtains are not drawn aside. The man who can pray has the clue in his hand by which to escape from the labyrinth of affliction. Like the trees in winter, we may say of the praying man, when his heart is greatly troubled, “his substance is in him, though he has lost his leaves.” Prayer is the soul’s breath, and if it breathes it lives, and, living it will gather strength again. A man must have true and eternal life within him while he can continue still to pray, and while there is such life there is assured hope.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "For The Troubled," delivered January 12, 1873. Image by pasotraspaso on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Do not be swallowed up by your mourning

Let none of us give way to an irritable, complaining, mournful temperament. It is the giving way which is the master-mischief; for it is only as we resist this devil that it will flee from us. Let not your heart be troubled. If the troubles outside the soul toss your vessel and drive her to and fro, yet, at least, let us strain every nerve to keep the seas outside the bark, lest she sink altogether. Cry with David, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?”

Never mourn unreasonably. Question yourself about the causes of your tears; reason about the matter till you come to the same conclusion as the psalmist, “Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him.” Depend upon it, if thou canst believe in God, thou hast, even in thy soul’s midnight, ten times more cause to rejoice than to sorrow. If thou canst humbly lie at Jesus’ feet, there are more flowers than thorns ready to spring up in thy pathway; joys lie in ambush for thee; thou shalt be compassed about with songs of deliverance. Therefore, companions in tribulation, give not way to hopeless sorrow; write no bitter things against yourselves; salute with thankfulness the angel of hope, and say no more, “My soul refused to be comforted.”

From a sermon entitled "A Sermon For The Most Miserable Of Men," delivered January 31, 1869. Image by Romtomtom under Creative Commons License.