Character of Jesus

Contemplate This Sublime Truth

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

“He laid down His life for us.”- 1John 3:16

Come, believer, and contemplate this sublime truth, thus proclaimed to thee in simple monosyllables: “He laid down His life for us.” There is not one long word in the sentence; it is all as simple as it can be; and it is simple because it is sublime. Sublimity in thought always needs simplicity in words to express itself. Little thoughts require great words to explain them; little preachers need Latin words to convey their feeble ideas, but great thoughts and great expressers of those thoughts are content with little words.

“He laid down His life for us.” Here there is not much upon which any man can display his eloquence; here is little room for metaphysical discussion or for deep thought; the text sets before us a simple yet sublime doctrine. What, then, shall I do with it? If I would speak of it profitably to myself, since I need not employ my wit to dissect it, nor my oratory to proclaim it, let me exercise my adoration to worship it; let me prostrate all my powers before the throne, and, like an angel when his work is done, and he has nowhere else to fly at his Lord’s command, let me fold the wings of my contemplation, and stand before the throne of this great truth, and meekly bow myself, and worship Him that was, and is, and is to come, the great and glorious One who “laid down His life for us.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

Alignment with the Word of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, repentance, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him… – Hebrews 5:9

I hope I shall always be able to lift up my voice against that charity growing up in our midst, which is not only a charity towards persons, but a charity towards doctrines. I have fervent charity towards every brother in Christ who differs from me. I love him for Christ’s sake, and hold fellowship with him for the truth’s sake: but I can have no charity for his errors, nor do I wish him to have any for mine. I tell him straight to his face, “If your sentiments contradict mine, either I am right and you are wrong, or you are right and I am wrong; and it is time we should meet together and search the Word of God, to see what is right.” Talk of your Evangelical Alliances, and such like: they will never endure; they may effect many blessed purposes, but they are not the remedy that is wanted for our divisions. What is wanted is, for all of us to come to the model of the Word of God, and when we have come to that, we must come together. Let us all come “to the law and to the testimony.” Let the Baptist, let the Independent, let the Churchman, lay aside his old thoughts, his old prejudices, and his old traditions, and let each man search for himself, as in the sight of Almighty God, and some of the altars must go down, for they cannot all be after the divine type, when their dissimilarity is so palpable. May the Spirit of God be poured out in this land, and there will come a three-fold reformation; broken images, groves cut down, and fallen altars scattered to the winds. And yet, my dear hearers, I do not ask you to attend to this last thing first. It is unimportant, compared with the first. The images are first to be burned, then sinful customs are to be given up, and after that let the church be reformed.

“I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say,” and may God guide you aright.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The Unlawful Altars

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

…and threw down the high places and the altars… – 2 Chronicles 31;1

These altars were built for the service of the true God, but they were built against His express command. God had said that He would have but one altar, namely, at Jerusalem. These people, to avoid inconvenience and trouble, thought they would build altars, wherever they lived, and there celebrate their worship. I can conceive that they worshipped Jehovah with all their hearts, and that He might graciously accept even such worship as that through Christ Jesus, overlooking their ignorance and casting their sin behind His back. But now as their zeal was kindled, their consciences became scrupulous, so they resolved not only to avoid the things that are positively sinful but they would have nothing to do with anything that is not positively right. So they began to cast down the altars of God because they were not built according to God’s law… There should be a casting down of everything in connection with the true worship, that is not according to the law of God and the word of God. As it was with the worship of Israel of old, so it is now with that of the Christian church. The pure becomes alloyed with the base, that which is genuine with that which is spurious, divine revelation with human tradition, and the inspired decrees of heaven with the inventions and devices of the children of men. Some fallacies are perpetuated from generation to generation, until the deep hue of antiquity tinges them over, makes them look venerable and speciously invites a reverence and regard to which they never had any legitimate claim… But, mark ye this, if the grace of God be once more restored to the church in all its fullness and the Spirit of God be poured out from on high, in all His sanctifying energy there will come such a shaking as has never been seen in our days. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The Groves – cont’d

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

… and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves… – 2 Chronicles 31:1

I must lift up the axe against another evil-books. There are many books that are to be so esteemed by the Christian man, that they must be cut down like the groves of trees, not because they are bad in themselves, mark, but because there false gods are worshiped… Do I, therefore, say, that the Christian man must condemn all reading of fiction and novels? No, I do not, but I do say, that the mass of popular books published under the name of Light Literature is to be eschewed and cut down, for the simple reason that the moral of it is not that of piety and goodness; the tendency of the reading is not to bring the Christian towards heaven, but rather to retard and impede him in his good course.

You remember John Knox’s memorable saying, when he turned the Romanists out, he went straight away to pull down their chapels. He gathered the mob together, and began to overhaul the whole of their places of worship. Why should John Knox meddle with them? ” I’ll pull the nests down,” said he, “then I shall be sure that the birds will never come back.” So I would today. I would not only drive away the birds-the sin, the evil; but I would pull down the nest, so that there will be no temptation to you to come back again to the sin. “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will be a Father unto you.” Come out from the world, ye children of Christ. Have naught to do with their enjoyments, nor with their devices. Follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Go not a whoring after these iniquities, but drink thou waters out of thine own cistern, and be thou always ravished with His love who is thy Lord, thy husband, thy hope, thy joy, thine all.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/2ch/31/1/s_398001

The God of Lust Pulled Down

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance 1 Comment

Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars… – 2 Chronicles 31:1

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. – Matthew 5:28

Let me tell you of another god, which is to be pulled down as certainly by any man who worships Jehovah aright, and that is the god of lust; Oh! this world is not so good as it seems to be. You scarcely hear the minister in these days talk of whoremongers, adulterers, and such like: but they are not all dead. There are such to be found, such in every congregation, I fear. Our streets have not yet become such as Chastity might pace at midnight, nor are the chief places of the earth become clean and purified. There is much hidden pollution to be dragged forth, and cast into Kishon. Even in high places, sin is tolerated, men are respectable who have sent their fellow-creatures to hell, and are going there themselves; but once let grace come into the heart, and away with these: the most darling lust is given up, and that which was thought to be the greatest pleasure, is now looked upon with abhorence and detestation. If thou, my hearer, livest in lust, and yet dost make profession of religion, away with thy profession, for it is an awful lie. Away with that profession, for it is an empty vanity! away with it! It will but add to thy destruction, and cannot save thee from the dreadful doom of the man that goeth on in his iniquity. A happy thing it is for a man when he goes from the house of God, with the resolve that lust shall be abandoned, and every sinful pleasure cast away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The God of Bacchus Defeated by the Gospel

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. – Exodus 20:3

There are other gods still worshipped in this world, to be execrated with unrelenting indignation. There is one which is certain to be broken, so sure as ever a man becomes a Christian: I mean Bacchus, that jolly god whom so many adored in days of yore with mad revelry, and who is still worshipped by tens of thousands of Englishmen. Perhaps he is the great god of Britain. I am certain he has many temples, for there is scarcely a corner of any street in which we do not behold his image, or see his votaries pouring out libations before him. He is a god that is worshipped with reeling to and fro, and staggering. Men become drunken in his presence, and so do him homage. Now, ye that are drunkards, if ye become Christians, that will turn your cup bottom upwards once and for ever. There will be no more inebriety for you now. By the grace of God you will say, “They that be drunken are drunken in the night, but let us who are of the day be sober. I renounce this practice of drunkenness, I can have nothing more to do with it.” Bless God there are many here present who have gone out of this hall to demolish this god… They have heard the gospel not in word only, but also in power, and now their home is a paradise, their house is made glad with prayer, their children are brought up in the fear of the Lord. We have seen the wife’s tear of gladness when she said, “The Lord be blessed for ever, and blessed be the name of the gospel, for a wretched woman has been made happy, and she who was but a drudge and a slave to one who was like a fiend, has now become the companion of one whom she reckons to be little short of an angel.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm

The God of Self-Righteousness

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

“Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all.”- 2 Chronicles 31:1

“Thou shalt have none other gods before Me.” Every place is before God. Every thing is before His face and open to Him. Therefore by this command we understand that we are in no way, and in no sense to have another god, but the Lord our God. What! do you ask, are we a nation of idolaters? Can this text pertain to us?… Yea, all of us, until renewed by divine grace, worship gods which our own hands have made, and we do not fear, and love, and obey the living God with our entire and exclusive homage. Once however, let grace be received into the heart, let the soul be renewed by the Holy Spirit, once drink in the free life of Jesus, and these false gods must be broken in pieces at once.

The first god who is worshiped among us is one called self-righteousness. The Pharisees were the high priests of this god; they burnt incense every morning and every evening before him, but he has ten thousand times ten thousand worshipers still left. Among your respectable classes of society he is the received divinity. If a man be respectable, he thinks it all-sufficient. Among your moralists, this is the great god before which they bow down and worship… Until we are brought to know our own lost and ruined condition, self-righteousness is the god before which every one of us will prostrate ourselves. Oh, my dear friends… let us… aim a blow, by the help of God, at self righteousness; let us… prostrate ourselves before God, and cry-

“Vile and full of sin I am.”

“Lord, I confess before Thee, that I have no good works in which to trust, no self-righteousness on which I can rely. I cast my boastings away; I come to Thee as a poor, guilty, helpless sinner; ‘Lord, save, or I perish.'” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm