Character of Jesus

Why We Love Him

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

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

God’s love is evidently prior to ours: “He first loved us.” God’s love is the cause of ours, for “We love Him because He first loved us.” Therefore, going back to old time, or rather before all time, when we find God loving us with an everlasting love, we gather that the reason of His choice is not because we loved Him, but because He willed to love us. His reasons, and He had reasons (for we read of the counsel of His will), are known to Himself, but they are not to be found in any inherent goodness in us, or which was foreseen to be in us. We were chosen simply because He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. He loved us because He would love us…Our redemption, like our election, springs from the spontaneous self-originating love of God. And our regeneration, in which we are made actual partakers of the divine blessings in Jesus Christ, was not of us, nor by us. We were not converted because we were already inclined that way, neither were we regenerated because some good thing was in us by nature; but we owe our new birth entirely to His potent love, which dealt with us effectually turning us from death to life, from darkness to light and from the alienation of our mind and the enmity of our spirit into that delightful path of love, in which we are now travelling to the skies. As believers on Christ’s name, we “were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The sum and substance of the text is that God’s uncaused love, springing up within Himself, has been the sole means of bringing us into the condition of loving Him…All good things are of Thee, Great God; Thy goodness creates our good; Thine infinite love to us draws forth our love to Thee. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Life in the Son of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. – 1 John 5:12

Not believing in Jesus Christ is the condemnation emphatically. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light.”…If such things were spoken concerning some people in Africa or New Zealand, you ought to be concerned about these miserable souls, though they are so far away; but they are spoken about some of you: some of you are dead. Is not this terrible? Oh, if by some touch of an angel’s wand our bodies should all become as our souls are, how many corpses would fill these aisles, and crowd these pews! John once wished for Gaius, that his body might prosper and be in health even as his soul prospered. Now, suppose our bodies were to prosper just as our souls do! Why, there would sit in one place a living woman, and side by side with her a dead husband; further on, a living child, and then a dead grey headed grandsire. Oh! what a sight this place would be! We should hasten to gather up our skirts, those of us who are alive, and say, “Let us begone! How can we sit side by side with corpses?” The effect would be startling to the last degree, and yet, most probably, the spiritual fact does not disturb us at all; we know it to be true, but we take it as a matter of course, and we go our way with scarce a prayer for our poor dead neighbors.

What I think we should do towards dead souls is this-we should pity them…Ought not this to make us pray for them: “Eternal Spirit, quicken them! They cannot have life unless they have the Son of God. O bring them to receive the Son of God”? Beloved, in connection with such prayer, be diligent to deliver the quickening message, “Believe, and live.” “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0755.cfm

Damned

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

…and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. – 1 John 5:12

Thou must have Christ, for He is the life of the soul, and without Him thou art dead in sin. “Oh! but,” perhaps you may say, “I have aways lived a chaste, upright, moral life; I have been attentive to religious duties; I could allege many particulars which might go to prove that I live unto God.” Ay, but all thy particulars, however well they might be alleged, would prove nothing in the teeth of such a text as this, “He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

“He that believeth not shall be damned.” With all his excellencies and moralities, with all his baptisms and his sacraments, “He that believeth not shall be damned.” There is no middle place, no specially reserved and superior abodes for these noble and virtuous unbelievers. If they have not believed, they shall be bound up in bundles with the rest, for God has appointed to unbelievers their portion with liars, and thieves, and whoremongers, and drunkards, and idolaters. Beware, ye unbelievers, for your unbelief will be to the Judge Himself, at the great assize, and to the attendant angels most condemning evidence against you. “Take him away; Christ has not known him, and he has not known Christ; he had not the Son, and he shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Eternal Spirit, quicken them! They cannot have life unless they have the Son of God. O bring them to receive the Son of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0755.cfm

A Very Astounding Crime

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, prayer, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

…and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. – 1 John 5:12

Let me tell you that for a hearer of the gospel not to believe on the Son of God must be, in the judgment of angels, a very astounding crime. How they must marvel when they see that God was made flesh to redeem the sons of men, and yet men do not believe in the incarnate Saviour! The “faithful saying, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” is not depended upon by tens of thousands; though “it is worthy of all acceptation,” yet the mass of mankind give it no acceptation. What must angels think of such men? They no doubt understand the reason of it, that the mind is so perverted and corrupt that manhood is nothing better than a reeking sepulcher. Unbelief of the gospel is the great damning sin of man; the not laying hold of Jesus is the sin of sins.

