Those ancient saints

 Called to be saints. Romans 1:7

"WE are very apt to regard the apostolic saints as if they were "saints" in a more especial manner than the other children of God. All are "saints" whom God has called by His grace, and sanctified by His Spirit; but we are apt to look upon the apostles as extraordinary beings, scarcely subject to the same weaknesses and temptations as ourselves. 

--Yet in so doing we are forgetful of this truth, that the nearer a man lives to God the more intensely has he to mourn over his own evil heart; 

--and the more his Master honors him in His service, the more also doth the evil of the flesh vex and tease him day by day. 

The fact is, if we had seen the apostle Paul, we should have thought him remarkably like the rest of the chosen family: and if we had talked with him, we should have said, "We find that his experience and ours are much the same. He is more faithful, more holy, and more deeply taught than we are, but he has the selfsame trials to endure. Nay, in some respects he is more sorely tried than ourselves." *Do not, then, look upon the ancient saints as being exempt either

from infirmities or sins; 

*and do not regard them with that mystic reverence which will almost make us idolators. Their holiness is attainable even by us. We are "called to be saints" by that same voice which constrained them to their high vocation. 

*We have the same light that they had, the same grace is accessible to us. They lived with Jesus, they lived for Jesus, therefore they grew like Jesus. Let us live by the same Spirit as they did." 

Charles Spurgeon

Our first prayer....

Praying always. Ephesians 6:18

"WHAT multitudes of prayers we have put up from the first moment when we learned to pray. 

Our first prayer was a prayer for ourselves; we asked that God would have mercy upon us, and blot out our sin. 

He heard us. 

But when He had blotted out our sins like a cloud, then we had more prayers for ourselves. We have had to pray for sanctifying grace, for constraining and restraining grace; we have been led to crave for a fresh assurance of faith, for the comfortable

-- application of the promise, 

--for deliverance in the hour of temptation, 

--for help in the time of duty, 

--and for succour in the day of trial. 

We have been compelled to go to God for our souls, as constant

beggars asking for everything. Bear witness, children of God, you have never been able to get anything for your souls elsewhere. 

All the bread your soul has eaten has come down from heaven, and all the water of which it has drank has flowed from the living rock—Christ Jesus the Lord. 

Your wants were innumerable,---He has heard you in the day of trouble, has strengthened you, and helped you, even when you dishonored Him by trembling and doubting at the mercy-seat. Remember this, and let it fill your heart with gratitude to God, who has thus graciously heard your poor weak prayers."

Charles Spurgeon

The Narrow Gate

Enter through the narrow gate.

For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, 

and only a few find it. 

Matthew 7:13-14

"In these verses, Jesus presents a sobering truth: the way to life is narrow, and few find it; while the way to destruction is broad and heavily traveled. 

*This passage stands as a solemn warning against self-deception. 

The broad road is appealing because it requires no self-denial, no

submission to God's Word, and no transformation of heart. 

It is the road of pride, worldliness, and self-sufficiency--the very things that sinful man loves. Tragically, this road ends in eternal destruction.

Conversely, the narrow gate is the way of faith, repentance, and holiness. It is a path marked by trial, persecution, and self-denial--but it leads to eternal life.

 Only those whom the Spirit has regenerated and drawn to Christ in true saving faith, walk in the narrow road.
This passage dismantles the false gospel of easy-believism that pervades much of modern Christianity. Jesus does not present the narrow road as an optional, higher-tier discipleship path for the especially devout. It is the only road to eternal life.

Many profess faith in Christ, yet walk the broad road, deceived into thinking they are saved, while refusing to submit to Christ's Lordship!

True faith produces obedience; not perfection, but a life genuinely marked by repentance and growing holiness.

Let us not be numbered among the many who take the broad and easy road to destruction, but among the few who follow Jesus on narrow road that leads to eternal life."
Charles Spurgeon

Our Heavenly Banker

Do as Thou hast said. 2 Samuel 7:25

"God's promises were never meant to be thrown aside as waste

paper; He intended that they should be used. 

God's gold is not miser's money, but is minted to be traded with. Nothing pleases our Lord better than to see His promises put in circulation; He loves to see His children bring them up to Him.

Q: Do you imagine He will be any the less pure for washing you from your sins? 

He has said "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

Our heavenly Banker delights to cash His own notes. 

Think not that God will be troubled by your importunately reminding Him of His promises. 

The sun is not weary of shining, nor the fountain of flowing.

 It is God's nature to keep His promises; therefore go at once to the throne with "Do as Thou hast said." 

Charles Spurgeon

Spurgeon on Christmas

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11

“We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. 

*Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas. 

First, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be sung in Latin or in English; 

and secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority.

Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our Savior’s birth,

although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred. … It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of the church celebrated the nativity of our Lord; and it was not till very long after the Western church had set the example, that the Eastern adopted it. … Probably the fact is that the “holy” days were arranged to fit in with the heathen festivals.

We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Savior was born, it is the twenty-fifth of December. 

Nevertheless since, the current of men’s thoughts is led this way just now, and I see no evil in the current itself, I shall launch the bark of our discourse upon that stream, and make use of the fact, which I shall neither justify nor condemn, by endeavoring to lead your thoughts in the same direction. Since it is lawful, and even laudable, to meditate upon the incarnation of the Lord upon any day in the year, it cannot be in the power of other men’s superstitions to render such a meditation improper for to-day. 

Regarding not the day, 

let us, nevertheless, 

give God thanks for the gift of His dear Son.” 

Charles Spurgeon

Hospital of the Cross

Ask, and it shall be given you. 

Matthew 7:7

"He has built a St. Cross Hospital, so that whenever a sinner is hungry, he has but to knock and have his wants supplied. 

Nay, He has done better; He has attached to this Hospital of the Cross a bath; and whenever a soul is black and filthy, it has but to go there and be washed. 

No sinner ever went into it and found that it could

 not wash away his stains. 

Sins which were scarlet and crimson have all disappeared,

 and the sinner has been whiter than snow.

As if this were not enough, there is attached to this Hospital of the Cross a wardrobe, and a sinner making application simply as a sinner, may be clothed from head to foot.

If all these things are to be had by merely knocking at mercy's door, O my soul, knock hard this morning, and ask large things of thy generous Lord. 

Leave not the throne of grace till all thy wants have been spread before the Lord, and until by faith thou hast a comfortable prospect that they shall be all supplied. No bashfulness need retard when Jesus invites." 

Charles Spurgeon

Leah & Rachel Lesson

And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Genesis 29:26

"WE do not excuse Laban for his dishonesty, but we scruple not to learn from the custom which he quoted as his excuse. 

There are some things which must be taken in order, and if we would win the second we must secure the first. 

The second may be the more lovely in our eyes, 

but the rule of the heavenly country must stand, 

and the elder must be married first. 

*For instance, many men desire the beautiful and well-favored

Rachel of joy and peace in believing, but they must first be wedded to the tender-eyed Leah of repentance. 

*Every one falls in love with happiness, and many would cheerfully serve twice seven years to enjoy it, but according to the rule of the Lord's kingdom, the Leah of real holiness must be beloved of our soul before the Rachel of true happiness can be attained. 

Heaven stands not first but second, and only by persevering to the end can we win a portion in it. The cross must be carried before the crown can be worn. We must follow our Lord in His humiliation, or we shall never rest with Him in glory.

Q: Dost thou hope for reward without labor, or honor without toil? Dismiss the idle expectation, and be content to take the ill-favored things for the sake of the sweet love of Jesus, which will recompense thee for all. In such a spirit, laboring and suffering, thou wilt find bitters grow sweet, and hard things easy. 

Like Jacob, thy years of service will seem unto thee but a few days for the love thou hast to Jesus; 

and when the dear hour of the wedding feast shall come, all thy toils shall be as though they had never been—an hour with Jesus will make up for ages of pain and labor." Charles Spurgeon

Christ our sap

The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which He hath planted; Psalm 104:16

"Without sap the tree cannot flourish or even exist. 

Vitality is essential to a Christian. 

There must be life—The mere name of being a Christian is but a dead thing, we must be filled with the spirit of divine life.

This life is mysterious. 

We do not understand the circulation of the sap, by what force it rises, and by what power it descends again. 

So the life within us is a sacred mystery.

Regeneration is wrought by the Holy Ghost entering into man and becoming man’s life; and this divine life in a believer afterwards feeds upon the flesh and blood of Christ and is thus sustained by divine food, 

Q: but whence it cometh and whither it goeth who shall explain to us?

What a secret thing the sap is! 
Our root is Christ Jesus, and our life is hid in Him; this is the secret of the Lord. 

*If you talk with Him, he cannot help speaking about Jesus. 

*If you notice his actions you will see that he has been with Jesus. 

--He has so much sap within, that it must fill his conduct and conversation with life." 

Charles Spurgeon

Jezebel of our unbelief

And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. 1 Samuel 27:1

"THE thought of David's heart at this time was a false thought, because he certainly had no ground for thinking that God's anointing him by Samuel was intended to be left as an empty unmeaning act.

On no one occasion had the Lord deserted His servant; he had been placed in perilous positions very often, but not one instance had occurred in which divine interposition had not delivered him. 

The trials to which he had been exposed had been varied; they had

not assumed one form only, but many—yet in every case He who sent the trial had also graciously ordained a way of escape. 

*David could not put his finger upon any entry in his diary, and say of it, "Here is evidence that the Lord will forsake me," for the entire tenor of his past life proved the very reverse. 

