Character of Jesus

Mine Iniquity

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

I was also upright before Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. – Psalm 18:23

This is a dreadful possession to have in the house; a man had better have a cage of cobras than have an iniquity, yet we have each of us to deal at home with some special form of sin. It is said that there is a skeleton in every house. I do not know whether that is true; but I do know that there is something very much allied to a skeleton, that is, the body of this death with which we all have to deal; and it takes a special shape in each good man. There is some particular sin which he may call “mine iniquity.” Not only is there the general iniquity which affects the whole race, but each man has his own particular form of it: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” There is a general sin, but there is a particularity in it, too; each man has his own way of sinning, so that he can speak of “mine iniquity.” Some are sanguine; they are expecting great things, and they fall into the sin of expecting to drink sweet waters from the cisterns of this world. There are some of quite another temperament, who are inclined to despondency, perhaps to suspicion; they may fall into mistrust, or various forms of unbelief, and even into despair, which will be very grievous to the God who is ever gracious. There are some men who, from their very parentage, are inclined to drunkenness or to unchastity. There are others, favoured by God with a godly ancestry who, if they were left to themselves, would not probably fall into either of these forms of sin, yet they might be proud of their own integrity, and proud of their own uprightness; and is not pride as great a sin as those more open transgressions? Depend on it, my dear friend, thou hast some tendency peculiar to thyself, and there is a special point where thou liest open to the attacks of temptation. Happy will that man be who so knows himself that he sets a double watch against that postern gate through which the adversary is apt to creep in the dark. Peculiar constitutions may lead to special forms of sin, and it behooves the godly man to keep himself from his own iniquity. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2432.cfm

 

God Delivers His Servants

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 5 Comments

Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and He shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. – Psalm 55:22

David attributes his providential deliverance to the mercy of God by which he had been kept clear in his conduct: “I kept myself from mine iniquity.” Whatever you do, if you do right, God will see you through; but, whoever you may be, if you turn aside to crooked ways, you will soon fall into a bog. If you try to carve for yourself, you will probably cut your own fingers. He who thinks that he can do better by suppressing truth, or by speaking falsehood, or by acting contrary to the dictates of his conscience, will find that he has made a great mistake. Do thou so trust in God as to hold to thine integrity. “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.” Ponder the path of thy feet, and God will bring thee through as surely as He is alive, which is saying much more than if I said as surely as thou art alive; for, as the Lord liveth, before whom we stand, He will not forsake the righteous, nor cast off them that serve Him faithfully.

If men blow out the candle of a Christian’s reputation, God will light it again; if He does not do so in this life, remember that at the resurrection there will be a resurrection of reputations as well as of bodies: “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” It is, after all, of very small account what is said by men whose breath is in their nostrils. “They say. What do they say? Let them say.” Let them say till they have done saying; it little matters what they say; yet, to a sensitive spirit, like that of David, the tongue is a very sharp instrument, it cutteth like a razor, and pierceth even to the bones. He felt, therefore, the slander of many, and was sometimes greatly troubled by it. However, God was pleased to work a very marvelous deliverance for him. It seemed as if the Lord would sooner shake the earth to atoms, and crush the arches of heaven, than fail to deliver His servant. He will do so still, depend upon it. “He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2432.cfm

Here, Jesus, Here I Am!

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

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

To believe is as a man would do in a stream. It is said, that if we were to fold our arms, and lie motionless, we could not sink. To believe is to float upon the stream of grace. I grant you, you shall do afterward; but you must live before you can do. The gospel is the reverse of the law. The law says, “Do and live;” the gospel says, “Live first, then do.” The way to do, poor sinner, is to say, “Here, Jesus, here I am; I give myself to Thee.” I never had a better idea of believing than I once had from a poor countryman. I may have mentioned this before; but it struck me very forcibly at the time, and I can not help repeating it. Speaking about faith he said, “The old enemy has been troubling me very much lately; but I told him that he must not say any thing to me about my sins, he must go to my Master, for I had transferred the whole concern to Him, bad debts and all.” Believing is giving up all we have to Christ, and taking all Christ has to ourselves. It is changing houses with Christ, changing clothes with Christ, changing our unrighteousness for His righteousness, changing our sins for His merits. Execute the transfer, sinner; rather, may God’s grace execute it, and give thee faith in it; and then the law will be no longer thy condemnation, but it shall acquit thee. May Christ add His blessing! May the Holy Spirit rest upon us! And may we meet at last in heaven! Then will we “sing to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

