Attributes of God

Our Great Landlord

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

Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Selah – Psalm 68:19

There is this clause in the lease, which I am afraid some have never observed, namely, that the Landlord has at all times the right of ingress and egress over His own property. I thank God that some of us have yielded to the Lord this right, and now our prayer often is that He would come into our house, and search us, and try us, and know our ways, and see if there be any evil way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting. Time was when the last thing we wished for was the presence of God, when we said to Him, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” But now, being renewed by His Spirit, we say to Him, “Abide with us.” Beloved friend, are you always ready to open the door of your heart to God’s inspection? Do you delight in heavenly communion? Do you constantly invite the Lord Jesus to come in and sup with you, and you with Him? If not, you are forgetting one great clause in your lease, and let me also say, you are forgetting the greatest privilege that men can enjoy beneath the stars. It is well for me to recall to your memories that, according to our tenure, our great Landlord permits us to call upon Him to execute all repairs. Our circumstances are apt to grow straitened, and He it is who gives us power to get wealth, He daily loads us with benefits. When our bodily tabernacle is shaken, He it is who heals all our diseases. When our sorrows and wants multiply, He it is who satisfies our mouth with good things, so that our youth is renewed like the eagle’s…Jesus is the beloved Physician. If we had more faith in God and resorted more often to Him by prayer and faith, the prescriptions of the medical man might be more often wise, and his medicines more frequently useful. The Lord, who made our house, best knows how to repair the tenement and He permits us to resort to Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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There Must Be Some Rent to Pay

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

…let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. – Hebrews 13:15

We occupy a house which is evidently not our own and therefore there must be some rent to pay. What is it? The rent that God asks of His tenants is that they should praise Him as long as they live. “Oh!” say you, “that is but little.” I grant you that it is. It is but a peppercorn, a mere acknowledgment, but yet there are millions who never pay even that. They offer the Lord no thanks, no love, no service. For the benefits they receive, they make no return, or rather, they make an evil recompense. The breath that He gives them is never turned to song. The food they eat is not sanctified with gratitude. The goods that He bestows are not tithed, nor are the first fruits of their increase offered to the Lord. Their hearts do not love Him. Their faith does not trust in His dear Son—their lips do not speak of Him and magnify His glorious name. This is most unrighteous and ungenerous. For us to praise God is not a costly or painful business. The heart that praises God finds a sweet return in the exercise itself. In heaven, it is the heaven of perfect spirits to praise the Lord. And on earth, we are nearest heaven when we are fullest of the praises of JEHOVAH. But how ungrateful are those who are tenants in God’s house and yet refuse the little tribute which He asks of them! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Where Will Our Immortal Natures Be?

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

Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. – Isaiah 38:1

Set your house in order, for your great Landlord may serve an ejectment notice upon you, and there will be no hope of resisting it, though the wisest of physicians should seek to bar the door…We cling with dreadful tenacity to this poor life and the little which we foolishly call our all. It were well if we could cling with such fast hold to the life that is to come, for that alone is worth clinging to, since it is forever—whereas this life is to be but for a little time even at the longest. What a reflection it is that within a hundred years, every one in our most crowded audiences (unless the Lord shall come), will be soundly sleeping amid the clods of the valley—and not one of all the present armies of men that populate our cities will be in possession of his house and lands, or will know aught of anything that is done under the sun! We shall have gone over to “the great majority.” We shall be, perhaps, remembered, perhaps forgotten, but at any rate, we ourselves shall mingle no more with our fellows in the mart, the street, the places of worship, or the haunts of pleasure. We shall depart from sea and land, from city and village, from earth and all that is thereon.

Where will our immortal natures be? Where will our spirits be? Shall we be communing among the blessed harpers whose every note is bliss, or shall we be forever gnashing our teeth in remorse among the castaways who would not receive the mercy of God? We hold our house, then, on no firmer tenure than from moment to moment. Remember this, you dwellers in these houses of clay! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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What Is Man’s Lease?

