Posted by Gary on December 19, 2009
Take a moment and read these truthful, helpful thoughts from Charles Spurgeon on the Incarnation of Christ and what it can mean for you:
This joy began with the shepherds, for the angel said to them, “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” Reader, shall the joy begin with you to-day? It avails you little that Christ is born, or that Christ died, unless unto you a Child is born, and for you Jesus bled. A personal interest in the birth, life, and death of Christ is the main point for each one of us…
…Jesus is the Friend of the poor, the sinful, and the unworthy. You, poor ones, need not fear to come unto Him; for He was born in a stable, and cradled in a manger. You have not worse accommodation than He had; you are not poorer than He was. Come and welcome to the poor man’s Prince, to the peasant’s Savior. Stay not back through fear of your unfitness; the shepherds came to Him in all their dishabille (casual dress). I read not that they tarried to put on their best garments; but, in the clothes in which they wrapped themselves that cold midnight, they hastened, just as they were, to the young Child’s presence. God looks not at garments, but at hearts; and accepts men when they come to Him with willing spirits, whether they be rich or poor…
…No aristocratic Christ have I to commend to you, but the Savior of the people, the Friend of publicans and sinners. Jesus is the true “poor man’s Friend;” He is “a Witness to the people, a Leader and Commander to the people.” Oh, that each one of us might truly say, “Unto me is Jesus born”! If I truly believe in Him, Christ is born unto me, and I may be as sure of it as if an angel announced it personally to me, since the Scripture assures me that, if I believe in Jesus, He is mine, and I am His, and through union with Him I become a partaker in His everlasting life, and in all that He has.
Charles Spurgeon from “The Incarnation: The Foundation of the Christian Faith”
It is one thing to declare that we believe that Christ is the Son of God and that He was born of a virgin. But do you believe that He died and rose again as the payment for sins? Even this is not enough…do you believe that He was born for you? That He died for you? That He rose again for the forgiveness of your sins? Christ is not yours until He becomes yours by an act of personal faith and reception of Him into your life. Is Christ yours?
Posted by Gary on July 14, 2009
My brother recently purchased me a copy of Charles Spurgeon’s “The Soul Winner” which is available online here. I’m just into it but already I see it is a gem and so helpful. Spurgeon below challenges us to preach the whole counsel of God to the unsaved. How right he is and apparently faced in his day the thinking that prevails in ours which is, hold back certain truths from the unconverted because hearing them will drive them away.
Listen to Spurgeon’s advice keeping in mind that God used him to reach untold thousands of souls for Christ. Are we wiser than God?
And, do not believe, dear friends, that when you go into revival meetings, or special evangelistic services, you are to leave out the doctrines of the gospel; for you ought then to proclaim the doctrines of grace rather more than less. Teach gospel doctrines clearly, affectionately, simply, and plainly, and especially those truths which have a present and practical bearing upon man’s condition and God’s grace. Some enthusiasts would seem to have imbibed the notion that, as soon as a minister addresses the unconverted, he should deliberately contradict his usual doctrinal discourses, because it is supposed that there will be no conversions if he preaches the whole counsel of God.
It just comes to this, brethren, it is supposed that we are to conceal truth, and utter a half-falsehood, in order to save souls. We are to speak the truth to God’s people because they will not hear anything else; but we are to wheedle sinners into faith by exaggerating one part of truth, and hiding the rest until a more convenient season. This is a strange theory, and yet many endorse it. According to them, we may preach the redemption of a chosen number to God’s people, but universal redemption must be our doctrine when we speak with the outside world; we are to tell believers that salvation is all of grace, but sinners are to be spoken with as if they were to save themselves; we are to inform Christians that God the Holy Spirit alone can convert, but when we talk with the unsaved, the Holy Spirit is scarcely to be named. We have not so learned Christ. Thus others have done; let them be our beacons, and not our examples. He who sent us to win souls neither permits us to invent false-hoods, nor to suppress truth. His work can be done without such suspicious methods.
Perhaps some of you will reply, "But, still, God has blessed half-statements and wild assertions." Be not quite so sure. I venture to assert that God does not bless falsehood; He may bless the truth which is mixed up with error; but much more of blessing would have come if the preaching had been more in accordance with His own Word. I cannot admit that the Lord blesses evangelistic Jesuitism, and the suppression of truth is not too harshly named when I so describe it.
The withholding of the doctrine of the total depravity of man has wrought serious mischief to many who have listened to a certain kind of preaching. These people do not get a true healing because they do not know the disease under which they are suffering; they are never truly clothed because nothing is done towards stripping them. In many ministries, there is not enough of probing the heart and arousing the conscience by the revelation of man’s alienation from God, and by the declaration of the selfishness and the wickedness of such a state.
Men need to be told that, except divine grace shall bring them out of their enmity to God, they must eternally perish; and they must be reminded of the sovereignty of God, that He is not obliged to bring them out of this state, that He would be right and just if He left them in such a condition, that they have no merit to plead before Him, and no claims upon Him, but that if they are to be saved, it must be by grace, and by grace alone.
The preacher’s work is to throw sinners down in utter helplessness, that they may be compelled to look up to Him who alone can help them.
Posted by Gary on February 26, 2009
I regularly read from a book of quotations from Charles Spurgeon. I come back to this book over and over and am always challenged, encouraged and reminded of the hope of my calling. Here are few gems.
“My mother said to me once, after she had long prayed for me and had come to the conviction that I was hopeless, ‘My son, if at the last great day you are condemned, remember that your mother will say “Amen” to your condemnation.’ That stung me to the quick.”
“It is shocking to reflect that a change in the weather has more effect on some men’s lives than the dread alternative of heaven or hell.”
“When men talk of a little hell, it is because they think they have only a little sin, and they believe in a little Savior. But when you get a great sense of sin, you want a great Savior, and feel that if you don’t have Him, you will fall into a great destruction, and suffer a great punishment at the hands of the great God.”
