Attributes of God

God Loves Us Still

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, salvation, The Father 4 Comments

We love Him, because He first loved us. -1 John 4:19

We call God a Father… He has the most troublesome family in the whole world-unbelieving, ungrateful, disobedient, forgetful, rebellious, wandering, murmuring, and stiffnecked. Well it is that He is longsuffering, or else He would have taken not only the rod, but the sword to some of us long ago. But there was nothing in us to love at first, so, there cannot be less now. John Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it too, of a good woman who said, in order to prove the doctrine of Election, “Ah! sir, the Lord must have loved me before I was born, or else He would not have seen anything in me to love afterwards.” I am sure it is true in my case, and true in respect to most of God’s people; for there is little to love in them after they are born, that if He had not loved them before then, He would have seen no reason to choose them after; but since He loved them without works, He loves them without works still; since their good works did not win His affection, bad works cannot sever that affection; since their righteousness did not bind His love to them, so their wickedness cannot snap the golden links. He loved them out of pure sovereign grace, and He will love them still. But we should have been consumed by the devil, and by our enemies-consumed by the world, consumed by our sins, by our trials, and in a hundred other ways, if God had ever changed. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm

But for God’s Unchanging Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, salvation 2 Comments

We love Him because He first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

(B)ut for God’s unchanging love I should have been a faggot in the fire. (T)here is a way of being consumed in this world; there is such a things as being condemned before you die-“condemned already;” there is such a thing as being alive, and yet being absolutely dead. We might have been left to our own devices, and then where should we have been now? Revelling with the drunkard, blaspheming Almighty God. Oh? had He left you, dearly beloved, had He been a changing God, ye had been amongst the filthiest of the filthy, and the vilest of the vile. Cannot you remember in your life, seasons similar to those I have felt? I have gone right to the edge of sin; some strong temptation has taken hold of both my arms, so that I could not wrestle with it. I have been pushed along, dragged as by an awful satanic power to the very edge of some horrid precipice. I have looked down, down, down, and seen my portion; I quivered on the brink of ruin…A strong arm hath saved me. I have started back and cried, O God! could I have gone so near sin, and yet come back again? … Oh! is it possible I should be here this morning, when I think of the sins I have committed, and the crimes which have crossed my wicked imagination? Yes, I am here, unconsumed, because the Lord changes not. Oh! if He had changed, we should have been consumed in a dozen ways; if the Lord had changed, you and I should have been consumed by ourselves; for after all, Mr. Self is the worst enemy a Christian has.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm

Be a Person of Prayer

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, salvation 6 Comments

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. -Genesis 32:24

Ah! poor Jacob! I should not choose Jacob’s lot if I had not the prospect of Jacob’s blessing; for a hard lot his was. He had to run away from his father’s house to Laban’s; and then that surly old Laban cheated him all the years he was there-cheated him of his wife, cheated him in his wages, cheated him in his flocks, and cheated him all through the story. By-and-bye he had to run away from Laban, who pursued him and overtook him. Next came Esau with four hundred men to cut him up root and branch. Then there was a season of prayer, and afterwards he wrestled, and had to go all his life with his thigh out of joint… Never was man more tried than Jacob, all through the one sin of cheating his brother. All through his life God chastised him. But I believe there are many who can sympathize with dear old Jacob. They have had to pass through trials very much like his. Well, cross-bearers! God says, “I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Poor tried souls! ye are not consumed because of the unchanging nature of your God.

Fear not saith God, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob,” men of peculiar trials, “are not consumed.” Jacob was a man of prayer-a man who wrestled, and groaned, and prayed… Sons of God cannot live without prayer. They are wrestling Jacobs. They are men in whom the Holy Ghost so works, they can no more live without prayer than I can live without breathing. They must pray. Sirs, mark you, if you are living without prayer, you are living without Christ; and dying like that, your portion will be in the lake which burneth with fire. God redeem you, God rescue you from such a lot! But you who are “the sons of Jacob,” take comfort, for God is immutable. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm

The Sons of Jacob

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, salvation 2 Comments

“I am God, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”-Malachi 3:6

Now, who are “the sons of Jacob,” who can rejoice in an immutable God?

First, they are the sons of God’s election; for it is written, “Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated, the children being not yet born neither having done good nor evil.” It was written, “The elder shall serve the younger.” “The sons of Jacob”-

“Are the sons of God’s election,
Who through sovereign grace believe;
Be eternal destination
Grace and glory they receive.”

God’s elect are here meant by “the sons of Jacob,”-those whom he foreknew and fore-ordained to everlasting salvation.

