Character of Jesus

In The Book Written by the Finger of God

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

In the volume of the book it is written of Me… – Psalm 40:7; Hebrews 10:7

There was a time before all time, when there was no day but the Ancient of Days, when all that existed was the Lord, who is all in all: then the sacred Three entered into covenant, in mutual agreement, for a sublime end. Man sinning, the Son of God shall be the surety. Christ shall bear the result of man’s offense; He shall vindicate the law of God, and make Jehovah’s name more glorious than ever it has been. The second person of the divine Unity was pledged to come, and take up the nature of men, and so become the firstborn among many brethren to lift up a fallen race, and to save a number that no man can number, elect of God the Father, and given to the Son to be His heritage, His portion, His bride. Then did the Well-beloved strike hands with the eternal God, and enter into covenant engagements on our behalf: “In the volume of the book it is written.” That sealed book, upon whose secrets no angel’s eye has looked, a book written by the finger of God long before He wrote the Book of the law upon tables of stone, that book of God may be spoken of in the Psalm, “And in Thy book all My members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” Our Lord came to carry out all His suretyship engagements: His work is the exact fulfillment of His engagements recorded in the eternal covenant, “ordered in all things and sure.” He acts out every mysterious line and syllable, even to the full. Then He said, “A body hast Thou prepared Me. Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me.” It is ever a pleasing study to see our Lord, both in the written Word, and in the eternal covenant of grace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2202.cfm

Lo, I Come

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

Then I said, “Behold, I have come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me) to do Your will, O God.” – Hebrews 10:7

“Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire. Then said I, Lo, I come.” Observe when He says this. It is in the time of failure. All the sacrifices had failed. The candle flickered, and was dying out, and then the great light arose, even the eternal light, and like a trumpet the words rung out, “Lo, I come. All this has been of no avail; now I come.” It is in the time of failure that Christ always does appear. The last of man is the first of God; and when we have come to the end of all our power and hope, then the eternal power and Godhead appears with “Lo, I come.”

When He appears, it is as the personal Lord. Lay the stress upon the pronoun, “Lo, I come.” The infinite Ego appears. “Lo, I come.” No mere man could talk thus, and be sane. No servant or prophet of God would ever say, “Lo, I come.” Saintly men talk not so. God’s prophets and apostles have a modest sense of their true position: they never magnify themselves, though they magnify their office. It is for God to say, “Lo, I come.” He who says it takes the body prepared for Him, and comes in His own proper personality as the I AM. “In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” He comes forth from the ivory palaces to inhabit the tents of manhood. He takes upon Himself the body prepared for Him of the Lord God, and He stands forth in His matchless personality ready to do the will of God…”Lo, I come.” This is no dirge: I think I hear a silver trumpet ring out-“Lo, I come.” Here is a joyful alacrity and intense eagerness. The coming of the Savior was to Him a thing of exceeding willingness. “For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross, despising the shame.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2202.cfm

 

Wondrous Mystery- God in Flesh

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

“Mine ears hast Thou opened…A body hast Thou prepared Me. .” – Psalm 40:6 ; Hebrews 10:5

When the Savior came, His ear was not as ours, but was attentive to the divine voice…As man, He had a divine instinct of holiness, which made Him to know and love the Father’s will, and caused Him always to translate that will into His own life. You see He came with an opened ear, and some think that here we have an allusion to the boring of the ear in the case of the servant who had a right to liberty, but refused to quit his servitude, because he loved his master, and wished to remain with him for ever. It is not certain that there is any such reference; but it is certain that our Lord was bound for ever to the service which He had undertaken for His Father, and that He would not go back from it. He pledged Himself to redeem us, and He set His face like a flint to do it. He loved His Father, and He loved His chosen so much that He vowed to execute the Father’s work, even to what I might call “the bitter end,” if I did not know that it was a sweet and blessed end to Him.

“A body hast Thou prepared Me.” In the fullness of time He came into that body, which was admirably adapted to enshrine the Godhead. Wondrous mystery, that the infant of Bethlehem should be linked with the Infinite; and that the weary man by the shores of Galilee should be very God of very God, revealed in a body prepared for Him! “A body hast Thou prepared Me”: He had a prepared ear and a prepared body…He from old eternity dwelt with God: the Word was in the beginning with God, and the Word was God…There was fashioned by the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the blessed Virgin, a body fitted to embody the Son of God. Wrought mysteriously, by means into which we must not inquire-for what God hath veiled must remain covered-that body was suited to set forth the great mystery, “God manifest in the flesh.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2202.cfm

Out with the Old, In with the New

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

Previously saying, “Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire (require), nor had pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the law)… – Hebrews 10:8

