My Victorian Year #44

From Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening

• Christ is everlasting! Of Him we may sing with David, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” Rejoice, believer, in Jesus Christ—the same yesterday, today, and forever!
• Jesus always was. The Babe born in Bethlehem, was the Word, which was in the beginning, by whom all things were made.
• The title by which Christ revealed Himself to John in Patmos was, “Him who is, and who was, and who is to come.”
• As our Lord always was, so also He is forevermore. Jesus is not dead; “He ever lives to make intercession for us.”
• God’s children run home when the storm comes on! It is the heaven-born instinct of a gracious soul—to seek shelter from all troubles beneath the wings of Jehovah.
• A hypocrite, when afflicted by God, resents the infliction, and, like a slave, would run from the Master who has scourged him!
• But not so the true heir of heaven—he kisses the hand which smote him, and seeks shelter from the rod in the bosom of the God who frowned upon him!
• Nothing teaches us so much the preciousness of the Creator, as when we learn the emptiness of all other things.
• The doctrine of a risen Savior is exceedingly precious. The resurrection is the corner-stone of the entire building of Christianity.
• To know a crucified Savior as having crucified all my sins, is a high degree of knowledge; but to know a risen Savior as having justified me, and to realize that He has bestowed upon me new life, having given me to be a new creature through His own newness of life, this is a noble style of experience—short of it, none ought to rest satisfied. 
• We have fellowship with Christ in His love. What He loves—we love. He loves the saints—so do we. He loves sinners—so do we.
• We have fellowship with Him in His desires. He desires the glory of God—we also labor for the same. He desires that the saints may be with Him where He is—we desire to be with Him there too.
• He desires to drive out sin—behold we fight under His banner. He desires that His Father’s name may be loved and adored by all His creatures—we pray daily, “Let Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven.”
• We have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings.
• We have also fellowship with Christ in His joys. We are happy in His happiness, we rejoice in His exaltation. Have you ever tasted that joy, believer?
• Each believer should be thirsting for God, for the living God—and longing to climb the hill of the Lord, and see Him face to face.
• Cast away your sloth, your lethargy, your coldness, or whatever interferes with your chaste and pure love to Christ, your soul’s Husband.
• Make Him the source, the center, and the circumference of all your soul’s range of delight.
• It is by little procrastinations—that men ruin their souls.

From J.C. Ryle's Holiness, chapter three "Fight"

• The warfare I speak of, is the spiritual warfare. It is the fight which everyone who would be saved, must fight about his soul.
• it is as real and true as any war the world has ever seen. It has its hand-to-hand conflicts — and its wounds. It has its watchings — and fatigues.
• It has its sieges — and assaults. It has its victories — and its defeats. Above all, it has consequences which are solemn, tremendous and most peculiar.
• He who would understand the nature of true holiness — must know that the Christian is “a man of war.” If we would be holy — we must fight!
• True Christianity is a fight! Let us mind that word “true.” There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world, which is not true, genuine Christianity.
• The true Christian is called to be a soldier, and must behave as such from the day of his conversion to the day of his death.
• He is not meant to live a life of pious ease, indolence and security. He must never imagine for a moment, that he can sleep and doze along the way to Heaven, like one traveling in an easy carriage.
• If the Bible is the rule of his faith and practice, he will find his course laid down very plainly in this matter. He must “fight.”
• The principal fight of the Christian is with . . . the world, the flesh and the devil.
• Even after conversion, he carries within him a nature prone to evil and a heart weak and unstable as water. 
• There is need of a daily struggle and a daily wrestling in prayer.
• He must fight the WORLD. The subtle influence of that mighty enemy must be daily resisted, and without a daily battle can never be overcome.
• He must fight the DEVIL. That old enemy of mankind is not dead.
• He who pretends to condemn “fighting” and teaches that we ought to sit still and “yield ourselves to God,” appears to me to misunderstand his Bible, and to make a great mistake!
• The believer is a soldier. There is no holiness, without a warfare. Saved souls will always be found to have fought a fight.
• To be at peace with the world, the flesh and the devil — is to be at enmity with God and in the broad way that leads to destruction!
• The worst chains are those which are neither felt nor seen by the prisoner! (Luke 11:21; 2 Timothy 2:26)
• All true saints are soldiers. Anything is better than apathy, stagnation, deadness and indifference!
• The child of God has two great marks about him, and of these two, we have one. He may be known by his inward warfare — as well as by his inward peace.
• True Christianity is the fight of FAITH. Unlike the battles of the world, true Christianity
• A general faith in the truth of God’s written Word, is the primary foundation of the Christian soldier’s character. He . . . is what he is, does what he does, thinks as he thinks, acts as he acts, hopes as he hopes, behaves as he behaves — for one simple reason — he believes certain propositions revealed and laid down in Holy Scripture.
• No man will ever be anything or do anything in religion — unless he sincerely believes something.
• No one ever fights earnestly against the world, the flesh and the devil — unless he has engraved on his heart, certain great principles which he believes.
• There is no such thing as right living — without faith and believing.
• A special faith in our Lord Jesus Christ’s person, work and office — is the life, heart and mainspring of the Christian soldier’s character.
• He sees by faith an unseen Savior, who . . . loved him, gave Himself for him, paid his debts for him, bore his sins, carried his transgressions, rose again for him, and appears in Heaven for him as his Advocate at the right hand of God.
• He sees . . . his own many sins, his own weak heart, a tempting world, a busy devil — and if he looked only at them, he might well despair.
• But he sees also a mighty Savior, an interceding Savior, a sympathizing Savior — His blood, His righteousness, His everlasting priesthood — and he believes that all this is his own.
• He sees Jesus — and casts his whole weight on Him. Seeing Him, he cheerfully fights on, with a full confidence that he will prove more than conqueror through Him that loved him (Romans 8:37).
• You must believe before you fight. If men do nothing in religion, it is because they do not believe. Faith is the first step towards Heaven.
• It is the citadel of the Christian character, on which the safety of the whole fortress depends. It is the point which Satan loves to assail.
• True Christianity is a GOOD fight. “Good” is a curious word to apply to any warfare. All worldly war is more or less evil.
• The Christian’s fight is good, because fought under the best of GENERALS. The Leader and Commander of all believers is our divine Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ — a Savior of . . . perfect wisdom, infinite love and almighty power! The Captain of our salvation never fails to lead His soldiers to victory.
• The souls whom He has purchased and redeemed with His own blood, are far too precious to be wasted and thrown away. Surely this is good!
• The Christian’s fight is good, because fought with the best of HELPS. As weak as each believer is in himself, the Holy Spirit dwells in him.
• Chosen by God the Father, washed in the blood of the Son, renewed by the Spirit — he does not go to warfare at his own charges, and is never alone.
• God the Holy Spirit daily teaches, leads, guides and directs him. God the Father guards him by His almighty power. God the Son intercedes for him every moment, like Moses on the mount, while he is fighting in the valley below. A threefold cord like this, can never be broken!
• The Christian fight is a good fight, because fought with the best of PROMISES. To every believer belong exceeding great and precious promises, all “yes” and “amen” in Christ; promises sure to be fulfilled because made by One who cannot lie and who has power as well as will to keep His word.
• The Christian’s fight is a good fight, because fought with the best of OUTCOMES and results. 
• The Christian’s fight is good, because it does good to the SOUL of him that fights it.
• The Christian’s fight is a good fight, because it does good to the WORLD. All other wars have a devastating, ravaging and injurious effect.
• Finally, the Christian’s fight is good, because it ends in a glorious REWARD for all who fight it. Who can tell the wages that Christ will pay to all His faithful people?
• We see the struggle — but not the end; we see the battle — but not the reward; we see the cross — but not the crown.

chapter four, "The cost!"

• The COST of being a true Christian Let there be no mistake about my meaning. I am not examining what it costs to save a Christian’s soul. I know well that it costs nothing less than the blood of the Son of God to provide an atonement, and to redeem man from Hell. The price paid for our redemption was nothing less than the death of Jesus Christ on Calvary.
• It is what a man must be ready to give up, if he wishes to be saved. It is the amount of sacrifice a man must submit to, if he intends to serve Christ. It is in this sense, that I raise the question: “What does it cost?”
• I grant freely that it costs little to be a mere outward Christian. A man has only got to attend a place of worship twice on Sunday, and to be tolerably moral during the week, and he has gone as far as thousands around him ever go in religion.
• But it does cost something to be a real Christian, according to the standard of the Bible. There are . . . enemies to be overcome, battles to be fought, sacrifices to be made, an Egypt to be forsaken, a wilderness to be passed through, a cross to be carried, a race to be run.
• Conversion is not putting a man in a soft armchair, and taking him pleasantly to Heaven. It is the beginning of a mighty conflict, in which it costs much to win the victory. Hence arises the unspeakable importance of “counting the cost.”
• True Christianity will cost one his SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. He must cast away all pride and high thoughts and conceit of his own goodness. He must be content to go to Heaven as a poor sinner saved only by free grace, and owing all to the merit and righteousness of another.
• He must be willing to give up all trust in his own morality, respectability, praying, Bible reading, church-going, and sacrament receiving — and to trust in nothing but Jesus Christ.
• True Christianity will cost a man his SINS. He must be willing to give up every habit and practice which is wrong in God’s sight. He must set his face against it, quarrel with it, break off from it, fight with it, crucify it and labor to keep it under control, whatever the world around him may say or think. 
• Our sins are often as dear to us as our children! We love them, hug them, cleave to them and delight in them!
• He and sin must quarrel — if he and God are to be friends. Christ is willing to receive any sinners. But He will not receive them if they will stick to their sins.
• Also, Christianity will cost a man his love of EASE. He must take pains and trouble, if he means to run a successful race toward Heaven.
• He must be careful over his time, his tongue, his temper, his thoughts, his imagination, his motives, his conduct in every relation of life. He must be diligent about his prayers, his Bible reading, and his use of Sundays, with all their means of grace.
• Lastly, true Christianity will cost a man the favor of the WORLD. He must be content to be thought poorly of by man — if he pleases God.
• Surely a Christian should be willing to give up anything which stands between him and Heaven. A religion which costs nothing — is worth nothing!
• A cheap, easy Christianity, without a cross — will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown!
• The IMPORTANCE of counting the cost. 
• It shows us that we ought not to hurry men into professing discipleship, without warning them plainly to count the cost.
• If we desire to do good, let us never be ashamed of walking in the steps of our Lord Jesus Christ. Press others to consider their ways.
• Compel them with holy violence to come in, to lay down their arms and to yield themselves to God. Offer them salvation, ready, free, full, immediate salvation.
• Press Christ and all His benefits on their acceptance. But in all your work tell the truth, and the whole truth.
• Do not present only one side of Christianity. Do not keep back the cross of self-denial that must be carried, when you speak of the cross on which Christ died for our redemption.
• “What does your Christianity cost you?” Very likely it costs you nothing.
• Very probably it neither costs you trouble, nor time, nor thought, nor care, nor pains, nor reading, nor praying, nor self-denial, nor conflict, nor working, nor labor of any kind. Now mark carefully what I say.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible