Nick Roark's Blog, page 116

“The last hours of Christian men and women” by Charles Spurgeon

“There is one more operation of God’s Word about which I can speak with very great comfort to my own self, and that is the operation of the Word in the completion of the Christian character, and in the display of it in the last hours of Christian men and women.

I have come down many times from the sick chamber of those members of this church who are now in the upper house, and I have done so with faith confirmed and joy increased.

Those beloved ones have given me more strength and assurance than I ever derived from the study of the ablest works in my library.

They were sometimes very poor, but I remember well the glory of the little room wherein they were disrobing for the beatific vision. Their heavenly serenity, varied with bursts of triumphant joy, has driven all my fears away.

Some have been wasted with disease and racked with pain till it seemed impossible that an original thought could have come from them, and yet their speech has been fresh and new, an inspired utterance far excelling poetry.

They only spoke of what they were seeing, of what they were enjoying, for the jewelled gates were set open to them, and they peered within and then turned round and told us a little of what they saw.

It has been a glorious thing to find none of them trembling, none confounded, none wavering.

No dying man has looked me in the face and said, ‘Sir, you did not preach a religion which a man can die with. You taught me doctrines which are not substantial enough for the dying hour.’

No, I feel even now their death grips, as they have clasped my hand and told me of their overflowing joy.

They have said to me, ‘Bless the Lord that ever I stepped into the Tabernacle to hear of justification by faith, of the divine substitution, of atonement made by blood, and of a faithful God who casts not away His people!’

Such expressions I have heard from those upon the borders of Immanuel’s land. These are our seals and the tokens that Christ has spoken by us.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Proof of Our Ministry,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Volume 30 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1884), 30: 369–370.

“Never let go out of your minds the thoughts of a crucified Christ” by Thomas Brooks

“Remedy (4.) Seriously to consider, That even those very sins that Satan paints, and puts new names and colours upon, cost the best blood, the noblest blood, the life-blood, the heart-blood of the Lord Jesus.

That Christ should come from the eternal bosom of His Father to a region of sorrow and death;

that God should be manifested in the flesh, the Creator made a creature;

that He that was clothed with glory should be wrapped with rags of flesh;

He that filled heaven and earth with His glory should be cradled in a manger;

that the power of God should fly from weak man, the God of Israel into Egypt;

that the God of the law should be subject to the law, the God of the circumcision circumcised, the God that made the heavens working at Joseph’s homely trade;

that He that binds the devils in chains should be tempted;

that He, whose is the world, and the fulness thereof, should hunger and thirst;

that the God of strength should be weary, the Judge of all flesh condemned, the God of life put to death;

that He that is one with His Father should cry out of misery, ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’;

that He that had the keys of hell and death at His girdle should lie imprisoned in the sepulchre of another, having in His lifetime nowhere to lay His head, nor after death to lay His body;

that that head, before which the angels do cast down their crowns, should be crowned with thorns,

and those eyes, purer than the sun, put out by the darkness of death;

those ears, which hear nothing but hallelujahs of saints and angels, to hear the blasphemies of the multitude;

that face, that was fairer than the sons of men, to be spit on by those beastly wretched Jews;

that mouth and tongue, that spake as never man spake, accused for blasphemy;

those hands, that freely swayed the sceptre of heaven, nailed to the cross;

those feet, ‘like unto fine brass,’ nailed to the cross for man’s sins;

each sense annoyed: His feeling or touching, with a spear and nails;

His smell, with stinking flavour, being crucified about Golgotha, the place of skulls;

His taste, with vinegar and gall;

His hearing, with reproaches, and sight of His mother and disciples bemoaning Him;

His soul, comfortless and forsaken;

and all, this for those very sins that Satan paints and puts fine colours upon!

Oh! How should the consideration of this stir up the soul against it, and work the soul to fly from it, and to use all holy means whereby sin may be subdued and destroyed!

It was good counsel one gave, ‘Never let go out of your minds the thoughts of a crucified Christ.’

Let these be meat and drink unto you; let them be your sweetness and consolation, your honey and your desire, your reading and your meditation, your life, death, and resurrection.”

–Thomas Brooks, The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1, Ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1666/2001), 17-18.

“It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most” by Thomas Brooks

“Remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul.

It is not the bee’s touching of the flower that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon the flower that draws out the sweet.

It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.”

–Thomas Brooks, The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1, Ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1666/2001), 8.

“The great Conqueror” by John Collett Ryland

“Farewell, thou dear old man! We leave thee in possession of death till the resurrection day: but we will bear witness against thee, oh king of terrors, at the mouth of this dungeon; thou shalt not always have possession of this dead body; it shall be demanded of thee by the great Conqueror, and at that moment thou shalt resign thy prisoner.

O ye ministers of Christ, ye people of God, ye surrounding spectators, prepare, prepare to meet this old servant of Christ, at that day, at that hour, when this whole place shall be all nothing, but life and death shall be swallowed up in victory.”

–John Collett Ryland, cited by Peter Naylor in “John Collett Ryland,” The British Particular Baptists, 1638-1910, Volume 1, Ed. Michael A. G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press, 1998), 1: 191. Ryland preached this sermon at the funeral and interment of Andrew Gifford on July 2, 1784.

“Remember this” by Thomas Brooks

“My desires to you are:

That you would make it your business to study Christ, His Word, your own hearts, Satan’s plots, and eternity, more than ever;

That ye would endeavour more to be inwardly sincere than outwardly glorious: to live, than to have a name to live;

That ye would labour with all your might to be thankful under mercies, and faithful in your places, and humble under divine appearances, and fruitful under precious ordinances;

That as your means and mercies are greater than others’ so your account before God may not prove a worse than others’;

That ye would pray for me, who am not worthy to be named among the saints, that I may be a precious instrument in the hand of Christ to bring in many souls unto Him, and to build up those that are brought in in their most holy faith; and ‘that utterance may be given to me, that I may make known all the will of God,’ (Eph. 6:19);

That I may be sincere, faithful, frequent, fervent, and constant in the work of the Lord, and that my labour be not in vain in the Lord; that my labours may be accepted in the Lord and His saints, and I may daily see the travail of my soul.

But, above all, pray for me:

That I may more and more find the power and sweet of those things upon my own heart, that I give out to you and others;

That my soul be so visited with strength from on high, that I may live up fully and constantly to those truths that I hold forth to the world;

And that I may be both in life and doctrine ‘a burning and a shining light,’ that so, when the Lord Jesus shall appear, ‘I may receive a crown of glory which He shall give to me in that day, and not only to me, but to all that love His appearance.’

For a close, remember this: your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure. Therefore, faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing, and heaven shall make amends for all.

I shall now take leave of you, when my heart hath by my hand subscribed, that I am, your loving pastor under Christ, according to all pastoral affections and engagements in our dearest Lord,

-Thomas Brooks”

–Thomas Brooks, The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1, Ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1666/2001), 6-7.

“It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known” by J.R.R. Tolkien

“And a voice spoke softly behind him: ‘In the land of Ithilien, and in the keeping of the King; and he awaits you.’ With that Gandalf stood before him, robed in white, his beard now gleaming like pure snow in the twinkling of the leafy sunlight. ‘Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?’ he said.

But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: ‘Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?’

‘A great Shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known.

But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.

‘How do I feel?’ he cried. ‘Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel’ – he waved his arms in the air – ‘I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!’”

–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1954), 951-952.

“He had a body of Divinity in his head, and the power of it upon his heart” by John Reeve

“He had a body of Divinity in his head, and the power of it upon his heart.”

–John Reeve, as quoted in The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1866/2001), xxxvi. Thomas Brooks died at age 72 on September 27, 1680. In his funeral sermon, John Reeve said these words about this “fine old man” and this “faithful minister of Christ.”

“The best way to serve the church is to believe and to preach the gospel” by John Stott

“The two chief characteristics of the false teachers are that they were troubling the church and changing the gospel. These two go together.

To tamper with the gospel is always to trouble the church. You cannot touch the gospel and leave the church untouched, because the church is created and lives by the gospel.

Indeed, the church’s greatest troublemakers (now as then) are not those outside who oppose, ridicule and persecute it, but those inside who try to change the gospel. It is they who trouble the church.

Conversely, the only way to be a good churchman is to be a good gospel-man. The best way to serve the church is to believe and to preach the gospel.

The devil disturbs the church as much by error as by evil. When he cannot entice Christian people into sin, he deceives them with false doctrine.”

–John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians: Only One Way (The Bible Speaks Today; Leicester, England; Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 23-24.

“Sweet unity” by Wilhelmus à Brakel

“Love for our neighbor, humility, and meekness will beget peaceableness. Wherever the first three are to be found, the last will also be found.

Peaceableness is a believer’s quiet and contented disposition of soul, inclining him toward, and causing him to strive for, the maintaining of a relationship with his neighbor characterized by sweet unity— doing so in the way of truth and godliness.”

–Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, Volume 4, Ed. Joel Beeke, Trans. Bartel Elshout (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1700/1994), 4: 91.

“Jesus Christ holds out His arms to receive us as often as the gospel is preached to us” by John Calvin

“If our Lord is so good to us to have His doctrine still preached to us, we have by that a sure and infallible sign that He is near at hand to us, and that He seeks our salvation, and that He calls us to Himself as though He spoke with open mouth, and as if we see Him personally before us. Jesus Christ holds out His arms to receive us as often as the gospel is preached to us.”

–John Calvin, Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians, Sermon on Ephesians 4:11-12 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1973), 368.