What did God require of man? Obedience. He said by Samuel, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” He saith in another place, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” The requirement of the law was love to God and love to men. This has always been God’s great requirement. He seeks spiritual worship, obedient thought, holy living, grateful praise, devout prayer-these are the requirements of the Creator and Benefactor of men. Ritualistic matters were so far required as they might minister to the good of the people, and while they stood they could not neglect them without loss; but they were not the grand requirement of a just and holy God, and therefore men might fulfill these without stint or omission, and yet God would not have of them what He required. Yes, He asks, “Who hath required this at your hand, to tread My courts?” To see His law magnified, His justice vindicated, His sovereignty acknowledged, and His holiness imitated, is more to His mind. Absolute conformity to the standard of moral and spiritual rectitude which He has set up is His demand, and He can be content with nothing less. These things are not found in sacrifice and offering, neither do they always go therewith, and therefore the outward sacrifice was not what God required…The rites appropriate to priests are abolished with the Aaronic priesthood, and can never be restored: “He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second.” When He cometh into the world these carnal ordinances must go out of the world. Sacrifice and offering, burnt offering and sin offering, and all other patterns of heavenly things, are swept away when the heavenly things themselves appear. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2202.cfm

In the Volume of the Book it is written of Him

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

“Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire, mine ears hast Thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart.” – Psalm 40:6-8. (compare: Hebrews 10:5-7)

We rejoice that the Lord Jesus Himself here speaks of Himself. Who but He can declare His own generation? Here He is both the subject of the words and the speaker also. The word is from Himself and of Himself, and so we have double reason for devout attention. He tells us what He said long ago. He declares, “Lo, I come.”

Here is a message worth the telling…Tell the Ethiopians, the Chinese, the Hindoos, and all the islands of the sea that God has come hither to save men, and has taken a prepared body, that He might give to God all He required, and all that He desired, that sinful men might be accepted in the Beloved, with whom God the Father is well pleased. Go, and take to the heathen this sacred Book. “In the volume of the book it is written of Him.” Do not begin to doubt the Book yourself. Why should you send missionaries to teach them about a book in which you do not yourself believe? Tell the nations that “In the volume of the book it is written of Him.” Believe this Book, and spread it. Help Bible societies, and all such efforts; and aid missionary societies, which carry the Book and proclaim the Savior. The men of the Book of God are the men of God, such as the world needs. Bid such men go and open the Book of God, and teach the nations its blessed news. Go, dear friends, and assure the heathen that there is happiness in obedience to God. So the Savior found it. He delighted in God’s will, even to the death, and they will also know delight as in their measures they bow before the authority of the Word and the will of the one living and true God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Jehovah, the I AM, must be worshiped, for beside Him there is none else. Give glory unto God, whom our Lord Jesus has come to glorify. Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2202.cfm

He hath not given me over!

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

…but He hath not given me over unto death. – Psalm 118:18

It is a great blessing to a child of God to feel a full assurance that he has eternal life in Christ Jesus. “The Lord hath chastened me sore: but He hath not given me over unto death.” Notice the words, “Given me over.” It is the most awful thing out of hell to be given over by God.

Unbroken prosperity and undisturbed health may be the signs of being “given over unto death”; and they are in such cases where sin is committed without pangs of conscience, or apprehensions of judgment. Such freedom from fear may be maintained even in death: “There are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.” All goes quietly with them; “Like sheep they are laid in the grave.” But “in hell they lift up their eyes, being in torments.” To be given over unto death is often followed by callousness, presumption, and bravado; but it is a dreadful doom, the direst sentence from the throne of judgment as to this life. But you, dear child of God, have this comfort, He has not given you over, He is thinking upon you. By scourging you, He is proving that He has not given you over. Men do not prune the vine they mean to uproot; nor thresh out the weeds which they mean to burn. He who is chastened is not given over unto destruction… What joy lies in this, “He hath not given me over!” As long as the father chastens his boy, he has hope of him; if he ceased to do so altogether, we might fear that he thought him too bad to be reclaimed. Be glad, then, dear child of God, that since the Lord chastens you sore, He has not erased your name from His heart and His hands, nor yielded you up to your enemy’s power. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm

Security from Punishment

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

The LORD hath chastened me sore: but He hath not given me over unto death. Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD. – Psalm 118:18, 19

Faith comforts the tried child of God by assuring him of the forgiveness of his sin, and his security from punishment... “The Lord hath chastened me sore,” and in that He has acted a fatherly part; “but He hath not given me over unto death” which would have been my lot if He had dealt with me as a judge. My heart trembles at His sword, and cries, “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord: for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.” The sentence of justice has been fulfilled upon our Lord, and our comfort is that now there is nothing punitive in all our troubles. “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities;” nor will He do so, for He has already laid our sins upon Christ, and Christ has vindicated the law by bearing its penalty, so that nothing more in the way of penalty is demanded by the moral government of God. That which we receive from the rod of the Lord bears the blessed aspect of chastening from a father’s hand; and this is a gladsome fact, which makes even the sharpest smart to be profitable. “Surely the bitterness of death is past,” when, in the case of the believer, even death has ceased to be the penalty of sin, and is changed into a sweet falling asleep upon the bosom of the Well-Beloved, to wake up in His likeness. Every other affliction is changed in the same fashion. Our wasps have become bees: their sting is not the prominent thought, but the honey which they lay up in store. “All things work together for good to them that love God,” and chastisement is chief among those “all things.” What a well of comforting thought is here! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm