Character of Jesus

Refuse Not the Invitation, Sinner

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

He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. – John 3:18

What is a man’s warrant then for believing in Christ. Here it is. Christ tells him to do it, that is his warrant. Christ’s word is the warrant of the sinner for believing in Christ-not what he feels nor what he is, nor what he is not, but that Christ has told him to do it. The Gospel runs thus: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He that believeth not shall be damned.” Faith in Christ then is a commanded duty as well as a blessed privilege, and what a mercy it is that it is a duty because there never can be any question but that a man has a right to do his duty…Now it is a command of God given to every creature that he should believe on Jesus Christ whom God hath sent. This is your warrant, sinner, and a blessed warrant it is, for it is one which hell cannot gainsay, and which heaven cannot withdraw…Now I need not say I am not fit to come for I am commanded to come, and I am threatened if I do not come, and I will even go.” That awful sentence-“He that believeth not shall be damned,” was added not out of anger, but because the Lord knew our silly madness, and that we should refuse our own mercies unless He thundered at us to make us come to the feast, “Compel them to come in”; this was the Word of the Master of old, and that text is part of the carrying out of that exhortation, “Compel them to come in.” Sinner, you cannot be lost by trusting Christ, but you will be lost if you do not trust Him, ay, and lost for not trusting Him. I put it boldly now-sinner, not only may you come, but oh! I pray you, do not defy the wrath of God by refusing to come. The gate of mercy stands wide open; why will you not come? Why will you not? Why so proud? Why will you still refuse His voice and perish in your sins? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

The Spirit’s Saving Work

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. – Romans 10:17

“Faith cometh by hearing.” Granted, but do not all men hear, and do not many still remain unbelieving? How, then, doth any man come by his faith? To his own experience his faith comes as the result of a sense of need. He feels himself needing a Saviour; he finds Christ to be just such a Saviour as he wants, and therefore because he cannot help himself, he believes in Jesus. Having nothing of his own, he feels he must take Christ or else perish, and therefore he doth it because he cannot help doing it. He is fairly driven up into a corner, and there is but this one way of escape, namely, by the righteousness of another; for he feels he cannot escape by any good deeds, or sufferings of his own, and he cometh to Christ and humbleth himself, because he cannot do without Christ, and must perish unless he lay hold of Him. But to carry the question further back, where does that man get his sense of need? How is it that he, rather than others, feels his need of Christ? It is certain he has no more necessity for Christ than other men. How doth he come to know, then, that he is lost and ruined? How is it that he is driven by the sense of ruin to take hold on Christ the restorer? The reply is, this is the gift of God; this is the work of the Spirit. No man comes to Christ except the Spirit draw him, and the Spirit draws men to Christ by shutting them up under the law to a conviction that if they do not come to Christ they must perish. Then by sheer stress of weather, they tack about and run into this heavenly port. Salvation by Christ is so disagreeable to our carnal mind, so inconsistent with our love of human merit, that we never would take Christ to be our all in all, if the Spirit did not convince us that we were nothing at all and did not so compel us to lay hold on Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

The Most Daring Feat in All the World

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

Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him… – Hebrews 7:25

Faith is not to infer from something good within me that I shall be saved, but to say in the teeth, and despite of the fact, that I am guilty in the sight of God and deserve His wrath, yet I do, nevertheless, believe that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth me from all sin; and though my present consciousness condemns me, yet my faith overpowers my consciousness, and I do believe that “He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.” To come to Christ as a saint is very easy work; to trust to a doctor to cure you when you believe you are getting better, is very easy; but to trust your physician when you feel as if the sentence of death were in your body, to bear up when the disease is rising into the very skin, and when the ulcer is gathering its venom-to believe even then in the efficacy of the medicine-that is faith. And so, when sin gets the mastery of thee, when thou feelest that the law condemns thee, then, even then, as a sinner, to trust Christ, this is the most daring feat in all the world; and the faith which shook down the walls of Jericho, the faith which raised the dead, the faith which stopped the mouths of lions, was not greater than that of a poor sinner, when in the teeth of all his sins he dares to trust the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Do this, soul, then thou are saved, whosoever thou mayest be. The object of faith, then, is Christ as the substitute for sinners. God in Christ, but not God apart from Christ, nor any work of the Spirit, but the work of Jesus only must be viewed by you as the foundation of your hope.! C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

