Attributes of God

Our Approachable Lord and Savior

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

“Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him.”-Luke 15:1

The most depraved and despised classes of society formed an inner ring of hearers around our Lord. I gather from this that He was a most approachable person, that He was not of repulsive manners, but that He courted human confidence and was willing that men should commune with Him…Eastern monarchs affected great seclusion and were wont to surround themselves with impassable barriers of state. It was very difficult for even their most loyal subjects to approach them. You remember the case of Esther, who, though the monarch was her husband, yet went with her life in her hand when she ventured to present herself before the king Ahasuerus, for there was a commandment that none should come unto the king except they were called at peril of their lives. It is not so with the King of kings. His court is far more splendid; His person is far more worshipful; but you may draw near to Him at all times without let or hindrance. He hath set no men-at-arms around His palace gate. The door of His house of mercy is set wide open. Over the lintel of His palace gate is written, “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

Though He is greater than the greatest, and higher than the highest, He has been pleased to put out of the way everything which might keep the sinner from entering into His halls of gracious entertainment. From His lips we hear no threatenings against intrusion, but hundreds of invitations to the nearest and dearest intimacy. Jesus is to be approached, not now and then, but at all times, and not by some favored few, but by all in whose hearts His Holy Spirit has enkindled the desire to enter into His secret presence. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0809.cfm

Conformed to the Likeness of Christ

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

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. – 2 Corinthians 12:10

…they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

“They that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.” “Ah!…I have been in obscurity, lost my friends, been despised, felt quite broken down; do you mean to tell me that that has been a good thing?” I do. God has blessed it to you. He will enable you to say, “Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept Thy law.” And if you get more grace, you will say it is a good thing, for is it not a good thing for you to be conformed to the likeness of Christ? How can you be if you have no suffering? If you never suffer with Him, how can you expect to reign with Him? How are you to be made like Him in His humiliation, if you never are humbled? Why, methinks every pain that shoots through the frame and thrills the sensitive soul helps us to understand what Christ suffered, and being sanctified, gives us the power to pass through the rent veil, and to be baptized with His baptism, and in our measure to drink of His cup, and, therefore, it becomes a good thing, and our Father gives it us, because His promise is that He will not deny or withhold any good thing from those that walk uprightly…Give yourselves up to God wholly and live for Him, and you shall never want anything that is really good for you; your life shall be the best life for you, all things considered in the light of eternity, that a life could have been. Only mind you keep to this-the seeking of the Lord. There is the point of it. Get out of that, and there may be some promise for you, but certainly not this one. You have got out of the line of the promise; but keep to that and seek the Lord, and your life shall be, even if it be a poverty-stricken one, such a life that if you could have the infinite intelligence of your heavenly Father, you would ordain it to be precisely as it now is. “They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

Look at the Martyrs

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

…but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

“Look at the martyrs; did not they seek the Lord above all men? …they wanted many good things; they were in prison, sometimes in cold, and nakedness, and hunger; they were on the rack tormented, many of them went to heaven from the fiery stake.” Yes, but they never wanted any good thing…Who are the brightest before the eternal throne? Those who suffered most below. lf they could speak to you now, they would tell you that that noisome dungeon was, because it enabled them to glorify God, a good thing to them. They would tell you that the rack whereon they did sing sweet hymns of praise was a good thing for them, because it enabled them to show forth the patience of the saints, and to have their names written in the book of the peerage of the skies. They would tell you that the fiery stake was a good thing, because from that pulpit they preached Christ after such a fashion as men could never have heard it from cold lips and stammering tongues. Did not the world perceive that the suffering of the saints were good things, for they were the seed of the Church? They helped to spread the truth, and because God would not deny them any good thing He gave them their dungeons, He gave them their racks, He gave them their stakes, and these were the best things they could have had, and with enlarged reason, and with their mental faculties purged, those blessed spirits would now choose again, could they live over again, to have suffered those things. They would choose, were it possible, to have lived the very life, and to have endured all they braved, to have received so glorious a reward as they now enjoy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

God Knows What is Best for You

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

O fear the LORD, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that fear Him…they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:9,10

I think sometimes it would be a good thing for me if I had more talents, but if it were a good thing I should have more, I should have them. You think it were a good thing, if you were to have more money. Well, if He saw it to be good, you would have it. “Oh!” say you, “but it would have been a good thing if my poor mother had been spared to me: if she had been alive now, it would have been a good thing, and it would be a good thing certainly for us to be in the position I was five years ago before these terrible panic times came.” Well, if it had been a good thing for you to have been there, you would have been there. “I don’t see it.” says one. Well, do not expect to see it, but believe it. We walk by faith, not by sight. But the text says so. It says not that every man shall have every good thing, but it does say that every man that seeks the Lord shall have every good thing. He shall not want any good thing, be it what it may. “Well, I doubt it,” says one. Very well, I do not wonder that you do, for your father Adam doubted it, and that is how the whole race fell. Adam and Eve were in the garden, and they might have felt quite sure that their heavenly Father would not deny them any good thing, but the devil came and whispered, and said to them, “God doth know that in the day you eat of the fruit of that tree you will be as gods; that fruit is very good for you, a wonderfully good thing; never anything like it, and that one good thing God has kept away from you.” “Oh!” said Eve, “then I will get it,” and down we all fell. The race was ruined through their doubting the promise. If they had continued to seek the Lord, they would not have wanted any good thing. That fruit was not a good thing to them; it might have been good in itself, but it was not good to them, or else God would have given it to them, and their doubting it brought all this terrible sorrow on us. So it will upon you, for let me show you-you say, perhaps, “It would be a very good thing for me to be rich.” God has stopped you up many times. You have never prospered when you thought you were going to. You will put out your hand, perhaps, to do a wrong thing to be rich, but if you say, “No, I will work, and toil, and do what I can, but if I am not prospered, it is not a good thing for me to be prospered, and I would not do a wrong thing, if it would bring me all the prosperity that heart could desire,” then you will walk uprightly and God will bless you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

