Spurgeon!

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Devotional with Charles Spurgeon

February 2

“Without the shedding of blood is no remission.” — Heb 9:22

This is the voice of unalterable truth. In none of the Jewish ceremonies were sins, even typically, removed without blood-shedding. In no case, by no means can sin be pardoned without atonement. It is clear, then, that there is no hope for me out of Christ; for there is no other blood-shedding which is worth a thought as an atonement for sin.

Am I, then, believing in him? Is the blood of his atonement truly applied to my soul? All men are on a level as to their need of him. If we be never so moral, generous, amiable, or patriotic, the rule will not be altered to make an exception for us. Sin will yield to nothing less potent than the blood of him whom God hath set forth as a propitiation. What a blessing that there is the one way of pardon! Why should we seek another?

bloodatonement

Persons of merely formal religion cannot understand how we can rejoice that all our sins are forgiven us for Christ’s sake. Their works, and prayers, and ceremonies, give them very poor comfort; and well may they be uneasy, for they are neglecting the one great salvation, and endeavouring to get remission without blood.

My soul, sit down, and behold the justice of God as bound to punish sin; see that punishment all executed upon thy Lord Jesus, and fall down in humble joy, and kiss the dear feet of him whose blood has made atonement for thee. It is in vain when conscience is aroused to fly to feelings and evidences for comfort: this is a habit which we learned in the Egypt of our legal bondage. The only restorative for a guilty conscience is a sight of Jesus suffering on the cross. “The blood is the life thereof,” says the Levitical law, and let us rest assured that it is the life of faith and joy and every other holy grace.

“Oh! how sweet to view the flowing
Of my Saviour’s precious blood;
With divine assurance knowing
He has made my peace with God.”

Preaching Without Speaking
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Preaching Without Speaking

Imagine reaching thousands upon thousands of people and almost never having to open your mouth. Sounds impossible doesn’t it? Other than the fact that millions of professing believers think they can actually accomplish this kind of thing by just living a Christian lifestyle among the lost, there is truly a way which you can do this. Gospel tracts.

Passing out gospel tracts is the only true lifestyle evangelism that can reach the lost without necessarily saying anything. Of course, this may not always be the case. There will be conversations started based upon the curiosity of those that take some of the tracts that are passed out. But isn’t that the goal of lifestyle evangelism? Projecting the life of Christ so that people ask you what makes you different? Well, gospel tracts will most certainly do that! But the best part is, if you are unsure, fearful, not eloquent, or just don’t know where to begin in your evangelistic endeavors, gospel tracts are not just a great starting point, but a formidable weapon in the Christian artillery that can be carried around until we enter in the joy of the Lord.

I cannot express how many times someone has told me they cannot be a regular, consistent, and purposeful witness simply because they wouldn’t know what to say, or because of their perceived lack of ability. They prefer to let their “light shine” so that their good works will glorify God among the heathen. When I introduce the fact that gospel tracts can help them overcome those fears and apparent lack, I am met with a resounding, “No thanks,” or with other terrible excuses as to why they cannot pass out a simple piece of gospel literature. It astounds me with the amount of timid excuses people make concerning why they “cannot” reach the lost, you’d think that passing out tracts would be going out of style!

When it comes to the idea of lifestyle evangelism, if you really want your light to shine before men, pass out gospel tracts! It is a dynamic way to fulfill what you’re hoping to accomplish if speaking a word about the gospel is hard for you. Most of the time, you’d be surprised how much of your lifestyle is of no concern to the unbeliever. That is until you hand them a gospel tract. If I am suspecting correctly, some of us may want to develop the relationship first so that we can reach them more intimately. Perhaps even serving them so as to open doors for the gospel. Nothing wrong with service and friendship. But if you really want them to see Christ in you, tracts will definitely make that happen at lightening speed. Folks may not chase you down, but you will get the gospel to them, which subliminally is our professed purpose for living our lives before the lost anyway, isn’t it?

If you want to know what it would be like to preach to thousands of people without saying a word, pass out tracts. If you want your light to shine to that cashier in Walmart, give them a tract after you pay. If you want your waiter to know that you love Christ, leave a generous tip (I MEAN THAT), and leave a gospel tract. If you want your co-workers to know you love Jesus, ask them for their address, send them a gift, and put a gospel tract with it. This goes for your family, friends, and any one else you want to see Christ in you, the hope of glory!

It’s not a problem that gospel tracts may not be your “thing.” But if you don’t choose this option and prefer instead to continue in your Christian walk hoping the lost will recognize something in you about Christ, and you choose never to regularly, constantly, and purposefully communicate the gospel toward, family, friends, co-workers, and strangers, then you are a hypocrite and are being apocitic. You’re not practicing lifestyle evangelism, but lifestyle hypocrisy. God has graced us with an amazing gift – eternal life. He’s given us minds to comprehend the gospel, and mouths to tell it. Since that is not enough for some of us, He has given us the printing press by which we can order tracts by the box full. If that doesn’t tickle our fancy, and we are somewhat literate, we have pen and paper at home by which we can use to spread the gospel in our writing if we don’t like the print of others. Regardless of the mode, true lifestyle evangelism is worked out through a Christian not just living out the commandants of our Lord, but teaching others to do the same (Matt 28:20). If it is still too much for you to at least give someone something that can preach the gospel for you if you feel like you are unable, then cast your Christian profession aside and embrace your title as an unbeliever.

“If Jesus is precious to you, you will not be able to keep your good news to yourself; you will be whispering it into your child’s ear; you will be telling it to your husband; you will be earnestly imparting it to your friend; without the charms of eloquence you will be more than eloquent; your heart will speak, and your eyes will flash as you talk of his sweet love. Every Christian here is either a missionary or an impostor. Recollect that. You either try to spread abroad the kingdom of Christ, or else you do not love him at all. It cannot be that there is a high appreciation of Jesus and a totally silent tongue about him. Of course I do not mean by that, that those who use the pen are silent: they are not. And those who help others to use the tongue, or spread that which others have written, are doing their part well: but that man who says, “I believe in Jesus,” but does not think enough of Jesus ever to tell another about him, by mouth, or pen, or tract, is an impostor”   

– Charles Spurgeon, Sword and Trowl March 1837

– Until we go home

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Man of Sorrows

Spurgeon’s Sorrows Sorrows

A review by Stuart Brogden

Zack Eswine has written an easy-to-grasp overview of a condition many Christians and pastors spend too little time understanding. Some because they’ve bought into the lie that being healed by the stripes of Christ is a temporal healing, and we should have no sickness if our faith is strong enough. Some because they do not understand mental problems and do not trust psychiatrists. Eswine studied Charles Spurgeon, who suffered with depression and wrote about it, and he brings the Word of God and the words of men to bear to clear the air and give us hope. My hope is to bring to light a few of the good insights this book has to offer and help my fellow Christians better understand this issue so that we might be used to do good to our brothers and sisters who are suffering with depression.

So let’s sample this book, see how Spurgeon dealt with it, and how our Creator advises us.

Chapter 3

“Conversion to Jesus isn’t heaven, but its foretaste. This side of heaven, grace secures us but doesn’t cure us.

“Though substantial healing can come, Charles reminds us that often it waits till heaven to complete its full work.

“We do not profess that the religion of Christ will so thoroughly change a man as to take away from him all his natural tendencies; it will give the despairing something that will alleviate that despondency, but as long as that is caused by a low state of body, or a diseased mind, we do not profess that the religion of Christ will totally remove it. No, rather, we do see every day that amongst the best of God’s servants, there are those who are always doubting, always looking to the dark side of every providence, who look at the threatening more than at the promise, who are ready to write bitter things against themselves …

“Therefore we sufferers of depression in Christ may grow terribly weak, even in faith, but we are not lost to God.

“It is Christ and not the absence of depression that saves us. So, we declare this truth. Our sense of God’s absence does not mean that He is so.”

This is critical for us to grab hold of – our position as children of God, His redemption and righteousness is not based on or determined by how we feel. It is based on His work to earn His place as the Lamb of God, taking our sin upon Himself, and imputing His righteousness to us. These facts and the promises of God are what determine our standing before Him. Our emotions are given to us by God but we are prone to being dragged away from Truth by them.

Chapter 4

“Religion offers both a challenge and a help to those who suffer mental disorders. This challenge surfaces when preachers assume that depression is always and only a sin.”

The author goes on to identify the hope is, as studies which indicate people who are part of a religious community do better with mental health (citing Lauren Cahoon, “Will God Get You Out of Your Depression?” (ABC News, March 19, 2008))

Depression for the Christian is often based on the perception that God has abandoned him. This is a very tangible example of how our theology matters and how our faith must rest in Christ and not our perceptions of His love for us. No doubt, this is easy to say and terribly hard to find comfort in when one is captured by his emotions. Our author quotes saints of old often and here, he shows us they did not neglect Satan. The devil doesn’t cause depression but he certainly is eager to encourage it! At this point, the Christian must fight.