The Sinner’s Business

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

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16

Christians have to trust the Spirit after conversion, but the sinner’s business, if he would be saved, is not with trusting the Spirit nor with looking to the Spirit, but looking to Christ Jesus, and to Him alone…When thou hast thus believed, believe in Him as man. Believe the wondrous story of his incarnation; rely upon the testimony of the evangelists, who declare that the Infinite was robed in the infant, that the Eternal was concealed within the mortal; that He who was King of heaven became a servant of servants and the Son of man…Then, specially, if thou wouldst be saved, let thy faith behold Christ in His perfect righteousness. See Him keeping the law without blemish, obeying His Father without error; preserving His integrity without flaw. All this thou are to consider as being done on thy behalf. Thou couldst not keep the law; He kept it for thee. Thou couldst not obey God perfectly-lo! His obedience standeth in the stead of thy obedience-by it, thou art saved…Believe on Him, then, who on yonder tree with nailed hands and feet pours out His life for sinners. There is the object of thy faith for justification; not in thyself, nor in anything which the Holy Spirit has done in thee, or anything He has promised to do for thee; but thou art to look to Christ and to Christ alone. Then let thy faith behold Christ as rising from the dead. See Him-He has borne the curse, and now He receives the justification. He dies to pay the debt; He rises that He may nail the handwriting of that discharged debt to the cross. See Him ascending up on high, and behold Him this day pleading before the Father’s throne. He is there pleading for His people, offering up today His authoritative petition for all that come to God by Him. And He, as God, as man, as living, as dying, as rising, and as reigning above,-He, and He alone, is to be the object of thy faith for the pardon of sin.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

The Object of Faith

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

“He that believeth on Him is not condemned” – John 3:18

I am told in the Word of God to believe-What am I to believe? I am bidden to look-to what am I to look? What is to be the object of my hope, belief, and confidence? The reply is simple. The object of Faith to a sinner is Christ Jesus. How many make a mistake about this and think that they are to believe on God the Father! Now belief in God is an after-result of faith in Jesus. We come to believe in the eternal love of the Father as the result of trusting the precious blood of the Son. Many men say, “I would believe in Christ if I knew that I were elect.” This is coming to the Father, and no man can come to the Father except by Christ. It is the Father’s work to elect; you cannot come directly to Him, therefore you cannot know your election until first you have believed on Christ the Redeemer, and then through redemption you can approach to the Father and know your election. Some, too, make the mistake of looking to the work of God the Holy Spirit. They look within to see if they have certain feelings, and if they find them their faith is strong, but if their feelings have departed from them, then their faith is weak, so that they look to the work of the Spirit which is not the object of a sinner’s faith. Both the Father and the Spirit must be trusted in order to complete redemption, but for the particular mercy of justification and pardon the blood of the Mediator is the only plea.~  C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

 

Say, “This is my sin.”

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation 3 Comments

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.” -Mark 9:24

With tears he said, “Lord, I believe,” and then acknowledged his unbelief. Learn then, dear hearer, always to look at unbelief in Christ in the light of a fault. Never say, “This is my infirmity,” but say, “This is my sin.” There has been too much in the Church of God of regarding unbelief as though it were a calamity commanding sympathy, rather than a fault demanding censure as well. I am not to say to myself, “I am unbelieving, and therefore I am to be pitied.” No, “I am unbelieving, and therefore I must blame myself for it.” Why should I disbelieve my God? How dare I doubt Him who cannot lie? How can I mistrust the faithful promiser who has added to His promise His oath, and over and above His promise and His oath has given His own blood as a seal, that by two immutable things, wherein it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation. Chide yourselves, ye doubters. Doubts are among the worst enemies of your souls. Do not entertain them. Do not treat them as though they were poor forlorn travelers to be hospitably entertained, but as rogues and vagabonds to be chased from thy door. Fight them, slay them, and pray God to help thee to kill them, and bury them, and not even to leave a bone or a piece of a bone of a doubt above ground. Doubting and unbelief are to be abhorred, and to be confessed with tears as sins before God. We need pardon for doubting as much as for blasphemy. We ought no more to excuse doubting than lying, for doubting slanders God and makes Him a liar.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1033.cfm

It Ought Not So to Be

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

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. -1 John 3:2

I have known unbelief arise in some souls through a most proper reverence for Christ, and a high esteem for all that belongs to Him...You remember…John, who when he saw his Master in all His glory fell at His feet as dead. Ah, when the soul gets near to Jesus it perceives His perfection, and becomes conscious of its own imperfection; it sees His glory, and becomes aware of its own nothingness; it sees His love, and blushes at its own unloveliness; and then it is very, very apt to be tortured with mistrust, though it ought not so to be.

And I have even known when children of God just converted have come into the church, they have had such a high esteem for their brethren and sisters, that they have feared to be numbered with them. When they have heard some earnest brother pray they have said, “Oh, what a prayer, I shall never be like that man;” and, perhaps, they have listened to the preachings of some servant of God and said, “Ah, I cannot come up to that standard; the very existence of such a man as that condemns me.” It is beautiful to see the little children loving the elder sons of the family, and admiring what they see of the Father in them; but even this holy modesty may be turned into unbelief, though it ought not so to be; for, O child of God, if Christ be so lovely, thou art on the way to be made like Him; and if there be anything beautiful in any of His people, that same shall be given unto thee, for they also are as thou art, men of like passions with thyself; and God who has done great things for them will do the like for thee, for He loves thee with the self-same love.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1033.cfm