Christian Life

What is this fear of God?

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

…I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me. – Jeremiah 32:40

The Lord saith, “I will put My fear in their hearts.” It would never be found there if He did not put it there. It will never spring up naturally in any heart. “I will put My fear in their hearts”; that is, regeneration and conversion. He makes us tremble before His law. He makes us feel the smart and bitterness of sin. He causes us to remember the God we once forgot, and to obey the Lord whom once we defied. “I will put My fear in their hearts” is the first great act of conversion, and it is continued throughout life by the perpetual working of the Spirit upon the heart. The work which commences at conversion is duly carried on in the converted ones; for the Lord still puts His fear into their hearts. How the Spirit of God works we cannot tell: He has ways of acting directly upon our minds which are all His own and cannot be understood by us. But without violating the freedom of our nature, leaving us men as we were before, He knows how to make us continue in the fear of God. This is God’s great holdfast upon His people, “I will put My fear in their hearts.”

What is this fear of God? It is a holy awe and reverence of the great God. Taught of God, we come to see His infinite greatness, and the fact that He is everywhere present with us; and then, filled with a devout sense of His Godhead, we dare not sin. Since God is near, we cannot offend. God is our Father, and we feel the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.” This child-like love kindles in us a fear to grieve Him whom we love, and therefore we have no desire to depart from Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2108.cfm

We Shall Not Depart from God

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

…I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me. – Jeremiah 32:40

It is not said, “I will put them where they shall not be tempted; I will give them such a sufficient livelihood that they shall not be tried by poverty, and at the same time they shall never be so rich as to know the temptations of wealth.” No, the Lord does not take His people out of the world; but He allows them to fight the battle of life in the same field as others. He does not remove us from the conflict, but “He giveth us the victory.” We are tempted as was our Lord; but we have a way of escape provided. Our heart is prone to wander, and we are not kept from the scene of possible wandering. But what is said is this-“They shall not depart from Me.” What a blessed assurance! They may be tempted; but they shall not be overcome. Though they sin in measure, yet shall they not so sin as to depart from God. They shall still hold on to Him and live in Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

How, then, are they preserved? Well, not as some falsely talk, as though we preached, “that the man who is converted may live as he likes.” We have never said so; we have never even thought so. The man who is converted cannot live as he likes; or, rather, he is so changed by the Holy Spirit, that if he could live as he likes, he would never sin, but live an absolutely perfect life. Oh, how deeply do we long to be kept clear of every sin! We preach not that men may depart from God and yet live; but that they shall not depart from Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2108.cfm

Securely Kept

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

…I will not turn away from them, to do them good… – Jeremiah 32:40

He hath given meat unto them that fear Him: He will ever be mindful of His covenant. – Psalm 111:5

If the Lord’s chosen and redeemed are cast away, where is the glory of His redemption? Will not the enemy say of the Lord, “He had not the power to carry out His covenant, nor the constancy to continue blessing them”? Shall that ever be said of God? Will He thus lose the glory of His omnipotence and immutability? I cannot believe that any purpose of the Lord can fail; neither can I conceive that He can withdraw His declarations of love to those with whom He is in covenant. The God whom we adore and reverence, the God of Abraham, the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, fainteth not, neither is weary. “He is in one mind, and who can turn Him?” “He will ever be mindful of His covenant.” Of our Lord Jesus we truly sing-

“His honour is engaged to save
The meanest of His sheep;
All that His heavenly Father gave,
His hands securely keep.”

Whether my arguments seem good to you or not, is of small consequence; for the text is the inspired Word of God, and it cannot be misunderstood or questioned. Thus saith the Lord, “I will not turn away from them, to do them good.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2108.cfm

His Sure Pledge

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

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. – Romans 5:6

When God gave His Son, He gave us a sure pledge that He meant to finish His work of love. They say of a man that does not finish his work, “This man began to build, and was not able to finish”; but that shall never be said of the Lord Jehovah. The Lord God has laid out His whole Deity to save His people, and given His whole self in the person of the Well-beloved for our redemption; and can you believe that He will fail in it? Surely, the idea is blasphemous. Some of us have known too much love already to believe that it will ever cease to flow towards us. We have been so favoured that we dare not fear that His favour toward us will cease. So heavenly, so divine is the sense of the love of God, when it is revealed to the soul, that we cannot believe that it has been given to mock us. We have been carried away with such torrents of love, that we will never believe that they can be dried up. The Lord has communed with us so closely, that the secret of the Lord is with us, and He will for ever recognize that mystic token by which our union has been sealed. Like Paul, each one of us may say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” The cost to which our Lord has gone assures us that He will complete His designs of grace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2108.cfm

Yet…

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

…I will not turn away from them, to do them good… – Jeremiah 32:40

I would have you remember that we are by God at this day viewed in the same light as ever. He saw us at the first as under sin, fallen and depraved, and yet He promised to do us good. And if to-day I am sinful, if to-day I have to groan by reason of my evil nature, yet I am but where I was when He chose me, and called me, and redeemed me by the blood of His Son. “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” We were undeserving objects upon whom He bestowed His mercy, out of no motive but that which He drew from His own nature; and if we are undeserving still, His grace is still the same. If it be so, that He still deals with us in the way of grace, it is evident that He still views us as undeserving; and why should He not do good towards us now as He did at the first? Assuredly, the fountain being the same, the stream will continue to flow.

Moreover, remember that He sees us now in Christ. Behold, He has put His people into the hands of His dear Son. He has even put us into Christ’s body; “for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” He sees us in Christ to have died, in Him to have been buried, and in Him to have risen again. As the Lord Jesus Christ is well-pleasing to the Father, so in Him are we well-pleasing to the Father also; for our being in Him identifies us with Him…Firmly believe that until the Lord rejects Christ He cannot reject His people; until He repudiates the atonement and the resurrection, He cannot cast away any of those with whom He has entered into covenant in the Lord Jesus Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/jer/32/40/s_777040

God’s Motive: Grace

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

…I will not turn away from them, to do them good… – Jeremiah 32:40

Please notice the terms here: the Lord does not merely say, “I will not turn away from them,” but, “I will not turn away from them, to do them good.” He will not cease to work good for His chosen. The Lord is always doing His people good; and here He promises that He will never leave off blessing them. Not only will He always love them, but He will always prove His love by active kindness and blessing. He is pledged to continue the gifts and work of His goodness…let us remember that there is no valid reason why He should turn away from them to do them good. You remind me of their unworthiness. Yes, but observe that when He began to do them good they were as unworthy as they could possibly be. He began to do them good when they were “dead in trespasses and sins.” He began to do them good when they were enemies, rebels, and under condemnation. When first the sinner feels the movement of divine love upon his heart, he is in no commendable state. In some cases, the man is a drunkard, a swearer, a liar, or a profane person. In certain cases, the man has been a persecutor like Manasseh or Saul. If God left off blessing us because He could see no good in us, why did He begin to do us good when we were without desire towards Him? We were a mass of misery, a pit of wants, and a dunghill of sins when He began to do us good. Whatever we may be now, we are not otherwise than we were when first He revealed His love towards us. The same motive which led Him to begin leads Him to continue; and that motive is nothing but His grace….He entered into a covenant that He would not turn away from us, to do us good; and no circumstance has arisen, or can arise, which was unknown to Him when He thus pledged His word of grace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2108.cfm

Nothing More Glorious

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

And I will make an everlasting covenant with them… – Jeremiah 32:40

In the order of God’s working He always advances from the good to the better. The old law was put away because He found fault with it, and therefore the new covenant must last till a fault can be found with it, which will never be. This is the glory which excelleth: no brightness can exceed the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. There can be nothing more gracious, nothing more righteous, nothing more just to God or more safe to man, than the plan of salvation set forth in the covenant of grace. The moon gives way to the sun, and the sun gives way to a lustre which shall exceed the light of seven days; but what is to supersede the light of free grace and dying love, the glory of the love which gave the Only-begotten that we might live through Him? The covenant of grace made with us in Christ Jesus is the masterpiece of divine wisdom and love, and it is established on such sure principles that it must last for ever.

Who else could have thought of a covenant, “ordered in all things and sure,” to be made with guilty man? It was also divine in its carrying out, and therefore it shall endure. Who could have provided a Saviour like the Only-begotten of the Father? Who could have given Him for a covenant but the Father? The covenant is divine in its maintenance. Note well the word of the Lord: “I will make an everlasting covenant with them.” He does not say, “They shall make a covenant with Me”; but “I will make a covenant with them.” That God is the maker of the covenant is a reason for its certainty and everlastingness. The faithful God has given guarantees which fix it fast, even His promise and His oath; those two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie. Through these we have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to Christ Jesus. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2108.cfm