The One Priest

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God

And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God… – Hebrews 10:11,12

In that old dispensation, the first point mentioned in the text is that there were many priests. “For every priest standeth”—implying that there were several. There were many priests at the same time—the sacrifices of the temple were too numerous to have been all of them performed by one man: all the descendants of Aaron were set apart to this work, and even then they required the aid of the Levites in certain inferior duties. And as there were many priests at one time, so there were many in succession. As a priest died, he was succeeded by his sons. By reason of infirmity, they were not able to continue in their office even through the whole of their lifetime; there was a certain period at which they were commanded to surrender their office to younger men. By reason of mortality the priesthood was perpetually changing; one high priest died, and was succeeded by another. Now the reason for the existence of many priests was this, that no one priest had accomplished the work of expiation. The good man has gone to his fathers and offered up the last of the morning lambs—but the morning lambs must still be offered. The high priest is dead, and there shall be no more opportunity for him to enter into that which is within the veil, but there must be a new high priest appointed, for the work is not finished. There were many priests, and as one generation passed away, another inherited the mitre. Now, herein is the glory of Christ that He is but one, and to this our attention is called by the apostle; that whereas there were many priests, and the sacrifices were hereby proved to be incomplete, since others had to take up the work; here is but one priest for ever, and He has finished His work, and therefore sits down at the right hand of God.

The Only Atoning Priest by C. H. Spurgeon

The Cleansing Blood

Sherry Christian Life

But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1John 1:7,9

What is your state? Cold as an iceberg as to divine things? Come and tell the Lord you are an iceberg and ask Him to thaw you. What is your state hard as a rock, or like a nether millstone? Is there no feeling? Come and tell the Lord that you do not feel. Oh, is there no trace of any good feeling in you? Come to my Lord without a trace of feeling, and tell Him just what you are; and oh, if you can dare over the head of all your sin and sinfulness to say, “Nevertheless, I rest myself on the blood that cleanses from all sin and I beseech Thee, O Lord, seeing I confess my sin, to cleanse me from all unrighteousness,” you will find Him faithful and just to do it. Come as the citizens of Calais did to King Edward III when the city was captured; come with ropes about your neck, owning that if sentence be executed upon you, you deserve it; come at once in all your filthiness and dishabille; come with no jewels in your ears, with no ornaments upon your necks, and with no recommendation whatever; come as sinners by nature, and as sinners by practice. Plead nothing that looks like goodness but come in your sin. Do not try to put one touch of paint on those cheeks of yours, nor imitate the flush of health upon that consumptive countenance. Come honestly as you are, and say “Lord, look at me as I am, a worse sinner than even I think myself to be, and then show the infinity of Thy free grace, and the power of Jesus’ dying love in saving me, even me.” Ah, my brethren, you will not be long without peace if you draw nigh to God in that fashion. Fling away any preparations, fitnesses, commendations, and hopefulnesses, and take my Lord Jesus, as empty-handed sinners take Him. Meet Him just as He is, and just as you are. God will deal with you truthfully. He will never cast away a sinner that comes to Him according to truth. For my own part, I mean to come to Him always as a sinner. I know I am saved, but I never hope to get one inch beyond that verse, —”The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth me from all sin,” for only so can I walk in the light as He is in the light.

Honest Dealing with God by C. H. Spurgeon

Come to Jesus as Sinful as You Are

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. – 1John 1:8,10

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. – Galatians 6:7

Beloved friends, suppose we have tried to appear before God what we are not, God has not been deceived, for He is not mocked. We may get up a very respectable character to please ourselves, and give it a few touches every now and then, just to set it off and improve it, and we may find a number of people to join with us to form a mutual admiration society, and our friends may cheerfully hear us talk about what wonderful beings we are, provided we will sit and hear them glorify themselves in return: but neither with one witness nor a thousand witnesses will our boasts be one jot more true, or likely to be believed in heaven. God is not misled, He looks at all boasters of their own purity, and says, “When you say you have no sin you make Me a liar, and My word is not in you, for if the truth were in you, you would know that sin is in you; and if My word were in you, you would also confess that you have sinned, and humble yourselves before Me.”

I exhort thee, sinner, to give up all thine attempts to feel right and to be right before coming to God in Christ Jesus. Have you not made a great failure of it already? You thought you were getting right for Christ, but just then you fell in the worst possible way. You have been trying to repair your old clothes and make yourself respectable before coming to Christ; but every time you have touched the garment the rent has grown worse. Give up all attempting to prepare for grace and come to Jesus Christ just as you are. ..Jesus Christ came, not to save the righteous, but sinners…May the Spirit of God help you to come to your heavenly Father on the ground of truth, confessing that you have sinned—that is the truth for you; and on the ground that Christ died for sinners—that is the truth on God’s side which enables Him to smile on sinners.

Honest Dealing with God by C. H. Spurgeon

Caught In Christ’s Net

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. – 1John 1:9

Religious lie-telling is a dreadful thing, and there is plenty of it; but if I could be saved by masking my condition before God, I would not like to be saved in that way. The man whose heart is in the light loves to do the right. It would be a great dishonor to God to suppose it possible that He will save us in any manner which would not accord with truth. It is right that we should come before God as we are and plead for mercy through Jesus Christ and therefore let us do it.

Moreover, upon some of us it is imperative, because we cannot do anything else. There may possibly be a person here who could say, “I have no sin”; but I could not. Why, if I were to claim innocence either of nature or practice the words would choke me. Say I have no sin! I should expect to turn black in the face and fall down dead, it would be so gross a falsehood. To say I have no sin, why there is no one part of my whole nature but what would protest against such an assertion! I am shut up to come to God as a sinner, I cannot help it; and I would to God that every one in this place felt shut up to it too, for it is the intent and design of the law to shut the sinner up in order that he may be compelled to accept salvation on free grace terms through Jesus Christ. You can never catch a fish in a net while there is one mesh through which he can escape, but when all around the meshes are so small that the fish cannot get out, then we have taken him. When you are such a sinner that you cannot plead that you have no sin, nor yet that you have not sinned, but are quite shut up to be saved by grace, then you are in Christ’s net, and He will lift you out, and the Fisher of Men shall have cause to rejoice.

Honest Dealing with God by C. H. Spurgeon

Remember and Confess All of Your Sins

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1John 1:9

O my friends, lay bare your consciences before the law of God. Go and open the twentieth chapter of Exodus and read the ten commands; think of their spirituality,—remember how he that looketh on a woman to lust after her committeth adultery with her in his heart; and let the law with all its blaze of light flash flame into your soul. Do not shirk the facts or shrink from knowing their full force, but feel the power of the condemning law. Then recollect your individual sins; recall them one by one: those greater sins, those huge blots upon your character, do not try to forget them. If you have forgotten them, raise them from the grave and think them over, and feel them as your own sins. Do not lay them at the door of anyone else. Do not look at circumstances in order to find an alleviation for your guilt, but set them in the light of God’s countenance…Think of your sins of omission, your failures in duty, your shortcomings in spirit. Repent of what you have done, and what you have not done. How both these forms of iniquity may stagger and humble you! Think of your sins of heart. How cold has that heart been towards your Savior! Your sins of thought, how wrongly your mind has often judged; your sins of imagination, what filthy creatures your imagination has portrayed in lively colors on the wall. Think of all the sins of your desires and delights and hopes and fears. What faculty is there that has not been defiled? “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.” We are bound to confess the aggravations of our sin, how we sinned against light and against knowledge, against conscience, and against divine love, against the monitions of the Holy Spirit, against tender warnings which came from His gentle voice…I beseech you, dear hearer, try to fix your eye on Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice, and live as a believer in Him, and this will make you live as a constant confessor of sin; for when the wounds of Jesus speak peace they also preach penitence, and when the atonement gives us rest it also makes us meek and lowly in heart under a sense of abiding faultiness…Thus, may you daily, as long as ever you live, confess sin and find cleansing from all.

Honest Dealing with God by C. H. Spurgeon

The Redeemer’s Face Set Like a Flint 

Sherry sermon

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 Double Cure

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, Sovereignty of God

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1John 1:9

Suppose you go to a surgeon because you have some deadly polypus or cancer growing upon you: you want to have it removed, and you know there are a great many physicians who will profess to cure such things, but in reality, only give temporary ease. From all these you keep clear. You are well aware that if only a little root of the growth should be left it will grow again. So, you say outright to the surgeon, “Sir, there is my disease; I will tell you all the symptoms of it: I only ask to have a thorough cure, cost me what it may in money or pain. I make no reserve, do just whatever you feel is best in the case, but make clean work of it. If you have the knife in your hand, do not spare it out of pity for my pain, but be just with me, cut out the disease, roots and all, so that it may be a complete cure.” Even in the same manner, go to the Lord, and say, “Lord, there is my sin, I confess it all; do not suffer me to have any peace unless it is true peace, do not let me have any comfort unless I get it from Christ; and if there must be more conviction of sin and more alarm of conscience, if there must be deeper gashes and sterner cuts into my soul, Lord, do not spare me; be pleased to purge me from the secret depravity of my nature, and make me pure. Thy holiness is what I crave after, and I cannot be satisfied till Thou make me holy, even as Thou art holy.” This is the way to plead with God, and the only way. Confess the sin, and then He will be faithful and just to give you the double cure, namely, first, the forgiveness, and next, the cleansing from all unrighteousness.

What a blessing it is that the Lord will be faithful and just to you in the cleansing of you from all the sinfulness of your nature. I pray you deal honestly with God and say to Him, “Cleanse Thou me from secret faults; Thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden parts Thou wilt make me to know wisdom, purge me, therefore, O Lord, and I shall be clean.”

Honest Dealing with God by C. H. Spurgeon