Attributes of God

Our Full Acquittal and Discharge

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

He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. Matthew 28:6

Behold His empty tomb, O true believer: it is a sign of thine acquittal, and thy full discharge. If Jesus had not paid the debt, He ne’er had risen from the grave. He would have lain there till this moment if He had not cancelled the entire debt, by satisfying eternal vengeance. O beloved, is not that an overwhelming thought?

“It is finished, it is finished,
Hear the rising Saviour cry.”

The heavenly turnkey came, a bright angel stepped from heaven and rolled away the stone; but he would not have done so if Christ had not done all: he would have kept Him there, he would have said, “Nay,nay, Thou art the sinner now; Thou hast the sins of all Thine elect upon Thy shoulder, and I will not let Thee go free till Thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.” In His going free I see my own discharge.

“My Jesus’ blood’s my full discharge.”

As a justified man, I have not a sin now against me in God’s book. If I were to turn over God’s eternal book, I should see every debt of mine receipted and cancelled.

“Here’s pardon for transgressions past,
It matter not how black their cast,
And O my soul, with wonder view,
For sins to come, here’s pardon too.
Fully discharged by Christ I am,
From Christ’s tremendous curse and blame.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0018.cfm

Come, Ye Blessed of the Father

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

Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world -Matthew 25:34

There will be but one distinction-righteous and wicked. At first we shall stand together. Methinks I see the scene. The sea is boiling; the heavens are rent in twain, the clouds are fashioned into a chariot, and Jesus riding on it, with wings of fire, comes riding through the sky. His throne is set. He seats Himself upon it. With a nod He hushes all the world. He lifts His fingers, opens the great books of destiny, and the book of our probation, wherein are written the acts of time. With His fingers He beckons to the hosts above. “Divide,” said He, “divide the universe.” Swifter than thought all the earth shall part in sunder. Where shall I be found when the dividing comes? Methinks I see them all divided, and the righteous are on the right. Turning to them, with a voice sweeter than music, He says… “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.” And now the wicked are left alone; and turning to them, He says, “Depart! Ye have been departing all your life long; it was your business to depart from Me; ye said, ‘Depart from me, I love not Thy ways.’ You have been departing, keep on, take the last step!” They dare not move. They stand still. The Saviour becomes the avenger. The hands that once held out mercy, now grasp the sword of justice; the lips that spoke lovingkindness, now utter thunder; and with a deadly aim; He lifts up the sword, and sweeps amongst them. They fly like deer before the lion, and enter the jaws of the bottomless pit.

But never, I hope, shall I cease preaching, without telling you what to do to be saved… oh! ye that are thirsty, and heavy laden, and lost and ruined, mercy speaks yet once again to you! Here is the way of salvation. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”… And to every penitent sinner Jesus says, “I am able to save to the uttermost;” throw thyself flat on the promise, and say, “Then, Lord, Thou art able to save me.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0025.cfm

In the Likeness of God

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

I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. -Psalm 17:15b

One thought here ought not to be forgotten; and that is, the Psalmist says we are to wake up in the likeness of God. This may refer to the soul; for the spirit of the righteous will be in the likeness of God as to its happiness holiness, purity, infallability, eternity, and freedom from pain; but specially, I think, it relates to the body because it speaks of the awaking. The body is to be in the likeness of Christ. What a thought! It is-and alas! I have had too many such to-night-a thought too heavy for words. I am to awake up in Christ’s likeness. I do not know what Christ is like, and can scarcely imagine…Oh! what a change it will be, when some of us get to heaven! There is a man who fell in battle with the word of salvation on his lips, his legs had been shot away, and his body had been scarred by sabre thrusts; he wakes in heaven, and finds that he has not a broken body, maimed and cut about, and hacked and injured, but that he is in Christ’s likeness. There is an old matron, who has tottered on her staff for years along her weary way; time has ploughed furrows on her brow; haggard and lame, her body is laid in the grave. But oh! aged woman, thou shalt arise in youth and beauty. Another has been deformed in his life-time, but when he wakes, he wakes in the likeness of Christ.

Whatever may have been the form of our countenance, whatever the contour, the beautiful shall be no more beautiful in heaven than those who were deformed. Those who shone on earth, peerless, among the fairest, who ravished men with looks from their eyes, they shall be no brighter in heaven than those who are now passed by and neglected: for they shall all be like Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0025.cfm

The Faith to Say, I Shall!

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

As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with Your likeness. – Psalm 17:15

“I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake up in Thy likeness.” If some men should say so now, they would be called fanatics, and it would be considered presumption for any man to say, “I will behold Thy face, I shall be satisfied;” and I think there are many now in this world who think it is quite impossible for a man to say to a certainty, “I know, I am sure, I am certain.” But, beloved, there are not one or two, but there are thousands and thousands of God’s people alive in this world who can say with an assured confidence, no more doubting of it than of their very existence, “I will behold Thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake in Thy likeness.” It is possible, though perhaps not very easy, to attain to that high and eminent position wherein we can say no longer do I hope, but I know; no longer do I trust, but I am persuaded; I have a happy confidence; I am sure of it; I an certain; for God has so manifested Himself to me that now it is no longer “if” and “perhaps” but it is positive, eternal, “shall.” “I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness.”

Oh! if ye are talking like that, ye must expect to have trouble, for God never gives strong faith without fiery trial; He will never give a man the power to say that “shall” without trying him; He will not build a strong ship without subjecting it to very mighty storms; He will not make you a mighty warrior, if He does not intend to try your skill in battle. God’s swords must be used; the old Toledo blades of heaven must be smitten against the armor of the evil one, and yet they shall not break, for they are of true Jerusalem metal, which shall never snap. Oh! what a happy thing to have that faith to say “I shall.” Some of you think it quite impossible, I know; but it “is the gift of God,” and whosoever asks it shall obtain it: and the very chief of sinners now present in this place may yet be able to say long before he comes to die, “I shall behold Thy face in righteousness.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0025.cfm

Our Most Merciful God

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises 3 Comments

The LORD is good to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works. -Psalm 145:9

This is God’s complaint against Ephraim. It is no mean proof of His goodness, that He stoops to rebuke His erring creatures; it is a great argument of His gracious disposition, that He bows His head to notice terrestrial affairs. He might, if He pleased, wrap Himself with might as with a garment; He might put the stars around His wrist for bracelets, and bind the suns around His brow for a coronet; He might dwell alone, far, far above this world, up in the seventh heaven, and look down with calm and silent indifference upon all the doings of His creatures; He might do as the heathens supposed their Jove did, sit in perpetual silence, sometimes nodding His awful head to make the fates move as He pleased, but never taking thought of the little things of earth, disposing of them as beneath His notice, engrossed with His own being, swallowed up within Himself, living alone and retired; and I, as one of His creatures, might stand by night upon a mountain-top, and look upon the silent stars and say, “Ye are the eyes of God, but ye look not down on me; your light is the gift of His omnipotence, but your rays are not smiles of love to me. God, the mighty Creator, has forgotten me; I am a despicable drop in the ocean of creation, a sear leaf in the forest of beings, an atom in the mountain of existence. He knows me not; I am alone, alone, alone.”

But it is not so, beloved. Our God is of another order. He notices every one of us; there is not a sparrow or a worm but is found in His decrees. There is not a person upon whom His eye is not fixed. Our most secret acts are known to Him. Whatsoever we do, or bear, or suffer, the eye of God still rests upon us, and we are beneath His smile-for we are His people; or beneath His frown-for we have erred from Him.

Oh! how ten-thousand-fold merciful is God, that, looking down upon the race of man, He does not smite it out of existence! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0015.cfm

False Professor: Have You Any Hope?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, prayer, salvation, The Father 3 Comments

“Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?”-2 Samuel 2:26

If, O my reader! thou art merely a professor, and not a possessor of the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the following lines are a true ketch of thine end.

You are a respectable attendant at a place of worship; you go because others go, not because your heart is right with God. This is your beginning. I will suppose that for the next twenty or thirty years you will be spared to go on as you do now, professing religion by an outward attendance upon the means of grace, but having no heart in the matter. Tread softly, for I must show you the deathbed of such a one as yourself. Let us gaze upon him gently. A clammy sweat is on his brow, and he wakes up crying, “O God, it is hard to die. Did you send for my minister?” “Yes, he is coming.” The minister comes. “Sir, I fear that I am dying!” “Have you any hope?” “I cannot say that I have. I fear to stand before my God; oh! pray for me.” The prayer is offered for him with sincere earnestness, and the way of salvation is for the ten-thousandth time put before him, but before he has grasped the rope, I see him sink. I may put my finger upon those cold eyelids, for they will never see anything here again. But where is the man, and where are the man’s true eyes? It is written, “In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment.” Ah! why did he not lift up his eyes before? Because he was so accustomed to hear the gospel that his soul slept under it. Alas! if you should lift up your eyes there, how bitter will be your wailings. Let the Saviour’s own words reveal the woe: “Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” There is a frightful meaning in those words. May you never have to spell it out by the red light of Jehovah’s wrath! ~ C. H. Spurgeon

http://bible.christiansunite.com/Morning_and_Evening/chme1230.shtml

 

I Have Come Safe to Land

Sherry Attributes of God, promises, salvation 3 Comments

(F)or I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. -2 Timothy 1:12

There was an evil hour when I once shipped the anchor of my faith; I cut the cable of my belief; I no longer moored myself hard by the coasts of Revelation; I allowed my vessel to drift before the wind; I said to reason, “Be thou my captain;” I said to my own brain, “Be thou my rudder;” and I started on my mad voyage. Thank God, it is all over now; but I will tell you its brief history. It was one hurried sailing over the tempestuous ocean of free thought. I went on, and as I went, the skies began to darken; but to make up for that deficiency, the waters were brilliant with coruscations of brilliancy. I saw sparks flying upward that pleased me, and I thought, “If this be free thought, it is a happy thing.” My thoughts seemed gems, and I scattered stars with both my hands; but anon, instead of these coruscations of glory, I saw grim fiends, fierce and horrible, start up from the waters, and as I dashed on, they gnashed their teeth, and grinned upon me; they seized the prow of my ship and dragged me on, while, in part, gloried at the rapidity of my motion, but yet shuddered at the terrific rate with which I passed the old landmarks of my faith. As I hurried forward, with an awful speed, I began to doubt my very existence; I doubted if there were a world, I doubted if there was such a thing as myself. I went to the very verge of the dreary realms of unbelief. I went to the very bottom of the sea of Infidelity. I doubted everything. But here the devil foiled himself: for the very extravagance of the doubt, proved its absurdity. Just when I saw the bottom of that sea, there came a voice which said, “And can this doubt be true?” At this very thought I awoke. I started from that death-dream, which, God knows might have damned my soul, and ruined this, my body, if I had not awoke. When I arose, faith took the helm; from that moment I doubted not. Faith steered me back; faith cried, “Away, away!” I cast my anchor on Calvary; I lifted my eye to God; and here I am, “alive, and out of hell.”

Therefore, I speak what I do know. I have sailed that perilous voyage; I have come safe to land. Ask me again to be an infidel! No; I have tried it; it was sweet at first, but bitter afterwards. Now, lashed to God’s gospel more firmly than ever, standing as on a rock of adamant, I defy the arguments of hell to move me; for “I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0015.cfm