Christian Life

The Believer’s Comfort

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

The believer’s comfort under his afflictions is this-

“I shall not die, but live.” – Psalm 118:18

Forecasts of good from the Lord may come to those who are sore sick; and when they do, they help them to recover. We are of good courage when an inward confidence enables us to say, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

When a believer is in trouble he derives great comfort from his reliance upon the compassion of God. The Lord scourges His sons, but He does not slay them. The believer says, “My Father may make me smart with the blow of a cruel one; but He will do me no real harm, nor allow anyone else to injure me. He will not lay upon me more than is right, nor above what I am able to bear. He will stay His hand when He sees that I have no strength left. Moreover, I know that even when He brings me very low, still underneath me are the everlasting arms. If the Lord kills, it is to make alive: if He wound, it is that He may heal. I am sure of that.” O believer, never let anything drive you away from this confidence, for it has sure truth for its foundation! The Lord is good, and His mercy endureth forever. It is not killing, but curing, that God means when He takes the sharp lancet in His hand. The nauseous medicine, which makes the heart sick, works the cure of a worse sickness. “His compassions fail not.” He may often put His hand into the bitter box, but He has sweet cordials ready to take the taste away. For a small moment has He forsaken us, but with great mercies will He return to us. You have an effectual comfort if your faith can keep its hold upon the blessed fact of the Lord’s fatherly compassion. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm

Faith Sings While on the Weary Road

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

…but He hath not given me over unto death. – Psalm 118:18

Our Father’s anger at our sin will never blaze into wrath against us, though in mercy He will smite our sins. Remember, then, this gracious boundary. “The Lord hath chastened me sore: but He hath not given me over unto death.” We have never yet experienced a trouble which might not have been worse. One affliction kills another: the wind never blows east and west at the same time. When the Lord smites you abound, so do consolations abound through Christ Jesus. The whole band of troubles never comes forth at once. Everything painful is graded and proportioned to the man and his strength, and the object for which it is sent. With the trial the Lord makes the way of escape that we may be able to bear it. Faith can see an end and limit where nature’s dim eye sees endless confusion. Where carnal sense-

“Sees every day new straits attend,
And wonders where the scene will end,”

faith looks over the intervening space, and comforts herself with that which is yet to come. Faith sings pleasant songs when she foots it over weary roads.

“The road may be rough, but it cannot be long,
So let’s smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song.”

The Lord keep your faith alive, my brethren and sisters, and then whatever trials surge around you, you will sit on the Rock of ages, above the waves, and joyfully sing praises unto your divine Deliverer! Oh, how sweet to say, as I now do, “The Lord hath chastened me sore: but He hath not given me over unto death”! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm

But…

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

I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD. The LORD hath chastened me sore: but He hath not given me over unto death. – Psalm 118:17, 18

If we say, “I could bear anything but this,” we prove our universal impatience. If we had the choice of our crosses, the one we should choose would turn out to be more inconvenient than that which God appoints for us; and yet we will have it that our present cross is unsuitable and specially galling. I would say to any who are of that mind, “If your burden does not fit your shoulder, bear it till it does.” Time will reconcile you to the yoke if grace abides with you. It is not for us to choose our affliction; that remains with Him who chooses our inheritance for us. Read well this word, “The Lord hath chastened me sore,” and see the Lord’s hand in the soreness of your trial. Even while the wound is raw, and the smart is fresh; be conscious that the Lord is near.

Yet there is in the verse a “but”, for the psalmist perceives that his trial is limited; “but He hath not given me over to death.” Certain of the buts in Scripture are among the choicest jewels we have. Before us is a “but” which shows that, however deep affliction may be, there is a bottom to the abyss. There is a limit to the force, the sharpness, the duration and the number of our trials. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm

Having Job’s Patience

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

“The Lord hath chastened me sore.” – Psalm 118:18

…the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. – Job 1:21

Perhaps we are willing to own in general that our trouble is of the Lord; but there is a soreness in it which we do not ascribe to Him, but to the malice of the enemy, or some other second cause. The false tongue is so ingenious in slander that it has touched the tenderest part of our character, and has cut us to the quick. Are we to believe that this also is, in some sense, of the Lord? Assuredly we are. If it be not of the Lord, then it is a matter for despair. If this evil comes apart from divine permission, where are we? How can a trial be met which is independent of divine rule, and outside of the sacred zone of providential government? It is hopeful when we find that all our ills lie within the ring-fence of omnipotent overruling. It is one comfort that we see a wall of fire round about us, a circle so complete that even the devil, malicious as he is, cannot break through it, to do more than the Lord allows. The camels are gone, the sheep, the oxen, the servants, all are destroyed: all this is most trying; but still it is true-“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” But, see, another messenger comes, and cries, “There came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead.” Might not Job, then, have said, “This is a blow which I cannot bear; for it is evidently from the prince of the power of the air”? No, but even after that, he said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” When his wife said, “Curse God, and die,” he still blessed God, and held his integrity. He told her that she spoke as one of the foolish women speaketh, and then he wisely added, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.” May we stand fast in patience as he did, even when our troubles overflow! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm

Jehovah’s Rod

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

If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” – Hebrews 12:7; Revelation 3:19

There is not a more profitable instrument in all God’s house than the rod. No honey was sweeter than that which dropped from the end of Jonathan’s rod; but that is nothing to the sweetness of the consolation which comes through Jehovah’s rod. Our brightest joys are the birth of our bitterest griefs. When the woman has her travail pangs, joy comes to the house because the man-child is born; and sorrow is to us also, full often, the moment of the birth of our graces. A chastened spirit is a gracious spirit; and how shall we obtain it except we are chastened? Like our Lord Jesus, we learn obedience by the things which we suffer. God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without sorrow, and He never will have while the world stands. Let us, therefore, bless God for all His dealings, and in a filial spirit confess, “Thou, Lord, hast chastened me.”

“If God appoints the number ten,
There ne’er can be eleven.”

Whenever the Lord mixes a potion for His people, He weighs each ingredient, measures the bitters, grain by grain, and allows not even a particle in excess to mingle in the draught. Like a careful dispenser, He will not pour out a drop too little or too much.

“To His Church, His joy, and treasure,
Every trial works for good:
They are dealt in weight and measure,
Yet how little understood;
Not in anger,
But from His dear covenant love.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm

The Father’s Loving Wisdom Toward His Child

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

“The Lord hath chastened me sore.” – Psalm 118:18

When a child is chastised, two things are clear: first, that there is something wrong in him, or that there is something deficient in him, so that he needs to be corrected or instructed; and, secondly, it shows that his father has a tender care for his benefit, and acts in loving wisdom towards him. This is certainly true if his father is an eminently kind and yet prudent parent. Children do not think that there can be any need for chastening them; but when years have matured their judgment, they will know better. “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous;” if it did seem joyous, it would not be chastening. The “need be” is not only that we have manifold trials, but that we be in heaviness through them. In the smart of the sorrow lies the blessing of the chastisement. God chastens us in the purest love, because He sees that there is an absolute necessity for it: “for He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” Our fathers, according to the flesh, too often corrected us according to their own pleasure, and yet we gave them reverence; but the Father of our spirits corrects us only of necessity-a necessity to which He is too wise to close His eyes. Shall we not, therefore, pay greater reverence to Him, and bow before Him, and live? When Hezekiah was recovered of his sickness, he wrote, “O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.” I find not that men live by carnal pleasure, nor that the life of the spirit is ever found in the wine-vat or in the oil-press; but I do find that life and health often come to saints through briny tears, through the bruising of the flesh, and the oppression of the spirit. So have I found it, and I bear my willing witness that sickness has brought me health, loss has conferred gain, and I doubt not that one day death will bring me fuller life. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm

The Lord Hath Done It

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

“He maketh sore, and bindeth up: He woundeth, and His hands make whole.” – Job 5:18

If you strike a dog with a stick, he will bite the stick; if he were more intelligent, he would snap at the person using the stick; and, if that intelligence were governed by the spirit of obedience, he would yield to the blow, and learn a lesson from it. Thus, when Shimei reviled David, and Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said unto the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head;” David meekly replied, “So let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say, Wherefore hath thou done so?” A sight of God’s hand in a trial is the end of rebellion against it in the case of every good man. He says, “It is the Lord: let Him do what seemeth Him good.” We may lie at His feet, and cry, “Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me;” but, if the reason does not appear, we must bow in reverent submission, and say with one of old, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because Thou didst it.” Job saw the Lord in his many tribulations, and therefore praised Him, saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Surely there is nothing better for a man of God than to perceive that his smarts and sorrows come from his Father’s hand, for then he will say, “The will of the Lord be done.” This is the great point in the believer’s view of his afflictions: “He maketh sore, and bindeth up: He woundeth, and His hands make whole.” ~ C.H. Spurtgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm