The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "A Simple Sermon for Seeking Souls," a sermon preached Sunday morning, 12 July 1857, at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
he only feeling I ever want to have is just this,—I want to feel that I am a sinner and that Christ is my Saviour. You may keep your visions, and ecstasies and raptures, and dancings to yourselves; the only feeling that I desire to have is deep repentance and humble faith; and if, poor sinner, you have got that, you are saved.Why, some of you believe that before you can be saved there must be a kind of electric-shock, some very wonderful thing that is to go all through you from head to foot. Now hear this, "The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart. If thou dost with thy heart believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and with thy mouth dost confess, thou shalt be saved."
What do ye want with all this nonsense of dreams and supernatural thoughts? All that is wanted is, that as a guilty sinner I should come and cast myself on Christ. That done, the soul is safe, and all the visions in the universe could not make it safer.
20 comments:
Quite a Biblical contrast to Charles Finney's experience of "waves and waves of liquid love".
That done, the soul is safe, and all the visions in the universe could not make it safer.
Beautiful.
"...that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost." (1 Tim 1:15)
The only "sign and wonder" I want to hear about.
Pastor Charles is an exceptional preacher of the Gospel. Thanks Phil.
The Gospel is what makes our hearts feel joy, know peace, and helps our minds to have rest in the Holy Spirit.
I love the Holy Lamb of God."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T9jh0L0wz5M
"But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.'"
-Luke 16:31
Seems strange that such sola scriptura people can ignore a bible full of such events. I know, you like to say it went away. What a farce, if it it went away then God is a lie because for thousands of years He spoke to people in such ways. I get the feeling your flavor of christianity concocted a system such as you have because you had to justify the departure or lack of such events happening. The simple fact is if it did happen you guys would shut the person down and of course God also. Yet another example of fractured christianity, just because the off the wall pentecostals have laid claim to such things doesn't mean you have to pretend God doesn't do such things when clearly He does.
I have never been to a reformed church that wasnt cold. I understand your fear but if God is real then such things are real. Believe it or not you can be reformed and yet believe in a active God who does more than just exist in a 2000 year old book.
The only thing left for you guys to do is start hanging icons in your churches of spugeon, edwards and the rest of those supposed great men. You already venerate the heck out of them, might as well take the last step.
Never, ever fails. Exalt the sufficiency of Christ, the Word, and the Gospel, and some charismatic squawks. That is so, so telling.
"I have never been to a reformed church that wasnt cold."
Wish you could visit mine,-- Bishop Cummins Reformed Episcopol in Baltimore,-- the Word is preached with power and love, and my heart is filled with encouragement from a pastor-teacher who is unashamed of the truth and his sermons have depth and cause growth and fruit, and is humble and loves Christ.
You must admit there are a lot of emotional churches out there without deep proclamations of God's Word, and are but pep-talks with Bible verses thrown in.
It is sad. And it will always be a portion of the Church, as it was in CH Spurgeon's day, until our Sovereign Lord returns and seperates the sheep and the goats.
The Word of God is a fire in our bones, isn't it. Jeremiah knew that fire, and we can know it even better than he did, since we have Paul's epistles, and the other epistles in the NT.
God's Word is awesome and powerful.
" Believe it or not you can be reformed and yet believe in a active God who does more than just exist in a 2000 year old book.
It never fails with this sort of charismatic attitude... look how the Holy Word of God is downplayed. Really sad.
"Believe it or not you can be reformed and yet believe in a active God who does more than just exist in a 2000 year old book."
Aside from the obvious erroneous implication that the 2,000 year old book is dead and lifeless, he's absolutely right that you can be reformed and believe in a God that is active. In fact, I'd say that you can't be reformed unless you believe in an active God, since reformeds believe that only an active God gives us the ability to repent and believe.
I think it might be the pentecostals who believe that they themselves are the ones who can conjure up their own faith if they just try hard enough.
DJP said...
"Never, ever fails. Exalt the sufficiency of Christ, the Word, and the Gospel, and some charismatic squawks. That is so, so telling."
DJP I'm all for exalting the sufficiency of Christ, the word of God the Gospel as most important in my life. However I'm wondering why certain things just get completely thrown out as if God no longer ever again uses dreams, or visions?? I'm NOT charasmatic and was raised in a Presbyterian Church
and I agree that we should NOT seek dreams, visions, ecstasy moments etc. because most importantly we would WANT to seek pleasing Christ and exalting his word FIRST-
However, my frustration is this:: sometimes they DO occur when you least expect them to...God can still grant those things if he wants and he does when he sees fit to,, So I wouldn't rule out ALL dreams, visions as ceased. I doubt it's likely when majority of people are seeking them for their own selfish desires and thus they're not from God.
for example my mother was a very godly woman. She never sought after such things as foolish visions or dreams etc. But she sought after the Lord Jesus and the word of God as most important and her children (me and my brothers) to know the Lord Jesus.
when we lived in Panama Canal Zone when I was still very young, she had a dream 2 times in the same week that her mother -my grandmother was going to die... She consulted her pastor and he said it could be from the Lord he just didn't know... At the beginning of the next week she received a fone call from the United States that My grandmother had a stroke... a few days later she died...
Was this from the Lord? I truly believe so. I believe God was preparing her. She was NOT seeking after dreams at all- they just happened to be what God chose to grant her..
If the dream you have is one of Christ, the Holy and only Son of God, lifted up on the cross to die in our place to atone for the sins of you and me, the helpless sinners
who cannot save ourselves, then maybe that's a good dream to have.
But other than that, how can you trust dreams and visions to be from God? You can't. That's why we have Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Ellen G. White, and lots of others.
If Scripture is sufficient, why bother with dreams, visions and liver shivers?
If you say that dreams and visions have to be checked against Scripture before accepting them as from God, then why not just go straight to Scripture in the first place?
It seems to me that those who seek after an "experience" of God's working or presence -- including dreams and visions -- are ignoring St. Paul's assertion that Christians "walk by faith, and not by sight."
"Was this from the Lord? I truly believe so. I believe God was preparing her. She was NOT seeking after dreams at all- they just happened to be what God chose to grant her.."
And maybe it was not the Lord.
I heard Josh Hamilton say, "God told me I was going to hit a HR, as I was on deck to hit. And I hit a HR! We did lose the game however. But God wanted me to know I was going to hit a HR."
I don't think this was God.
Josh hit 4 Homers against my Orioles here in one game this year!
Dreams are dreams.
I guess it could be God who gave her that dream, but that pales into insignificance to His truth, which is the Word from His heart to us His beloved!
Just thought I'd chime in on this difficult subject. I have been in a Pentecostal churh and it was horrible in many ways, not all ways of course. But in the ways CHS says here is very damaging to souls.
We need to be bold and speak out about these things as the TeamPyro Amigos have done. Amen.
How does 'expectancy' play into this?
I don't prescribe to theories from the likes of Priscilla Shirer, but she does point out that Habakkuk was expectant and therefore more likely to have his prayers answered.
What is your response to this?
Those of her ilk would seem to say, OF COURSE God isn't speaking to YOU in visions and dreams. He only speaks to ME because i EXPECT him to. Here is her chapter which is a pillar of exegesis (wink) http://www.cornerstonechristiansupply.com/firstchapter.asp?mode=view&index=611
donsands said-"I guess it could be God who gave her that dream, but that pales into insignificance to His truth, which is the Word from His heart to us His beloved!"
Yes donsands. We don't know for sure.But I would more than likely believe it was from God since she was not seeking after dreams.
anyways, I'm not here to defend dreams and visions because when God saved me and washed all my sins away,, there's NOTHING--no dreams, no visions, no miracle that compares to that moment I was born again and became a new creation in Christ Jesus and there's NOTHING that compares to God's word coming alive and the Holy Spirit within the Spirit of Truth leaping within you the JOY of how real God is that you are truly HIS Child--I believe this is somewhat what Spurgeon was referring to the seeking of the most beautiful treasure of all--Jesus..This is the greatest miracle of ever and nothing compares to God saving us. A genuine believer will be seeking to please Christ and nothing else because everything pales to the superlative beauty of Jesus....
People who follow visions, dreams etc--well that is very telling in that they evidently I believe have never met Jesus Christ. No one in their right mind who has received the most precious gift of God would care about visions, dreams etc since they like you said "pale" in comparison
"This is the greatest miracle of ever and nothing compares to God saving us."-Linda
Amen Linda.
And to have His Word; His truth with us is beyond precious.
His blood is more precious than all the riches in the universe.
And His Word in our midst, and hearts, is precious as well.
Thanks for sharing that last post encouraging words.
I love this!
We have a friend who is an author and thinker in the field of apologetics---a very godly man and a great scholar who's been used by God in many ways. His wife is African, and so he has Christian friends in Africa. Some years ago, he went through a brief, intense period where he felt quite strongly that he was under attack from the enemy. In the span of a few days, he was tempted to take his own life and to divorce his wife, and on the final day he was walking past an enormous, healthy tree that crashed for no reason on the spot where he had been standing a second before.
This led him to make contact with one of his African friends, and BEFORE he had shared any of what had occurred, his friend said, "I've been praying for you. God has revealed to me that you are under attack..." and proceeded to describe with perfect accuracy all the things he had just experienced. Then he explained that this had happened because the apologist was going to write two books, of which the second would be longer than the first. Satan was trying to get him to leave his wife, and if that failed, to kill himself, and if that failed, he would try to kill the man himself.
The apologist was astounded, except he said the part about the books couldn't be true since his current project was a massive work that was longer than anything he would ever write again. However, he actually expanded a footnote in that project into a full work in itself, which was published before the magnum opus. So even that part was accurate.
I don't believe that we can speak in tongues, and I'm deeply concerned about the heavy dependence on emotion in certain charismatic churches. I also believe we shouldn't assume all spiritual experiences or visions to be of God (Mark Driscoll, anyone?) Nevertheless, I think this story shows quite clearly that God can still reveal His purposes in this manner, and I think He may do so more frequently in countries like Africa.
"I think this story shows quite clearly that God can still reveal His purposes in this manner"-Yankee
I'm not convinced. But it could be, I suppose.
There was a man named John, who became very famous, and he thought he was even more famous than Jesus. He went on in his life to become incredibly rich and quite sure that there was no heaven, but above us only sky.
John was returning to his New York Pent-House one night after a recording, and he had 7 bullet holes shot through his body; he was dead.
Now that makes me think, and should make others think as well about how life can be quickly over. And we shouldn't think he was a worse sinner than us, should we. (Luke 13:1-5)
"His blood is more precious than all the riches in the universe."-donsands
Amen donsands and I have joy fill my heart as I read your TRUE statement!!
Thanks
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