He should have argued from what God had done for him, that God would be his defender still. 

Q: But is it not just in the same way that we doubt God's help?

We have had dark nights, but the star of love has shone forth amid the blackness; we have been in stern conflicts, but over our head He has held aloft the shield of our defense. 

Q: How can we ever be so ungenerous as to doubt our God? 

Lord, 

throw down the Jezebel of our unbelief, 

and let the dogs devour it." 

Charles Spurgeon

For this child I prayed

For this child I prayed.
1 Samuel 1:27

"Devout souls delight to look upon those mercies which they have obtained in answer to supplication, for they can see God's especial love in them. 

When we can name our blessings Samuel, that is, asked of God, they

will be as dear to us as her child was to Hannah. 

Hannah's one heaven-given child was dearer far, because he was the fruit of earnest pleadings. 

Q: Did we pray for the conversion of our children? 

How doubly sweet, when they are saved, to see in them our own petitions fulfilled! 

Better to rejoice over them as the fruit of our pleadings than as the fruit of our bodies. 

It is always best to get blessings into our house in the legitimate way, by the door of prayer; then they are blessings indeed, and not temptations. 

Even when prayer speeds not, the blessings grow all the richer for the delay; The gift came from heaven, let it go to heaven. Prayer brought it, gratitude sang over it, let devotion consecrate it. 

Q: Reader, is prayer your element or your weariness? 

Q: Which?" 

Charles Spurgeon

The Jealousy of God

God is jealous. Nahum 1:2

"Your Lord is very jealous of your love, O believer. 

He cannot bear that you should choose another. 

Q: Did He buy you with His own blood? 

He cannot endure that you should think that you are your own, or that you belong to this world. 

He loved you with such a love that He would not stop in heaven

without you; He would sooner die than you should perish, and He cannot endure that anything should stand between your heart's love and Himself. 

He cannot bear that you should hew out broken cisterns, when the overflowing fountain is always free to you. 

 Let this jealousy which would keep us near to Christ be also a comfort to us,....Oh that we may have grace this day to keep our hearts in sacred chastity for our Beloved alone, with sacred jealousy shutting our eyes to all the fascinations of the world!" 

Charles Spurgeon

Lesson of Luke 4:38

Luke 4:38 And He arose out of the synagogue, and entered into

Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought Him for her.
"Here is a type of another form of the disease of sin. 

This time it is a hot and burning fever, and there are many men who have the fever of pride, or the fever of ambition, and some who have the fever of impetuous lust." 

Charles Spurgeon

Lesson of Luke 4:40

Luke 4:40 Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them, and healed them.

"Ah, it is setting with some of you!

Those gray hairs are like the streaks of light upon the horizon

as the sun goes down; but blessed be God, He who heals the spiritually sick in the early morning, by bringing children to Himself, does not cease to work until the sun goes down." 

Charles Spurgeon

Perpetuity of the Law of God

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Matthew5:18

"The first is that the law of God is perpetual: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.'' 

The meaning is that even in the least point it must abide till all be fulfilled. 

Secondly, we perceive that the law must be fulfilled: Not “one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.’' 

He who came to bring in the gospel dispensation here asserts that He has not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it.

The relationship of the law to myself, 

and how it condemns me: 

the relationship of the gospel to myself, 

and how if I be a believer it justifies me— 

these are two points which every Christian man should clearly understand.

Not long ago there were those about us who affirmed that the law is

utterly abrogated and abolished, and they openly taught that believers were not bound to make the moral law the rule of their lives. What would have been sin in other men they counted to be no sin in themselves. From such Antinomianism as that may God deliver us. We are not under the law as the method of salvation, but we delight to see the law in the hand of Christ, and desire to obey the Lord in all things.

How very unlike to those which the apostle used when he said, “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” How different from the reverent spirit which made him say,— “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” You know how David loved the law of God, and sang its praises all through the longest of the Psalms. The heart of every real Christian is most reverent towards the law of the Lord.

A sanctification which stops short of perfect conformity to the law cannot truthfully be called perfect sanctification, for every want of exact conformity to the perfect law is sin." 

Charles Spurgeon

A prayerless soul

 Continue in prayer. Colossians 4:2

"IT is interesting to remark how large a portion of Sacred Writ is occupied with the subject of prayer, either in 

--furnishing examples, 

--enforcing precepts, 

--or pronouncing promises. 

We scarcely open the Bible before we read, "Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord;" and just as we are about to close the volume, the "Amen" of an earnest supplication meets our ear. 

Here we find a wrestling Jacob—there a Daniel who prayed three

times a day—and a David who with all his heart called upon his God.

On the mountain we see Elias; in the dungeon Paul and Silas. 

Q: What does this teach us, but the sacred importance and necessity of prayer? 

--We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives. 

*If He has said much about prayer, it is because He knows we have much need of it. 

*A prayerless soul is a Christless soul. 

Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus.

The motto must be, "Continue in prayer." 

Charles Spurgeon

Your Calling

 Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. 

1 Corinthians 7:20

"SOME persons have the foolish notion that the only way in which

they can live for God is by becoming ministers, missionaries, or Bible women. Alas! how many would be shut out from any opportunity of magnifying the Most High if this were the case. 

Beloved, it is not office, it is earnestness;  

God is most surely glorified in that cobbler's stall. 

The name of Jesus is glorified by the poor unlearned carter as he drives his horse, and blesses his God, or speaks to his fellow laborer by the roadside, as much as by the popular divine who, throughout the country, like Boanerges, is thundering out the gospel. 

God is glorified by our serving Him in our proper vocations. 

Take care, dear reader, that you do not forsake the path of duty by leaving your occupation, and take care you do not dishonor your profession while in it. 

*Think little of yourselves, 

*but do not think too little of your callings. 

Every lawful trade may be sanctified by the gospel to noblest ends. Turn to the Bible, and you will find the most menial forms of labor connected either with most daring deeds of faith, or with persons whose lives have been illustrious for holiness. Therefore be not discontented with your calling." 

Charles Spurgeon

Scale of God's Word

Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.

Daniel 5:27

"IT is well frequently to weigh ourselves in the scale of God's Word. Q: Do I take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord?

Then turn to the life of Christ -- ask yourselves how far you are conformed to His likeness. 

Endeavour to discover whether you have the meekness, the humility, the lovely spirit which He constantly inculcated and displayed. 

Take, then, the epistles, and see whether you can go with the apostle in what he said of his experience. Have you ever cried out as he did—"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death"? 

Q: Have you ever felt his self-abasement? 

Q: Have you seemed to yourself the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints?  

If we thus read God's Word as a test of our spiritual condition, we

shall have good reason to stop many a time and say, "Lord,-- give me warmer zeal; inflame me with more fervent love; Let me no longer be 'found wanting,' when weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, lest I be found wanting in the scales of judgment." "

*Judge yourselves that ye be not judged." 

Charles Spurgeon

Behold, I am vile

Behold, I am vile. Job 40:4

"ONE cheering word, poor lost sinner, for thee!
You think you must not come to God because YOU are vile.
Now, there is not a saint living on earth but has been made to feel that he is vile.

Q: If Job, and Isaiah, and Paul were all obliged to say "I am vile," oh, poor sinner, wilt thou be ashamed to join in the same confession?

Sinners, 

Jesus came to call.

Beloved; though once degraded with the rags of sin, thou shalt be

adorned with a robe of righteousness, and appear white as the angels are.
Oh! may the Holy Spirit give thee saving faith in Him who receives the vilest." 

Charles Spurgeon

Burnt child

 That henceforth we should not serve sin. Romans 6:6

"CHRISTIAN, 

Q: what hast thou to do with sin? 

Q: Hath it not cost thee enough already? 

Q: Burnt child, wilt thou play with the fire? 

Q: What! when thou hast already been between the jaws of the lion, wilt thou step a second time into his den? 

Q: Hast thou not had enough of the old serpent? 

Q: Did he not poison all thy veins once, and wilt thou play upon the hole of the asp, and put thy hand upon the cockatrice's den a second time? 

Oh, be not so mad! so foolish! 

Q: Did sin ever yield thee real pleasure? 

If so, go back to thine old drudgery, 

and wear the chain again, 

if it delight thee. 

But inasmuch as sin did never give thee what it promised to bestow, but deluded thee with lies, be not a second time snared by the old fowler—be free, and let the remembrance of thy ancient bondage forbid thee to enter the net again! 

It is contrary to the designs of eternal love, which all have an eye to thy purity and holiness; therefore run not counter to the purposes of thy Lord. 

Another thought should restrain thee from sin. 

Christians can never sin cheaply; they pay a heavy price for iniquity.

 Transgression 

destroys peace of mind, 

obscures fellowship with Jesus, 

hinders prayer, 

brings darkness over the soul; 

therefore be not the serf and bondman of sin." 

Charles Spurgeon

1 John 2:6

So to walk even as He walked. 1 John 2:6

"Q: Why should Christians imitate Christ? 

A: They should do it for their own sakes...let Jesus be their model.

It is when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you are enabled to walk with Jesus in His very footsteps, that you are most happy, and most known to be the sons of God. Peter afar off is both unsafe and uneasy. 

Q: Who made those wounds in the fair hand of Godliness? 

A: The professor who used the dagger of hypocrisy.

---The man who with pretences, enters the fold, being nought but a wolf in sheep's clothing, worries the flock more than the lion outside. There is no weapon half so deadly as a Judas-kiss." 

Charles Spurgeon