The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon

know anything about it; you have no work going on in your hearts, and why? Because you think it is impossible; you think God is not at work. He has not promised to work for you who do not honour him. Unbelief makes you sit here in times of revival and of the outpouring of God’s grace, unmoved, uncalled, unsaved.

      19. But, sirs, the worst fulfilment of this doom is to come! Good George Whitfield sometimes used to lift up both his hands and shout, as I wish I could shout, but my voice fails me. “The wrath to come! the wrath to come!” It is not the wrath now you have to fear, but the wrath to come; and there shall be a doom to come, when “you shall see it with your eyes, but shall not eat of it.” I think I see the last great day. The last hour of time has struck. I heard the bell toll its death knell — time was, eternity is ushered in; the sea is boiling; the waves are lit up with supernatural splendour. I see a rainbow — a flying cloud, and on it there is a throne, and on that throne sits one like the Son of Man. I know him. In his hand he holds a pair of balances; just before him are the books, — the book of life, the book of death, the book of remembrance. I see his splendour, and I rejoice in it; I behold his pompous appearance, and I smile with gladness that he is come to be “admired by all his saints.” But there stands a throng of miserable wretches, crouching in horror to conceal themselves, and yet looking, for their eyes must look on him whom they have pierced; but when they look they cry, “Hide me from the face.” What face? “Rocks, hide me from the face.” What face? “The face of Jesus, the man who died, but now is come in judgment.” But you cannot be hidden from his face; you must see it with your eyes: but you will not sit on the right hand, dressed in robes of grandeur; and when the triumphal procession of Jesus in the clouds shall come, you shall not march in it; you shall see it, but you shall not be there. Oh! I think I see him now, the mighty Saviour in his chariot, riding on the rainbow to heaven. See how his mighty chargers make the sky rattle while he drives them up heaven’s hill. A train of saints clothed in white follows behind him, and at his chariot wheels he drags the devil, death, and hell. Listen, how they clap their hands. Listen, how they shout. “You have ascended up on high; you have led captivity captive.” Listen, how they chant the chorus, “Hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigns.” See the splendour of their appearance; see the crown upon their brows; see their snow white garments; see the rapture of their countenances; hear how their song swells up to heaven while the Eternal joins in it, saying, “I will rejoice over them with joy, I will rejoice over them with singing, for I have betrothed you to me in everlasting lovingkindness.” But where are you all the while? You can see them up there but where are you? Looking at it with your eyes, but you cannot eat of it. The marriage banquet is spread; the good old wines of eternity are broached; they sit down to the feast of the king; but there are you, miserable, and famishing, and you cannot eat of it. Oh! how you wring your hands. Might you have only one morsel from the table — might you be only dogs beneath the table. You shall be a dog in hell, but not a dog in heaven.

      20. But to conclude. I think I see you in some place in hell, tied to a rock, the vulture of remorse gnawing your heart; and up there is Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. You lift up your eyes and you see who it is. “That is the poor man who lay on my dunghill, and the dogs licked his sores; there he is in heaven, while I am cast down. Lazarus — yes, it is Lazarus; and I who was rich in the world of time am here in hell. Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, to cool my tongue.” But no! it cannot be; it cannot be. And while you lie there, if there is one thing in hell worse than another, it will be seeing the saints in heaven. Oh, to think of seeing my mother in heaven while I am cast out! Oh, sinner, only think, to see your brother in heaven — he who was rocked in the very same cradle, and played beneath the same roof — yet you are cast out. And, husband, there is your wife in heaven, and you are among the damned. And father! do you see your child is before the throne; and you! accursed of God and accursed of man, are in hell. Oh, the hell of hells will be to see our friends in heaven, and ourselves lost. I beseech you, my hearers, by the death of Christ — by his agony and bloody sweat — by his cross and passion — by all that is holy — by all that is sacred in heaven and earth — by all that is solemn in time or eternity — by all that is horrible in hell, or glorious in heaven — by that awful thought, “for ever,” — I beseech you lay these things to heart, and remember that if you are damned, it will be unbelief that damns you. If you are lost, it will be because you did not believe on Christ; and if you perish, this shall be the bitterest drop of gall — that you did not trust in the Saviour.

      The Personality of the Holy Spirit

      No. 4-1:25. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, January 21, 1855, By C. H. Spurgeon, At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

      And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever: even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it does not does see him, neither knows him: but you know him for he dwells with you, and shall be in you. {John 14:16,17}

      1. You will be surprised to hear me announce that I do not intend this morning to say anything about the Holy Spirit as the Comforter. I propose to reserve that for a special sermon this evening. In this discourse I shall endeavour to explain and enforce certain other doctrines which I believe are plainly taught in this text and which I hope God the Holy Spirit may make profitable to our souls. Old John Newton once said that there were some books which he could not read, they were good and sound enough; but, he said, “they are books of halfpence; — you have to take so much in quantity before you have any value; there are other books of silver, and others of gold, but I have one book that is a book of bank notes and every leaf is a bank note of immense value.” So I have found with this text that I had a bank note of so large a sum, that I could not expound it all this morning. I would have to detain you for several hours, before I could unfold to you the whole value of this precious promise — one of the last which Christ gave to his people.

      2. I invite your attention to this passage, because we shall find in it some instruction on four points; first, concerning the true and proper personality of the Holy Spirit; secondly, concerning the united agency of the glorious Three Persons in the work of our salvation; thirdly, we shall find something to establish the doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the souls of all believers; and fourthly, we shall find out the reason why the carnal mind rejects the Holy Spirit.

      3. I. First of all, we shall have some little instruction concerning the proper PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. We are so much accustomed to talk about the influence of the Holy Spirit, and his sacred operations and graces, that we are apt to forget that the Holy Spirit is truly and actually a person — that he is a subsistence — an existence; or as we Trinitarians usually say, one person in the essence of the Godhead. I am afraid that though we do not know it, we have acquired the habit of regarding the Holy Spirit as an emanation flowing from the Father and the Son, but not as being actually a person himself. I know it is not easy to carry about in our mind the idea of the Holy Spirit as a person. I can think of the Father as a person, because his acts are such as I can understand. I see him hang the world in ether; I behold him swaddling a newborn sea in bands of darkness; I know it is he who formed the drops of hail, who leads out the stars by their hosts, and calls them by their name; I can conceive of him as a person, because I behold his operations. I can realise Jesus, the Son of Man, as a real person, because he is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It takes no great stretch of my imagination to picture the babe in Bethlehem, or to behold the “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”; of the King of martyrs, as he was persecuted in Pilate’s hall, or nailed to the accursed tree for our sins. Nor do I find it difficult at times to realise the person of my Jesus sitting on his throne in heaven; or clothed with clouds and wearing the diadem of all creation, calling the earth to judgment, and summoning us to hear our final sentence. But when I come to deal with the Holy Spirit, his operations are so mysterious, his doings are so secret, his acts are so removed from everything that is of sense, and of the body, that I cannot so easily get the idea of his being a person; but a person he is. God the Holy Spirit is not an influence, an emanation, a stream of something flowing from the Father; but he is as much an actual person as either God the Son, or God the Father. I shall attempt this morning a little to establish the doctrine, and to show you the truth of it — that God the Holy Spirit is actually