We Got Flowers in Here!
One Ring to Rule Them All
I realize it’s a pink teddy bear ring with smiley faces all over it. But be careful. Don’t put it on. Unless, of course, you want the Ringwraiths to find you.
A Time to Grow, and a Time to Shave
That He Might Bring You to God
In the French Revolution, there was a young man condemned to the guillotine, and shut up in one of the prisons. He was greatly loved by many, but there was one who loved him more than all put together. How do we know this? It was his own father; and the love he bore his son was proved in this way: when the lists were called, the father, whose name was exactly the same as his son’s, answered the name, and the father rode in the gloom wagon out to the place of execution, and his head rolled beneath the axe instead of his son’s, a victim to mighty love.
See here an image of the love of Christ to sinners; for thus Jesus died for the ungodly, viewed as such. If they had not been ungodly, neither they nor He had needed to have died; if they had not sinned, there would have been no need for a suffering Savior, but Jesus proved His boundless love in “that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Your name was in the condemned list, my fellow sinner, but, if you believe in Jesus, you shall find that your name is there no longer, for Christ’s name is put in your place, and you shall learn that He suffered for you, the Just for the unjust, THAT HE MIGHT BRING YOU TO GOD. Is not this the greatest wonder of divine love that it should be set upon us as sinners? I can understand God’s loving reformed sinners and repenting sinners; but here is the glory of it, “God commends His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners [YET SINNERS!] Christ died for us.”
O my hearers, from my inmost heart I pray that this boundless wealth of love on the part of Jesus to those who were rebels and enemies, may win your hearts to love the heavenly lover in return!
Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon #745 – “The Unsearchable Riches of Christ”
The sermon is available here: https://www.spurgeongems.org/sermon/chs745.pdf
A Sacrifice for the Sin of His People
Behold, in Bethlehem’s manger Emmanuel is born, God is with us. Before your eyes He lies who was both the Son of Mary, and the Son of the Blessed, an infant, and yet infinite, of a span long, and yet filling all eternity, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and yet too great for space to hold Him. Thirty and more years He lived on earth: the latter part of His life was spent in a ministry full of suffering to Himself, but filled with good to others. “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Never man spoke like that man; He was a man on fire with love; a man without human imperfections, but with all human sympathies; a man without the sins of manhood, but with something more than the sorrows of common manhood piled upon Him. There was never such a man as He, so great, so glorious in His life, and yet He is the pattern and type of manhood. He reached His greatest when He stooped to the lowest. He was seized by His enemies one night when wrestling in prayer, betrayed by the man who had eaten bread with Him; He was dragged before tribunal after tribunal, through that long and sorrowful night, and wrongfully accused of blasphemy and sedition. They scourged Him; though none of His works deserved a blow, yet the plowers made deep furrows on His back. They mocked Him; though He merited the homage of all intelligent beings, yet they spat in His face, and struck Him with their mailed fists, and said, “Prophesy, who is he that struck You?”
He was made lower than a slave; even the abject opened their mouths with laughter at Him, and the slaves scoffed at Him. To end the scene, they took Him through the streets of Jerusalem over which He had wept; they hounded Him along the Via Dolorosa, out through the gate, to the mount of doom I think I see Him, with eyes all red with weeping He turns to the matrons of Salem, and cries, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but for yourselves, and for your children.” Can you see Him bearing that heavy cross, ready to faint beneath the burden? Can you endure to see Him, when, having reached the little mound outside the city, they hurl Him on His back, and drive the cruel iron through His hands and feet? Can you bear to see the spectacle of blood and anguish as they lift Him up between heaven and earth, made a sacrifice for the sin of His people? My words shall be few, for the vision is too sad for language to depict. He bleeds, He thirsts, He groans, He cries – at last He dies – a death whose unknown griefs are not to be imagined, and were they known would be beyond expression by human tongue.
Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon #745 – “The Unsearchable Riches of Christ”
The sermon is available here: https://www.spurgeongems.org/sermon/chs745.pdf