20 SEPTEMBER (1874)
‘I and the children’
‘Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion.’ Isaiah 8:18
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING (Spurgeon): Isaiah 9:1–7
The text has in it very clearly the idea of charge and responsibility. Children are a charge always, a comfort sometimes. No parent has a child without lying under obligations to God to take care of it and to nurse it for him. Sometimes the responsibility becomes very heavy and involves us in much anxiety. Wherever conscience is lively, fatherhood is regarded as a solemn thing.
Now, Jesus Christ, when looking upon his people, calls them ‘the children which God hath given me’, as if he recognised the charge laid upon him to keep, instruct and perfect his own people. Remember his last words to his Father before he went to his passion: ‘I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.’ ‘While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.’
Like Jacob with Laban’s sheep, our Lord looked upon his elect as a charge for which he was responsible, and before he departed out of this life he rendered in an account to his heavenly Father. Even now ‘that great shepherd of the sheep’ charges himself with the preservation of his own ransomed ones, and when he, at the last, shall gather all his redeemed people around him, there will not be one missing and he will say, ‘Behold, I and the children which God hath given me.’ We call him Father, then, because as a father has charge of his family and is responsible before God for their training and upbringing, so Christ himself is surety for his people and is under bond to bring the ‘many sons unto glory’.
FOR MEDITATION: Earthly parents do fall down on their responsibilities (Isaiah 49:15) and need reminding of them (Ephesians 6:4), but the Lord Jesus Christ will never let his own people down (John 14:18; Hebrews 2:10–18).
N.B. Spurgeon preached this sermon on the eighteenth birthday of his twin sons, Thomas and Charles.
‘I and the children’
‘Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion.’ Isaiah 8:18
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING (Spurgeon): Isaiah 9:1–7
The text has in it very clearly the idea of charge and responsibility. Children are a charge always, a comfort sometimes. No parent has a child without lying under obligations to God to take care of it and to nurse it for him. Sometimes the responsibility becomes very heavy and involves us in much anxiety. Wherever conscience is lively, fatherhood is regarded as a solemn thing.
Now, Jesus Christ, when looking upon his people, calls them ‘the children which God hath given me’, as if he recognised the charge laid upon him to keep, instruct and perfect his own people. Remember his last words to his Father before he went to his passion: ‘I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.’ ‘While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.’
Like Jacob with Laban’s sheep, our Lord looked upon his elect as a charge for which he was responsible, and before he departed out of this life he rendered in an account to his heavenly Father. Even now ‘that great shepherd of the sheep’ charges himself with the preservation of his own ransomed ones, and when he, at the last, shall gather all his redeemed people around him, there will not be one missing and he will say, ‘Behold, I and the children which God hath given me.’ We call him Father, then, because as a father has charge of his family and is responsible before God for their training and upbringing, so Christ himself is surety for his people and is under bond to bring the ‘many sons unto glory’.
FOR MEDITATION: Earthly parents do fall down on their responsibilities (Isaiah 49:15) and need reminding of them (Ephesians 6:4), but the Lord Jesus Christ will never let his own people down (John 14:18; Hebrews 2:10–18).
N.B. Spurgeon preached this sermon on the eighteenth birthday of his twin sons, Thomas and Charles.
20 SEPTEMBER (1874)
‘I and the children’
‘Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion.’ Isaiah 8:18
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING (Spurgeon): Isaiah 9:1–7
The text has in it very clearly the idea of charge and responsibility. Children are a charge always, a comfort sometimes. No parent has a child without lying under obligations to God to take care of it and to nurse it for him. Sometimes the responsibility becomes very heavy and involves us in much anxiety. Wherever conscience is lively, fatherhood is regarded as a solemn thing.
Now, Jesus Christ, when looking upon his people, calls them ‘the children which God hath given me’, as if he recognised the charge laid upon him to keep, instruct and perfect his own people. Remember his last words to his Father before he went to his passion: ‘I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.’ ‘While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.’
Like Jacob with Laban’s sheep, our Lord looked upon his elect as a charge for which he was responsible, and before he departed out of this life he rendered in an account to his heavenly Father. Even now ‘that great shepherd of the sheep’ charges himself with the preservation of his own ransomed ones, and when he, at the last, shall gather all his redeemed people around him, there will not be one missing and he will say, ‘Behold, I and the children which God hath given me.’ We call him Father, then, because as a father has charge of his family and is responsible before God for their training and upbringing, so Christ himself is surety for his people and is under bond to bring the ‘many sons unto glory’.
FOR MEDITATION: Earthly parents do fall down on their responsibilities (Isaiah 49:15) and need reminding of them (Ephesians 6:4), but the Lord Jesus Christ will never let his own people down (John 14:18; Hebrews 2:10–18).
N.B. Spurgeon preached this sermon on the eighteenth birthday of his twin sons, Thomas and Charles.
Arabic
French
Spanish
Portuguese
Deutsch
Turkish
Dutch
Italiano
Russian
Romaian
Portuguese (Brazil)
Greek