God’s Word Sanctifies, Not Private Revelation — Charles Spurgeon

“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” — John 17:17

Spurgeon,

Beloved, observe how God has joined holiness and His truth together. There has been a tendency of late to divide truth of doctrine from truth of precept. Men say that Christianity is a life and not a creed—this is a part truth, but very near akin to a lie. Christianity is a life which grows out of the Truth of God. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, as well as the Life—and He is not properly received unless He is accepted in that threefold character. No holy life will be produced in us by the belief of falsehood. Sanctification in visible character comes out of edification in the inner faith of the heart, or otherwise it is a mere shell. Good works are the fruit of true faith and true faith is a sincere belief of the Truth of God. Every Truth leads towards holiness. Every error of doctrine, directly or indirectly, leads to sin. A twist of the understanding will, sooner or later, inevitably bring a contortion of the life. The straight line of the Truth of God drawn on the heart will produce a direct course of gracious walking in the life. Do not imagine that you can live on spiritual carrion and yet be in fine moral health, or that you can drink poisonous error and yet lift up a face without spot before God! Even God, Himself, only sanctifies us by His Truth. Only that teaching will sanctify you which is taken from God’s Word! That teaching which is not true, nor the Truth of God, cannot sanctify you! Error may puff you up—it may even make you think that you are sanctified—but there is a very serious difference between boasting of sanctification and being sanctified! And there is a very grave difference between setting up to be superior to others and being really accepted before God. Believe me, God works sanctification in us by His Truth and by nothing else!

But what is the Truth? There is the point. Is the truth that which I imagine to be revealed to me by some private communication? Am I to fancy that I enjoy some special Revelation and am I to order my life by voices, dreams and impressions? Brothers and Sisters, fall not into this common delusion! God’s Word to us is in Holy Scripture. All the Truth that sanctifies men is in God’s Word! Do not listen to those who cry, “Lo here!” and, “Lo there!” I am plucked by the sleeve almost every day by crazy persons and pretenders who think that they have Revelations from God. One man tells me that God has sent a message to me by him—and I reply, “No, Sir, the Lord knows where I dwell and He is so near to me that He would not need to send to me by you.” Another man announces, in God’s name, a dogma which, on the face of it, is a lie against the Holy Spirit. He says the Spirit of God told him so-and-so, but we know that the Holy Spirit never contradicts Himself. If your imaginary Revelation is not according to this Word of God, it has no weight with us! And if it is according to this Word, it is no new thing!

- C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)
taken from: Our Lord’s Prayer for His People’s Sanctification, Sermon No. 1890, Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, March 7th, 1886.

Notes on Revelation: Part 26

Notes on Revelation: Part 26

19:11-21 Christ Defeats and Destroys the Beast, the False Prophet, and Their Gathered Armies. The climactic battle for which the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet gathered the earth’s kings (16:13-16) is introduced with a description of the Christ the victor (19:11-16), then with a grim “dinner invitation” forecasting the battle’s outcome (vv. 17-18). Finally the conflict occurs (vv. 19-21).

19:11 The rider of the white horse is already victorious, and white is the color of victory... The rider’s titles, Faithful and True, identify him as Jesus, the faithful and true witness (1:5; 3:14).

19:12-16 The horse’s rider (v. 11) is the Son of Man, with eyes…like a flame of fire and a sharp sword, whom John saw on the Lord’s Day... His many diadems (crowns signifying royalty) show his supremacy as King of kings and Lord of lords. Although he is named the Word of God as the greatest revelation of the Father (John 1:1, 14; Heb. 1:1-2), he also has a name written that no one knows but himself, since the infinite being of the Son of God can never be fully known…Divine mystery veils part of the nature of the Son in whom God speaks most fully (Luke 10:22).

19:14 The fine linen, white and pure, identifies the armies of heaven as the Bride of the Lamb (v. 8; 6:11; 7:14). They ride white horses, sharing his victory (see note on 2:17; also 12:11; 15:2).

19:15 Jesus is the Messiah who will rule the nations with a rod of iron (see note on 12:5; Ps. 2:9), judging justly and striking down the wicked. As the divine Warrior who treads the winepress of God’s wrath, his robe is dipped in his foes’ blood (Isa. 63:1-6).

19:17-18 The angel’s invitation to birds, to pick corpses clean at the great supper of God, reflects OT covenant curse (Deut. 28:26) and echoes God’s prophetic word against Gog and Magog, who oppressed his people (Ezek. 39:17-20; see Rev. 20:8). The beast’s army, to be consumed as carrion, includes not only kings (16:14) and warriors, but also all who serve the beast, both free and slave, both small and great (13:16).

Taken from the ESV Study Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright ©2008 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

 

Notes on Revelation: Part 25

Notes on Revelation: Part 25

18:1—19:10 As the ancient Greek chorus interpreted actions in a drama, so a succession of speakers explains the significance of the prostitute’s desolation as she is deserted by the beast that once supported her and the kings who once adored her.

18:12-13 The list of cargo for which no market will remain after Babylon’s fall resembles the goods transported by the Phoenician merchants of ancient Tyre, which arrogantly boasted of its beauty (Ezekiel 27). As Revelation’s beast incorporates every expression of corrupt government…, so its prostitute includes every corrupt economic system. Even human souls are reduced to cargo, traded as slaves to drive the engines of production and prosperity.

18:21 As Jeremiah cast a stone and scroll into the Euphrates to show that ancient Babylon would “sink, to rise no more” (Jer. 51:63-64), so a mighty angel threw a great millstone into the sea to illustrate Babylon’s fall, to be found no more (see also Ezek. 26:21).

18:22-23 The pleasant sights and sounds of everyday life—music, labor, food preparation, lamplight, marital love—will be seen and heard no more in Babylon (cf. Jer. 7:34; 25:10).Ordinary cultural activities and artifacts, though proper in themselves, become unsustainable when human civilization, having defied the Creator, receives his judgment. Babylon’s sorcery (Rev. 21:8) has deceived…all nations, as the false prophet’s signs tricked earth dwellers, small and great, into worshiping the beast (13:13-16; 17:8).

Taken from the ESV Study Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright ©2008 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.