Attributes of God

In God’s Own Way

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

For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” – Romans 9:15

There is no man living who has any absolute right to receive anything from God except destruction. That terrible doom we have all merited, but nothing beyond that. If we were shut up in prison, and kept upon dry bread, so long as we were out of hell, we should still be under obligation to God. If the Lord should choose to show mercy to only one man in the world, He has a perfect right to do so; if He chooses to give it to a few, or if He chooses to give it to all, He has the right to do so. He is absolutely sovereign, and these are the words that He would have every one of us to hear and to heed: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” The crown rights of the King of kings must never be assailed; for us beggars to turn choosers, and to dictate to God what He shall give to us;-for us condemned criminals to begin to make bargains with God as to how He shall preserve our lives, if He chooses to do so,-oh, this will never do! You know, dear friends, that when we give even a trifling charity, we like to do it in our own way.

When anything comes to us entirely as a gift, it is not for us to cavil at it, but to accept it; and this is specially true of God’s great gift of salvation. O Lord, if Thou wilt but save me, save me anyhow! If I may be delivered from this accursed sin of mine, and made pure and holy, do it, Lord, after Thine own gracious fashion! It is not for me to suggest any plan to Thee, but to leave myself entirely in Thy hands, and to let it be according to Thy mind.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2670.cfm

Do Not Strive With God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 3 Comments

Should it be according to thy mind? He will recompense it, whether thou refuse, or whether thou choose; and not I: therefore speak what thou knowest. Job 34:33

Dear friends, it is never wise to dispute with God. Let a man strive with his fellow, but not with his Maker. If we must discuss any point, let it be with imperfect beings like ourselves, but not with the infallible and infinitely wise God…

Do you object to the very basis of the plan (of salvation), namely, that God will forgive sin through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His Son? I know that some do object to this; they cannot bear to hear about atonement by blood, or justification by imputed righteousness. Others, who will not say that they object to atonement, spirit away the very meaning of it. They cannot endure that glorious doctrine of substitution which is such a joy to us. Christ standing in the sinner’s stead, and the sinner then standing in the place of Christ,-Christ taking the sinner’s sin, and the sinner wearing Christ’s righteousness,-all this they absolutely reject…Yet, that is God’s plan of salvation, and some of us know, in our inmost hearts, that we never had peace until we accepted that plan of salvation; and that now, if it should be taken away from us, we should lose all the joy of existence, and should go back to the despair which, at one time, was so heavy upon us that we could sympathize with Job when he said, “My soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.”

We could better afford to die, and rot in our graves, than that we should lose our Saviour, and His atoning blood, and justifying righteousness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2670.cfm

 

 

A Spirit of Unselfish Devotion

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life Leave a comment

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. – 1 Corinthians 2:12

The spirit of this world is often selfish; it is always a spirit that forgets God, that ignores the existence of a Creator in His own world, the land which He makes fat by His own bounty. Men with God’s breath in their nostrils forget Him who makes them live. Now, your spirit should be one of unselfish devotion, a spirit always conscious of His presence, bowed down with the weight, or raised up with the cheer of Hagar’s exclamation-“Thou God seeest me;” a spirit which watcheth humbly before God, and seeketh to know His will and to do it through the grace of God given to you. Such a spirit as this, without the drab of one sect, or the phylacteries of another, will soon make you quite as distinct from your fellow men as ever meats and drinks could make the Jews a separate people.

A Christian never considers what is usual, but what is right; he does not estimate a wrong by its commonness; he counts that a fraud, and a falsehood will be as much fraud and falsehood, though all the world shall agree to practice it, as though but one man should do it in the dark. The believer reads things, not in man’s light, in the obscurity of which so many blind bats are willing to fly, but he reads things in the sunlight of heaven. If a thing be right though he lose by it, it is done; if it be wrong, though he should become as rich as Croesus by allowing it, he scorns the sin for his Master’s sake. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0499.cfm

