REFLECTIONS

"And I, if l be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me."  John 12:32

“Come, ye workers, be encouraged. You fear that you cannot draw a congregation. Try the preaching of a crucified, risen, and ascended Savior; for this is the greatest "draw" that was ever yet manifested among men. What drew you to Christ but Christ? What draws you to Him now but His own blessed self? If you have been drawn to religion by anything else, you will soon be drawn away from it; but Jesus has held you and will hold you even to the end. Why, then, doubt His power to draw other? Go with the name of Jesus to those who have hitherto been stubborn and see if it does not draw them. No sort of man is beyond this drawing power. Old and young, rich and poor, ignorant and leaned, depraved or amiable--all men shall feel the attractive force. Jesus is the one magnet. Let us not think of any other. Music will not draw to Jesus, neither will eloquence, logic, ceremonial, or noise. Jesus Himself must draw men to Himself; and Jesus is quite equal to the work in every case. Be not tempted by the quackeries of the day; but as workers for the LORD work in His own way, and draw with the LORD's own cords. Draw to Christ, and draw by Christ, for then Christ will draw by you.”

-C.H. Spurgeon  British Minister  1834-1892

REFLECTIONS

“There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.”  Acts 24:15. 

“Reflecting, the other day, upon the sad state of the churches at the present moment, I was led to look back to apostolic times, and to consider wherein the preaching of the present day differed from the preaching of the apostles. I remarked the vast difference in their style from the set and formal oratory of the present age. I remarked that the apostles did not take a text when they preached, nor did they confine themselves to one subject, much less to any place of worship, but I find that they stood up in any place and declared from the fullness of their heart what they knew of Jesus Christ. But the main difference I observed was in the subject of their preaching. Surprised I was when I discovered that the very staple of the preaching of the apostles was the resurrection of the dead. I found myself to have been preaching the doctrine of the grace of God, to have been upholding free election, to have been leading the people of God as well as I was enabled into the deep things of His Word, but I was surprised to find that I had not been copying the apostolic fashion half as nearly as I might have done. 

The apostles, when they preached, always testified concerning the resurrection of Jesus, and the consequent resurrection of the dead. It appears that the Alpha and the Omega of their Gospel was the testimony that Jesus Christ died and rose again from the dead according to the Scriptures. When they chose another apostle in the room of Judas, who had become apostate, Act 1:22, they said, “Must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection,” so that the very office of an apostle was to be a witness of the resurrection. And well did they fulfill their office. 

When Peter stood up before the multitude, he declared unto them that “David spoke of the resurrection of Christ.” When Peter and John were taken before the council, the great cause of their arrest was that the rulers were grieved, because “they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead” Act 4:2. When they were set free, after having been examined, it is said, “With great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all” Act 4:33. It was this which stirred the curiosity of the Athenians when Paul preached among them, they said, “He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection of the dead.” And this moved the laughter of the Areopagites, for when he spoke of the resurrection of the dead, “Some mocked: and others said, We will hear you again of this matter.” Truly did Paul say, when he stood before the council of the Pharisees and Sadducees, “Concerning the resurrection of the dead I am called in question” And equally truly did he constantly assert, “If Christ be not risen from the dead, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is vain, and you are yet in your sins.” The resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of the righteous is a doctrine which we believe, but which we too seldom preach or care to read about.”

Though I have inquired of several booksellers for a book specially upon the subject of the resurrection, I have not yet been able to purchase one of any sort whatever, and when I turned to Dr. Owen’s works, which are a most invaluable storehouse of divine knowledge, containing much that is valuable on almost every subject, I could find, even there, scarcely more than the slightest mention of the resurrection. It has been set down as a well-known truth, and therefore has never been discussed. Heresies have not risen up respecting it, it would almost have been a mercy if there had been, for whenever a truth is contested by heretics, the orthodox fight strongly for it, and the pulpit resounds with it every day. I am persuaded, however, that there is much power in this doctrine, and if I preach it this morning you will see that God will own the apostolic preaching, and will be conversions. I intend putting it to the test now, to see whether there be not something which we cannot perceive at present in the resurrection of the dead, which is capable of moving the hearts of men and bringing them into subjection to the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 

-C.H. Spurgeon British Minister  1834-1893

REFLECTIONS

He Gives Rest

"Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" Matthew 11:28

“We who are saved find rest in Jesus. Those who are not saved will receive rest if they come to Him, for here He promises to "give" it. Nothing can be freer than a gift; let us gladly accept what He gladly gives. You are not to buy it, nor to borrow it, but to receive it as a gift. You labor under the lash of ambition, covetousness, lust, or anxiety: He will set you free from this iron bondage and give you rest. You are "laden," yes, "heavy laden" with sin, fear, care, remorse, fear of death; but if you come to Him He will unload you. He carried the crushing mass of our sin that we might no longer carry it. He made Himself the great Burden-bearer, that every laden one might cease from bowing down under the enormous pressure.

Jesus gives rest. It is so. Will you believe it? Will you put it to the test? Will you do so at once? Come to Jesus by quitting every other hope, by thinking of Him, believing God's testimony about Him, and trusting everything with Him. If you thus come to Him the rest which He wilt give you will be deep, safe, holy, and everlasting. He gives a rest which develops into heaven, and He gives it this day to all who come to Him.”

-C.H. Spurgeon  British Prince of Preachers  1834-1892

REFLECTIONS

“TOO MUCH “AT HOME”

These all died in faith...and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. (Hebrews 11:13)

One of the most telling indictments against many of us who comprise our Christian churches is the almost complete acceptance of the contemporary scene as our permanent home!

We have been working and earning, getting and spending, and now we are enjoying the creature comforts known to human beings in this land. You may bristle a bit and ask: “Is there anything wrong with being comfortable?”

Let me answer in this way: If you are a Christian and you are comfortably “at home” in Chicago or Toronto, in Iowa or Alberta—or any other address on planet earth, the signs are evident that you are in spiritual trouble.

The spiritual equation reads like this: the greater your contentment with your daily circumstances in this world, the greater your defection from the ranks of God’s pilgrims enroute to a city whose architect and builder is God Himself!

If we can feel that we have put down our roots in this present world, then our Lord still has much to teach us about faith and attachment to our Savior!”

-A.W. Tozer American Pastor and Author 1897-1963

REFLECTIONS

Christ’s Eternal Love For His Church

“Mark the hypocrites that come into the Christian church and that mar her purity. Observe the formalists that crowd her courts, that sit as God’s people sit, and sing as God’s people sing, but have hearts full of rottenness and villainy. Observe even the true saints—how unbelieving, how carnally-minded often, how childish, how ready to murmur against God! How few of them are fathers in Israel! When they ought to be teachers, they have need to be instructed in the first elements of the faith. What heresies come into the church, and how many unstable minds are carried away with them. What divisions there are! How one saith, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” and a third, “I am of Christ” (1Co 1:12). What envyings there are, what backbitings of those that are eminent for usefulness. What suspicions against those who are a little more zealous than their fellows! My brethren, what a lack of affection we can see in the church of Christ; how little brotherly kindness, how little sympathy. On the other hand, how much of pride is discovered…How we find some claiming to be lords in God’s heritage and taking to themselves names and titles to which they have no right, seeing that “One is our Master,” and we are not to be called “Rabbi” among men. When I look at the church even with a blinded eye, having no power to see her as God’s omniscient eye must see, yet is she covered with spots. Well may she wear her veil and say, “Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me” (Song 1:6). O church of God, how is it Jesus Christ could love thee, for even in thy church capacity and church-estate how much there is that could make Him say, “Thou art reprobate silver; thou shalt be cast into the fire” (see Jer. 6:30). Lo, how much there is that must make Him say of thee, “Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?...It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Luke 14:34; Mat 5:13).

And yet you see, dear friends, it is written that Christ loved His church, and gave Himself for it. I think I see it—a piece of ground untilled; neither hedged, nor walled, not covered with vines, nor redolent with the perfume of sweet flowers, but it is a spot in the wilderness, filled with the thorn, the thistle, and the brier; her hedges are broken down; the stones of her wall are scattered; the wild boar out of the wood wasteth her; all kinds of unclean creatures lurk among her weeds and brambles. Oh, how is it, Thou Lord of glory, that Thou couldst buy, at the price of Thy heart’s blood, such a waste piece of ground as that? What couldst Thou see in that garden that Thou shouldst determine to make it the fairest spot of all the earth, that should yield Thee the richest of all fruit?

Methinks, again, I see the church of God, not as a fair maid decorated for the marriage-day with jewels, and carrying herself right gloriously both in her person and her apparel; but I see her as a helpless child, neglected by her parents, cast out, unwashed, unclothed, left uncared for, and covered with her filth and blood. No eye pities her, no arm comes to bring her salvation. But the eye of the Lord Jesus looks upon that infant and straightway love beams forth from that eye, speaks from that lip, and acts through that hand. He says, “Live!” and the helpless infant is cared for: she is nurtured; she is decked with dainty apparel; she is fed, clothed, sustained, and made comely through the comeliness of Him Who chose her at the first. Thus it is that strong love moved the grace of God, and the church found that Christ gave Himself for it.”

-C.H. Spurgeon  British Preacher 1834-1892

REFLECTIONS

Christ’s Love For His Bride

“Now, observe what this church was by nature…The church that Christ loved was in her origin as sinful as the rest of the human race. Have the damned in hell fallen through Adam’s transgression? So had the saved in glory once. The sin that was imputed to lost spirits was equally and with as fatal consequences imputed to them; had it not been for the incoming of the covenant head, the second Adam, they had forever suffered with the rest. They, too, were alike depraved in nature. Is the heart deceitful above all things in the unregenerate? So it is in the elect before regeneration. Was the will perverse? Was the understanding darkened? Was the whole head sick and the whole heart faint in the case of those who continued in sin? It was just the same at first with those who have been by sovereign grace taken into the heart of Christ. “We were,” says the apostle, “by nature the children of wrath even as others.” Remember that between the brightest saint in heaven and the blackest sinner in hell, there is no difference except that which Christ has made. Had those glorified ones been left to continue in their natural state, they would have sinned as foully and as constantly as the worst of sinners have done. To begin with, there is no difference between the elect and the non-elect. They are all alike fallen: “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Rom 3:12).

Nay, more—this church of Christ is made up of persons who are actually defiled by their own transgressions. Are you and I members of that church? Ah, then, we are compelled to confess that in us by nature dwelt all manner of [lust], vileness, and an evil heart of unbelief, ever prone to depart from the living God and to rebel against the Most High. And what since have we done? Or rather, what have we not done?

We did not all fall into the same vices, but still when the black catalogue of sin is read, we have to weep over it, and to say, “Such were some of us.” But why we should make a part of Christ’s church is a question that never can be answered except with this one reply: “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Mat 11:26). Do the wicked sink to hell with their sins like millstones about their necks? We should have sunk there too, and as rapidly and as fatally, unless eternal love had said, “Deliver him from going down into the pit, for I have found a ransom.” Look at Christ’s church as you see her visibly in the world, and I ask you, brethren, though she has much about her that is admirable, whether there is not much that might cause her Lord to cast her away. Even in her regenerate estate, she speaks truly when she says she is “black as the tents of Kedar” (Song 1:5).”

-C.H. Spurgeon  British Minister  1834-1892

REFLECTIONS

Made Rich By Faith

"For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever"   (Psalm 9:18).

“Poverty is a hard heritage; but those who trust in the LORD are made rich by faith. They know that they are not forgotten of God, and though it may seem that they are overlooked in His providential distribution of good things, they look for a time when all this shall be righted. Lazarus will not always lie among the dogs at the rich man's gate, but he will have his recompense in Abraham's bosom. Even now the LORD remembers His poor but precious sons, "I am poor and needy; yet the LORD thinketh upon me," said one of old, and it is even so. The godly poor have great expectations. They expect the LORD to provide them all things necessary for this life and godliness; they expect to see things working for their good; they expect to have all the closer fellowship with their LORD, who had not where to lay His head; they expect His second advent and to share its glory. This expectation cannot perish, for it is laid up in Christ Jesus, who liveth forever, and because He lives, it shall live also. The poor saint singeth many a song which the rich sinner cannot understand. Wherefore, let us, when we have short commons below, think of the royal table above.”

-C.H. Spurgeon  British Prince of Preachers  1834-1892