Attributes of God

There Christ Rests

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

And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. – Ephesians 5:2

May we each one be more watchful lest the Bridegroom should withdraw from us. He will go away if we grow proud. If we are boastful, and say, “There is some reason why God should bless us,” and should begin to speak hectoringly towards weaker brethren, the Lord will let us know that “not unto us, not unto us, but unto His name shall be all the glory.” A little thing, a very little thing, will drive Him from us, and it may be many a day before our repentance shall be able to find Him again. He has suffered so much from sin that He cannot endure the approach of it. His pure and holy soul abhors the least taint of iniquity.

If there be a want of love among us, the Lord of love will be offended. The holy dove loves not scenes of strife; He frequents the calm still waters of brotherly love. There the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore, where brethren dwelt together in unity. If any of you have half a hard thought towards another, get rid of it; if there be the beginnings of anything like jealousy, quench the sparks. “Leave off strife,” says Solomon, “before it be meddled with,” as if he said, “End it before you begin it,” which, though it seems strangely paradoxical, is most wise advice. “Little children love one another.” “Walk in love as Christ also has loved us.” May discord be far from us. Wherever He sees true repentance, real faith, holy consecration, purity of life, chastity of love, there Christ rests. I believe He finds no sweeter happiness even in heaven than the happiness of accepting His people’s prayers and praises. Our love is very sweet to Him; our deeds of gratitude are very precious, the broken alabaster boxes of self-sacrifices done for Him are very fair in His esteem. He finds no rest in the world, He never did; but He finds sweet rest on the bosoms of His faithful ones. He loves to come into a pure church, and there to say, “I am at home. I will declare Thy name unto My brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

A Sweet Perfume

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

“Let my prayer be set before You like incense, my uplifted hands like the evening offering.” – Psalm 141:2

For we are to God the fragrance of Christ… – 2 Corinthians 2:15

Be much in prayer. Prayer casts a chain about Him. He never leaves the heart that prays. There is a sweet perfume about prayer that always attracts the Lord; wherever He perceives it rising up to heaven there will He be. Hold Him, too, by your obedience to Him. Never quarrel with Him. Let Him have His way. He will stop in any house where He can be master; He will stay nowhere where some other will lords it over His. Watch His words; be careful to obey them all. Be very tender in your conduct, so that nothing grieves Him. Show to Him that you are ready to suffer for His sake. I believe that where there is a prayerful, careful, holy, loving, believing walk towards Jesus, the fellowship of the saint with his Lord will not be broken, but it may continue for months and years. There is no reason, except in ourselves, why fellowship with Jesus should not continue throughout an entire life and oh, if it did, it would make earth into heaven, and lift us up to the condition of angels, if not beyond them, and we should be the men who would bring Christ into the church, and through the church into the world. The church would be blest, and God would be glorified, and souls would be saved, if there were some among us who thus held Him and would not let Him go.

Ah, Lord, I may be mistaken about doctrine, but I am not mistaken about Thee. I may, perhaps, be staggered in my belief of some dogma which I thought was truth, but I am not staggered about Thee. Thou Son of God made flesh for me, Thou art all my salvation and all my desire: I rest on Thee only, without a shadow of mixture of any other hope, and I love thee supremely, desiring to honor Thee and to obey Thee in life and until death. I hold Thee, Thou Covenant Angel, and I will not let Thee go. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

Christ is Willing to be Held

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

…I held him, and would not let him go… – Song of Songs 3:4

Christ is willing to be held. Who could hold Him if He were not? He is the omnipotent Savior, and if He willed to withdraw, He could do so: let us hold Him as we might. But mark His condescension. When His spouse said, “I held Him, and I would not let Him go,” He did not go, He could not go, for His love held Him as well as her hands. He loves that sacred violence which takes Him by force, that holy diligence which leaves not a gap open by which He may escape, but shuts every door, bars every bolt, and saith, “I have Thee now and I will take care that if I lose Thee, it shall be through no fault of mine.” Jesus is willing enough to be retained by hearts which are full of His love. When He met with Jacob that night at the Jabbok, He said, “Let Me go.” He would not go without Jacob’s letting Him, but He would have gone if Jacob had loosed his hold. The patriarch replied, “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.” This is one of Christ’s ways and manners; it is one of the peculiarities of His character. When He walked to Emmaus with the two disciples, “He made as if He would have gone further:” they might have known it was none other than the Angel of the Covenant by that very habit. He would have gone further, but they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us for the day is far spent.” 

Brethren, whenever you have Christ, please to remember that you are able to hold Him. She who held Him in the Song was no stronger than you are; she was but a feeble woman, poorly fed under the Old Testament dispensation; you have drunk the new wine of the new covenant, and you are stronger than she. You can hold Him, and He will not be able to go from you. “How,” say you, “shall I be able to hold Him?” Oh, have you grasped Him? Is He with you? Now, then, hold Him fast by your faith; trust Him implicitly, rest in Him for every day’s cares, for every moment. Walk by faith and He will walk with you. Hold Him also with the grasp of love. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

Oh, for more Enochs…

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

I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not…It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. – Song of Songs 3:2,4

We must search to the very utmost till we find our Beloved. The Christian must leave no stone unturned till he gets back his fellowship with Christ. If any sin obstructs the way, it must be rigorously given up; if there be any neglected duty, it must be earnestly discharged; if there be any higher walk of grace, which is necessary to continuous fellowship, we must ascend it, fearing no hill of difficulty. We must not say, “there is a lion in the way”-if there be lions we must slay them; if the way be rough, we must tread it; we must go on hands and knees if we cannot run; but we must reach to fellowship with Jesus; we must have Christ or pine till we do. Sacrifices we must make and penalties we must endure, but to Christ we must come, for we are feeble when we are absent from Him, and quite incapable of rendering any great service to the church, till once for all we can say, “I found Him, I held Him, and I would not let Him go.” O dear brethren and sisters, I know there are some of you who can enter into what I mean; but I would to God there were many more to whom the first thought of life was Christ Jesus. Oh, for more Enochs, men who walk with God, whose habitual spirit is that of close communion with Jesus, meditating upon Him, yea, more than that, sympathizing with Him, drinking into His spirit, changed into His likeness, living over again His life, because He is in them the monarch of their souls. O that we had a chosen band of elect spirits of this race, for surely the whole church would be revived through their influence; God, even our own God, would bless us; and we should see bright, halcyon days dawning for the Bride of Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

Endow us, O God, with the Holy Ghost

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

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. – John 14:26

Let the Spirit of God be in the church, then there is power given to all her ministries; whether they be ministries of public testimony in the preaching of the word, or ministries of holy love amongst the brethren, or ministries of individual earnestness to the outside world, they will all be clothed with energy, in the fullness of the power of the Lord Jesus. Then her ordinances become truly profitable, then baptism is burial with the Lord, and the sacred supper is a feast of love; then the communion of the brethren in their solemn prayer and praise becomes deep and joyful, and their whole life and walk are bright with the glow of heaven. In the presence of the Lord the graces of the saints are developed; the church grows rich in all spiritual gifts; her warfare becomes victorious, and her continual worship sweet as the incense of the golden censor. What the moon is to the night, or the sun to the day, or the Nile to Egypt, or the dew to the tender herb, or the soul to the human frame, that is the presence of Jesus to His church. Give us the Spirit of God and we will ask no endowments from the State, nor sigh for the prestige of princely patronage. Endow us, O God, with the Holy Ghost, and we have all we need. The poverty of the members, their want of learning, their want of rank, all these shall be as nothing. The Holy Ghost can make amends for all deficiencies and clothe His poor and obscure people with an energy at which the world shall tremble. This made the apostolic church mighty; she had the Holy Ghost outpoured upon her.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

The Representative of Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever. – John 14:16

Christ Jesus, the Lord, is present in His Church by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is this day the representative of Christ in the midst of the Church, and it is in the power and the energy of the Holy Ghost that Christ is with us always and will be even to the end of the world. As God, Jesus is everywhere; as Man, He is only in heaven; as God and Man in one person, Mediator and Head of the Church, He is present with us by the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, whom the Father has sent in His name. It is by the working of the Spirit of God that Christ’s presence in the Church is manifested; and we are to expect no other presence than that: we have the spiritual divine presence of the second person of the blessed Trinity, and the presence of Christ Jesus also in the power of His representative on earth, the Holy Ghost. This presence, not a bodily but a spiritual presence, is the glory of the Church of God. When she is without Him, she is shorn of her strength; when she possesses Him all good things ensue. Brethren, if a church be without the Spirit of God in it, it may have a name to live, but it is dead, and, you know, that after death there follows corruption, corruption which breeds foulness and disease. Hence, those churches which have turned aside unto error, have not only lost all power to do good, but they have become obnoxious and the causes of great evil in the midst of the world. If any professing church abides not in Christ, it is cast forth as a branch and is withered; and while it is decaying, it is injurious, and there is need for the world’s welfare that it be utterly destroyed. We must have Christ in the church, or the body which was meant to be the medium of the greatest good becomes the source of the grossest evil. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1035.cfm

The Dark Side of God to Sinners

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

So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night. – Exodus 14:20

That same glory which lit up the canvas city, and made it bright as the day, darkened all the camps of Egypt. They could see nothing, for the dark side of God was turned to them. I am afraid it is so with some of you. Oh, dear friends, is it not a dreadful thing that to some men the most terrible thing in the world would be God? If you could get away from God, how happy, how merry, how jolly you would be! You want to depart from Him; you are departing from Him. One of these days Jesus will tell you to depart. “Keep on as you were,” says He, “you were always departing from God; keep on departing. Depart from Me, ye cursed!” That will be the consummation of your life. To some of us the thought of God is joy, but to the ungodly nothing would be such good news as to hear that there was no God, indeed, they find a dreadful comfort in endeavoring to be sceptical and unbelieving. God has a dark side to sinners; His justice and His righteousness, which are the comfort of His people, are the despair of the wicked.

Now look at the gospel itself. Why, there are many that sit and hear the gospel, and they say, “I do not understand this believing, this atonement, and so on.” No, I know you do not; you are an Egyptian, it is dark to you. It is a savor of death unto death to you. I am afraid you will go on quarrelling with it until God ends the quarrel in your destruction. Oh, that ye would believe in Jesus Christ! Oh, that ye would “kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little,” for “Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.” You can come and be numbered with Israel, for the door into Israel is Christ Himself. If you come to Christ you have come to His people, you have come to safety, and henceforth “the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward.” Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1793.cfm