The Gospel’s Reception

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. – 2 Corinthians 4:4-3

Two men go up to the temple to worship, they take their seats side by side in God’s house; the Word is preached to them both; they both hear it, perhaps with like attention; the one goes his way to forget, the other remembers. They come again: the one listens, and the minister is to him as one that playeth a goodly tune upon an instrument: the other listens and weeps; he feels that the word is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. It comes home to his conscience; it pierces him, cuts him to the quick; every word seems to be as an arrow shot from the bow of God and finding a target in his conscience. And now they come again. The one feels the word at last to be his; he has been led to repentance and faith in Christ through it, and now comes up to sing God’s praises as His accepted child; while the other remains to sing as a mere formalist-to join in worship in which he feels but little interest-to lift up his voice in a prayer when his heart is far absent. If I had here this morning a heap of steel filings and of ashes mixed together, and I wanted to detect the difference between the two, I should have nothing to do but to thrust in a magnet; the filings would be attracted and the ashes would remain. So with this congregation. If I would know to-day who are those who are of God’s Israel, and who are still the baseborn Egyptians, there is nothing needed but to preach the gospel. The gospel finds out God’s people. it has an affinity to them. When it comes to them they receive it, God’s Holy Spirit opening their hearts; they lay hold of it and rejoice in it; while those who are not God’s, who have no part or interest in the redemption of Christ, hear it in vain and are even hardened by it and go their way to sin with a higher hand, after all the warnings they have received.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm

Every Providence is a Blessing

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 3 Comments

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

It is true, that to the naked eye one event happens to both (the renewed and the unrenewed man): the righteous suffer as well as the wicked, and they go to the grave which is appointed for all living; but if we could look more closely into God’s providence, we should see lines of light dividing the path of the godly from the lot of the transgressor. To the righteous man every providence is a blessing. A blessing is wrapped up in all our curses and in all our crosses. Our cups are sometimes bitter, but they are always healthful. Our woe is our weal. We are never losers by our losses, but we grow rich towards God when we become poor towards men. To the sinner, however, all things work together for evil. Is he prosperous? He is as the beast that is fattened for the slaughter. Is he healthy? He is as the blooming flower that is ripening for the mower’s scythe. Does he suffer? His sufferings are the first drops of the eternal hail-storm-of divine vengeance. Every thing to the sinner, if he could but open his eyes, hath a black aspect. The clouds are to him big with thunders, and the whole world is alive with terror. If earth could have its way it would shake off from its bosom the monsters that forget God. But to the righteous all things work together for good. Come foul, or come fair, all shall end well; every wave speeds him to his desired haven, and even the rough blast swells his sails, and drives him the more swiftly towards the port of peace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm

God’s Just Dealings with Two Different Men

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 3 Comments

Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God – Romans 3:24-25

The Lord is never severe beyond what justice demands, nor gracious beyond what justice allows. Here comes the unrenewed, the ungodly man, he brings up his good works, his prayers, his tears; the Lord will judge him according to his works, and woe worth the day to him; it will be a day of sorrow indeed, for he will soon discover his best perfections are as filthy rags, and that all his good works only seemed to be good because he was in the dark, and could not see the spots that defiled them. Another man approaches, it is the renewed man. God deals with him justly, it is true, but not according to the scale of the law, He looks at that man as accepted in Christ Jesus, justified through Christ’s righteousness and washed in His blood, and now He deals with that man, not as a judge with a criminal, nor as a king with a subject, but as a father with a child. That man is taken to Jehovah’s bosom; his offense is put away, his soul constantly renewed by the influence of divine grace, and the dealings of God with him are as different from the dealings of God with another man, as the love of a husband differs from the sternness of an incensed monarch. On the one hand, it is simple justice; on the other hand, fervent love; on the one hand, the inflexible severity of a judge, and on the other hand, the unbounded affection of a parent’s heart. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm

The Distinction

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life 3 Comments

… that ye may know that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. – Exodus 11:17

Between the righteous and the wicked, there is an essential distinction of nature. There are some of you, who imagine that the only difference between the true Christian and another, is just this,-that the one is more attentive to his place of worship-that he is more regular in the practice of ceremonies-that he could not live without private prayer, and the like. Permit me to assure you, that if there is no greater difference than this between you and another man, you are not a child of God. The distinction between the unconverted and the converted, is far wider than this. It is one not of dress or of outward form but of essence and of nature…You must be born again; there must be a new nature put into you; a spark of divinity must fall into your bosom, and must burn there… God by His infinite power has quickened His people: He has brought them out of their old nature, they now love the things which they once hated, and they hate the things they once loved. Old things with them are “passed away; behold all things are become new.” The change is not that they speak more solemnly and religiously, or that they have left off going to the theater, or that they do not spend their lives in the frivolities of the world: that is not the change-it is a consequence of it, but the change is deeper and more vital than this; it is a change of the man’s very essence. He is no more the man that he once was. he is “renewed in the spirit of his mind,” born over again, regenerated, re-created: he is a stranger and a foreigner here below, he no more belongs to this world, but to the world to come. The Lord, then, in this respect, hath put a difference between Israel and Egypt.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm