Morning devotion - C.H. Spurgeon April 11th

"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint." — Psalm 22:14

Did earth or heaven ever behold a sadder spectacle of woe! In soul and body, our Lord felt Himself to be weak as water poured upon the ground. The placing of the cross in its socket had shaken Him with great violence, had strained all the ligaments, pained every nerve, and more or less dislocated all His bones. Burdened with His own weight, the august sufferer felt the strain increasing every moment of those six long hours. His sense of faintness and general weakness were overpowering; while to His own consciousness He became nothing but a mass of misery and swooning sickness. When Daniel saw the great vision, he thus describes his sensations, "There remained no strength in me, for my vigour was turned into corruption, and I retained no strength:" how much more faint must have been our greater Prophet when He saw the dread vision of the wrath of God, and felt it in His own soul! To us, sensations such as our Lord endured would have been insupportable, and kind unconsciousness would have come to our rescue; but in His case, He was wounded, and felt the sword; He drained the cup and tasted every drop.

"O King of Grief! (a title strange, yet true
To Thee of all kings only due)
O King of Wounds! how shall I grieve for Thee,
Who in all grief preventest me!"

As we kneel before our now ascended Saviour's throne, let us remember well the way by which He prepared it as a throne of grace for us; let us in spirit drink of His cup, that we may be strengthened for our hour of heaviness whenever it may come. In His natural body every member suffered, and so must it be in the spiritual; but as out of all His griefs and woes His body came forth uninjured to glory and power, even so shall His mystical body come through the furnace with not so much as the smell of fire upon it.

Morning devotion - C.H. Spurgeon April 10th

"The place which is called Calvary." — Luke 23:33

The hill of comfort is the hill of Calvary; the house of consolation is built with the wood of the cross; the temple of heavenly blessing is founded upon the riven rock—riven by the spear which pierced His side. No scene in sacred history ever gladdens the soul like Calvary's tragedy.

"Is it not strange, the darkest hour

That ever dawned on sinful earth,

Should touch the heart with softer power,

For comfort, than an angel's mirth?

That to the Cross the mourner's eye should turn,

Sooner than where the stars of Bethlehem burn?"

Light springs from the midday-midnight of Golgotha, and every herb of the field blooms sweetly beneath the shadow of the once accursed tree. In that place of thirst, grace hath dug a fountain which ever gusheth with waters pure as crystal, each drop capable of alleviating the woes of mankind. You who have had your seasons of conflict, will confess that it was not at Olivet that you ever found comfort, not on the hill of Sinai, nor on Tabor; but Gethsemane, Gabbatha, and Golgotha have been a means of comfort to you. The bitter herbs of Gethsemane have often taken away the bitters of your life; the scourge of Gabbatha has often scourged away your cares, and the groans of Calvary yields us comfort rare and rich. We never should have known Christ's love in all its heights and depths if He had not died; nor could we guess the Father's deep affection if He had not given His Son to die. The common mercies we enjoy all sing of love, just as the sea-shell, when we put it to our ears, whispers of the deep sea whence it came; but if we desire to hear the ocean itself, we must not look at every-day blessings, but at the transactions of the crucifixion. He who would know love, let him retire to Calvary and see the Man of sorrows die.

Spurgeon quote for the day! 4/9 "Where the IF lies"

"Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."—Mark 9:23.

"Then the next trial is, that we cannot get troubled sinners to see the difference between their faith and its fruits. "I would believe in Christ," says one, "if I were as holy as So-and-So, who is a believer, but then you see I am a sinner." Now mark, dear friend, that the person of whom you speak in that fashion does not think himself to be one particle more deserving than you are. If you talk to that good man he will tell you that whatever holiness you can see in him is the work of grace, and that at the first he came to Jesus just as you must come, that is, as a sinner. Faith produces holiness; but when we come to Jesus, at the first we come as unholy persons, and as such he receives us. Suppose that I have a number of bulbs which I am told will produce most remarkable flowers; if I believe the statement I shall take care to have them properly planted. The gardeners are beginning to put such things into pots, that they may have hyacinths and other fair flowers in the winter and early spring. Suppose that I resolve not to plant my bulbs, because I use my own eyesight, and come to the conclusion that as I cannot see a hyacinth or even the beginnings of one in any of the bulbs, therefore there can be no use in planting them. Why, everyone would tell me that in this matter I must go by faith, and plant my hyacinth in order that I may in due time see it bloom. "That bulb will yield a beautiful blue flower," says one. I answer that it is a brown, dried-up sort of onion, and that I shall throw it on the dunghill, for I can see no bud or flower in it. What a simpleton I should be if I talked so! Though I cannot see it, yet there is, closely compacted and quietly hidden away within that bulb, a slumbering thing of beauty which will wake up at the call of spring. Even so, if thou believest in Christ, there is a holy life packed away within thy faith, and it will gradually develop itself. Even within a feeble faith there are the elements of ultimate perfection. If thou dost truly trust Christ, thy preparation for glory has begun. As the king was hidden in the oak so is Christ hidden in true faith. Do not, however, expect to see all this at the first: look to the root now and the growth will follow. You are not to come to Christ because you are healed, but to get healing; your faith must be a sinner's faith before it can be a saint's faith. Trust Christ while yet you are foul, lost, and undone, and he will wash, save, and restore you."

