Christian Life

Love Beyond an Angel’s Dream

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

What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him? – Hebrews 2:6

Ah! friends, we might have been blotted out of existence, and I do not know that there would have been any lack in God’s universe if the whole race of man had disappeared. That universe is too wide and great to miss such chirping grasshoppers as we are. When one star is blotted out it may make a little difference to our midnight sky, but to an eye that sees immensity it can make no change. Know ye not that this little solar system, which we think so vast, and those distant fixed stars, and yon mighty masses of nebulae, if such they be, and yonder streaming comet, with its stupendous walk of grandeur-all these are only like a little corner in the field of God’s great works? He taketh them all up as nothing, and considereth them mighty as they be, and beyond all human conception great-to be but the small dust of the balance which does not turn the scale; and if they were all gone to-morrow there would be no more loss than as if a few grains of dust were thrown to the summer’s wind.

But God Himself must stoop, rather than we should die. Oh! what magnificence of love! And the more so because there was no need for it. In the course of nature God would have been as holy and as heavenly without us as He is with us, and the pomp of yonder skies would have been as illustrious had we been dashed into the flames of hell as it will be now. God hath gained nought, except the manifestation of a love beyond an angel’s dream; a grace, the heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths of which surpass all knowledge of all creatures. God only knows the love of God which is manifested in Jesus Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3513.cfm

Unpurchaseable

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

Remember the words of Scripture,

Scarcely for a righteous man will one die; peradventure, for a good, a generous man, one might even dare to die; but God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. -Romans 5:7-8

He gave Himself. We cannot purchase the love of God. This highest expression of divine love, the gift of His own Son, was, in the nature of things, unpurchaseable. What could we have offered that God should come into this world, and be found in fashion as a man, and should die? Why, the works of all the angels in heaven put together could not have deserved one pang from Christ. If for ever the angels had continued their ceaseless songs, and if all men had remained faithful, and could have heaped up their pile of merit to add to that of the angels, and if all the creatures that ever were, or ever shall be, could each bring in their golden hemp of merit-yet could they ever deserve His cross? Could they deserve that the Son of God should hang bleeding and dying there? Impossible! It must be a gift, for it was utterly unpurchaseable; though all worlds were coined and minted, yet could they not have purchased a tear from the Redeemer; they were not worth it. It must be grace; it cannot be merit; He gave Himself.

And the gift is so thoroughly a gift that no prep of any kind was brought to bear upon the Saviour. There was no necessity that He should die, except the necessity of His loving us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3513.cfm

He Gave Himself for Us

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

…the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave Himself for us… -Titus 2:13-14

Who is this that is spoken of? and the text gives the answer. It is “the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us.” We had offended God; the dignity of divine justice demanded that offenses against so good and just a law as that which God had promulgated should not be allowed to go unpunished. But the attribute of justice is not the only one in the heart of God. God is love, and is, therefore, full Of mercy. Yet, nevertheless, He never permits one quality of His Godhead to triumph over another. He could not be too merciful, and so become unjust; He would not permit mercy to put justice to an eclipse. The difficulty was solved thus: God Himself stooped from His loftiness and veiled His glory in a garb of our inferior clay. The Word-that same Word without whom was not anything made that was made-became flesh, and dwelt amongst us; and His apostles, His friends, and His enemies, beheld Him-the seed of the woman, but yet the Son of God, very God of very God, in all the majesty of deity, and yet man of the substance of His mother in all the weakness of our humanity, sin being the only thing which separated us from Him, He being without sin, and we being full of it. It is, then, God, who “gave Himself for us”; it is, then, man, who gave Himself for us. It is Jesus Christ, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God; who made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and, being found in fashion as a man, humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. It is Christ Jesus, the man, the God, “who gave Himself for us.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3513.cfm

The Soul is Precious

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

For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver or gold that you have been ransomed from the worthless way of life handed down to you by your ancestors -1Peter 1:18

You may tell how serious it is to lose the soul, from its intrinsic value. The soul is a thing worth ten thousand worlds; in fact, a thing which worlds on worlds heaped together, like sand upon the sea shore, could not buy. It is more precious than if the ocean had each drop of itself turned into a golden globe, for all that wealth could not buy a soul. Consider! The soul is made in the image of its Maker; “God made man,” it is said, “in His own image.” The soul is an everlasting thing like God; God has gifted it with immortality; and hence it is precious. To lose it, then, how fearful! Consider how precious a soul must be, when both God and the devil are after it. You never heard that the devil was after a kingdom, did you? No, he is not so foolish; he knows it would not be worth his winning; he is never after that; but he is always after souls. You never heard that God was seeking after a crown, did you! No, He thinketh little of dominions; but He is after souls every day; His Holy Spirit is seeking His children; and Christ came to save souls. Do you think that which hell craves for, and that which God seeks for, is not precious?

