Psalms | BLOG OF DAN

@READINGSPURGEON: PSALM 127:2 (NPSP1S12)

January 12, 2021 by dan

@ReadingSpurgeon: Psalm 127:2 – The Peculiar Sleep of the Beloved (NPSP1S12)

Sleep is a gift from God. It is a great physician. There are some who deny themselves of it for gain or ambition. But this sleep is not C. H. Spurgeon’s focus in his sermon on Psalm 127:2 – “For so he gives his beloved sleep.”

Under 6 headings, he preaches about the sleep that God gives to His beloved.

I. The miraculous sleep

This is the sleep that “God has sometimes given to His beloved – which He does not NOW grant.” The kind experienced by men like Adam, Abram, Joseph, David, Daniel, and Joseph the earthly father of Jesus, where God makes His plans and purposes known.

God does not act in this way now, though it is true that He does warn us in dream and visions. “But we never trust dreams.”

II. The sleep of a quiet conscience

“If you have sinned but once, you shall be dammed for it, unless you have something to take away that one sin. You do not know this sleep, but the Christian does.”

III. The sleep of contentment

“How few people in this world are satisfied.” But the Christian can sleep because they are satisfied with what they have.

IV. The sleep of quietness of soul as to the future

“All persons have need to dread the future, except the Christian. God gives to His beloved a happy sleep with regard to the events of coming time.”

V. The sleep of security

“To know that if I died I should enter heaven” and “to be as sure as I am of my existence that God, having loved me with an everlasting love, and He being immutable, will never hate me if He has once loved me.”

VI. The sleep of happy dismission

When you die, “Your soul sleeps not, for you are in heaven, but your body sleeps. Death has laid you in your last couch. It may be cold, but it is sanctified. It may be damp, but it is safe. And on the resurrection morning, when the archangel shall set his trumpet to his mouth, you shall rise… Sleep on in your grave, for you shall rise to glory.”

But, “If, sirs, you were to die unprepared, and unconverted, and unsaved, “There remains nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.”

Spurgeon concludes with a question, he wants all his listeners to answer. “Do you seriously and solemnly believe that you belong to the “beloved” here mentioned?”

@READINGSPURGEON: PSALM 89:19 (NPSP1S11)

January 11, 2021 by dan

@ReadingSpurgeon: Psalm 89:19 – The People’s Christ (NPSP1S11)

“In this sermon,” on Psalm 89:19 – “I have exalted one chosen out of the people” – C. H. Spurgeon says, “we shall not speak of David, but of the Lord Jesus Christ, for David, as referred to in the text, is an eminent type of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, who was chosen out of the people, and of whom the Father can say, “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.”

Spurgeon before moving onto his points, offers an important clarification at the outset. “When we speak of Jesus as being chosen out of the people, we must speak of Him as a man.”

He has three points, all beginning with the letter E “to easy your memories that you may be able to remember them the better”:

I. Our Saviour’s Extraction

Jesus is one chosen out of the people. He is one of the people by His birth, by His education, when He entered into public life, and in His doctrine. “His congregation was made up of the lower orders, the masses, the multitudes. “The common people heard Him gladly.”

II. Our Saviour’s Election

Jesus Christ was chosen out of the people. He was elected. “As a man, He was chosen out of the people, to be the people’s Saviour, and the people’s Christ.”

Why was Jesus Christ chosen out of the people?

First, so that justice is fully satisfied. “Man sins and therefore man must die… as in Adam all died, even so in another Adam should all be made alive.”

Second, so that the whole race receives honour. “At God’s right hand, radiant with glory, there sits a man!”

Third, so that He might be able to be my brother. “Christ is not merely your brother, but He is your Husband.”

A final reason, so that He might know our wants and sympathise with us. He has faced temptation and pain, weariness, poverty, and homelessness. “My brother Christian, there is no place where you can go where Christ has not been before you, sinful places alone excepted. In the dark valley of the shadow of death you may see His bloody footsteps, footprints marked with gore.”

III. Our Saviour’s Exaltation

God has exalted one chosen out of the people. “This exaltation is really the exaltation of all the elect in the person of Christ. For all that Christ is and all that Christ has, is mine. If I am a believer, wherever He is in His exalted person, that I am, for I am made to sit together with Christ in heavenly places.”

When was Christ exalted?

Christ was exalted in the incarnation when His body was “exalted into union with the divinity.” He was exalted by His resurrection. He was exalted in His ascension, and how exalted He was, “See the conquering Hero comes!” The last exaltation of Christ is to come “when He shall sit upon the throne of His Father David and shall judge all nations.”

Spurgeon finishes by telling us again about the Man who was chosen out of the people. “The man of the people is to save you, if you are saved at all! The Christ of the crowd, the Christ of the mass, the Christ of the people, He is to be your Saviour!” And if you think that He won’t save you. “He saved Saul. He saved me. He may save you. Yea, what is more, He will save you, for whosoever comes unto Him, He will in no wise cast out.”