By “the sons of Jacob” are meant, in the second place, persons who enjoy peculiar rights and titles. Jacob, you know, had no rights by birth; but he soon acquired them. He changed a mess of pottage with his brother Esau, and thus gained the birthright. I do not justify the means; but he did also obtain the blessing, and so acquired peculiar rights. By “the sons of Jacob” here, are meant persons who have peculiar rights and titles. Unto them that believe, he hath given the right and power to become sons of God. They have an interest in the blood of Christ; they have a right to “enter in through the gates into the city;” they have a title to eternal honors; they have a promise to everlasting glory; they have a right to call themselves sons of God. Oh! there are peculiar rights and privileges belonging to the “sons of Jacob.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm

Jesus is Forever Mine

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, salvation 2 Comments

Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified. -Romans 8:30

We must just hint at one thought before we pass away and that is-God is unchanging in the objects of His love-not only in His love, but in the objects of it.

“If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away.
My fickle, feeble soul, alas,
Would fall a thousand times a day.”

If one dear saint of God had perished, so might all; if one of the covenant ones be lost, so may all be, and then there is no gospel promise true; but the Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance. I will be an infidel at once, when I can believe that a saint of God can ever fall finally. If God hath loved me once, then He will love me for ever.

“Did Jesus once upon me shine,
Then Jesus is for ever mine.”

The objects of everlasting love never change. Those whom God hath called, He will justify; whom He has justified, He will sanctify; and whom He sanctifies, He will glorify. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm

Sinner! The Threat of God is Unchangeable!

Sherry Attributes of God, promises, prophecy, salvation 2 Comments

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. -Mark 16:16

Every threatening of God, as well as every promise shall be fulfilled. Talk of decrees! I will tell you of a decree: “He that believeth not shall be damned.” That is a decree, and a statute that can never change. Be as good as you please, be as moral as you can, be as honest as you will, walk as uprightly as you may,-there stands the unchangeable threatening: “He that believeth not shall be damned.” What sayest thou to that, moralist? Oh, thou wishest thou couldst alter it, and say, “He that does not live a holy life shall be damned.” That will be true; but it does not say so. It says, “He that believeth not.” Here is the stone of stumbling, and the rock of offence; but you cannot alter it. You must believe or be damned, saith the Bible; and mark, that threat of God is as unchangeable as God Himself. And when a thousand years of hell’s torments shall have passed away, you shall look on high, and see written in burning letters of fire, “He that believeth not shall be damned.” “But, Lord, I am damned.” Nevertheless it says “shall be” still. And when a million ages have rolled away, and you are exhausted by your pains and agonies, you shall turn up your eye and still read “SHALL BE DAMNED,” unchanged, unaltered. And when you shall have thought that eternity must have spun out its last thread-that every particle of that which we call eternity, must have run out, you shall still see it written up there, “SHALL BE DAMNED.” O terrific thought! How dare I utter it? But I must. Ye must be warned, sirs, “lest ye also come into this place of torment.” Ye must be told rough things; for if God’s gospel is not a rough thing then the law is a rough thing; Mount Sinai is a rough thing. Woe unto the watchman that warns not the ungodly! God is unchanging in His threatenings. Beware, O sinner, for “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm

The Gospel is Yea, Yea

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, prayer, promises 4 Comments

For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. – 2 Corinthians 1:20

God is unchanging in His promises. Ah! we love to speak about the sweet promises of God; but if we could ever suppose that one of them could be changed, we would not talk anything more about them. If I thought that the notes of the bank of England could not be cashed next week, I should decline to take them; and if I thought that God’s promises would never be fulfilled-if I thought that God would see it right to alter some word in His promises-farewell Scriptures! I want immutable things: and I find that I have immutable promises when I turn to the Bible: for, “by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie,” He hath signed, confirmed, and sealed every promise of His. The gospel is not “yea and nay,” it is not promising today, and denying tomorrow; but the gospel is “yea, yea,” to the glory of God. Believer! there was a delightful promise which you had yesterday; and this morning when you turned to the Bible the promise was not sweet. Do you know why? Do you think the promise had changed? Ah, no! You changed; that is where the matter lies. You had been eating some of the grapes of Sodom, and your mouth was thereby put out of taste, and you could not detect the sweetness. But there was the same honey there, depend upon it, the same preciousness. “Oh!” says one child of God, “I had built my house firmly once upon some stable promises; there came a wind, and I said, O Lord, I am cast down and I shall be lost.” Oh! the promises were not cast down; the foundations were not removed; it was your little “wood, hay, stubble” hut, that you had been building. It was that which fell down. You have been shaken on the rock, not the rock under you.

…let us always say, “Lord there is the promise; it is Thy business to fulfill it.” Down I go on the promise flat! No standing up for me. That is where you should go-prostrate on the promise; and remember, every promise is a rock, an unchanging thing. Therefore, at His feet cast yourself, and rest there forever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0001.cfm