No Want of Any Good Thing

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

… but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

“They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” That is, not one of them. They that first stepped into Bethesda’s pool were healed, and no others; but here everybody that steps into this pool is healed; that is to say, everyone that seeks the Lord has this promise-the least, as well as the greatest: the Little-faiths and the Much-afraids as much as the Great-hearts and the Stand-fasts. They that seek the Lord, whether they are chimney-sweeps or princes, whether they are tender children, or seasoned veterans in the Master’s great army-they shall want no good thing. “Well, but” somebody says, “there are some of them that are in want.” They are in want? Yes, that may be, but they are not in want of any good thing. They cannot be. God’s word against anything you say, or I say. If they seek the Lord, they shall not, they cannot, they must not want any good thing. “Well, at any rate, they want what appears to be a good thing.” That is very likely; the text does not say they shall not be. “Well, but they want what they once found to be a good thing; they want health-is not that a good thing? It was a good thing to them when they had it before, yet they want health; does not that go against the text?” No, it does not in any way whatever. The text means this, that anything which is absolutely good for him, all circumstances being considered, no child of God shall ever want. I met with this statement in a work by that good old Puritan, Mr. Clarkson, which stuck by me when I read it some time ago. I think the words were these, “If it were a good thing for God’s people for sin, Satan, sorrow, and affliction to be abolished, Christ would blot them out within five minutes, and if it were a good thing for the seeker of the Lord to have all the kingdoms of this world put at his feet and for him to be made a prince, Jesus would make him a prince before the sun rose again.” If it were absolutely to him, all things being considered, a good thing, he must have it, for Christ would be sure to keep His word. He has said he shall not want it, and He would not let His child want it, whatever it might be, if it were really, absolutely, and in itself, all things considered, a good thing. Now, taking God’s Word and walking by faith towards it, what a light it sheds on your history and mine! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

Is His Promise Truly Ours?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

…they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

We must be among those who seek the Lord heartily, not merely saying that we do, or wishing that we did, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, and in the power of His blessed residence in our souls, we must be panting after God’s glory heartily, otherwise I do not see that we can put our hands on the promise without presumption. We must be seeking it honestly, too, for there is a way of seeking God’s good and your own at the same time- I mean having a sinister and selfish motive. We may preach, and not be preaching only for God at all. A man may live in the Sanctuary, in holy engagements from morning until night and yet may never ardently, intensely seek the Lord. A man may be a great giver to charities, a great attender at prayer-meetings, a great doer of all kinds of Christian work, and yet he may never seek the Lord, but may yet be seeking to have his name known, to be noted as a generous man, or be merely seeking to get merit to himself, or self-complacency to his own conscience. It is a downright honest desire to serve and glorify God while we are here that is meant in the text. If we have got it-and I think we may readily see whether we have or not-then is the word of the Psalmist true to us.

Oh! may God grant that we may all be able truly to say, “I seek the Lord; I am sure, I am certain that I seek Him,” for if we can feel that that is true, then we can take the promise of the text; if not, we may not touch it. If we, as professing Christians, fire not at top and bottom, in heart, and soul, and spirit, and in all that we do, really seeking the glory of God, the promise does not belong to us; but if we can from our very souls declare, “Notwithstanding a thousand infirmities, yet, Lord, Thou knowest all things: Thou knowest that I love Thee, and that I seek Thine honour,” then this is true of us, and no one of us shall want any good thing. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

We Live for God’s Glory

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

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. – Colossians 3:23

The genuine Christian lives for God. He makes the first object of all that he does the glory of God, the extension of the Redeemer’s kingdom, the showing forth of His praise, who has brought him out of darkness into marvellous light. He is a young man, an apprentice; he has been converted, and he says, “Now, what can I do while I am in this house to make it better, to make it happier and holier, that men may see what the religion of Jesus is? How can I recommend my Lord and Master to those among whom I dwell-to my master and my mistress, and my fellow-servants?” He becomes a tradesman on his own account, and when he opens that shop-door he says, “I do not mean to trade for myself, I will make this to be my object, that this shall be God’s shop; God has got to keep me; He has promised that He will; therefore, I may take what I want for the daily subsistence of myself and my children; but I will keep the shop for God for all that, and if He prospers me, I will give Him of my substance; but whatever comes of it, I will so trade across my counter, so keep those books, and manage those bills, that I will let the world see what a Christian trader is, and I will seek thus to recommend my Lord and my God, and my object shall be to make Him famous.”

He seeks the Lord on Sundays. He desires at the Sunday-school, or the preaching-station, or anywhere he may serve, to be glorifying God. But he equally seeks Him on Mondays and other weekdays, for he believes there is a way of turning over calicoes, weighing pounds of tea, ploughing acres of land, driving a cart, or whatever else he may be called to do, by which he can honour God, and cause others to honour him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm