You crippled ones! I don't fear; you will not be thrown out. Two snails entered the ark; how they got there, I don’t know. It must have taken them a long time. They must have started rather early, unless Noah took them part of the way. So, some of you are snails; you are on the right road, but it will take a long while, unless some blessed Noah helps you into the ark.
Jesus recognizes His family when their sins make them as black as the tents of Kedar, and He knows they will be as bright as the curtains of Solomon. He knows His children when they do not know themselves; when they believe they are lost beyond recovery, or when they foolishly conceive that they can save themselves.
Backsliders! fallen ones! God will have mercy on you if you are repentant. Glorious fact! the sorrowing backslider will not be left behind. Backsliders will sing above, as God's restored children, He has forever loved. Blind and crippled ones! believe in the Lord, and you will be found among the children of the Lamb at last.
You may erect little thrones for those whom you love; but God's throne must be the glorious high throne; you may set your loved ones on the steps leading up to His throne, but God must sit on the very seat itself. He is to be enthroned, the royal One within your heart, the king of your affections.
Hate the world, value its treasure at a cheap price, estimate its gems as nothing but fakes, and its strength as nothing but dreams. Do not think that you will lose any pleasure, but rather remember the saying of that early Church leader Chrysostom, "Despise riches, and you will be rich; despise glory, and you will be glorious; despise injuries, and you will be a conqueror; despise rest, and you will gain rest; despise the earth, and you will gain heaven!"
I gaze on beauty, and may myself be deformed. I admire the light, and may yet dwell in darkness, but if the light of the face of God rests on me, I will become like Him.
Jesus recognizes His family when their sins make them as black as the tents of Kedar, and He knows they will be as bright as the curtains of Solomon. He knows His children when they do not know themselves; when they believe they are lost beyond recovery, or when they foolishly conceive that they can save themselves.
Oh! It is a glorious fact, that prayers are noticed in heaven. The poor broken hearted sinner, going into their bedroom, bends their knee, but can only utter their mournful cry in the language of sighs and tears. Look! that groan has made all the harps of heaven thrill with music; that tear has, been caught by God, and put into a vase made especially for tears, to be perpetually preserved. The tearful praying Christian, whose distress prevents his words, will be clearly understood by the Most High.
When I hear of a church where everyone is wealthy and members of the upper class of our society, then I always say farewell to them, for where there are no poor people, the ship will soon sink. If there are no poor, then, Christ will soon give them some, if they are a real Gospel church.
There are elect out of the elect, I will acknowledge, as to gifts and standing, and as to the works they may accomplish in this world; but there is no election out of the elect on the basis of a deeper extent of the love of God. They are all loved the same; they are all written in the same book of eternal love and life.
Without bread, I become thin like a skeleton; and, in time, I will die. Without thought, my mind becomes dwarfed, yes, and it deteriorates until I become an idiot, with a soul that just has life, but little more. And without Christ, my spirit must become a vague, shadowy emptiness. It cannot live unless it feeds on that heavenly manna which came down from heaven. Now the Christian can say, "The life that I live is Christ;" because Christ is the food on which he feeds, and the sustenance of his newborn spirit.
I am certain you need no exhortation to love yourself, you will take care of your body, your comfort will be your primary concern. You would line your own nest with downy feathers if you could. You will do these things for yourself. Well, then, as much as you love yourself, love your neighbor.
The great King, immortal, invisible, the Divine person, called the Holy Spirit: it is He that stimulates the soul, or else it would lie dead forever; it is He that makes it tender, or else it would never feel; it is He that imparts power to the Word preached, or else it could never reach further than the ear; it is He who breaks the heart, it is He who makes it whole; He, from first to last, is the great worker of Salvation in us, just as Jesus Christ was the author of Salvation for us.
[Charles H. Spurgeon]
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