REFLECTIONS

All Honor To God Only

“You crown the year with Your goodness.” Psalm 65:11.

(Spurgeon remembers the Lord’s goodness to the church.)

"I. And so our first head is DIVINE GOODNESS ADORED.  “You crown the year with Your goodness.”
 
Whatever of acceptable service we have rendered and whatever of real success we have achieved has come from the Lord of hosts who has worked all our works in us. Whatever holy results may have followed from earnest efforts and whatever honor has redounded unto God from them is the Lord’s doings and it is marvelous in our eyes. “Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto Your name be glory for Your mercy and for Your truth’s sake.” Your goodness, not ours, has crowned the work. Your goodness, indeed, it is which makes every good work good and gives to every good its crown. From its first conception, even to its ultimate conclusion, all virtue is of You. From blade to full corn, all the harvest is of You, O Lord, and to You let it be ascribed. Let us, therefore, praise the Lord with all our hearts for 25 years of prayer and effort, of planning and working, of believing and rejoicing which He has crowned with His goodness.
 
We will try to follow the run of the psalm and our first note shall be this--praise must be for God alone. “Praise waits for You, O God, in Zion.” Not for men, nor for priests, nor for pastors, presbyters, bishops, ministers, or whatsoever you choose to call them—“Praise waits for You, O God, in Zion.” Whosoever shall have done well in the midst of the church, let him have the love of his brethren, but let all the praise be unto You, O Most High. Far be it for the axe to exalt itself and forget him that fells therewith or for the sword to deprive the conqueror of his glory. Praise is silent while the best of men are passing by—it lays its finger on its lips till the Lord approaches and then bursts forth in gladsome song because He appears.
 
Whatever else you do, my brethren, be sure that your soul magnifies the Lord and abhors the very idea of self-glorification. If the Lord has blessed you, shake off, as Paul shook off the viper from his hand, any idea of ascribing praise to yourself. We are mere vanity and to us belong shame and confusion of face—these are, so to speak, our belongings—the only dowry our fathers have left to us. What are we that the Lord should bless us? Did you bring a soul to Christ the other day? Bless the Holy Spirit who helped you by His power to do so divine a deed. Did you bear bold testimony for the truth but yesterday? Bless Him who is the faithful and true witness, that at His feet you learned how to be true—and by His Spirit were enabled to be brave. “Not unto us! Not unto us!” With vehemence we deprecate the idea of honoring ourselves. Again and again we put away the usurper’s crown which Satan proffers us. How can we endure the base proposal? Shall we rob God of His glory? Even He from whom we derive our very existence? Perish, O pride, abhorred of God and man. O Lord, keep me from the approach of that shameful evil. Brethren, if you have any esteem among men, cast your crown at Jehovah’s feet and there let it be. All honor be to God only.”
 
-Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

REFLECTIONS

Joy at Christ’s Birth

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” Luke 2:10, 11, 12. (NKJV)

“First, then, THE JOY, which is mentioned in our text: from where comes it, and what is it? We have already said it is a “great joy”—“good tidings of great joy.” Earth’s joy is small, her mirth is trivial, but heaven has sent us immeasurable joy, fit for immortal minds. Inasmuch as no note of time is appended, and no intimation is given that the message will ever be reversed, we may say that it is a lasting joy; a joy which will ring all down the ages, the echoes of which shall be heard until the trumpet brings the resurrection. Yes, and onward forever and forever, for when God sent forth the angel in his brightness to say, “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people,” He did as much as say, “From this time forth it shall be joy to the sons of men. There shall be peace to the human race and goodwill towards men forever and forever, as long as there is glory to God in the highest.” O blessed thought! The Star of Bethlehem shall never set! Jesus, the fairest among ten thousand, the loveliest among the beautiful, is a joy forever!

Since this joy is expressly associated with the glory of God, by the words, “Glory to God in the highest,” we may be quite clear that it is a pure and holy joy. No other would an angel have proclaimed, and indeed, no other joy is joy. The wine pressed from the grapes of Sodom may sparkle and foam, but it is bitterness in the end, and the dregs thereof are death. Only that which comes from the clusters of Eschol is the true wine of the kingdom, making glad the heart of God and man. Holy joy is the joy of heaven, and that you can be sure, is the very cream of joy; the joy of sin is a fire-fountain, having its source in the burning soil of hell, maddening and consuming those who drink its firewater. Of such delights we desire not to drink. It would be worse than damned to be happy in sin, since it is the beginning of divine grace to be wretched in sin, and the consummation of grace to be wholly escaped from sin, and to shudder even at the thought of it. It is hell to live in sin and misery; it is a lower deep still when men could fashion a joy in sin. God save us from unholy peace and from unholy joy! The joy announced by the angel of the Nativity is as pure as it is lasting, as holy as it is great; let us, then, always believe concerning the Christian religion that it has its joy within itself, and holds its feasts within its own pure precincts—a feast whose food all grows on holy ground.”

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

REFLECTIONS

“Deliverance from Dust and Chaff” 

"For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." Amos 9:9

“The sifting process is going on still. Wherever we go, we are still being winnowed and sifted. In all countries God's people are being tried "like as corn is sifted in a sieve." Sometimes the devil holds the sieve and tosses us up and down at a great rate, with the earnest desire to get rid of us forever.

Unbelief is not slow to agitate our heart and mind with its restless fears. The world lends a willing hand at the same process and shakes us to the right and to the left with great vigor. Worst of all, the church, so largely apostate as it is, comes in to give a more furious force to the sifting process. Well, well! Let it go on. Thus is the chaff severed from the wheat. Thus is the wheat delivered from dust and chaff.

And how great is the mercy which comes to us in the text, "Yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth"! All shall be preserved that is good, true, gracious. Not one of the least of believers lose anything worth calling a loss. We shall be so kept in the sifting that it shall be a real gain to us through Christ Jesus.”

-C.H. Spurgeon  British Prince of Preachers  1834-1892  From “The Check Book of Faith"