Spurgeon on Church Vitality

From Spurgeon THE WITHERED FIG TREE

The blighted fig tree was a singularly apt simile of the Jewish state. The nation had promised great things to God. When all the other nations were like trees without leaves, making no profession of allegiance to the true God, the Jewish nation was covered with the leafage of abundant religious profession. Scribes, pharisees, priests and elders of the people were all sticklers for the letter of the law, and boaster of being worshippers of the one God, and strict observers of all his laws. Their constant cry was, "The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these." "We have Abraham to our Father" was frequently on their lips. They were a fig tree in full leaf. But there was no fruit upon them; for the people were neither holy, nor just, nor true, nor faithful towards God, nor loving to their neighbor. The Jewish church was a mass of glittering profession, unsupported by spiritual life. Our Lord had looked into the temple, and had found the house of prayer to be a den of thieves. He condemned the Jewish church to remain a lifeless, fruitless thing; and it was so. The synagogue remained open; but its teaching became a dead form. Israel had no influence upon the age. The Jewish race became, for centuries, a withered tree: it had nothing but profession when Christ came, and that profession proved powerless to save even the holy city. Christ did not destroy the religious organization of the Jews: he left them as they were; but they withered away from the root, till the Roman came, and with the axes of his legions cleared away the fruitless trunk.

What a lesson is this to nations! Nations may make a profession, a loud profession, of religion, and yet may fail to exhibit that righteousness which exalteth a nation. Nations may be adorned with all the leafage of civilization, and art, and progress, and religion; but if there be no inner life of godliness, and no fruit unto righteousness, they will stand for a while, and then wither away.

What a lesson this is to churches! There have been churches which have stood prominent in numbers and in influence; but faith, and love, and holiness have not been maintained, and the Holy Ghost has left them to the vain show of a fruitless profession; and there stand those churches, with the trunk of organization, and widely-extended branches, but they are dead, and every year they become more and more decayed. Brethren, such churches we have even among Nonconformists at this hour. May it never be so with this church! We may have numbers of people coming to hear the Word, and a considerable body of men and women professing to be converted; but unless vital godliness is in their midst, what are congregations and churches? We might have a valued ministry, but what would this be without the Spirit of God? We might have large subscriptions, and many outward efforts; but what of these without the spirit of prayer, the spirit of faith, the spirit of grace and consecration? I dread lest we should ever come to be like a tree, precocious with a superlative profession, but yet worthless in the sight of the Lord, because the secret life of piety, and vital union to Christ, are gone. Better that the axe clear away every vestige of the tree than that it stand out against the sky an open lie, a mockery, a delusion.

Arm Yourself for Death

My work is now to arm myself for death, which assaults me, and to apply myself unto that great encounter.

Robert Harris (1581–1658) was an English clergyman, known as a Puritan preacher, member of the Westminster Assembly, and President of Trinity College, Oxford.

The Demands of Headship

Headship modeled on the headship of Christ demands a profound life of devotion and intercessory prayer. It demands a warm heart which is constantly exposed to the light of Christ in prayer and Bible-reading. Husbands, if this does not characterize our lives, we are sinning. It demands the practice of detailed intercession for one's spouse and children like that of righteous Job (Job 1:5). Men, if we are not praying in detail for our wives and children, we are sinning. This is a leadership which will convict and draw the world. This is what our homes and world need more than anything else.

R. Kent Hughes, Ephesians: The Mystery of the Body of Christ (p.184)

Jesus Is the True and Better

Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us.

Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal.

Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing wither he went to create a new people of God.

Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me,” now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, “Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.”

Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.

Jesus is the true and better Joseph who, at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them.

Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant.

Jesus is the true and better Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of God’s justice, now gives us water in the desert.

Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer, who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.

Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.

Jesus is the true and better Esther who did not just risk leaving an earthly palace but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who did not just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people.

Jesus is the true and better Jonah who was cast out into the storm so that we could be brought in.

Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will pass over us. He’s the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread.

The Bible’s really not about you — it’s about Him, the author and perfecter of your faith.

Tim Keller, 2006 message at Resurgence Conference

Adoption: Rich Imagery for Our Relationship with God

The image of adoption is a particularly well-chosen one because it illustrates, in a way that nothing else can, the nature of our relationship with God in Christ. An adopted child is not the natural offspring of his adoptive parents, but neither is his presence in the household an accident. His parents have deliberately chosen him and made him a member of their family by an act of will that is sealed in love and self-sacrifice.

There is nothing in the child that puts these parents under an obligation to accept him, and there may be any number of considerations that would advise against it. For example, the child might be handicapped, which would make caring for him more difficult. He might be of a different race, which would draw attention to the fact that he is adopted and could cause problems in later life. His birth parents might not be reconciled to losing their child, and might try to reclaim him at some future point. The child himself might rebel against his adoption when he finds out about it, and actively seek out his birth parents, with serious consequences for the families involved.

One way or another, all these factors play into our adoption as children by God. There is nothing in us that would oblige him to take us under his wing. Our sins have handicapped us and make us more difficult to deal with because their consequences are still with us and have to be overcome. We are quite different from God, and when other people hear that we are claiming to be his children, they may point this out and dismiss our claims as wishful thinking on our part. Finally, Satan, the rule from whom we have been rescued, is not happy about this and does all he can to win us back. We may even be tempted to seek him out in times of spiritual discouragement or depression, wondering whether our old life was really as bad as it is made out to be. In short, adoption does not come naturally, and it is only by the witness of the Holy Spirit in our hearts that it takes root and becomes a kind of second nature to us.

If adoption is not a natural entitlement, however, its rewards are nonetheless very great. Adopted children are heirs just as much as the natural children are, which in spiritual terms means that we who have been grafted into Christ share in all the privileges and blessings that have been bestowed on him in his glorified human nature.

Gerald Bray, God Is Love (pp. 643-44)

Communion with Christ via Fellowship with Other Christians

"I've never met a Christian who was healthier, more mature, and more active in ministry by being apart from the church. But I have found the opposite to be invariably true. The weakest Christians are those least connected to the body. And the less involved you are, the more disconnected those following you will be. The man who attempts Christianity without the church shoots himself in the foot, shoots his children in the leg, and shoots his grandchildren in the heart."

Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in Our Holiness, p.132.

Put on the Full Armor of God

Life is indeed a “warfare;” and just as a man enlists in our army for a term of years, and then his service runs out, and he is free, so every believer is enlisted in the service of life, to serve God till his enlistment is over, and we sleep in death. Our charge and our armor we shall put off together.

Brethren, you are soldiers, enlisted when you believed in Jesus. Let me remind you that you are a soldier, you will be always at war, you will never have a furlough or conclude a treaty. Like the old knights who slept in their armor, you will be attacked even in your rest. There is no part of the journey to heaven which is secure from the enemy, and no moment, not even the sweet rest of the Lord’s day, when the clarion may not sound. Therefore, prepare yourselves always for the battle. “Put on the whole armor of God,” and look upon life as a continued battle. Be surprised when you have not to fight; be wonderstruck when the world is peaceful towards you; be astonished when your old corruptions do not rise and assault you. You must travel with your swords always drawn, and you may as well throw away the scabbard, for you will never want it. You are a soldier who must always fight, and by the light of battle you must survey the whole of your life.

Charles Spurgeon
From a sermon entitled Our Life, Our Work, Our Change, delivered August 4, 1867