Attributes of God

For the Sake of a Clear Conscience

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

I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth… – Psalm 40:10 

How awful to remember that every hour there are hundreds of men and women who are dying without Christ. Turn to the bills of mortality of this one city. Be our sentiments ever so charitable, let us judge with the utmost liberality, the dreadful fact fills our mind, and every knell speaks it to our heart, “They go out of this world unforgiven; they go before their Maker’s bar without a hope!” I think our hearts would break with the dread recollection of this if we could not say, “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation; lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth from the great congregation.”

And how many deaths there always are among our hearers! What comfort can any Christian who knows you have if you die unsaved, unless he is able to appeal to God, and say, “My Father, I did all I could to teach that soul the way of salvation; I did all I could to persuade him to accept the Christ of God”?

Dear friends, whenever you see any of your neighbors, your relatives, your acquaintance die, can you forbear to ask yourselves, shall their blood be required at my hands? Are your skirts stained? Are there no blood drops there? Come, look them down, and say if you can ponder with a clear conscience the fact of a sinner dying in a Christless state without your being able to say, “I have done all I could to bring that soul to Christ”? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

Let Us Say It

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

It ought to be the ambition of every believer here, in a sense more or less extensive, to be able to say,

“I have preached righteousness; I have not refrained my lips; I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation; I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth.” – Psalm 40:10

It is not, perhaps, the man who can stand and talk to thousands, but it may be you in the family-the housewife, the kitchen maid, the serving-man, or the woman who has been bed-ridden for years, whose only audience will be a few poor neighbors, or perhaps, now and then, a generous friend…Though we may feel that we have not preached as earnestly as we could have wished; that we have not done our utmost towards those whom we have taught; that in our house-to-house visitation we have not been so earnest with poor souls as we might have been in this respect, for alas! alas! we are all unprofitable servants; yet we can say, “I have preached righteousness; I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation; I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth.” Fervently do I hope that those of you with the largest opportunities may yet be privileged to make this good profession with all sincerity. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

What Men Must Know of God

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

I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. – Psalm 40:10

Our Lord, with eagle eye, descries what is most important for men to know, and upon that He dwells. Sinners must know of God’s righteousness; they will never know their sinfulness else knowing it they will think it to be a little thing. The righteousness of God comes like a stream of light into the soul and reveals its corruption. God’s salvation, again, must be shown in its true colors. It does not owe its origin, its accomplishment, or its application to our works or our merits, but it proceeds from God’s grace, and redounds to His glory…Jesus Christ preached God’s righteousness, and showed God’s righteousness even in salvation, and then He preached that salvation fully.

Nor, dear friends, did He withhold His testimony of the other attributes of God. Think for an instant of God’s faithfulness. Oh, what a delightful theme! As immutability is a glory that belongs to all His attributes, so faithfulness pertains to all His purposes and promises…Moreover, He will rest in His love, “for the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name’s sake.” He is “the Father of lights, with whom is, no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” His promises and His threatenings abide steadfast. Side by side with the faithfulness of God there is witness of His lovingkindness. Oh, what a glorious revelation! the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the God of pity and of pardon, the God of love…The God whom Jesus preached is full of gentleness and tenderness. May we learn to believe in the God and Father whom His only begotten Son Jesus Christ delighted to make known, and if called to testify of Him may we testify fully and heartily as Jesus did. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

The Great Testifier

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

 I have declared... – Psalm 40:10

Jesus was constantly testifying to the gospel of God, the gospel of His righteousness and of His grace. From the first moment when He, being full of the Holy Ghost, began to preach the gospel, until the day when He was taken up into heaven, while He blessed His disciples, He was instant in season and out of season. There were no wasted moments of time, no neglected opportunities, no talents held in reserve. “I must work,” was His motto. The zeal of God’s house consumed Him. It was His meat and His drink to do the will of Him that sent Him. Mark ye how He concentrated every attribute of His nature, every faculty of His mind, and every power of His body in the one work He had undertaken-to do His Father’s will? He seems all His life through to have challenged the enquiry, “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” He was continually preaching the gospel. “Never a man spake as this Man,” may apply to the quantity as well as the quality of His utterances…He could speak anywhere-even along the crowded thoroughfare, where the multitudes thronged Him. He went down the lowest streets, and from the poorest beggars He didn’t turn aside. He was not thwarted by the sneers, and sarcasms, and subtle questioning of the Pharisees and Sadducees. One thought possessed Him, and He persistently wrought it out. His life-sermon was so thorough that nothing of earthly splendor could allure or distract Him or break the thread. He was always and everywhere either pleading with God for men, or else pleading with men for God…”I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained My lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within My heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness, and Thy truth from the great congregation.” He was the great Witness for God, the great Testifier, who went proclaiming everywhere the kingdom of God, and the good tidings of salvation to man. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

Changed by Grace

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

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God… – Ephesians 2:8

O! thou who art valiant for truth, thou wouldst have been as valiant for the devil if grace had not laid hold of thee. A seat in heaven shall one day be thine; but a chain in hell would have been thine if grace had not changed thee. Thou canst now sing His love; but a licentious song might have been on thy lips if grace had not washed thee in the blood of Jesus. Thou art now sanctified, thou art quickened, thou art justified; but what wouldst thou have been to-day if it had not been for the interposition of the divine hand? There is not a crime thou mightest not have committed; there is not a folly into which thou mightest not have run. Even murder itself thou mightest have committed if grace had not kept thee. Thou shalt be like the angels; but thou wouldst have been like the devil if thou hadst not been changed by grace. Therefore, never be proud; all thy garments thou hast from above; rags were thine only heritage. Be not proud, though thou hast a large estate, a wide domain of grace; thou hadst once not a single thing to call thine own except thy sin and misery. Thou art now wrapped up in the golden righteousness of the Saviour and accepted in the garments of the Beloved; but thou wouldst have been buried under the black mountain of sin, and clothed with the filthy rags of unrighteousness, if He had not changed thee. And art thou proud?…Go, hang thy pride upon the gallows, as high as Haman; hang it there to rot, and stand thou beneath and execrate it to all eternity; for sure of all things most to be cursed and despised is the pride of a Christian. He, of all men, has ten thousand times more reason than any other to be humble, and walk lowly with his God, and kindly and humbly toward his fellow-creatures. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0125.cfm

God’s Fruitful Vine

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

Son of man, what is the vine tree more than any tree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest? – Ezekiel 15:2

In looking upon all the various trees, we observe that the vine is distinguished among them; so that, in the old parable of Jotham, the trees waited upon the vine-tree, and said unto it, “Come thou and reign over us.” But merely looking at the vine, without regard to its fruitfulness, we should not see any kingship in it over other trees. In size, form, beauty, or utility, it has not the slightest advantage. We can do nothing with the wood of the vine. Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men make a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? It is a useless plant apart from its fruitfulness. We sometimes see it in beauty, trained up by the side of our walls, and it might be seen in all its luxuriance; and great care is bestowed in its training; but leave the vine to itself, and consider it apart from its fruitfulness, it is the most insignificant and despicable of all things that bear the name of trees. Now, beloved, this is for the humbling of God’s people. They are called God’s vine; but what are they by nature more than others? Others are as good as they; yea, some others are even greater and better than they. They, by God’s goodness, have become fruitful, have been planted in a good soil; the Lord hath trained them upon the walls of the sanctuary, and they bring forth fruit to His glory. But what are they without their God? What are they without the continual influence of the Spirit, begetting fruitfulness in them? Are they not the least among the sons of men, and the most to be despised of those that have been brought forth of women? Look upon this, believer. Doth not thy conscience reproach thee? Do not thy thousand wanderings stand before thee, and tell thee that thou art unworthy to be called His son? Does not the weakness of thy mental power, the frailty of thy moral power, thy continual unbelief, and thy perpetual backsliding from God, tell thee that thou art less than the least of all saints? And if He hath made thee any thing, art thou not thereby taught that it is grace, free, sovereign grace, which hath made thee to differ? Great Christian, thou wouldst have been a great sinner if God had not made thee to differ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0125.cfm

Inward Piety

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

“The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.” – Psalm 19:9

“The fear of the Lord is clean.” The doctrine of truth is here described by its spiritual effect—namely, inward piety, or the fear of the Lord; this is clean in itself, and cleanses out the love of sin, sanctifying the heart in which it reigns. Mr. Godly-fear is never satisfied until every street, lane, and alley, yes, and every house and every corner of the town of Mansoul is clean rid of the Diablolonians who lurk therein.

“Enduring for ever.” Filth brings decay, but cleanness is the great foe of corruption. The grace of God in the heart being a pure principle, is also an abiding and incorruptible principle, which may be crushed for a time, but cannot be utterly destroyed. Both in the Word and in the heart, when the Lord writes, He says with Pilate, “What I have written, I have written.” He will make no erasures Himself, much less allow others to do so. The revealed will of God is never changed; even Jesus came not to destroy but to fulfill, and even the ceremonial law was only changed as to its shadow, the substance intended by it is eternal. When the governments of nations are shaken with revolution, and ancient constitutions are being repealed, it is comforting to know that the throne of God is unshaken and His law unaltered.

“The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” Jointly and individually the words of the Lord are true. That which is good in detail, is excellent in the mass. No exception may be taken to a single clause separately, or to the book as a whole. God’s judgments, all of them together, or each of them apart—are manifestly just, and need no laborious excuses to justify them. The judicial decisions of Jehovah, as revealed in the law, or illustrated in the history of His providence, are truth itself, and commend themselves to every truthful mind. Not only is their power invincible, but their justice is unimpeachable. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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