C.H. Spurgeon- "Where the IF lies."

GO!

HOLLYWOOD FOLLOW-UP 4-3-10

To be honest I thought we weren't going to have a good turn out since it was Easter weekend... I was wrong. We had 16 evangelists come out! We split up into 3 teams and blanketed out over Hollywood Blvd. I had a wonderful time just preaching the gospel. This was when I preached at the Hollywood and Vine station to barely anyone. Crowd size means less and less to me lately I just want to get the message right. Ultimately you are preaching to an audience of One.

Resolved 2007 trailer

I know this is old... but it was very inspiring to me.

Evangelism Crash Course 4 - High Schoolers April 17th

Saturday April 17th we are going to do our Evangelism Crash Course Training for the CBC High Schoolers.

THIS IS A SIGN-UP SHEET EVENT. This is not a walk in event, you must have previously signed up with Mike M. to attend. We will have two teams going to Noho & Hollywood Blvd. I've picked a small team of people who will be leading the groups.

I would kindly ask that all of our regular evangelists or new evangelists please meet at CBC parking lot at 4:30 pm so that we can figure out together where you will "GO" from there. We're trying to spread out the evangelism, so we need to work together to help train up new evangelists and keep the regulars "stoking the fire".

Not a bad problem to have is it? Trying to coordinate LOTS of evangelists. PRAISE THE LORD!!

HE IS RISEN!!

..."these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name." John 20:31

"For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." — 2 Corinthians 5:21

Mourning Christian! why weepest thou? Art thou mourning over thine own corruptions? Look to thy perfect Lord, and remember, thou art complete in Him; thou art in God's sight as perfect as if thou hadst never sinned; nay, more than that, the Lord our Righteousness hath put a divine garment upon thee, so that thou hast more than the righteousness of man—thou hast the righteousness of God. O Thou who art mourning by reason of inbred sin and depravity, remember, none of thy sins can condemn thee. Thou hast learned to hate sin; but thou hast learned also to know that sin is not thine—it was laid upon Christ's head. Thy standing is not in thyself—it is in Christ; thine acceptance is not in thyself, but in thy Lord; thou art as much accepted of God to-day, with all thy sinfulness, as thou wilt be when thou standest before His throne, free from all corruption. O, I beseech thee, lay hold on this precious thought, perfection in Christ! For thou art "complete in Him." With thy Saviour's garment on, thou art holy as the Holy one. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Christian, let thy heart rejoice, for thou art "accepted in the beloved"—what hast thou to fear? Let thy face ever wear a smile; live near thy Master; live in the suburbs of the Celestial City; for soon, when thy time has come, thou shalt rise up where thy Jesus sits, and reign at His right hand; and all this because the divine Lord "was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." C.H Spurgeon

"Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion." Psalm 2:6

Isn't this enough...

..."they crucified Him," Mark 15:24

Isn't this enough to last us a lifetime?

Morning devotion - C.H. Spurgeon April 2nd

"He answered him to never a word." — Matthew 27:14

He had never been slow of speech when He could bless the sons of men, but He would not say a single word for Himself. "Never man spake like this Man," and never man was silent like Him. Was this singular silence the index of His perfect self-sacrifice? Did it show that He would not utter a word to stay the slaughter of His sacred person, which He had dedicated as an offering for us? Had He so entirely surrendered Himself that He would not interfere in His own behalf, even in the minutest degree, but be bound and slain an unstruggling, uncomplaining victim? Was this silence a type of the defenselessness of sin? Nothing can be said in palliation or excuse of human guilt; and, therefore, He who bore its whole weight stood speechless before His judge. Is not patient silence the best reply to a gainsaying world? Calm endurance answers some questions infinitely more conclusively than the loftiest eloquence. The best apologists for Christianity in the early days were its martyrs. The anvil breaks a host of hammers by quietly bearing their blows. Did not the silent Lamb of God furnish us with a grand example of wisdom? Where every word was occasion for new blasphemy, it was the line of duty to afford no fuel for the flame of sin. The ambiguous and the false, the unworthy and mean, will ere long overthrow and confute themselves, and therefore the true can afford to be quiet, and finds silence to be its wisdom. Evidently our Lord, by His silence, furnished a remarkable fulfillment of prophecy. A long defence of Himself would have been contrary to Isaiah's prediction. "He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." By His quiet He conclusively proved Himself to be the true Lamb of God. As such we salute Him this morning. Be with us, Jesus, and in the silence of our heart, let us hear the voice of Thy love.