Christian Life

At His Own Cost

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

For the good of all His creatures, as well as for the glory of His own character, God must not allow sin to go unpunished. The judge may be willing enough to pardon the culprit, but he is a judge, and as such he must condemn the guilty. The readiness of God to pardon was seen in this that at His own cost He provided a way by which His mercy might be consistent with justice. From His own bosom He took His only begotten Son, His own self, for He was one with Him, and God, in the person of His Son, suffered that which has honored justice, vindicated the law, and enabled God to be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly. Oh, as I see the adorable Father giving up His Well-beloved, to bleed and die for men, I know beyond all question that He is a God ready to pardon.

And now, the atonement being made, and justice being unable any longer to offer any protest to boundless mercy, God stands ready to pardon. By the blood of His dear Son He is able to blot out offenses, through the sweet savor of the sacrifice of Jesus He smiles on guilty men. He delights now to blot into oblivion the transgressions of all them that seek His face. “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Jesus Christ’s salvation is like the good Samaritan, it comes where the wounded man is, and pours its oil and wine into his bleeding wounds. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1272.cfm

Tenderness from an Offended God

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

And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, “Where art thou?”…”And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” Genesis 3:8-9, 15

We must never think that our Lord Jesus died to make God merciful; on the contrary, the death of the Lord Jesus is the result of the mercy of God. When man sinned God was willing enough to pardon him, for the death of a sinner is no pleasure to Him. Judgment is His strange work. The way in which the Lord came to Adam at the first showed His mercy. He came, if you remember, in the cool of the day, not at the instant the crime was committed. God is not in a hurry to accuse man, or to execute vengeance upon him; He therefore waited until the cool of the day. He did not address rebellious man in the language of indignation, but He kindly said, “Adam, where art thou?” And when He had questioned the guilty pair, and convicted them, and the sentence was passed, it was terrible certainly, but, oh, how mildly tempered; the curse was as much as possible made to fall obliquely: “cursed is the ground for thy sake.” Though the woman was made to feel great sorrows, yet those were connected with a happy event which causes the travail to be forgotten. There was tenderness in the dread utterances of an offended God, and mainly so because almost as soon as He declared that man must labor and die He promised that “the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head.” Assuredly the Lord our God is by nature very pitiful and full of compassion.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1272.cfm

Provider and Pardoner

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

“Yea, forty years didst Thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing: their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not. Their children also multipliedest as the stars of heaven, and Thou broughtest them into the land, concerning which Thou hadst promised to their fathers that they should go in to possess it.”- Nehemiah 9:21, 23

Nehemiah also notices that God did not stint them in their daily provisions, notwithstanding their offenses. “Yea,” says he, “Thou withheldest not Thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst.” I am struck with wonder to think that God should have caused His manna still to fall. They provoked Moses and they set up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, but that very morning God’s bread was in their mouths. They came up to speak against God and against His servant, but their tongues would have been cleaving to the roof of their mouths for thirst if that very morning they had not drunk of the water which God had given them. When dependent persons will persist in disregarding our remonstrances and violating our rules, we are driven to stop the supplies. But the Lord did not stop the supplies even in this urgent case. Would not famine and drought have brought them to their senses? If there had been no food for the women and children, and no drink for the strong men, would not that have tamed them? Even lions and savage beasts may be thus subdued. But no, their bread was given them, and their water was sure. Was He not a God ready to pardon? Yes, and I know a people who, despite their sins, have already taken possession of many a gracious promise, so that they already dwell in the midst of covenant blessings. I know a people too who, notwithstanding their sins, shall enter into rest. “He shall surely bring them in,” for He will bring His chosen into His glory, and they shall see His face with joy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1272.cfm

His Pardon and Guidance

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

Yet Thou in Thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness… – Nehemiah 9:19

While God forgave His people He showed His readiness to pardon. He continued while they were in all these sins to guide them both by night and by day. The nineteenth verse says, “Yet Thou in Thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way wherein they should go.” Only think of it, that very day they made a calf, when the sun went down the fiery pillar still lit up the camp. At that very hour in which they said “We will make to ourselves a captain, and go back to Egypt,” the cloud was covering the camp, and screening them from the burning heat of the sun. They sinned beneath the shade of special mercy. Oh, if the Lord had said, “Now I will leave you, I will give you no more guidance. Since you will not follow My commandments, go which way you will,” should you have wondered? If He had left them to faint in the heat of the day and grope in the darkness of the night would you have been surprised? Ah, but let us wonder to think that the Lord has guided us as pilgrims through this desert land: He has still been both sun and shade to us, even to this day, notwithstanding all our sin. Had He deserted us what countless evils had befallen us. Blessed be the mercy which faileth not.

My brethren, bless ye also the Lord that though He has often smitten you, and given you the bread of affliction and the water of affliction, yet He has not taken away your teachers from you, nor quenched the light of Israel. Still doth His good spirit enlighten and instruct the people. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1272.cfm

The Lord is Ready to Pardon

Sherry Christian Life 1 Comment

“Neither were mindful of Thy wonders that Thou didst among them.”- Nehemiah 9:17

We are told that the Israelites were unmindful of what the Lord had done for them: “Neither were mindful of Thy wonders that Thou didst among them.” They were by this unmindfulness led into the great crime of unbelief. You think, my brethren, that if you had seen the Red Sea divided and Israel’s hosts led through, while Pharaoh’s army was drowned, you would have trusted God all your life. “Oh,” say you, “if I had been present, and really gathered the manna and eaten it, I could not, I am sure, with such a demonstration before my eyes, have ever fallen into unbelief again.” Well, I leave that question whether you would or not; having a very shrewd suspicion that your heart is by no means better than that of the ancient unbelievers. At any rate Israel soon fell back into her chronic unbelief. Within a few days after they had seen the whole host of Pharaoh destroyed, they began to murmur against God and against Moses; and though every day they ate the manna, and drank the miraculously given water, yet continually they asked, “Is the Lord among us or not?” The slightest peril, the slightest trouble to themselves, they began to think that now they were come to a difficulty out of which the Lord could not deliver them, and they cried, “Surely, He means to destroy us. He will never bring us into the promised land.” Do you know any other people like this? I need to put out my hand to touch one of the same order. If you have had idols, and have been forgiven, then you can see in this history, and in your own experience, that the Lord is ready to pardon… since the Lord forgave His people Israel, though they angered Him with their ungenerous mistrust, we see most clearly that He is “a God ready to pardon.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1272.cfm

Not Unlike the Israelites

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Nevertheless for Thy great mercies’ sake Thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for Thou art a gracious and merciful God. – Nehemiah 9:31

Brethren, the Israelites seem to have been set forward as a picture of all God’s people. As the foot of the altar was made of the looking glasses of the women, the polished brass of the mirrors being melted down, so it seems to me as if Israel was intended to be a looking-glass in which every one of us might look and see his own image…To what other nation did God give the oracles of His truth? What other tribes did He separate unto Himself to be a people in whose midst He would show forth His glory? What other nation did He bring forth out of the house of bondage with a high hand and a stretched out arm?

Yet with the Lord before their eyes they refused to see Him, and with all His wonders before them they refused to believe. You know, dear friends, that we are always particularly wounded by the unkindness of any to whom we have been specially attentive and generous. We complain, “It was not an enemy for then I could have borne it, but it was thou, a man, mine acquaintance, my friend.” Hard is it to be injured by a child for whom you have endured much self-denial, and to whom you have rendered tenderest love. “Sharper than an adder’s tooth is an unthankful child.” After this fashion Israel offended, and, speaking after the manner of men, the Lord felt it keenly, He was grieved at His heart, because His great goodness to them had been so basely misused. He cries, “O that they had hearkened unto Me,” and in another place, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear O earth, I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against Me.” Such is the language which Scripture puts into the mouth of the Lord, and yet He forgave His provoking people times without number-was He not indeed ready to pardon?

Lord, when we provoke Thee in this way be pleased to show Thyself a God ready to pardon. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1272.cfm

Our Pardoning, Merciful God

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

…but Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness… – Nehemiah 9:17

Brethren, if we search ourselves through and through, we cannot find anything in our fallen nature which can recommend us to the Most High. If we think that we have a claim upon God’s goodness, we are in darkness, and deceive ourselves. When the true light comes, it reveals our bareness of all merit or excuse, and shows that there is nothing in human nature but that which provokes the Lord. This is the fact as to our condition while we are unregenerate, and oftentimes the true believer, when darkness gathers around him, finds himself to be in much the same condition. His evidences burn dimly, the candle of the Lord seems quenched within his spirit, and, worst of all, the sun of divine favor is not discernible; then groping all around he can discover nothing in himself but that which causes him to sigh and groan, being burdened. In such a plight he should cast overboard the great anchor of faith, and escape from himself to his God. It were well for him always to do so, but especially in the cloudy and dark day. To whom should he turn for light but to the Sun of Righteousness? Where look for grace but to the God of all grace? Where for all but to the All in all? If what I am makes me despair, let me consider what God in Christ is and I shall have hope.

That God is merciful becomes to sinners the first point upon which they can fix their hope: that the mercy of God endureth for ever affords to the saints a most blessed stronghold when inward sin assails the soul. But whence do we learn this supremely consoling truth? How do we know that God is merciful? I scarcely think we should have inferred from His works the readiness of God to show mercy…God Himself is ready, His own heart and hand all ready to bestow pardon upon the guilty ones who come before Him. There is forgiveness with Him that He may be feared. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1272.cfm