15 JANUARY (1882)
Acceptable service
‘Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.’ Hebrews 12:28–29
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Hebrews 10:26–31
The Lord God who is to be served by us, even as our covenant God, is a ‘consuming fire.’ In love he is severely holy, sternly just. We hear people say, ‘God out of Christ is a consuming fire,’ but that is an unwarrantable alteration of the text. The text is ‘our God’, that is God in Christ ‘is a consuming fire.’ ‘Our God’ means God in covenant with us; it means our Father God, our God to whom we are reconciled, even our God, is still a ‘consuming fire.’ A large proportion of nominal Christians do not believe in this God. They profess to reverence a merciful God, but the moment you preach his justice they are indignant; the God who is a consuming fire is not accepted by this proud ‘nineteenth century.’
I do this day most solemnly declare my faith in the God of the Hebrews, who will by no means spare the guilty. The God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob is the one and only God, and I avouch him this day to be my God. Jehovah is the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. He that smote Pharaoh at the Red Sea, he that smote kings and slew mighty kings, is my God, and I believe in him as the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I know no God but Abraham’s God, Jehovah, the I AM. Under the New Testament God is not an atom less severe than under the old; and under the covenant of grace the Lord is not a particle less righteous than under the law.
We are so saved by mercy that no sin goes unpunished: the law is as much honoured under the gospel as under the law. The substitution of Jesus as much displays the wrath of God against sin as even the flames of hell would do. While the Lord is merciful, infinitely so, and his name is love, yet still ‘our God is a consuming fire’, and sin shall not live in his sight.
FOR MEDITATION: (Our Own Hymn Book no. 189 v. 4—Basil Manly jun., 1850)
‘How shall sinners worship Thee, God of spotless purity?
To Thy grace all hope we owe; Thine own righteousness bestow.’
Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Terence Peter Crosby, 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 5), ed. Terence Peter Crosby, (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2010), 20
Acceptable service
‘Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.’ Hebrews 12:28–29
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Hebrews 10:26–31
The Lord God who is to be served by us, even as our covenant God, is a ‘consuming fire.’ In love he is severely holy, sternly just. We hear people say, ‘God out of Christ is a consuming fire,’ but that is an unwarrantable alteration of the text. The text is ‘our God’, that is God in Christ ‘is a consuming fire.’ ‘Our God’ means God in covenant with us; it means our Father God, our God to whom we are reconciled, even our God, is still a ‘consuming fire.’ A large proportion of nominal Christians do not believe in this God. They profess to reverence a merciful God, but the moment you preach his justice they are indignant; the God who is a consuming fire is not accepted by this proud ‘nineteenth century.’
I do this day most solemnly declare my faith in the God of the Hebrews, who will by no means spare the guilty. The God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob is the one and only God, and I avouch him this day to be my God. Jehovah is the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. He that smote Pharaoh at the Red Sea, he that smote kings and slew mighty kings, is my God, and I believe in him as the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I know no God but Abraham’s God, Jehovah, the I AM. Under the New Testament God is not an atom less severe than under the old; and under the covenant of grace the Lord is not a particle less righteous than under the law.
We are so saved by mercy that no sin goes unpunished: the law is as much honoured under the gospel as under the law. The substitution of Jesus as much displays the wrath of God against sin as even the flames of hell would do. While the Lord is merciful, infinitely so, and his name is love, yet still ‘our God is a consuming fire’, and sin shall not live in his sight.
FOR MEDITATION: (Our Own Hymn Book no. 189 v. 4—Basil Manly jun., 1850)
‘How shall sinners worship Thee, God of spotless purity?
To Thy grace all hope we owe; Thine own righteousness bestow.’
Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Terence Peter Crosby, 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 5), ed. Terence Peter Crosby, (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2010), 20
15 JANUARY (1882)
Acceptable service
‘Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.’ Hebrews 12:28–29
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Hebrews 10:26–31
The Lord God who is to be served by us, even as our covenant God, is a ‘consuming fire.’ In love he is severely holy, sternly just. We hear people say, ‘God out of Christ is a consuming fire,’ but that is an unwarrantable alteration of the text. The text is ‘our God’, that is God in Christ ‘is a consuming fire.’ ‘Our God’ means God in covenant with us; it means our Father God, our God to whom we are reconciled, even our God, is still a ‘consuming fire.’ A large proportion of nominal Christians do not believe in this God. They profess to reverence a merciful God, but the moment you preach his justice they are indignant; the God who is a consuming fire is not accepted by this proud ‘nineteenth century.’
I do this day most solemnly declare my faith in the God of the Hebrews, who will by no means spare the guilty. The God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob is the one and only God, and I avouch him this day to be my God. Jehovah is the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. He that smote Pharaoh at the Red Sea, he that smote kings and slew mighty kings, is my God, and I believe in him as the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I know no God but Abraham’s God, Jehovah, the I AM. Under the New Testament God is not an atom less severe than under the old; and under the covenant of grace the Lord is not a particle less righteous than under the law.
We are so saved by mercy that no sin goes unpunished: the law is as much honoured under the gospel as under the law. The substitution of Jesus as much displays the wrath of God against sin as even the flames of hell would do. While the Lord is merciful, infinitely so, and his name is love, yet still ‘our God is a consuming fire’, and sin shall not live in his sight.
FOR MEDITATION: (Our Own Hymn Book no. 189 v. 4—Basil Manly jun., 1850)
‘How shall sinners worship Thee, God of spotless purity?
To Thy grace all hope we owe; Thine own righteousness bestow.’
Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Terence Peter Crosby, 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 5), ed. Terence Peter Crosby, (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2010), 20
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