“Consider what you owe to His immutability. Though you have changed a thousand times, He has not changed once.”
Charles Spurgeon
For more quotes by Charles Spurgeon see these posts:
More about the Immutability of God
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Charles Spurgeon on Wisdom
“Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.”
Charles Spurgeon
For more quotes by Charles Spurgeon see these posts:
Christ’s sacrifice condemns sin – Charles Spurgeon
“Human philosophy cannot make you hate sin, the study of the law of God cannot make you hate it, but if you have ever with tearful glance beheld the Son of God expiring and groaning out His life for you in consequence of your sins, then God has done in you, despite the weakness of your flesh, what the law could not do, and what all other things beside could never accomplish. I must press this matter home with you, Christians, that you may give your own verdict whether it is not so.
Have you not felt that you have not half a word to say for sin now? That you could not defend it, nay, that you could not bear it? It is now as if a man should come to you and say, “I have slain a man, hide me from justice,” you might possibly consider whether you should conceal him, but if you discovered that he had assassinated your child and that his hands were blood-red with its innocent blood, you would say, “Hide you! how can I hide you? It is my own child whom you have slain.” When sin comes to me I know its mischievous effect, and I dare not for that reason tolerate it, but when I hear that it slew my dear Redeemer, slew Him who loved me eternally and without change, loved me without a motive for loving me, but only because He would love me—when I hear that sin slew Him, I cry, “Away with you! Sin, away with you! Away with you! It is not fit that you should live. Away with you! Down to the depths of hell descend, and even there there is no darkness so dark as you are! no terror so terrible as you are! You hell of hells, you blackness of darkness! you accursed thing! You have slain my Lord.” This is what the text means when it tells us that the sacrifice of Jesus condemns sin.”
How Did He Know?
“A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats ”
Charles Spurgeon
The Life Everlasting, Part 3
This is a continuation of a sermon from two previous posts:
Now, as to judgment. There are two judgments that occur for all people. The first is called the judgment of faith. That refers to what happens when our bodies die. Those whose faith is in Christ go to the intermediate state I talked about earlier. Those who have no faith in Christ go to Sheol/Hades, The second judgment, the judgment of works takes place at the end when all people, those destined for hell and those destined for heaven will see their failures to abide by God’s Word. Those condemned as to their condemnation and those elected to salvation so we can see how much we owe to the Lord. We will all be judged in the end.
And I suppose I should say something here about hell. Hell is empty today, but after the final judgment it will be full to capacity. It has become popular to deny the existence of hell. People say that a loving God could not condemn anyone to eternal punishment. But when they say that they are not speaking of God, but of the God they create for themselves. They speak not of a holy and perfect God against whom all sin is an attempt to destroy His perfection, but of a kind of doting parent who gives his children whatever they want and more. To deny God and His Word is an attack on reality, the creation of a sort of wonderland,
We should not underestimate the horrors of hell or pretend that it won’t be that bad, because it will. And that should spur believers to be active in telling others the Good News of Jesus. The 19th century English preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon said this in one of his sermons; “Oh my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners must be damned let them leap into hell over our bodies; and if they perish let them do so with our arms around their knees imploring them to stay and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions; let no one go there unwarned and un-prayed for.” That is, I think, a great reminder of the reality of hell and the pain that all Christians must feel for those who will be there forever. If we pretend there is no hell and tell no one of Christ’s atoning sacrifice for us, then we fail in an extraordinary way to be the people God wants us to be.
For earlier sections of this sermon see these posts:
The Threefold Cord
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they will keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him — a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Something is drawing me back to Ecclesiastes, the book that Leslie blogged extensively about last month. The verses above have been used to describe the unions of both marriage and friendship. When we go back to the very beginning, God said,
“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Genesis 2:18
According to the author of Ecclesiastes we’re meant to live in relationship, in union with others. With a friend or a mate, life is easier, safer and more comfortable. We will be happier and accomplish more. But did you notice anything else? In every relationship there must be a third component — that’s God. God is the glue that holds every human union together. Without Him, we’re bound to eventually break apart on the rocks of our own selfishness and sin. It’s the third strand in the cord that keeps them going.
So, we don’t need to just have a relationship with God, we need to make God a part of every relationship in our life. Peace, joy, patience, kindness, love, self-control–no union survives without them, and we can’t manufacture them on our own. They’re gifts of the Holy Spirit. So as Charles Spurgeon once said, “Let the lion out of the cage.” Don’t keep God penned up except for Sunday mornings–let Him into your marriage, your friendships, your workplace, your family. Let Him transform all those relationships.
Life Changes
“It is well for us that, amidst all the variableness of life, there is One whom change cannot affect; One whose heart can never alter, and on whose brow mutability can make no furrows.”
Charles Spurgeon
Have you ever heard of entropy? It comes from a principle of thermodynamics and refers to the idea that everything in the universe moves from order to disorder. This makes perfect sense to me: it’s what happened when sin entered the world. Left on our own, mankind gradually disintegrates into more and more sinful behavior. As we age, our bodies are subject to the results of sin as well–sickness and death eventually overtake what God has “fearfully and wonderfully made.” The people closest to us, the ones we love and depend upon, will all die. We will die as well.
Thankfully in life there is one person who doesn’t change; one person that we can count on forever. In Hebrews 13:8 we are told:
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
Deuteronomy 31:6 assures us:
“…for it is the Lord your God who goes with you; He will not fail you or forsake you.”
In a world of change, I need to remind myself every day to choose the unchangeable and focus my mind on the unseen. I want to be able to say along with Martin Luther:
“Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.”
from the hymn ‘A Mighty Fortress.’
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