Thou must have Christ, for He is the life of the soul, and without Him thou art dead in sin. “Oh! but,” perhaps you may say, “I have aways lived a chaste, upright, moral life; I have been attentive to religious duties; I could allege many particulars which might go to prove that I live unto God.” Ay, but all thy particulars, however well they might be alleged, would prove nothing in the teeth of such a text as this, “He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” I tell thee, moralist, what thou art; thou art a corpse well washed and decently laid out, daintily robed in fair white linen, sprinkled plenteously with sweet perfumes, and wrapped in myrrh, and cassia, and aloes, with flowers wreathed about thy brow, and thy bosom bedecked by the hand of affection with sweetly blushing roses; but thou hast no life, and therefore thy destiny is the grave, corruption is thine heritage, and thy place of abode is fixed, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire not quenched,” for, “He that believeth not shall be damned.” Eternal Spirit, quicken them! They cannot have life unless they have the Son of God. O bring them to receive the Son of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0755.cfm

Joyful Confidence

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

He that hath the Son hath life… – 1 John 5:12

“He that hath the Son hath life.” It is not said that he may, perhaps, have it, or that some who have the Son have life, but there is no exception to the rule. As sure as God’s word is true, “He that hath the Son hath life,” be he who he may, or what he may. This gracious assurance includes those of you who labor in the depths of poverty, you who are in the furnace of affliction, you returning backsliders who still hang on Christ, you believers under a cloud, you who mourn your many shortcomings: by faith you dare to rest in Jesus, and you have therefore passed from death unto life. Be of good cheer, beloved, drink of the well of hope, and in joyful confidence in the Lord, press forward in your heavenward pilgrimage.

“Just as I am-without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee.
O Lamb of God, I come.”

I have heard of persons boasting that they had outgrown that hymn, but I know I never shall. I must be content still to come to Jesus with no qualification for mercy except that which my sin and misery may give me in the eyes of His free grace. It is a thousand mercies that, although clouds may obscure other evidences, they cannot prevent our coming to the great propitiation, and casting ourselves upon its cleansing power. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0755.cfm

I Rest in Jesus

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

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. – 1 John 5:11

Beloved, have you the Son of God? If so, you have life; and even if that life should be somewhat sickly, which is not desirable, yet it will help to make it stronger if you distinctly know that it is the life eternal. When a man’s life becomes feeble, it would be of no service to him to doubt whether it is life at all; but it helps him much to know that it is the life of God, and is therefore sure to be victorious over death and hell, and though it be but a spark, it is such a spark that all the devils in hell cannot tread it out, and all the waters of affliction cannot quench it. If thou hast the Son, poor feeble trembling one, thou hast a life which will co-exist with the life of God; a life which “neither things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,” shall be able to destroy; because they cannot separate thee from the Lord Jesus; and because He lives, thou shalt live also.

When you begin to doubt your inward graces, and to judge all your past life, and find it wanting, it is sweet even then to say, “One thing I know, I rest in Jesus. Whatever else may be false, this is clearly true-

‘Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.'”

Job says that the poor man clings to the rock for shelter, and that poor man is blessed who remains in that position, evermore clinging to that Rock of his salvation. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0755.cfm

Faith in Christ is the Witness of Divine Life

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

He that hath the Son hath life… – 1 John 5:12

Having the Son is not only the source of life, but the result of life. When the great doors were opened of the Black Hole in Calcutta, and the pure air went streaming in, there were many lungs which did not receive that air, for the simple reason that the most of those who had been so barbarously confined were dead, and to them the fresh oxygen had come too late; but there were a few which gladly and at once received the breath of heaven, and such as were still alive walked forth from amidst the corpses into the open air. Now, when a man receives Jesus into his soul as life from the dead, his faith is the sure indicator of a spiritual and mysterious life within him, in the power of which he is able to receive the Lord. Jesus is freely preached to you, His grace is free as the air, but the dead do not breathe that air-those who breathe it are, beyond all doubt, alive. Christ is presented to you in the preaching of the gospel as freely as the water from the drinking fountain at the corner of the street; but the dead man drinketh not, his lips care not for the flowing crystal; he who drinks is evidently alive. The reception of Jesus Christ is the sure result of a heavenly life palpitating within the soul Thus you see the evidence is good, from several points of the compass; looking at the soul’s business from several ways, faith still becomes with equal clearness a witness that the man who has it possesses the divine life within him.  “I do not know,” says one, “when I was converted.” My dear friend, have you the Son of God? Do you trust in Jesus Christ? That is quite enough. If thou canst from the heart say, “I trust Jesus Christ,” though thou hast no spiritual biography worth recording, thou hast life. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0755.cfm