Attributes of God

Rest After Rest

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 2 Comments

And I will give you rest…Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. – Matthew 11:28, 29

“I will give you rest” comes before “Ye shall find rest.” It is the rest of a man who is already at rest, the repose of a man who has received a given rest, and now discovers the found rest. It is the rest of a learner-“Learn of Me, and ye shall find rest.” It is not so much the rest of one who was aforetime laboring and heavy laden, as of one who is to-day learning at the Saviour’s feet. It is the rest of a seeker evidently, for finding usually implies a search. Having been pardoned and saved, the saved man in the course of his experience discovers more and more reason for peace; he is learning, and seeking, and he finds. The rest is evidently lighted upon, however, as a thing unknown, which becomes the subject of discovery. The man had a rest from his burden; now he finds a rest, in Christ, which exceeds what he asked or even thought.

I have looked at this rest after rest as being a treasure concealed in a precious box. The Lord Jesus gives to His people a priceless casket, called the gift of rest; it is set with brilliants and inlaid with gems, and the substance thereof is of wrought gold; whosoever possesses it feels and knows that his warfare is accomplished and his sin is pardoned. After awhile the happy owner begins to examine his treasure. It is all his own, but he has not yet seen it all, for one day he detects a secret drawer, he touches a hidden spring, and lo! Before him lies a priceless Koh-I-Noor surpassing all the rest. It had been given him it is certain, but he had not seen it at first, and therefore he finds it. Jesus Christ gives us in the gift of Himself all the rest we can ever enjoy, even heaven’s rest lies in Him; but after we have received Him, we have to learn His value, and find out by the teaching of His Spirit the fulness of the rest which He bestows. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0969.cfm

The Promise

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

And I will give you rest. – Matthew 11:28

Notice the promise spoken, “I will give you rest.” “I will give.” It is a rest that is a gift; not a rest found in our experience by degrees but given at once…We come to Jesus; we put out the empty hand of faith, and rest is given us at once most freely. We possess it at once, and it is ours forever. It is a present rest, rest now; not rest after death; not rest after a time of probation and growth and advancement; but it is rest given when we come to Jesus, given there and then. And it is perfect rest too; for it is not said, nor is it implied, that the rest is incomplete. We do not read, “I will give you partial rest,” but “rest,” as much as if there were no other form of it. It is perfect and complete in itself. In the blood and righteousness of Jesus our peace is perfect.

Jesus promises and Jesus performs. Did not all your rest, when first your sin was forgiven, come from Him? The load was gone, but who took it? The yoke was removed, but who lifted it from off the shoulder? Do you not give to Jesus, this day, the glory of all your rest from the burden of guilt? Do you not praise His name with all your soul? Yes, I know you do. And you know how that rest came to you. It was by His substitution and your faith in that substitution. Your sin was not pardoned by a violation of divine justice; justice was satisfied in Jesus; He gave you rest. The fact that He has made full atonement is the rest of your spirit. I know that deep down in your conscience, the calm which blesses you springs from a belief in your Lord’s vicarious sacrifice. He bore the unrest that you might have the rest, and you receive rest this day as a free gift from Him. You have done now with servile toils and hopeless burdens, you have entered into rest through believing; but all the rest and deliverance still comes to you as a gift from His dear hands, who purchased with a price this blessing for your souls. I earnestly wish that many who have never felt that rest, would come and have it; it is all they have to do to obtain it- to come for it; just where they now are, if God enables them to exercise a simple act of faith in Jesus, He will give them rest from all their past sins, from all their efforts to save themselves, a rest which shall be to His glory and to their joy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0969.cfm

A Simple Word Full of Meaning

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

Come unto Me… – Matthew 11:28

“Come unto Me,” “Come.” A simple word, but very full of meaning. To come is to leave one thing and to advance to another. Come, then, ye laboring and heavy laden, leave your legal labors, leave your self-reliant efforts, leave your sins, leave your presumptions, leave all in which you hitherto have trusted, and come to Jesus, that is, think of, advance towards, rely upon, the Saviour. Let your contemplations think of Him who bore the load of human sin upon the cross of Calvary where He was made sin for us. Let your minds consider Him who from His cross hurled the enormous mass of His people’s transgressions into a bottomless sepulchre where it was buried forever. Think of Jesus, the divinely appointed substitute and sacrifice for guilty man. Then, seeing that He is God’s own Son, let faith follow your contemplation; rely upon Him, trust in Him as having suffered in your stead, look to Him for the payment of the debt which is due from you to the wrath of God. This is to come to Jesus. Repentance and faith make up this “Come”-the repentance which leaves that place where you now stand, the faith which comes into reliance upon Jesus.

Observe, that the command to “Come” is put in the present tense, and in the Greek it is intensely present. It might be rendered something like this: “Hither to Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden!” It is a “Come” which means not “Come to-morrow or next year,” but “Now, at once.” Advance, ye slaves, flee from your taskmaster now! Weary ones, recline on the promise now and take your rest! Come now! By an act of instantaneous faith which will bring instantaneous peace, come and rely upon Jesus, and He will now give you rest. Rest shall at once follow the exercise of faith. Perform the act of faith now. O may the eternal Spirit lead some laboring heavy laden soul to come to Jesus, and to come at this precise moment! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0969.cfm

The Ones Who Are Invited

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

Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

There are to be found many who are actively engaged in seeking salvation; they believe that if they obey the precepts of the law they will be saved, and they are endeavoring to the utmost to do them; they have been told that the performance of certain rites and ceremonies will also save them, they are performing those with great care; the yoke is on their shoulders, and they are laboring diligently. Some are laboring in prayer, some are laboring in sacraments, others in self-denials and mortifications, but as a class they are awakened to feel the need of salvation, and they are intensely laboring to save themselves…Very speedily those who are active in self-righteously working for salvation fall into the passive state and become burdened; their labor of itself becomes a burden to them. Besides the burden of their self-righteous labor, there comes upon them the awful, tremendous, crushing burden of past sin, and a sense of the wrath of God which is due to that sin. A soul which has to bear the load of its own sin, and the load of divine wrath, is indeed heavily laden…The acute anguish of their souls will often be increased in proportion as their endeavors are increased; and while they hope at first that if they labor industriously they will gradually diminish the mass of their sin, it happens that their labor adds to their weariness beneath its pressure; they feel a weight of disappointment, because their labor has not brought them rest; and a burden of despair, because they fear that deliverance will never come. Now these are the persons whom the Saviour calls to Himself- those who are actively seeking salvation, those who are passively bearing the weight of sin and of divine wrath. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0969.cfm

All Are Bidden to Come

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

“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. – Matthew 11:28

The word “all” first demands attention: “All ye that labor.” There was need for the insertion of that wide word. Had not the Saviour said a little before, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes?” Someone who had been listening to the Saviour, might have said, “The Father, then, has determined to whom He will reveal the Christ; there is a number chosen, according to the Father’s good pleasure, to whom the gospel is revealed; while from another company it is hidden!” The too hasty inference, which it seems natural for man to draw from the doctrine is, “Then there is no invitation for me; there is no hope for me; I need not listen to the gospel’s warnings and invitations.” So the Saviour, as if to answer that discouraging notion, words His invitation thus, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” Let it not be supposed that election excludes any of you from the invitation of mercy; all of you who labor, are bidden to come. Whatever the great doctrine of predestination may involve, rest assured that it by no means narrows or diminishes the extent of gospel invitations. The good news is to be preached to “every creature” under heaven, and in this particular passage it is addressed to all the laboring and heavy laden.

O you who feel your unworthiness, who have been seeking salvation earnestly, and suffering the weight of sin, Jesus will freely give to you what you cannot earn or purchase, He will give it as an act of His own free, rich, sovereign mercy; and He is prepared, if you come to Him, to give it to you now, for so has He promised, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0969.cfm

A Tried and Blessed People

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: He is their strength in the time of trouble. – Psalm 37:39

I think I hear some saying, “Ah, I see these believers are a very tried people, who would wish to be one of them?” Hearken, friend, and I will tell thee something. Joseph was not the only person in prison, and the righteous are not the only people who are afflicted. The chief butler was in prison, and the chief baker, too…There is this difference between them and Joseph, that the Lord is not with them, but He is with Joseph, and that makes a vast difference. If God is in the prison with Joseph, Joseph is happy, but it is not so with you tried worldlings. I wonder, O butler and baker, whether you have had any dream; I wonder what has passed through your minds this morning. Wherefore look you so sadly to-day? I am no interpreter of dreams, but perhaps I can unriddle yours. Was a vine before you in your dream? That true and living vine? Did it bud and blossom, and bring forth fruit before your eyes, and did you take of its clusters, and present its pure blood to the King? If so, you will be set free, your dream means salvation: for there is a vine of the Lord’s own planting whose wine maketh glad the heart of man, and he who takes of its living fruit is accepted. Dost thou know how to take those clusters and to squeeze them out? If so, the King will rejoice in thee, for nothing is so dear to Him as the fruit of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. But hast thou dreamed of cakes which thou hast made by thine own skill? Not fruits from a vine, living and full, but mere cakes, sweetened with thine own self-righteousness, baked in the oven of thine own zeal and industry, and dost thou hope to set these before the King? The birds of the air already peck at them, thou beginnest now to feel that thy works are not altogether what thou thoughtest them to be. Oh, if this be thy dream I tremble for thee, for thou wilt come to an ill end. 

Salvation is of the Lord; whether for butler, or baker, or Joseph, redemption is by Jesus only. Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength, and they that trust in Him shall never be ashamed or confounded, world without end. Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1277.cfm

Wait for God’s Appointed Time

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

Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people and let him go free. _ Psalm 105:19. 20

The time was in God’s hands, and it was very wisely ordered. Suppose that the butler had thought of Joseph, and had spoken to Pharaoh about the interpretation of his dream, the probabilities are that when the courtiers of Pharaoh’s court heard it they would have made the halls of the palace ring with laughter; and the magicians would especially have poured scorn on the idea that a slave boy who had been imprisoned for scandalous behavior knew more about interpreting dreams than the wise men of Egypt who had been brought up to the art and had gained high degrees in the profession. It would have been a theme of ridicule all over the land. It was the wrong time, and God would not let the butler recollect, because that recollection would have marred the plot and spoiled the whole business: but God’s “until” came at the nick of time when Joseph was ready for court, and when Pharaoh was ready to appreciate Joseph. The hour needed its man, and here was the hour for the man. The straight way from the dungeon to the throne was not open until Pharaoh dreamed his dream, then must Joseph come forth and not before. Oh, brother, sit still and wait. The deliverance you are craving for is not ripe yet; wait while the word tries you, for that same word will in due time set you free.

You see, brethren, there is a time of deliverance, and the time is fixed of God, and it is a right time: therefore, we have quietly to wait for it…Bear on, young man, bear on. Ay, and grey-headed man, bear on, bear on. The anvil breaks the hammers in the long run; bear on, bear on. The rock breaks the billows and is not itself broken. Bear the trials which come to you from God and from His word with joy and patience, for the end is not yet, but when it cometh it shall be everlasting joy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1277.cfm