18 DECEMBER (UNDATED SERMON)
The meat and drink of the new nature
‘For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.’ John 6:55
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Philippians 4:10–23
Do we know our own strength? I do not mean our natural strength, for that is weakness, but the strength which lies in the new nature when it has fed on Christ. Brethren, we are strong to do, strong to be, strong to suffer. And to take an easy illustration of this, look at how the saints have suffered. Take down Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: read of Marcus Arethusa, stung to death by wasps without a sigh. Think of Blandina, tossed on the horns of bulls, exposed in a red-hot iron chair, and yet never flinching. Give up Christ? They never dreamed of such a thing. Think of Lawrence on the gridiron, and other heroes innumerable, who were made strong because Christ was in them. Turn to humble men and women over yonder there in Smithfield, who could clap their hands while every finger burned like a candle, and who could shout, ‘None but Christ.’ Why, they fed on the flesh and blood of Christ, and that made them mighty. They were tortured on the rack like Anne Askew, and yet they scorned to yield. Brave woman! The priests and the friars could not vanquish her. Neither could all the Bishop Bonners in the world burn Christ out of poor Tomkins. When Bonner held the poor man’s fingers over the candle and said, ‘How will you like that in every single limb of your body?’ Tomkins smiled on the bishop and said that he forgave him the cruelty that he was doing him.
Christ in a man makes him a partaker of divine strength. Do you not think that as you are not called to suffer, you ought to lay out your strength in the line of doing, giving, self-denial and serving Christ by holy living? Certainly you should try to do so, and your strength will be found equal to it. You do not know how strong you are, but Paul shall tell you—‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’ Well may you do all things if you have fed on him who ‘is all, and in all’.
FOR MEDITATION: (Our Own Hymn Book no.761 v.4—John Kent, 1827)
‘This sacred tie forbids their fears,
For all He is or has is theirs;
With Him, their Head, they stand or fall,
Their life, their surety, and their all.’
C. H. Spurgeon and Terence Peter Crosby, 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 4), (Leominster, UK: Day One Publications, 2007), 363.
18 DECEMBER (UNDATED SERMON)
The meat and drink of the new nature
‘For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.’ John 6:55
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Philippians 4:10–23
Do we know our own strength? I do not mean our natural strength, for that is weakness, but the strength which lies in the new nature when it has fed on Christ. Brethren, we are strong to do, strong to be, strong to suffer. And to take an easy illustration of this, look at how the saints have suffered. Take down Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: read of Marcus Arethusa, stung to death by wasps without a sigh. Think of Blandina, tossed on the horns of bulls, exposed in a red-hot iron chair, and yet never flinching. Give up Christ? They never dreamed of such a thing. Think of Lawrence on the gridiron, and other heroes innumerable, who were made strong because Christ was in them. Turn to humble men and women over yonder there in Smithfield, who could clap their hands while every finger burned like a candle, and who could shout, ‘None but Christ.’ Why, they fed on the flesh and blood of Christ, and that made them mighty. They were tortured on the rack like Anne Askew, and yet they scorned to yield. Brave woman! The priests and the friars could not vanquish her. Neither could all the Bishop Bonners in the world burn Christ out of poor Tomkins. When Bonner held the poor man’s fingers over the candle and said, ‘How will you like that in every single limb of your body?’ Tomkins smiled on the bishop and said that he forgave him the cruelty that he was doing him.
Christ in a man makes him a partaker of divine strength. Do you not think that as you are not called to suffer, you ought to lay out your strength in the line of doing, giving, self-denial and serving Christ by holy living? Certainly you should try to do so, and your strength will be found equal to it. You do not know how strong you are, but Paul shall tell you—‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’ Well may you do all things if you have fed on him who ‘is all, and in all’.
FOR MEDITATION: (Our Own Hymn Book no.761 v.4—John Kent, 1827)
‘This sacred tie forbids their fears,
For all He is or has is theirs;
With Him, their Head, they stand or fall,
Their life, their surety, and their all.’
C. H. Spurgeon and Terence Peter Crosby, 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 4), (Leominster, UK: Day One Publications, 2007), 363.
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