“We plead not ourselves, but the promises of Jesus; not our strengths but His; our weaknesses yes, but His mercies. Our way of fighting is to hide behind Jesus who fights for us. Our hope is not the absence of our regret, or misery or doubt or lament, but the presence of Jesus. “Doubting Castle may be very strong, but he who comes to fight with Giant Despair is stronger still!”” (a quote from Charles Spurgeon, “Christ Looseth From Infirmities,”)

He goes on to cite “three tough words” from Spurgeon. First, he defends those who suffer by pointing them to Christ. Secondly, he cautions them not to haunt themselves on purpose with the dreaded notion that somebody somewhere might be happy. Thirdly, Spurgeon would – when he thought it necessary, be direct with those who refused to fight their depression. His sermon, A Call to the Depressed, is cited as a prime example of this tactic. “Perhaps in this sermon, we see Charles the human being trying imperfectly to administer help to sorrows not easily diagnosed. In his earnest and fragile attempts to help, we see our own.”

Chapter 6

“Jane Kenyon’s remarkable poem, “Having it out with Melancholy,” poses two “God” problems associated with depression and our attempts at care. First, depression ruins our “manners toward God” because it teaches us “to exist without gratitude,” and tempts us to answer the purpose of our existence as “simply to wait for death,” since “the pleasures of earth are overrated.” Second, depression tempts our friends to offer the following advice: “You wouldn’t be so depressed if you really believed in God.””

This chapter provides the reader with biblical counsel for those who are depressed, who, our author points out, “lean on metaphors” to describe how they are feeling. Mental problems are hard to convey to those who have not experienced them, so abstract descriptions rarely suffice. The Bible communicates mental anguish via metaphor: Ps 88:3-7, 69:15, Job 13:25, Prov 18:14, et. al.

Three ways metaphors are sufficient to communicate to those in depression:

“(1) Metaphor leaves room. It does not propose to cover every angle, understand every possibility or to explain every detail. It does not require only one possible explanation. Language that proposes to do this with depression exposes its ignorance of the situation at hand.

“(2) Metaphor allows for nuance and difference. Since each person’s experience with depression differs, metaphor allows for diverse expression. Formulaic prose or platitudes immediately reveal their lack of realism regarding how depression damages someone.

“(3) Metaphor requires further thought and exploration. It is a word of invitation more than destination which, we observed earlier, is crucial for gathering up the debris of depression.”

The Bible communicates a creator God Who completely understands His creatures and the plights we face.

“A larger story about God exists that possesses within it a language of sorrows so that the gloomy, the anguished, the dark-pathed, and the inhabitants of deep night are given voice. Such a god-story is neither cruel nor trite. Such a story begins to reveal the sympathy of God.”

Divine sympathy is your teacher, dear caregiver; your ally and friend, dear sufferer. Let His sorrow’s language help you.

Chapter 7

Four ways we can make things worse:

“1. We judge others according to our circumstances rather than theirs. “There are a great many of you who appear to have a large stock of faith, but it is only because you are in very good health and your business is prospering. If you happened to get a disordered liver, or your business should fail, I should not be surprised if nine parts out of ten of your wonderful faith should evaporate.” Jesus teaches us about those who lay up heavy burdens on others but do not lift a finger to help (Matt. 23:4).

“2. We still think that trite sayings or a raised voice can heal deep wounds. A person “may have a great spiritual sorrow, and someone who does not at all understand his grief, may proffer to him a consolation which is far too slight.” Like a physician who offers a common ointment for a deep wound, we “say to a person in deep distress things which have really aggravated him and his malady too.” In this regard, Charles teaches us the Scriptures, “Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda” (Prov. 25:20).

“3. We try to control what should be rather than surrender to what is. We must not “judge harshly, as if things were as we would theoretically arrange them, but we must deal with things as they are, and it cannot be questioned that some of the best believers are at times sorely put to it,” even “to know whether they are believers at all.” The Scriptures teach us about Job’s friends who struggled at this very point.

“4. We resist humility regarding our own lack of experience. “There are some people who cannot comfort others, even though they try to do so, because they never had any troubles themselves. It is a difficult thing for a man who has had a life of uninterrupted prosperity to sympathize with another whose path has been exceedingly rough.” The Apostle Paul teaches us to comfort others out of the comfort that we ourselves have needed and received (2 Cor. 1:4).

“According to the Bible, when we encounter someone who weeps, we too are meant to weep (Rom. 12:15). When someone encounters adversity they are meant to reflect and meditate, and we with them (Eccles. 7:14). Without this together-sympathy our attempts to help others can lose the sound of reality. The loss of this sound of reality forges the larger reason for our harshness.”

Chapter 8

I wrap up with the author’s review of how our Savior relates to us. The common passage, Hebrews 4:14-16 (Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.) emphatically tells us that Jesus has suffered temptation and is able to sympathize with us – and He bids us come to Him! He is the cure what ails our souls and minds. This is not, as we are told, only in the here-after – the Lord is our comfort in this age. For in this age we are hated by the world, attacked by our flesh, and wearied by all the effects of sin that inhabit us and our environment. Jesus is our ever present helper and that’s where I want to end.

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“Do Something” – Charles Spurgeon

spurgeon_chairAs we watch our world plunge further and further into sinful and evil debauchery, there is only one thing that can be done to save it, preach the gospel! Yet there are far too many “churches” that simply refuse to obey the command of Christ to do this. So, I commend Christians to read the quote by Spurgeon and plead with you, “Do something!”

“Brethren, do something; do something, do something! While societies and unions make constitutions, let us win souls. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work and quit yourselves like men. Old Suvarov’s idea of war is mine: `Forward and strike! No theory! Attack! Form a column! Charge bayonets! Plunge into the center of the enemy! Our one aim is to win souls; and this we are not to talk about, but do in the power of God!'” – Charles Spurgeon

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Quotes (927)

It is not your hold on Christ that saves you; it is Christ. It is not your joy in Christ that saves you; it is Christ. It is not even your faith in Christ, though that be the instrument; it is Christ’s blood and merit.

– Charles Spurgeon

1834 – 1892

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The thick pollutions of thine abominable [Roman Catholic] church forbid the idea of descent from any apostle but the traitor Judas.

– Charles Spurgeon

1834 – 1892

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Quotes (749)

Man has become so fallen that he cannot keep the law. Sooner might the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots, than he that is accustomed to do evil learn to do well (Jeremiah 13:23); but what man cannot do, by reason of the perversity of the flesh, God performs within him, working in him to will and to do of his good pleasure. Oh, what amazing grace is this, which while it forgives our want of will, also removes our want of power!

And, dear friends, is it not a wonderful proof of grace that God does this without destroying man in any degree whatever? Man is a creature with a will,—a “free will” as they sometimes call it,—a creature who is responsible for his actions; so God does not come and change our hearts by a physical process, as some seem to dream, but by a spiritual process in which he never mars our nature, but sets our nature right.

If a man becomes a child of God, he still has a will. God does not destroy the delicate machinery of our nature, but he puts it into proper gear. We become Christians with our own full assent and consent; and we keep the law of God not by any compulsion except the sweet compulsion of love. We do not keep it because we cannot do otherwise, but we keep it because we would not do otherwise, because we have come to delight therein, and this seems to me the greatest wonder of divine grace.

See, dear friends, how different is the Lord’s way of working and ours. If you knock down a man who is living an evil life, and put him in chains, you can make him honest by force; or if you set him free, and hem him round with Acts of Parliament, you may make him sober if he cannot get anything to drink, you may make him wonderfully quiet if you put a gag in his mouth; but that is not God’s way of acting.

He who put man in the Garden of Eden, and never put any palisades around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but left man a free agent, does just the same in the operations of his grace. He leaves his people to the influences that are within them, and yet they go right, because they are so changed and renewed by his grace that they delight to do that which once they loathed to do.

I admire the grace of God in acting thus. We should have taken the watch to pieces, and broken half the wheels, and made new ones, or something of the kind. But God knows how to leave the man just as much a man as he was before his conversion, and yet to make him so entirely a new man that old things have passed away, and all things have become new.

And this is very beautiful, too, that when God writes his law in his people’s hearts, He makes this the way of their preservation. When God’s law is written in a man’s heart, that heart becomes divinely royal property, for the King’s name is there, and the heart in which God has written his name can never perish.

– Charles Spurgeon

1834 – 1892

HT: Pyro

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Quotes (679)

http://easterpeople.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/im-a-charismatic-baptist-reformed-calvinist/

The most excellent study for expanding the soul is the science of Christ and Him crucified and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity.

– Charles Spurgeon

1834 – 1892

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http://easterpeople.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/im-a-charismatic-baptist-reformed-calvinist/

But the man Christ can be but in one place, and he is now at the right hand of the Majesty on high. It is absurd, it is horrible, both to faith and to reason, to say that Christ’s body is eaten, and that his blood is drunk in tens of thousands of places wherever priests choose to offer what they call “the mass.” A “Mass” of profanity, indeed, it is!

– Charles Spurgeon

1834 – 1892

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spurgeon-pic.jpg If we let passion take the place of judgment, and self-will reign instead of Scriptural authority, we shall fight the Lord’s battles with the devil’s weapons, and if we cut our own fingers we must not be surprised.

– Charles Spurgeon

1834 – 1892

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Book review: “All of Grace” by Charles Spurgeon.

all-of-grace I just completed this work by Spurgeon (the audio book version) and found it to be a wealth of encouragement for those who wrestle with their assurance of salvation. It was also a deep source of doctrinal truths regarding God’s grace and provision for salvation; helping me to better understand that salvation is all of God. I recommend it to those who are looking for a great exposition on the truths of the doctrines of grace.

This whole book is available to read online here.

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“Rivers of water run from my eyes…”

Psalm 119:136—Rivers of water run down from my eyes, because men do not keep Your law.

I’ve been reading through the Psalms lately, and just started on Psalm 119 a couple days ago. I am about halfway through it, and it did not take long to realize something: The writer of this Psalm does not see God’s laws as an undue burden for a man to carry. He sees God’s law for what it is: perfect. See, the Law of God was not given to show us how good and upright and righteous we could be. Paul lets us know that in no uncertain terms in Galatians 3:19. The Law was given, rather, to show the perfection of God, and to point us to the man who would be Christ. The man who knew the Law–the spirit of the Law, that is, not the letter–would know the Christ when He came.

However, there were many who knew the Law of God, and treated it with flippancy. They knew God, they had seen or heard or heard tell of the glory of God, and the salvation He brought to Israel. Yet they turned their back on that Law, and went and served other Gods. And the Psalmist shows us that this is an insult to God, and a thing that should be mourned over.

Let’s bring that verse into today’s conversation (The real one, not the “Emerging” one). Do we pour out rivers of water from our eyes because men kill and steal and blaspheme? I confess I have not done so much. But perhaps we should. After all, did not the Master implore us to do so? “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). Daniel, a man who served God from his youth, even in the pagan empire of the Babylonians, cried out to God thus: “O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets.” (Daniel 9:8-10).

Yet there are those who call themselves “the church” who–not only do they not mourn and weep over the sins of men against God–they rather celebrate the desecration of God’s laws by those who would serve their flesh and its lusts. They give a wink and a nod to homosexuality and cursing and the worship of other gods, and the blasphemy against the written word of God, and the worship of that grand humanistic idea of “inclusiveness.” They welcome into their midst those who would cast doubt on God’s word, and would claim that we can get to Heaven by following whatever path we want to, and bring in music and ideas from heathens and pagans like Oprah Winfrey and the Beatles.

If only there would pour forth rivers from the eyes of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ for those who spit upon and ignore the Law that God gave us–a Law that does not keep one under bondage, but one that was given so that we may know Him–that we would see that we are not greater than the Law, that we are not worthy of God’s mercy because we have transgressed that Law. We are no longer under the curse of the Law, praise God (Galatians 3:13)! But may we always look to that perfect Law of God, to see it as a constant reminder of the grace of God given to us sinners, and love the LORD our God by keeping His commandments!

As Spurgeon once wrote,

He wept in sympathy with God to see the holy law despised and broken. He wept in pity for men who were thus drawing down upon themselves the fiery wrath of God. His grief was such that he could scarcely give it vent; his tears were not mere drops of sorrow, but torrents of woe. In this he became like the Lord Jesus, who beheld the city, and wept over it; and like unto Jehovah himself, who hath no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but that be turn unto him and live. The experience of this verse indicates a great advance upon anything we have had before: the psalm and the Psalmist are both growing. That man is a ripe believer who sorrows because of the sins of others. In Psalms 119:120 his flesh trembled at the presence of God, and here it seems to melt and flow away in floods of tears. None are so affected by heavenly things as those who are much in the study of the word, and are thereby taught the truth and essence of things. Carnal men are afraid of brute force, and weep over losses and crosses; but spiritual men feel a holy fear of the Lord himself, and most of all lament when they see dishonour cast upon his holy name.

–Charles Spurgeon, from The Treasury of David, Psalm 119:136