Attributes of God

The Divine “Until”

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. – Psalm 105:19

Trials do not last forever. Cheer up; the tide ebbs out, but the flood will return again. Note the word “until.” He who counts the stars also numbers your sorrows, and if He ordains the number ten your trials will never be eleven. The text says, “until”; for the Lord appoints the bounds of the proud waters, and they shall no more go over your soul when they reach the boundary of the divine “until.” “Until the time that his word came”-the same word which tried Joseph in due time set him free. If the Lord gives the turnkey permission to keep us in prison there we must remain, until He sends a warrant for our liberation, and then all the devils in hell cannot hold us in bondage for an instant longer. My dear brother, I want you in your trouble to look entirely to God, whose word is a word of power. He speaks, and it is done. He has spoken trouble to you, but He can just as readily speak comfort to you. Never mind what the butler’s word is. Do not entreat him, saying, “When it is well with thee speak a word for me.” The butler’s word will not avail, it is Jehovah’s word you need, for “where the word of a king is, there is power.” It is a blessed thing to know that trouble comes direct from God, whatever the secondary agent may be. You must not say, “I could have borne it if it had not been for that wicked woman.” Never mind the wicked woman, look to God as overruling her malice and everything else. He sends the trial, and therefore look to Him to deliver you from it.

“‘Tis He that lifts our comforts high,
Or sinks them in the grave.”

He shuts us up in prison, and He brings us out again. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Tried by the Word of the Lord

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

Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. – Psalm 105:35

“The word of the Lord tried him.” How was that? There was no Bible then; Moses had not lived, there was not even the book of Genesis, -what word of God had he? His dreams were to him the word of God, for they were communications from heaven; the instruction he received from his father was also the word of God to him, his knowledge of the covenant which God had made with Abraham and Isaac, and his father Jacob, was God’s word to him…How did it try him? It tried him thus: the word said to him in his conscience, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Without that word he would not have been tried, for nature suggested compliance with his mistress’s desires…The test, however, he could bear: grace enabled him to flee youthful lusts and to cry, “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” …What problems were put before him-“Is there a moral governor of the universe? If so, why does He allow the innocent to suffer? Why am I in fetters, and the lewd woman in favor? Could not an omnipotent God deliver me? Why then does he leave me here?” Could Joseph in the face of such questions still cling to the faithful word? He could, and he did; but the word tried him, and proved his constancy, his faith, and his integrity.

Now I may be addressing some young men who are getting into all sorts of trouble through being Christians. I congratulate you! Thus does the Lord train his bravest soldiers…Rejoice ye in this day and leap for joy, for you are only enduring trials which have fallen to the lot of better men than yourselves…I congratulate you, my brethren, and pray the Lord to bear you up and bear you through, that like Joseph you may be of great service to Israel and bring glory to God.~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Sanctified Trials

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

And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. – Genesis 41:41

Great riches and high positions are not to be desired. Agur’s prayer is a wise one: “Give me neither poverty nor riches.” Joseph was in great peril when he came to be lord over the land of Egypt, but during his time in prison he had been learning to spell out a mystery and answer a riddle. Practically, his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream was what he had been learning in prison, namely, that it is idle to boast of the fat kine, since the lean kine can soon eat them up, and it is unwise to be proud of the full ears, because the withered ears can soon devour them. Pharaoh saw in the dream the lean devouring the full-fleshed, but Joseph alone understood it. He saw his fat kine when he was in his father’s house eaten up when he was sold as a slave; he saw his full ears when he was in Potiphar’s house devoured by the withered ears when he was thrown into prison, and he now knew that there was nothing here below worth our relying upon, since on the chariot of all earthly good there rides a Nemesis, and every day is followed by a night. He was tutored to be a ruler for he had learned the prisoner’s side of politics and felt how hard it was for men to be unjustly condemned without trial. He foresaw that this could not be forever endured, and that one day the long-suffering lean kine would be goaded to fury and would eat up the fat ones that oppressed them. Hence Joseph’s rule would be just and generous, for in this he would see the elements which would preserve law and order and prevent the poorer sort from overturning everything.

Joseph believed the word of the Lord, and he spoke with the accent of conviction, and Pharaoh believed also. Whence came this simple-minded courage? Whence this boldness? It was the right royal velour which doth hedge about a virtuous soul-or rather the fearlessness which follows from the fear of God. He stood forth and delivered his message, and the Lord established his word. He had been preparing for this in the day of his sorrow: like a good sword-blade, he had been passed through the fire and through the fire again, that now he might not fail in the day of battle. Oh, dear brothers and sisters, may you gain as much from tribulation as Joseph did, and you will do so if the Holy Spirit sanctifies them to you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

The Chief Use of Our Trials

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

“As the fining pot to silver, and the furnace to gold, so is a man to his praise.” – Proverbs 27:21

Dear brethren, the chief use of trial to Joseph and to us is very often seen in our future lives. While Joseph was tried in prison God’s great object was to prepare him for the government which awaited him. It was designed first to give him power to bear power: a rare acquirement. Solomon says, “As the fining pot to silver, and the furnace to gold, so is a man to his praise.” Many a man can bear affliction, but few men can endure prosperity; and I have marked it, and you must have marked it too, that the most perilous thing in all the world is to step suddenly from obscurity into power. Have we not seen men, illiterate and unknown, suddenly introduced to the Christian pulpit, and made much of, and has it not frequently turned out that their names have been by-and-by prudently forgotten, for they were overthrown by the dizzy heights to which they were lifted? It is far better that a man should fight his way up to his position, that he should be assailed by enemies and distrusted by friends and should pass through a probationary career. Even then he can only stand as the Lord holds him, but without it he is in especial peril. Hence the apostle says, “not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” If I knew that some young man here present would be greatly owned of God in the future, and become in future a prince in our Israel, if by lifting up of this finger I could screen him from fierce criticism, misrepresentation, and abuse, I would not do it, because, severe as the ordeal might be to him, I am persuaded it is needful that he should pass through it in order to make him able to bear the giddy heights of the position for which God intends him. Joseph on the throne of Egypt, I know not what he might have been if first of all he had not been laid in the stocks. His feet learned to stand fast on a throne through having been set fast in a dungeon. His gold chain was worn without pride because he had worn a chain of iron; and he was fit to be the ruler of princes because he had himself been a servant among prisoners. Through his trial God gave him power to bear power, and this is a far rarer gift than the power to endure oppression and contempt. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Hope On the Lord Alone

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Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him. – Genesis 40:23

Joseph learned that temporal things are not to be depended upon. The indulgences of his father’s house end in his being sold as a slave, and the coat of many colors is dipped in blood. His prosperity in the house of Potiphar also came to a sudden end, and from being an overseer he became a prisoner in irons. Now he knew that earthly good is not to be depended on, and therefore not worthy to be the object of pursuit to an immortal soul: he sees that all things beneath the moon change, waxing and waning as doth the moon itself, and he learns to look to something higher and more stable than circumstances and surroundings.

He, too, was instructed in one sad truth, which we are all so slow to learn, namely, to “cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?” I do not think Joseph had learned that fully when he interpreted the dream of the butler. It was very natural, and therefore not to be censured that he should say, “Think of me when it shall be well with thee;” but when two whole years had passed and all the while he was forgotten, Joseph must have felt that, “Cursed is he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm.” He ceased from man, and no longer looked for enlargement from that quarter. Cost us what it may, we are great gainers by any process which enables us to say, “My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from Him.” It is a blessed thing when providence knocks away all the dogshores, and lets the vessel launch into her true element. See how freely she floats upon the deep sea of God’s everlasting love and immutable faithfulness. She is no more liable to decay from the dry rot of carnal confidence, but on the broad sea of divine power “she walks the waters as a thing of life” in joyful reliance upon the ever blessed God. Confidence in man seems bred in our bone, but it must be taken out of us, and happy shall the day be which sees us rid of all hope but that which stays itself upon the Lord alone. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

God’s Love in Adversity

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

And the LORD was with Joseph… – Genesis 39:2, 21

And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him… – Acts 7:9

Joseph learned in his trial much that was good for present use. For instance, he found by sweet experience that the divine presence can cheer us anywhere. If he had always been at home with his father, always his fathers darling, he would have known that the love of God is sweet to a favored youth, but no one would have been astonished at that. Even Satan would have said, “Well may he rejoice in thee, O Lord. Hast thou not set a hedge about him and all that he hath?” But he learned that God could be with him when he was sold for the price of a slave: with him when led as a captive across the desert, when he walked wearily by the camel’s side with the Ishmaelites: with him in the slave mart to find him a master who might appreciate him; with him when he became a servant in the house, by blessing him, prospering him, and causing him to find favor in the eyes of his master till he became overseer of all that Potiphar had: and then, best of all, though some would say worst of all, he learned that God could be with him in a dungeon. He could not have known that if he had stayed at home, he must be brought into the thick darkness, that the brightness of the divine presence might be the more fully seen. There is nothing in this world so delightful as the light of God’s countenance when all around is dark. You may tell me that the presence of Jesus is glorious upon Tabor’s glorious mount, and I will not contradict you…but give me the soft subdued light of God’s love in adversity; Christ on the stormy waters for me: Christ in the midst of the furnace with His persecuted ones. Never does the Lord’s love taste so sweet as when all the world is wormwood and gall…It was worthwhile, I say, for Joseph to be falsely accused, and to be laid in irons, to learn experimentally the supporting power of the heavenly Father’s smile. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

It is Good to be Afflicted

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

…for the LORD searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. – 1 Chronicles 28:9

No Christian man is all that he thinks he is; our purest gold is alloyed. We have none of us so much faith as we impute to ourselves, nor so much patience, or humility, or meekness, or love to God, or love to men. Spurious coin swells our apparent wealth. It is amazing how rich and increased in goods we are till the Lord deals with us by a trial, and then full often we discover that we are naked, and poor, and miserable in the very respects in which we boasted ourselves. Oh, man, if thou be a child of God thou art like a house which He is building with gold, and silver, and precious stones; but by reason of thine old nature thou art mixing up with the divine material much of thine own wood, and hay, and stubble; therefore, is it that the fire is made to rage around thee to burn out this injurious stuff which mars the whole fabric. If the Holy Spirit be pleased to bless thine afflictions to thee then wilt thou be daily led to put away the materials of the old nature with deep abhorrence and repentance, and thus shall the true work of God which He has built upon the sure foundation, stand in its true beauty, and thou shalt be builded for eternity.

The rod of God teacheth us more than all the voices of His ministers. When the Christian has been passed through the fire, the assaying, by removing the dross, adds a new lustre to the gold. Brother, thou art not what thou shalt be, nor canst thou be what thou shalt be except through a measure of trial. Child, it is needful for thee to feel the weight of thy Father’s hand, or thou wilt never behave thyself as a man. Thou must see His face veiled with frowns and hear His voice in harshness chiding thee for thy transgressions, otherwise thou wilt always retain the follies of childhood. Our chastisements are our promotions. They are privileges more precious than the rights of princes. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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