Christian Life

See the Wisdom of God

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

And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children. – Exodus 2:6

The very means which Pharaoh devised for the effectual crushing of the people-the destruction of the male children-became the direct, nay, the divine provision for educating a deliverer for them. Moses had never been, in all probability, trained in the courts of Pharaoh if he had not been put in the basket of bulrushes on the brink of the Nile; and his mother would certainly never have put him there if there had not been a pitiless edict that the male children should be put to death. Moved by maternal instinct to save her child and moved by faith in God not to obey the king’s command, she places her child in the ark. Pharaoh’s daughter finds the child, compassionates its cry, extricates it from peril, loves it fondly, adopts it capriciously, and educates it in the very court of Pharaoh. That child grows up to be the man who should vex the fields of Zoan-the man of God, who with a high hand and an outstretched arm, would lead forth the slaves of Egypt to become a great nation, which God should bless. So you see the Lord in all points meets Pharaoh and foils him. This Pharaoh was the great representative in those days of the power of evil, and he stands still to the Christian church as the type of the seed of the serpent. But the Lord withstands him, despoils him of his purpose, and turns all he does to the very highest and best end. Such the narrative, full of instruction, and charged with portent, that serves as a type of the Lord’s doing when He makes bare His arm for the salvation of His own heritage. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

The Sharp Knife of Affliction

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

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. – Exodus 2:24

It was God’s intention and covenant purpose to give Israel the Land of Canaan, a land that flowed with milk and honey. But it is not very easy to induce a nation, numbering some millions, to leave a country in which they have been born and nourished and found a home. Only some very fearful evil can induce them to expatriate themselves. Had Moses gone to the children of Israel before the time of their bondage, and said, “Up and get you hence unto the land which the Lord swears that He will give it to you,” he would have seemed to them as one that mocked: they would have laughed him to scorn. In order to cut loose the bonds that bound them to Egypt, the sharp knife of affliction must be used; and Pharaoh, though he knew it not, was God’s instrument in weaning them from the Egyptian world and helping them as His church to take up their separate place in the wilderness and receive the portion which God had appointed for them.

Whenever God holds in one hand the rod of affliction, He has a favor in the other hand; He never strikes a child of His, but He has some tender blessing in store. If He visits you with unwonted affliction, you will have unusual delight; the Lord will open new windows for you and show His beauty. As your tribulations abound, so also shall your consolations abound in Christ Jesus…Rejoice, therefore, in your afflictions, if so be you have faith to believe that they shall be blessed for your good. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

This is What the Lord Designed

Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage…all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour. – Exodus 1:14

The glory of God shines forth conspicuously in the use to which He turned the persecutions Israel endured. The severe treatment they had to bear from the enemy became to them a salutary discipline…They had settled down very quietly in Goshen and thought that it was their rest. They had imbibed much of the manners and customs of the Egyptians…But now their masters treat them cruelly, and they loathe the Egyptians. They are scattered up and down throughout the land, and Goshen is no longer dear to them. They are treated like strangers, and they feel they are strangers. Now that they hear from morning till night the taskmaster’s oath, and the crack of the cruel whip, and are subjected to incessant toil and bondage, they think far less of Egypt than they used to do. This is what the Lord designed. He never intended that His people Israel should be absorbed into any other family. He never meant them to be other than sojourners on that soil. He had some better thing for them than that they should dwell in that land and be as the heathen were. God was thus answering one purpose. And He did more than this. Now they began to remember, as their bondage waxed more and more severe, the God of their fathers whom they had forgotten…and they bethink themselves of the covenant which Jehovah had made with Abraham, and with Isaac and Jacob, and they betook themselves to their knees. In secret, they utter their groanings before the Most High, and when their taskmasters make them smart, they lift their eyes, suffused with bitter tears, and silently appeal to heaven, to the God of their fathers, that He would have mercy upon them. They had forgotten to pray until then. The mass of them had been unused to call upon the name of the Lord; but now the scourge drives them to seek help from above. Their terrors, their pains, their griefs, and their vexations compel them to lift up that cry to heaven which came into the ears of Jehovah, and moved His hand to help them.

Dear brother, dear sister, are you passing through great trials? Very well then, to meet them I pray that God’s grace may give you greater faith; and if your trials increase more and more, so may your strength increase…Do pray the Lord that when the trials multiply you may get faith wherewith to meet them; that out of the eater you may get meat; and out of the strong find strength. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

Israel Rose Superior to All Her Disadvantages

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

“The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.” – Exodus 1:12

It did seem to be a deep-laid plot, very politic and crafty indeed, that as the kings of Egypt, themselves of an alien race, had subdued the Egyptians, they should prevent the other alien race, the Israelites, from conquering them. Instead of murdering them wholesale, it did seem a wise though a cruel thing to make them slaves; to divide them up and down the country; to subject them to toil till their spirits were broken; to appoint them to the most menial work in the land, that they might be crushed down and their spirits become so base that they would not dare to rebel. Thus we may suppose it was hoped that their physical strength would be so relaxed, and their circumstances so reduced, that the clan would soon be insignificant if not utterly extinct. But God met and overruled this policy in various ways. “The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied.” The census proved the error of their calculation. The cause looked likely, but it was not productive of the consequence expected. Had it been another people, the tactics might have been successful; but they were God’s people, endeared to Him by their ancestry, ennobled in His sight by their covenant destiny, and encompassed with His favor as with a shield. No conspiracy formed against them could thrive. And so it came to pass, that like certain herbs which spring up when trodden down, or like certain trees that grow taller if loaded with weights, Israel rose superior to all her disadvantages. “The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.” This cometh of the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.

O friendless one, O Christless sinner! dost thou not want God to be thy helper, and Christ to be thy friend? If thou dost, then on the cross behold the Savior. Turn to Him thine eye: penitently trust Him: rely upon Him, and He is yours, and then henceforth the Lord of Hosts shall be with you, and God of Jacob shall be your refuge, and your afflictions also shall work your good. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

He Taketh the Wise in Their Own Craftiness

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

“Come on let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.”-Exodus 1:10-12

There is One behind the curtain that takes Israel’s part. He sees through all Pharaoh’s plots. Or ever his thoughts have ripened into plans they are forestalled; fast as they are set up they are upset; for every intrigue there is a reprisal. Thus He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. The whole history of the long feud between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent illustrates the subtlety of the serpent’s seed, and the simplicity of the woman’s seed; but still more does it bring to light the infinite wisdom of Him who rules the seed of the woman; and who will in the end bruise the serpent’s head, and give unto His people and the cause they have espoused a complete triumph. Whatever has been done by the enemies in rage or in recklessness, God has always met it calmly and quietly. He has shown Himself ready for every emergency. And He has not only baffled and utterly defeated all the inventions of wicked men, but He has turned their strange devices to good account, for the development of His own sovereign purposes. He has made His enemies work for Him, aiding the enterprise they eschewed: He has turned their curse into a blessing: He has made evil productive of good: He has extracted sweetness out of their bitter spleen, and distilled healthful medicine out of their deadly animosity. He hath His way in the whirlwind: the clouds are the dust of His feet. He does not only meet evil with good, but He takes the evil, and subjects it to His own eternal purpose, and from it brings forth a course of events that results in His own glory, the benefit of His children, and the fulfillment of their destiny. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

Do Not Publish Offences

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

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. – Matthew 6:12

There has been something very offensive said. What then? Do not repeat it. Do not go first to one, and then to another, and say, “Now this is quite private, and mind you keep it a secret. So-and-so has spoken shamefully.” Better that you should let your heart break than go up and down with a fire-brand in this fashion. If a brother has done wrong why should you do wrong? You will be doing wrong if you publish his fault…Charity covereth a multitude of sins. Not only one, two, three sins will charity cover, but she carries a cloak which covereth a whole host of faults.

Above all, my brethren, never in any way, directly or indirectly, avenge yourselves. For any fault that is ever done to you, the Master says unto you, -resist not evil. In all things bend, bow, yield, submit. “If you tread on a worm it will turn,” says somebody. And is a worm your example? Christ shall be mine. It is a shocking thing when a Christian man forgets his Lord to find an excuse for himself among the poor creatures under his feet. But if it must be so, what does a worm do when it turns? When you have trodden on a worm, does it bite? Does the worm hurt anyone? Ah, no. It has turned, but it has turned in its agony and writhed before you, that is all. You may do that, if you must. Brother, the most splendid vengeance you can ever have is to do good to them that do you evil, and to speak well of them that speak ill of you. They will be ashamed to look at you; they will never hurt you again if they see that you cannot be provoked except it be to greater love and larger kindness….This is the kind of doctrine which Christ Himself preached, and therefore, since He preached continually this love to our neighbour, and forgiveness of our enemies, we ought both to preach and to practise it. Go ye and believe in Him, and be imitators of Him, remembering that He forgave His murderers upon the cross whereon He wrought out our redemption. May His Spirit rest upon you evermore. Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm

Take No Heed to Offence Given

Sherry Christian Life 2 Comments

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another… – Ephesians 4:32

Some good women, I was about to say, and men also, when they come as tale-bearers with a charge, make a great many flourishes and additions. They go a long way round, and they bring innumerable beliefs, and suggestions, and hints, and hearsays into the business, until a midge’s egg becomes as huge as ever was laid by an ostrich. I begin coolly to strip off the feathers and the paint, and I say, “Now, I do not see what that point had to do with it, or what that remark has in it; all I can see when I come to look at the bare fact is so-and-so, and that was not much, was it?” “Oh, but there was more intended.” Do hot believe that, dear brother, dear sister. If there must be something wrong, let it be as little as you can. If you have a telescope, look through the large hole and minify instead of magnifying, or, better still, do not look at it at all. A blind eye is often the best eye a man can have, and a deaf ear is better by far than one which hears too much. “Also take no heed,” says Solomon, “unto all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee.” Something you have done may irritate a servant, and he may make remarks which are unbecoming and impertinent. Don’t hear what he is muttering. Keep out of hearing, he will be sorry to-morrow, and if he thinks you did not hear him he will continue in your service and be faithful to you. What would you do if your master picked you up for every word, and if he caught up every sentence that you uttered? How would you live at all if he reckoned sharply with you? No, dear friends, as you have to forgive one another, do not take offence, and when offence is given do not exaggerate it, and, if you can, do not even observe it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm