Tag Archives: unbeliever

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon – Who can tell?

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CharlesSpurgeon

“Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” Jonah 3:9

Suggested Further Reading: Psalm 39

I remember many who have passed from the land of the living and have gone to another world—and some how suddenly, how rapidly! I have been startled at it often myself. I have seen some here on the Sabbath, and by the Tuesday or by the Thursday the message has come, “On what day can you bury such and such a one?” “Bury her!” “Yes, sir, bury her, she is gone;” and I have said, “How strange it seems that she should be dead who so lately was living in our midst!” Forty days is a long lease compared with that which you have any reason to conclude that God has bestowed on you. But what if it were forty years, how short a time even then. If you will but look with the eye of wisdom, how rapidly our years revolve. Are you not startled even now to see the withered leaf in your path? It was but yesterday that the fresh green buds were seen. It seems but a month ago since first we saw the wheat starting up from the ground, and now the harvest is over and gone and many of the birds have disappeared and the tints of autumn are succeeding the verdure of summer. Years seem but months now and months but days, and days pass so rapidly that they flit like shadows before us. O! men and women, if we could but measure life it is but a span, and in a time how short, how brief, every one of us must appear before his God. The shortness of time should help to arouse us.

For meditation: Time seems to speed up the older we get! In contrast the unbeliever will discover in eternity that time has ground to a terrible halt.

Sermon no. 275

18 September (1859)

 

John MacArthur

John MacArthur – Loving Christ

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John MacArthur

“This precious value, then, is for you who believe” (1 Pet. 2:7).

First Peter 2:7 speaks of the believer’s affection for Christ as contrasted to an unbeliever’s rejection of Him. The first part of that verse could be translated, “To you who believe, He is precious.” “Precious” means “valuable,” “costly,” “without equal,” or “irreplaceable.” Christ is all that, but only believers recognize His supreme value and regard Him with affection.

Affection for Christ is the bottom-line characteristic of true believers. Believing in Him and loving Him are inseparable. In John 16:27 Jesus says, “The Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed.” In Matthew 10:37 He says, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Believers have a compelling and surpassing love for Christ.

To His antagonists Jesus declared, “If God were your Father, you would love Me” (John 8:42). Anyone who truly loves God will love Christ. Those antagonists claimed to be children of God, but their deception was revealed when they tried to kill Jesus for preaching God’s truth. They were in fact children of the devil (v. 44).

In John 14 Jesus adds, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. . . . He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him. . . . If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words” (vv. 15, 21, 23- 24).

Many people are confused about what it means to be a Christian. But you have the privilege of clarifying the issue as you esteem Christ highly, love Him deeply, and demonstrate your love by obeying His Word. May God bless you richly as you pursue that goal today.

Suggestions for Prayer:

Ask God to give you opportunities to demonstrate Christ’s love in specific ways to those around you.

For Further Study:

Read 1 John 4:7þ5:3.

How did John characterize God?

What affect should your love for God have on your relationships with others?

How did John define love?

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon – Christ lifted up

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CharlesSpurgeon

“And I, if I be lifted upfrom the earth, will draw all men unto me.” John 12:32

Suggested Further Reading: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

Christ preached his own truth, and the common people heard him gladly, and the multitude flocked to listen to him. My good ministering brother, have you got an empty church? Do you want to fill it? I will give you a good recipe, and if you will follow it, you will, in all probability, have your chapel full to the doors. Burn all your manuscripts, that is number one. Give up your notes, that is number two. Read your Bible and preach it as you find it in the simplicity of its language. And give up all your latinized English. Begin to tell the people what you have felt in your own heart, and beseech the Holy Spirit to make your heart as hot as a furnace for zeal. Then go out and talk to the people. Speak to them like their brother. Be a man amongst men. Tell them what you have felt and what you know, and tell them heartily with a good, bold face; and, my dear friend, I do not care who you are, you will get a congregation. But if you say, “Now, to get a congregation, I must buy an organ.” That will not serve you a bit. “But we must have a good choir.” I would not care to have a congregation that comes through a good choir. “No,” says another, “but really I must alter my style of preaching a little.” My dear friend, it is not the style of preaching, it is the style of feeling. People sometimes begin to mimic other preachers, because they are successful. Why, the worst preachers are those who mimic others, whom they look upon as standards. Preach naturally. Preach out of your hearts just what you feel to be true, and the old soul-stirring words of the gospel will soon draw a congregation.

For meditation: Are we brave enough to do it? We ought not to expect the world to be attracted to Christ when we obscure him by our reliance on gimmicks and by being second-rate mimics of things they can find done better elsewhere. But the unbeliever cannot find the true Gospel and a crucified Christ anywhere else!

Sermon no. 139

5 July (1857)