Attributes of God

He Took the Sinner’s Sin Upon Himself

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 7 Comments

For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

I thought surely I had seen the worst of sin, when I had laid it side by side, first with the character of God, and afterwards with His bounties. I cursed sin from my inmost heart and thought I had seen enough of it. But, ah! my brethren, I had not. That sense of gratitude passed away, and I found myself still prone to sin, and still loving it. But, oh, there came a thrice-happy, yet thrice-mournful hour! One day, in my wanderings, I heard a cry, a groan; me thought ’twas not a cry such as came from mortal lip, it had in it such unutterable depths of wondrous woe. I turned aside, expecting to see some great sight; and it was indeed a great sight that I saw. Lo, there, upon a tree, all bleeding, hung a man. I marked the misery that made His flesh all quiver on His bones; I beheld the dark clouds come rolling down from heaven, like the chariots of misery; I saw them clothe His brow with blackness; I saw even in the thick darkness, for mine eyes were opened, and I perceived that His heart was as full of the gloom and horror of grief as the sky was full of blackness. Then I seemed to look into His soul, and I saw there torrents of unutterable anguish, wells of torment of such an awful character that mortal lip dare not sip, lest it should be burned with scalding heat. I said, “Who is this mighty sufferer? Why doth He suffer thus? Hath He been the greatest of all sinners, the basest of all blasphemers?” But a voice came forth from the excellent glory, and it said, “This is My beloved Son; but He took the sinner’s sin upon Himself, and He must bear its penalty.” O God! I thought, I never saw sin till that hour, when I saw it tear Christ’s glories from His head, when it seemed for a moment even to withdraw the lovingkindness of God from Him, when I saw Him covered with His own blood, and plunged into the uttermost depths of oceans of grief. Then I said, “Now shall I know what Thou art, O sin, as never before I knew it!” Never, till I saw the Saviour on the tree, did I understand how base a traitor man’s guilt was to man’s God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

This Man, This God

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

“Hereby perceive we the love of God.” – 1John 3:16

It will be well for me, in commencing my discourse, to remind you that there is no understanding the death of Christ unless we understand the person of Christ. If I were to tell you that God died for us, although I might be telling you a truth, and you might possibly not misunderstand what I meant, yet I should be at the same time uttering an error. God cannot die; it is, of course, impossible, from His very nature, that He could even for a moment cease to exist. God is incapable of suffering. It is true that we sometimes use words to express emotions on the part of God; but, then, we speak after the manner of men. He is impassive; He cannot suffer; it is not possible for Him to endure aught; much less, then, is it possible for Him to suffer death…We must always understand, and constantly remember, that our Lord Jesus Christ was “very God of very God,” and that, as God, He had all the attributes of the Most High, and could not, therefore, be capable either of suffering or death. But then He was also man, “man of the substance of His mother,” man, just like ourselves, sin alone excepted. And the Lord Jesus died not as God; it was as man that He gave up the ghost; as man, He was nailed to the cross. As God, He was in heaven, even when His body was in the tomb; as God, He was swaying the sceptre of all worlds even when the mock sceptre of reed was in His hand, and the imperial robe of universal monarchy was on the eternal shoulders of His Godhead when the soldier’s old purple cloak was wrapped about His manhood. He did not cease to be God, He did not lose His Omnipotence, and His eternal dominion, when He became man; nor did He, as God, die or suffer; it was as man that He “laid down His life for us.”

Come, now, my soul, and worship this man, this God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

Contemplate This Sublime Truth

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

“He laid down His life for us.”- 1John 3:16

Come, believer, and contemplate this sublime truth, thus proclaimed to thee in simple monosyllables: “He laid down His life for us.” There is not one long word in the sentence; it is all as simple as it can be; and it is simple because it is sublime. Sublimity in thought always needs simplicity in words to express itself. Little thoughts require great words to explain them; little preachers need Latin words to convey their feeble ideas, but great thoughts and great expressers of those thoughts are content with little words.

“He laid down His life for us.” Here there is not much upon which any man can display his eloquence; here is little room for metaphysical discussion or for deep thought; the text sets before us a simple yet sublime doctrine. What, then, shall I do with it? If I would speak of it profitably to myself, since I need not employ my wit to dissect it, nor my oratory to proclaim it, let me exercise my adoration to worship it; let me prostrate all my powers before the throne, and, like an angel when his work is done, and he has nowhere else to fly at his Lord’s command, let me fold the wings of my contemplation, and stand before the throne of this great truth, and meekly bow myself, and worship Him that was, and is, and is to come, the great and glorious One who “laid down His life for us.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

Alignment with the Word of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, repentance, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him… – Hebrews 5:9

I hope I shall always be able to lift up my voice against that charity growing up in our midst, which is not only a charity towards persons, but a charity towards doctrines. I have fervent charity towards every brother in Christ who differs from me. I love him for Christ’s sake, and hold fellowship with him for the truth’s sake: but I can have no charity for his errors, nor do I wish him to have any for mine. I tell him straight to his face, “If your sentiments contradict mine, either I am right and you are wrong, or you are right and I am wrong; and it is time we should meet together and search the Word of God, to see what is right.” Talk of your Evangelical Alliances, and such like: they will never endure; they may effect many blessed purposes, but they are not the remedy that is wanted for our divisions. What is wanted is, for all of us to come to the model of the Word of God, and when we have come to that, we must come together. Let us all come “to the law and to the testimony.” Let the Baptist, let the Independent, let the Churchman, lay aside his old thoughts, his old prejudices, and his old traditions, and let each man search for himself, as in the sight of Almighty God, and some of the altars must go down, for they cannot all be after the divine type, when their dissimilarity is so palpable. May the Spirit of God be poured out in this land, and there will come a three-fold reformation; broken images, groves cut down, and fallen altars scattered to the winds. And yet, my dear hearers, I do not ask you to attend to this last thing first. It is unimportant, compared with the first. The images are first to be burned, then sinful customs are to be given up, and after that let the church be reformed.

“I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say,” and may God guide you aright.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The Unlawful Altars

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

…and threw down the high places and the altars… – 2 Chronicles 31;1

These altars were built for the service of the true God, but they were built against His express command. God had said that He would have but one altar, namely, at Jerusalem. These people, to avoid inconvenience and trouble, thought they would build altars, wherever they lived, and there celebrate their worship. I can conceive that they worshipped Jehovah with all their hearts, and that He might graciously accept even such worship as that through Christ Jesus, overlooking their ignorance and casting their sin behind His back. But now as their zeal was kindled, their consciences became scrupulous, so they resolved not only to avoid the things that are positively sinful but they would have nothing to do with anything that is not positively right. So they began to cast down the altars of God because they were not built according to God’s law… There should be a casting down of everything in connection with the true worship, that is not according to the law of God and the word of God. As it was with the worship of Israel of old, so it is now with that of the Christian church. The pure becomes alloyed with the base, that which is genuine with that which is spurious, divine revelation with human tradition, and the inspired decrees of heaven with the inventions and devices of the children of men. Some fallacies are perpetuated from generation to generation, until the deep hue of antiquity tinges them over, makes them look venerable and speciously invites a reverence and regard to which they never had any legitimate claim… But, mark ye this, if the grace of God be once more restored to the church in all its fullness and the Spirit of God be poured out from on high, in all His sanctifying energy there will come such a shaking as has never been seen in our days. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The Groves – cont’d

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

… and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves… – 2 Chronicles 31:1

I must lift up the axe against another evil-books. There are many books that are to be so esteemed by the Christian man, that they must be cut down like the groves of trees, not because they are bad in themselves, mark, but because there false gods are worshiped… Do I, therefore, say, that the Christian man must condemn all reading of fiction and novels? No, I do not, but I do say, that the mass of popular books published under the name of Light Literature is to be eschewed and cut down, for the simple reason that the moral of it is not that of piety and goodness; the tendency of the reading is not to bring the Christian towards heaven, but rather to retard and impede him in his good course.

You remember John Knox’s memorable saying, when he turned the Romanists out, he went straight away to pull down their chapels. He gathered the mob together, and began to overhaul the whole of their places of worship. Why should John Knox meddle with them? ” I’ll pull the nests down,” said he, “then I shall be sure that the birds will never come back.” So I would today. I would not only drive away the birds-the sin, the evil; but I would pull down the nest, so that there will be no temptation to you to come back again to the sin. “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will be a Father unto you.” Come out from the world, ye children of Christ. Have naught to do with their enjoyments, nor with their devices. Follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Go not a whoring after these iniquities, but drink thou waters out of thine own cistern, and be thou always ravished with His love who is thy Lord, thy husband, thy hope, thy joy, thine all.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/2ch/31/1/s_398001

The God of Pride

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, repentance 1 Comment

When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon…  And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. – 1 Samuel 5:2,4

Say now, who is there among us who has not some image to break? I have thought sometimes that I had broken all mine at one season, for I have had the will to do it; but lo! I have walked through the temple of my heart, and I have seen in some dark corner an idol still standing. Let it be cast down, I have said; and I have used the sledge-hammer upon it. But when I thought I had cleared all away, there was still one gigantic figure standing there; for you may be sure that there is one idol of which we can never thoroughly cleanse our hearts though we try and though by God’s strength we give him a blow every day. It is the god of pride. He changes his shape continually; sometimes he calls himself humility, and we begin to bow before him, till we find we are getting proud of our humility. At another time he assumes the fashion of conscientiousness, and we begin to carp at this and cavil at the other, and all the while we are tampering with our own professed sanctity, and are bowing before the shrine of religious pride. We think sometimes we are praising God when we are praising ourselves, and we pray at times that God may prosper us in doing good, and our greatest desire is to be honored, not that His name should be glorified. This idol must be cast down; but it is of such a form and such a shape, that I suppose it will fare like Dagon. When the ark was brought into the house, it is said Dagon fell upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord, and his head and the palms of his hands were cut off, nevertheless the stump of Dagon remained. So will it be with us, I fear the stump of Dagon will still remain, do what we may. Then let us each to day go home to our closet and begin to open the door of the chambers of our hearts, and walk through them all, and say “What have I to break, what have I to knock down, what have I to destroy;” and let us be very careful that we do destroy all that we can get near. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm