Attributes of God

The Archers of Envy

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises 5 Comments

The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength; and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel.”- Gen. 49:23,24

(Joseph) became a slave, sold from his country, dragged from all he loved. Farewell to home and all its pleasures-farewell to a father’s smiles and tender cares. He must be a slave, and toil where the slave’s task-master makes him; he must be stripped in the streets, he must be beaten, he must be scourged, he must be reduced from the man to the animal, from the free man to the slave. Truly the archers sorely shot at him.

(M)y brethren, do you hope, if you are the Lord’s Josephs, that you shall escape envy? Oh! it is hardest of all, to be envied by one’s brethren. If the devil hates us, we can bear it; if the foes of God’s truth speak ill of us, we buckle up our harness, and say, “Away, away, to the conflict.” But when the friends within the house slander us; when brethren who should uphold us, turn (to be) our foes; and when they try to tread down their younger brethren; then, sirs, there is some meaning in the passage, “The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him.” But, blessed be God’s name, it is sweet to be informed that “his bow abode in strength.” None of you can be the people of God without provoking envy; and the better you are, the more you will be hated…But fear not; you have naught to do with what man shall say of you. If God loves you, man will hate you; if God honors you, man will dishonor you. But recollect, could ye wear chains of iron for Christ’s sake, ye should wear chains of gold in heaven; could ye have rings of burning iron round your waists, ye should have your brow rimmed with gold in glory; for blessed are ye when men shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for Christ’s name’s sake; for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0017.cfm

The Cruel Attack

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

The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength; and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel. – Gen. 49:23,24

Joseph’s enemies were archers. The original has it, “masters of the arrows;” that is, men who were well skilled in the use of the arrows. Though all weapons are alike approved by the warrior in his thirst for blood, there seems something more cowardly in the attack of the archer than in that of the swordsman. The swordsman plants himself near you, foot to foot, and lets you defend yourself, and deal your blows against him; but the archer stands at a distance, hides himself in ambuscade, and, without you knowing it, the arrow comes whizzing through the air, and perhaps penetrates your heart. Just so are the enemies of God’s people. They very seldom come foot to foot with us; they will not show their faces before us; they hate the light, they love darkness; they dare not come and openly accuse us to our face, for then we could reply; but they shoot the bow from a distance, so that we cannot answer them; cowardly and dastardly as they are, they forge their arrow-heads, and aim them, winged with hell-birds feathers, at the hearts of God’s people.

O ye foes of God, ye think God’s people are despicable and powerless; but know that they have true strength from the omnipotence of their Father, a might substantial and divine. Your own shall melt away, and droop and die, like the snow upon the low mountain top, when the sun shines upon it, it melteth into water; but our vigor shall abide like the snow on the summit of the Alps, undiminished for ages. It is real strength. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0017.cfm

Sinner, Receive the Free Pardon

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

He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. -Job 33:27-28

This is a word of truth, gathered from the experience of a man of God, and it is tantamount to a promise. What the Lord has done, and is doing, He will continue to do while the world standeth. The Lord will receive into His bosom all who come to Him with a sincere confession of their sin; in fact, He is always on the lookout to discover any that are in trouble because of their faults.

Can we not endorse the language here used? Have we not sinned, sinned personally so as to say, “I have sinned”? Sinned willfully, having perverted that which is right? Sinned so as to discover that there is no profit in it but an eternal loss? Let us, then, go to God with this honest acknowledgment. He asks no more. We can do no less.

Let us plead His promise in the name of Jesus. He will deliver us from the pit of hell which yawns for us; He will grant us life and light. Why should we despair? Why should we even doubt? The Lord does not mock humble souls. He means what He says. The guilty can be forgiven. Those who deserve execution can receive free pardon. Lord, we confess, and we pray Thee to forgive! ~C.H. Spurgeon

http://bible.christiansunite.com/devotionals.shtml

Thou Shalt Sing Before His Face

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 4 Comments

Our God is the God of salvation; and to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death. -Psalm 68:20

“My dear friends, you who are not converted… God knoweth there are some of you that are on the road to hell; and do not suppose you will enter heaven, if you go hell’s road. Nobody would expect, if he proceeded to the north, to arrive at the south. Nay; God must change thine heart. By simple trust in Jesus, if thou givest thyself up to His mercy, even though the vilest of the vile, thou shalt sing before His face. And methinks, poor sinner, thou wilt say to me, as a poor woman did last Wednesday, after I had been preaching, when I believe everybody had been crying, from the least to the greatest, and even the preacher in the pulpit. As I went down, I said to one, “Are you chaff or wheat?” And she said, “Ah!I trembled tonight, sir.” I said to another, “Well, sister, I hope we shall be in Paradise soon.” And she replied, “You may, sir.” And I came to another, and said, “Well, do you think you will be gathered with the wheat?” And she answered, “One thing I can say-if God ever lets me get into heaven, I will praise Him with all my might. I will sing myself away, and shall never think I can sing loud enough.” It reminded me of what an old disciple once said: “If the Lord Jesus does but save me He shall never hear the last of it.” Let us praise God, then, eternally-

“While life, or thought, or being lasts,
Or immortality endures!”

But with my Lord I will now take my feast of loves. Oh, Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Thou art heaven! I want nought else. I am lost in Thee!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0043.cfm

Not Too Soon Nor Too Late

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 4 Comments

You shall come to the grave at a full age, as a sheaf of grain ripens in its season. Behold, this we have searched out; it is true. Hear it, and know for yourself.”Job 5:26, 27

“Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age.” “Ah!” says one, “that is not true. Good people do not live longer than others. The most pious man may die in the prime of his youth.” But look at my text. It does not say, thou shalt come to thy grave in old age-but in a “full age.” Well, who knows what a “full age” is? A “full age” is whenever God likes to take his children home…All fruit do not get ripe and mellow at the same season. So with Christians. They are at a “full age” when God chooses to take them home. They are at “full age” if they die at twenty one, they are not more if they live to be ninety.

There are two mercies to a Christian: First, he will never die too soon…no Christian ever does. But say some, “How useful might they have been had they lived.” Ah! but how damaging they might have been!..Are you quite sure they would have done so much good? Might they not have done much evil? Could we have a dream of the future, and see what they might have been, we should say, “Ah Lord! let it stop while it is well.”…The Christian dies well: he does not die too soon. Again, the Christian never dies too late. That old lady there is eighty years old. She sits in a miserable room, shivering by a handful of fire. She is kept by charity. She is poor and miserable. “What’s the good of her?” says everybody: “she has lived too long…Do not you find fault with your Master’s work? He is too good a husbandman to leave His wheat in the field too long and let it shale out.

Hear what God says to each of us:-“Thou shalt come to thy grave in full age.”…Heaven is ready enough for thee, and thy Lord will say, “Come up higher!” when thou hast arrived at a full age-but never before nor after.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0043.cfm

Nothing to Lose

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

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. -Philippians 1:21

A Christian has nothing to lose by death. You say he has to lose his friends. I am not so sure of that. Many of you have many more friends in heaven than on earth; some Christians have more dearly beloved ones above than below. You often count your family circle, but do you do as that little girl of whom Wordsworth speaks, when she said, “Master, we are seven.” Some of them were dead and gone to heaven, but she would have it that they were all brothers and sisters still. Oh! how many brothers and sisters we have up stairs in the upper room in our Father’s house; how many dear ones, linked with us in the ties of relationship, for they are as much our relations now as they were then! Though in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, yet in that great world, who has said that the ties of affection shall be severed, so that we shall not even there claim kindred with one another, as well as kindred with Jesus Christ? What have we to lose by death? Come when he may, should we not open the door for him? I would love to feel like that woman who said, when she was dying, “I feel like a latch on the door, ready to be opened to let my Lord in.” Is not that a sweet state, to have the house ready, so that it will require no setting in order? When death comes to a wicked man, he finds him moored fast, he snaps his cable, and drives his ship to sea; but when he comes to the Christian, he finds him winding up the anchor, and he says, “When thou hast done thy work, and shipped the anchor, I will take thee home.” With sweet breath he blows on him, and the ship is wafted gently to heaven, with no regrets for life, but with angels at the brow, spirits guiding the rudder, sweet songs coming through the cordage, and canvass silvered o’er with light.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0043.cfm

 

Christians At the Jordan River

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

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. -Philippians 1:21

(L)et me tell you what Dr. Owen said-that celebrated prince of Calvinists…A friend called to tell Dr. Owen that he had put to press his “Meditations on the Glory of Christ.” There was a momentary gleam in his languid eye as he answered, “I am glad to hear it. Oh!” said he, “the long-wished for time has come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of doing in this world.”

George Herbert, after some severe struggles, and having requested his wife and nieces, who were weeping in extreme anguish, to leave the room, he committed his will to Mr. Woodnott’s care, crying out, “I am ready to die-Lord, forsake me not now, my strength faileth; but grant me mercy for the merits of my Lord Jesus. And now, Lord receive my soul.” Then he laid himself back and breathed out his life to God. Thus the poet dies. That glorious fancy of his, that might have pictured gloomy things if it had pleased, was only filled with rapturous sight of angels. As he used to say himself, “Methinks I hear the church bells of heaven ringing.” And methinks he did hear them when he came near the river Jordan.

(Missionary Brainard) said, “I am almost in eternity. I long to be there. My work is done. I have done with all my friends. All the world is now nothing to me. Oh, to be in heaven, to praise and glorify God with His holy angels.”…(said he) who counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and went among wild untutored Indians to preach the gospel.

…I never wish to have the choice given to me; but to die is the happiest thing man can have, because it is to lose anxiety, it is to slay care, it is to have the peculiar sleep of the beloved. To the Christian, then, death must be acceptable.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0043.cfm