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Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. – Psalm 90:3

One would imagine, from the way in which some men talk, that we were freeholders, or at least had a lease for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. The truth is, we are but tenants at will. We may possess the tenement, in which our soul now finds a house for itself, together with its appurtenances and outhouses, for the term of seventy years, and the tenure may even be prolonged to fourscore years, or even to a longer period in rare cases. But at no one time is the tenure altered. We always occupy from moment to moment. Our lease is not for three, seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, nor is it even from day to day, or from hour to hour—but from second to second we hold precarious possession. We are tenants at the absolute will of God. The commencement of a day never secures the ending of it to us alive, and the striking of the clock, as the commencement of the hour, is no guarantee that we shall hear it strike again. Every second, we hold our lives, and goods, and chattels upon the sole tenure of the divine will. God has but to say to us, “Return, ye children of men,” and we return to the dust. Flowers are not more frail, moths more fragile, bubbles more unsubstantial, or meteors more fleeting than man’s life. What transient things we are! I said, We are, but I made a mistake—we are not. We but begin to be, and ere we are, we are not. It is God alone who can say, “I AM.” None of the human race should dare to pronounce those words. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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The Rights of God

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

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. – Isaiah 1:2

It is most useful for each of us to know what are the rights of God towards us. Even if we do not acknowledge them, yet candor demands that at least we hear them defined. Sad is the reflection, however, that when we learn these rights, if we resist them, we become willful robbers and so increase our guilt. If we will not have God to reign over us, if, in our spirits we say, like Pharaoh, “Who is the LORD, that we should obey His voice?” it will go harder with us at the last than if we had never heard the claims of God proclaimed. Men and women, how is it that God has made you and yet so many of you never think of Him? Shall I bring against you the accusation which the prophet of old brought against his people? “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know; My people doth not consider.” Who among you would retain in your house a tool or a piece of furniture which was of no use or value to you? Who among you would keep so much as an ox or an ass if it rendered you no service? How much less would you nurture it if, instead thereof, it did you harm—if it had a spite against you and lifted up its heels against you? And yet, are there not some here who have been forgetful of their obligations to their Maker, who have never been of any service to Him, have never praised Him, have never desired to advance His glory? But who, on the contrary, have even spoken high and haughty thingy things against Him, and it may be words of profanity and blasphemy? O God, how are You ill-treated in the very world which is full of Your goodness! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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Who Is the Landlord?

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. – Isaiah 38:1

This mortal life and its surroundings are likened to a house and the first point of the similitude will be seen if we inquire, WHO IS THE LANDLORD? The first answer is that certainly we are not. To all men, it may be truthfully said, “Ye are not your own.” We are tenants, but not freeholders. We are mere tenants at will without a lease. The earthly house of this tabernacle belongs to Him who built it. He who sustains it keeps the title deed in His own possession. Our house belongs to God. Dear friend, do you ever think of this? Do you remember, as a matter of fact, that you and yours are God’s property? He created you and created you for His own glory. Your soul was spoken into existence by Him. Your bodily powers were all bestowed by His hand. You are the creature of the Almighty. In every vein, sinew, and nerve of your body, there are traces of the Divine Embroiderer’s skill. You are God’s in all the most secret goings and issues of your life, for to Him you owe every day the continued possession of your existence… Day by day you are a commoner at the table of divine bounty, a pensioner, hour by hour, upon the infinite mercy of God. You have nothing and are nothing but as God pleases. You owe all you have and all you are to Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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God Gives His Grace Freely

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

How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the LORD God of your fathers hath given you? – Joshua 18:3

All that any child of God was, you may be; all the joy, and bliss, and holiness ever enjoyed on earth, you may enjoy. The land is before you; go in to possess it. Do not be without the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord, for in Him is “joy unspeakable, and full of glory.” Some of our dear friends hear a doctrine which is gospel and water; and they really do not know what the undiluted gospel is. The doctrines of grace are the cream which many cautious preachers skim from the milk of the Word lest it should prove too rich for the stomachs of their hearers. A solid portion of Calvinistic doctrine is like a joint of nourishing meat, and the people of this generation are such babes that they cannot digest it. It is too rich for me!” cries one. I know it, I know it. But I pray the Lord to make you grow into men, who can enjoy the fat things full of marrow, and the wines on the lees well refined. There are glorious truths of which beginners know nothing, and through not knowing of them they miss much joy. Full many a child of God goes fretting and worrying when he ought to be singing and rejoicing, and would be so if he knew what God has provided for him. God gives His grace freely; freely take it. God bless you, for Christ’s sake! Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2086.cfm