Let Us Walk Worthy Of Him

[T]he apostle prays “that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.” Is it not fit that you who are to rise to Enoch’s heaven should walk as he did, and have this testimony that you please God? You are going to dwell at God’s right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore, would not you wish to do all you can to please your Lord before you see him? You are a son of a king: you have not put on your glittering array as yet; your crown is not yet on your head; but surely you wish to behave yourself as becometh one who is fore-ordained for so much honor and glory. If a son is in a distant country and is coming home, he begins to think “What can I take home? What can I do to please the beloved father whom I am soon to see?”

Begin, beloved, to see what you can do to please God, because you are so soon to enter into his pleasure, and dwell with those that wear white robes, “for they are worthy.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Hope Laid Up In Heaven," delivered October 13, 1878. Image by studiobeeldruis on Flickr under Creative Commons License, without alteration.

Grace Must Change Us

...grace must make us into silver or into golden vessels, or the Master cannot himself use us, nor can our use in the church ever be to honor. The wooden vessels in the church are very easily hacked and carved and spoiled; if a man be inclined to mischief he can put his knife to them and can cut great notches in them, ruin their character, and render them worthless. Cunning teachers can soon take away from merely nominal Christians what they professed to believe, for they are very readily cut and hacked by those who play at such games. As for the earthen vessels, how soon they are broken.

Outside of any great house there are the remains of many broken pots, which fell to the ground and went to pieces; and, I am sorry to say, we also can find enough of such relics to sadden us all. There were some in this house once who were comely to look upon, but there came a temptation and brushed them from the table, and they were shivered in a moment. Others of precious metal have endured far more shocks and tests of a severer kind, but these being only of earth were broken at once. Heaps of crockery accumulate outside every great house, and certainly outside the great house of Christ.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Great House And The Vessels In It," delivered April 8, 1877. Image by Olivier Bacquet on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

We Shall Be Without Spot Or Wrinkle

We believe according to God’s promise that we shall one day be “without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.” I do believe that this head shall wear a crown of glory, and that this hand shall wave a palm branch. I am fully assured that he will one day sweetly say to me

“Close thine eyes that thou mays’t see 
What I have in store for thee. 
Lay thine arms of warfare down, 
Fall that thou mays’t win a crown.”

We, all, who are believers in Jesus, shall one day be without fault before the throne of God; but how is this to be? Surely our confidence is that he who has promised it is able to perform it. This is the faith which finds its way to glory - the faith which expects to enter into the Redeemer’s joy, because of the Redeemer’s love and life. Brethren, in this matter we see the difficulties, but we do not consider them: we count them as less than nothing since omnipotence has come into the field. “Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We know that our Redeemer liveth, and that because he lives we shall also live, and be with him where he is.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "How Is Salvation Received?," delivered April 1, 1877. Image by Paul Bica on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

In the flesh or in the Spirit

We are either in the flesh or in the Spirit. Every man is born in the flesh, and if let alone he will follow the desires and devices of his fleshly nature, as every unregenerate man does. Some follow their fleshly nature coarsely, and run into vice; others follow it in a more refined manner, and live to gain wealth, to gratify taste, or to gain the approbation of their fellow men, all which is of the flesh. Now, there is another state, and that is called being in the Spirit; into this condition we are admitted by the new birth.

When a man walks in the Spirit he recognizes something higher than that which can be touched by the hand, and seen with the eye, and heard with the ear. He has entered into a new world, and is a citizen of a spiritual realm. He has come where God is real to him, where Christ is real to him, where truth is real, where sin is hateful, where holiness is lovely to him. Judge you, my brethren, whether you know anything concerning this.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Fatal Deficiency," delivered September 21, 1873. Image by mike138 on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The Deadly Foe: Sin

Courage, courage! He has not brought you out of Egypt that you may be destroyed. What would the heathen say concerning your God, if after all you should fall and perish? You shall win the day, you shall have every inch of the promised land, only be ye strong and be very courageous, for the Lord will surely drive out your sins, and take your body, soul, and spirit, as a consecrated and holy possession for ever.

But there is a notion among some Christians, who are but little instructed, and who know nothing of experience, that sanctification is an instantaneous work. There are some who think that the moment they believe in Jesus they shall never be troubled with any sin again, whereas, it is then that the battle begins. The moment sin is forgiven it ceases to be my friend, and becomes my deadly foe. When the guilt of sin is gone, then the power of sin becomes obnoxious, and we begin to strive against it. Every now and then we hear of friends who cannot understand my teaching on this point. They say they do not feel anything of uprising sin within themselves. Oh, beloved, I wish you did, for I am afraid you know nothing of the gospel-life if you do not. I will not give a penny for your religion, if it has no inward conflict. Even virtuous heathens have got farther than that, for some of them have written that they felt themselves to be as two men contending or fighting; and surely Christians have got farther still, or ought to have done. This, I know, be it what it may with you, I have to fight every day to get but one inch nearer to heaven, and I feel it will be wrestling to the last moment, and that I shall have a scuffle upon Jordan’s brink with my corruptions.

From a sermon entitled "Secret Sins Driven Out By Driving Hornets," delivered January 28, 1866. Image by chantrybee under Creative Commons License.