Examine Thyself

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

I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. – Isaiah 43:25

Hast thou ever felt thyself to be acquitted by Christ? “No,” saith one, “I never expected to feel that; I thought that we might know it perhaps when we came to die-that a few eminent Christians might then possibly know themselves to be forgiven; but I think, sir, you are very enthusiastic to ask me whether I have ever felt myself to be forgiven.” My dear friend, you mistake. Do you think, if a man had been a galley-slave, chained to an oar for many a year, if he were once set free he would not know whether he were free or not? Do you think that a slave who had been toiling for years, when once he trod upon the land of freedom, if you should say to him: “Do you know that you are emancipated?” Do you think he would not know it? Or a man that has been dead in his grave, if he were awakened to life, do you think he would not know it? There may be times when he hath forgotten the season; but he will know himself to be alive; he will feel and know himself to be free. Tell me it is enthusiastic to ask you whether you have ever felt your chains broken? Sirs, if you have never felt your chains fall off from you, then be it known that your chains are on you; for when God breaketh our chains from off us, we know ourselves to be free. The most of us, when God did set us free from our prison-house, did leap for very joy; and we remember the mountains and the hills did burst forth before us into singing, and the trees of the field did clap their hands. We shall never forget that gladsome moment; it is impressed upon our memory; we shall remember it till life’s latest hour. I ask thee, again, Didst thou ever feel thyself forgiven? And if thou sayest “No,” then thou hast no right to think thou art. If Jesus hath never whispered in thine ear, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions,” thou hast no right to think thyself pardoned. O! I beseech thee, examine thyself, and know whether thou hast been condemned by the law, and whether thou hast been acquitted by Christ!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

If the Law Condemn Thee, God Will Acquit Thee

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

Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. – Galatians 3:10

Let me ask thee this, my friend-Wast thou ever condemned by the law in thine own conscience? “Nay, sayest thou, “I know not what thou meanest.” Of course thou dost not; and thou hast no hope, then, that thou art safe. But I will ask thee yet again: Hast thou been condemned by the law in thy conscience? Hast thou ever heard the word of God saying in thy own soul, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them?” And hast thou felt that thou wast cursed? Didst thou ever stand before God’s bar, like a poor condemned criminal before the judge, ready for execution? …Hast thou ever felt thyself to be a worthless, ruined, sin-condemned, law-condemned, conscience-condemned sinner? Hast thou ever fallen down before God, and said: “Lord, Thou art just; though Thou slay me, I will say, Thou art just; for I am sinful, and I deserve Thy wrath?” As the Lord liveth, if thou hast never felt that, thou art a stranger to His grace; for the man who acquits himself God condemneth; and if the law condemn thee, God will acquit thee. So long as thou hast felt thyself condemned, thou mayest know that Christ died for condemned ones, and shed His blood for sinners; but and if thou foldest thine arms in self-security, if thou sayest: “I am good, I am righteous, I am honorable,” be thou warned of this-thine armor is the weaving of a spider; it shall be broken in pieces; the garments of thy righteousness are light as the web of the gossamer, and shall be blown away by the breath of the Eternal, in that day when He will unspin all that nature hath ever woven. Ay, I bid thee now take heed; if thou hast never been condemned by the law, thou hast never been acquitted by grace.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

Christ, Our Substitute

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

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit… – 1 Peter 3:18

The curse of God is not easily taken away; in fact, there was but one method whereby it could be removed. The lightnings were in God’s hand; they must be launched; He said they must. The sword was unsheathed; it must be satisfied; God vowed it must. How, then, was the sinner to be saved? The only answer was this. The Son of God appears; and He says, “Father! launch Thy thunderbolts at Me; here is My breast-plunge that sword in here; here are My shoulders-let the lash of vengeance fall on them;” and Christ, the Substitute, came forth and stood for us, “the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”

We have heard some preach a gospel, something after this order-that though God is angry with men, yet out of His great mercy, for the sake of something that Christ has done, He does not punish them, but remits the penalty. Now, we hold, that this is not of God’s gospel; for it is neither just to God, nor safe to man. We believe that God never remitted the penalty, that He did not forgive the sin without punishing it, but that there was blood for blood, and stroke for stroke, and death for death, and punishment for punishment, without the abatement of a solitary jot or tittle; that Jesus Christ, the Saviour, did drink the veritable cup of our redemption to its very dregs; that He did suffer beneath the awful crushing wheels of divine vengeance, the self-same pains and sufferings which we ought to have endured. O! the glorious doctrine of substitution! When it is preached fully and rightly, what a charm and what power it hath. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

Begotten Again to a Lively Hope

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

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. – 1 Peter 1:3

Can men really believe that, after having been “begotten again to a lively hope,” that birth in God, through Christ, and by His Spirit, can yet fail? We have asked ourselves, Can men imagine that, after God hath once broken our chains, and set us free, He will call us back, and bind us once again, like Prometheus, to the great rocks of despair? Will He once blot out the handwriting that is against us, and then record the charge again? Once pardoned, then condemned? We trow, that had Paul been in the way of such men, he would have said, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died; yea, rather, that is risen again. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” There is no condemnation to us, being in Christ Jesus; we “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” It is a sweet thought, that Satan himself can never rob me of my pardon. I may lose my copy of it, and lose my comfort; but the original pardon is filed in heaven. It may be that gloomy doubts may arise, and I may fear to think myself forgiven: but

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

“O! my distrustful heart!
How small thy faith appears.
Far greater, Lord, Thou art,
Than all my doubts and fears.
‘Midst all my sin, and fear, and woe,
Thy Spirit will not let me go.”

I love, at times, to go back to the hour when I hope I was forgiven through a Saviour’s blood. There is much comfort in it to remember that blessed hour when first we knew the Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm