What a soul-ruler faith is!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life Leave a comment

He trusted in God… – Matthew 27:43

Whenever Jesus spoke it was always godly talk; and if it was not always distinctly about God, it was always about things that related to God, that came from God, that led to God, that magnified God. A man may be fairly judged by that which he makes most of. The ruling passion is a fair gauge of the heart. What a soul-ruler faith is! It sways the man as the rudder guides the ship. When a man once gets to live by faith in God, it tinctures his thoughts, it masters his purposes, it flavours his words, it puts a tone into his actions, and it comes out in everything by ways and means most natural and unconstrained, till men perceive that they have to do with a man who makes much of God. The unbelieving world says outright that there is no God, and the less impudent, who admit His existence, put Him down at a very low figure, so low that it does not affect their calculations; but to the true Christian, God is not only much, but all. To our Lord Jesus, God was all in all; and when you come to estimate God as He did, then the most careless onlooker will soon begin to say of you, “He trusted in God.”

In addition to observing that Jesus made much of God, men came to note that he was a trusting man, and not self-confident. Certain persons are very proud because they are self-made men. I will do them the credit to admit that they heartily worship their maker. Self made them, and they worship self…Jesus was a truster in God, not a boaster in self. Brethren and sisters, I desire that you and I may be just of that order. Self-confidence is the death of confidence in God; reliance upon talent, tact, experience, and things of that kind, kills faith. Oh, that we may know what faith means and so look out of ourselves and quit the evil confidence which looks within! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Let Him Deliver Him Now

He Trusted in God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

“He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” – Matthew 27:43

My beloved brethren, you who know the Lord by faith and live by trusting in Him, let me invite you to observe the acknowledgement which these mockers made of our Lord’s faith: “He trusted in God.” Yet the Saviour did not wear any peculiar garb or token by which He let men know that He trusted in God. He was not a recluse, neither did He join some little knot of separatists, who boasted their peculiar trust in Jehovah. Although our Saviour was separate from sinners, yet He was eminently a man among men, and He went in and out among the multitude as one of themselves. His one peculiarity was that “He trusted in God.” He was so perfectly a man that, although He was undoubtedly a Jew, there were no Jewish peculiarities about Him. Any nation might claim Him; but no nation could monopolize Him. The characteristics of our humanity are so palpably about Him that He belongs to all mankind. I admire the Welch sister who was of the opinion that the Lord Jesus must be Welch. When they asked her how she proved it, she said that He always spoke to her heart in Welch. Doubtless it was so, and I can, with equal warmth, declare that He always speaks to me in English. Brethren from Germany, France, Sweden, Italy-you all claim that He speaks to you in your own tongue. This was the one thing which distinguished Him among men-“He trusted in God,” and He lived such a life as naturally grows out of faith in the Eternal Lord. This peculiarity had been visible even to that ungodly multitude who least of all cared to perceive a spiritual point of character. Was ever any other upon a cross thus saluted by the mob who watched his execution? Had these scorners ever mocked anyone before for such a matter as this? I trow not. Yet faith had been so manifest in our Lord’s daily life that the crowd cried out aloud, “He trusted in God.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Let Him Deliver Him Now

Christ is the Mirror of the Church

Sherry Christian Life, prophecy, prayer, Character of Jesus, Attributes of God, promises Leave a comment

All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, “He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!” – Psalm 22:7,8

He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him: for He said, I am the Son of God. – Matthew 27:43

While thus we see our Lord in His sorrow and His shame as our substitute, we must not forget that He also is there as our representative. That which appears in many a psalm to relate to David is found in the Gospels to refer to Jesus, our Lord. Often the student of the Psalm will say to himself, “Of whom speaketh the prophet this?” He will have to disentangle the threads sometimes, and mark off that which belongs to David and that which relates to the Son of God; and frequently he will not be able to disentangle the threads at all, because they are one, and may relate both to David, and to David’s Lord. This is meant to show us that the life of Christ is an epitome of the life of His people. He not only suffers for us as our substitute, but He suffers before us as our pattern. In Him we see what we have in our measure to endure. “As He is, so are we also in this world.” We also must be crucified to the world, and we may look for somewhat of those tests of faith and taunts of derision which go with such a crucifixion. “Marvel not if the world hate you.” You, too, must suffer without the gate. Not for the world’s redemption, but for the accomplishment of divine purposes in you, and through you to the sons of men, you must be made to know the cross and its shame. Christ is the mirror of the Church. What the head endured every member of the body will also have to endure in its measure. Let us read the text in this light, and come to it saying to ourselves, “Here we see what Jesus suffered in our stead, and we learn hereby to love Him with all our souls. Here, too, we see, as in a prophecy, how great things we are to suffer for His sake at the hands of men.” May the Holy Spirit help us in our meditation, so that at the close of it we may the more carefully arm ourselves with the same mind which enabled Him to endure such contradiction of sinners against Himself. – C.H. Spurgeon

Let Him Deliver Him Now

The Treatment of Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

“He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” – Matthew 27:43 (see also: Psalm 22:7,8)

It is very painful to the heart to picture our blessed Master in His death-agonies, surrounded by a ribald multitude, who watched Him and mocked Him, made sport of His prayer and insulted His faith. Nothing was sacred to them: they invaded the Holy of Holies of His confidence in God and taunted Him concerning that faith in Jehovah which they were compelled to admit. See, dear friends, what an evil thing is sin, since the Sin-bearer suffers so bitterly to make atonement for it! See, also, the shame of sin, since even the Prince of Glory, when bearing the consequences of it, is covered with contempt! Behold, also, how He loved us! For our sake He “endured the cross, despising the shame.” He loved us so much that even scorn of the most cruel sort He deigned to bear, that He might take away our shame and enable us to look up unto God.

Beloved, the treatment of our Lord Jesus Christ by men is the clearest proof of total depravity which can possibly be required or discovered. Those must be stony hearts indeed which can laugh at a dying Saviour, and mock even at His faith in God! Compassion would seem to have deserted humanity, while malice sat supreme on the throne. Painful as the picture is, it will do you good to paint it. You will need neither canvas, nor brush, nor palette, nor colours. Let your thoughts draw the outline, and your love fill in the detail; I shall not complain if imagination heightens the colouring. The Son of God, whom angels adore with veiled faces, is pointed at with scornful fingers by men who thrust out the tongue and mockingly exclaim, “He trusted on the LORD that He would deliver Him: let Him deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him.” May the Holy Spirit help us in our meditation, so that we may more ardently love our Lord, who suffered for us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Let Him Deliver Him Now

Christ, the Dread Division

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. – Revelation 20:15

The hour is coming when our wills and wishes shall have no force. God will divide the righteous from the wicked then, and Christ shall be the dread division. I say, are we prepared to be separated eternally? There the righteous clad in white, in songs triumphant glorified with Him, and there the lost, the unbelieving, the fearful, the abominable. What divides them from yon bright host? Nothing but the person of the Son of Man, on whom they look, and weep, and mourn, and wail because of Him. That is the impenetrable barrier that shall shut out the damned from eternal bliss. The gate which may let you in now will be the fiery gate which shall shut you out hereafter. Christ is the door of heaven, oh, dreadful day when that door shall be shut, when that door shall stand before you, and prevent you entering into the felicity which you shall then long for, when you cannot enter into it.

Oh! on which side shall I be, when all these transitory things are done away with, when the dead have risen from their graves, when the great congregation shall stand upon the land, and upon the sea, when every valley, and every mountain, and every river, and every sea, shall be crowded with multitudes standing in thick array? Oh! when He shall say, “Separate My people, thrust in the sickle, for the harvest of the world is ripe,” my soul, where shall you be? Shall you be found among the lost? Shall the dread trumpet send you down to hell, while a voice that rends your ear, shall call after you, “Depart from Me, depart from Me, you workers of iniquity into everlasting fire in hell, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Oh that now the grace of God were poured upon you, that you might come unto Jesus. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The High Priest Standing Between the Dead and the Living

Mercy’s Master Motive 

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

Sermon Text

The Great Divider

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed. – Numbers 16:48

Aaron the anointed one stands here, on that side is death, on this side life, the boundary between life and death is that one man. Where his incense smokes the air is purified, where it smokes not the plague reigns with unmitigated fury. There are two sorts of people here, and these are the living and the dead, the pardoned, and the unpardoned, the saved and the lost. The one division, the one great division between those who are God’s people and those who are not, is Christ. A man in Christ is a Christian, a man out of Christ is dead in trespasses and sins. “He that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ is saved, he that believeth not is lost.” Christ is the only divider between His people and the world.

What divides the true Christian from the unbeliever? Some think it is that the Christian takes the sacrament, the other not. That is no division, there be men who have gone to hell with sacramental bread in their mouths; others may imagine that baptism makes the difference, and indeed it is the outward token, the baptismal pool is the means by which we show to the world that we are buried in Christ’s grave, in type that we are dead to the world and buried in Christ, we rise up from it in testimony that we desire to live in newness of life by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

On which side then, are you today, my hearer? Please remember, brothers and sisters, that as Christ is the great divider now, so will He be in the day of judgment. Do you never think of that, He shall divide them the one from the other, as the shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. It is the Shepherd’s person that divides the sheep from the goats. He stands between them, and in that last day of days for which all other days were made, Christ shall be the great divider. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The High Priest Standing Between the Dead and the Living