The soul is precious again, we know, by the price Christ paid for it. “Not with silver and gold,” but with His own flesh and blood did He redeem it. Ah! it must be precious, if He gave His heart’s core to purchase it. What must it be to lose your soul?..Oh! sirs, because the soul is capable of heaven, its loss is a dreadful and terrific thing. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0092.cfm

The Impartial Sentence

Sherry Christian Life 3 Comments

Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? – Mark 8:37

What shall it profit a man, if he lose this present world, and the next too? What shall it profit a man, if he gain but a small portion of this world-and this is the most that we may expect-and yet loses his soul? I have sometimes thought, with regard to the rich man, “Well, such a man has a portion in this life; but with regard to the poor man, I cannot see what there is to make him happy if he has not something better to look to when he dies.” I have seen the weary horny-handed sons of toil, often oppressed and down trodden as they are by their masters, and I have thought, “Oh! poor souls, if you cannot look to another world, you are of all men most miserable; for you do not get either world; you go fagging along, just like a pack-horse, without the hope of a secure place in which you may rest at last.” The rich man, at least, makes as much as can be made of this world, little as that is, apart from grace; but the poor man makes the least of this world, and then he goes from poverty to damnation, from his squalor to perdition, and from his poorhouse and his rags to the flames of hell. What a horrid state to have such an existence; to live in this world a life of misery, and to find a starving existence to be only the preface and the prelude of a more doleful and fearful life hereafter. Oh, what shall it profit you, if you gain a little of this world, and lose your own soul?

If Christ hath saved us, we shall be saved; but if we are out of Christ, great and mighty may we be, but the sentence shall be as impartial to the rich as to the poor.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0092.cfm

He is a Fool Who Grills a Pound of Butter

Sherry Christian Life 4 Comments

Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. -Ecclesiastes 2:11

There was no profit under the sun.Solomon’s treasures were not so much those of wealth or power, (though he had both,) as the treasures of wisdom and the pleasures of the body. Solomon had all things that could delight the mind, please the eye, and charm the body; he had but to speak, and music chanted the sweetest air that Israel’s psalmody could give; he had but to lift his finger, and noble armies followed him, and treasures were spread beneath his feet. The wines of every vintage were quaffed from his bowl, and maidens gathered from every clime awaited his command; he was master over men-he was lord…he was a wise man: he knew where to search for earth’s happiness, and he found it. Solomon, what didst thou find? O! thou preacher, open thy lips, and tell us. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity;” thus saith the preacher. Oh! my friends, if we could have all the pleasures of the flesh we desire, I question whether they would be, in themselves, a profit; but of this I am certain, that compared with the loss of our soul, it would, indeed, be a dreadful loss. I think that if many of us could indulge all the pleasure of the body we desire, we should destroy our bodies, and actually waste our happiness. Many a man has hunted his pleasures too fast to win them; many a racer has lost the prize by overstraining in the contest; and many a man might have had more pleasure, even to the body, if he had been more moderate in seeking it. He is a fool who grills a pound of butter; the rake does that; he grills himself away by too fast pleasures, and wastes his life till it is gone, and there is nothing left of it. Ah! if ye could have all the world of sensual delights, and if ye had all the wisdom of men, apart from the grace of God to restrain your pleasures, I believe you would find it then to be a dead loss…”It would not profit you if you had the whole world, and should lose your own soul.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0092.cfm

Ask Croesus

Sherry Christian Life 4 Comments

And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity. -Ecclesiastes 2:19

There is another way of gaining the whole world, not so much by power, but by something next door to it, namely-riches. Croesus shall be my specimen here. He amassed a world of riches, for his wealth was beyond estimation. As for his gold and his silver, he kept little account of them, and his precious stones were without number. He was rich, immensely rich; he could buy an empire, and after that, could spend another empire’s worth. Perhaps you think that to be immensely rich is a great gain; but I believe that to be enormously rich is in itself far from desirable. Ask Croesus. Dying, he exclaimed, “O! Solon, Solon.” And when they asked him what he meant, he replied, that Solon had once told him that no man could be pronounced happy until death; and, therefore, he cried “O! Solon, Solon,” for the misery of his death had swept away the joys of his life. Such is the slavery of great riches; such are its anxieties; and such, too often, is that miserly avarice which wealth doth beget, that the rich man is often a loser by his wealth, even apart from the loss of his soul. Many a man would be happier if he had walked the pavement in rags, than if he rode through the streets in his chariot. “Many a heavy heart rides in a carriage,” is an old saying, but a marvelously true one. Well said the poet,

“If thou art rich, thou art poor;
For like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee.”

Agur was right, when he said, “Give me neither poverty nor riches.” Great wealth is certainly no great gain.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0092.cfm