Christian Life

God’s Forbearance

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering..? – Romans 2:4

Forbearance comes in when men, having offended, God withholds the punishment that is due to them; when men, having been invited to mercy, have refused it, and yet God continues to stretch out His hands, and invite them to come to Him. Patient endurance of offenses and insults has been manifested by God to many of you, who now hear these words of warning. The Lord knows to whom I speak, and may He make you, also, know that I am speaking to you, even to you. Some men have gone back to the very sin of which for a while they repented; they have suffered for their folly but have turned again to it with suicidal determination. They are desperately set on their own ruin, and nothing can save them. The burnt child has run to the fire again; the singed moth has plunged again into the flame of the candle; who can pity such self-inflicted miseries? They are given over to perdition, for they will not be warned. They have returned to the haunt of vice, though they seemed to have been snatched from the deep ditch of its filthiness. They have wantonly and wilfully returned to their cups, though the poison of former draughts is yet burning in their veins. Yet, despite this folly, God shows forbearance towards them.

Did you ever think what is included in the riches of forbearance. There are quick tempered individuals who only need to be a little provoked, and hard words and blows come quick and furious: but, oh, the forbearance of God when He is provoked to His face by ungodly men! By men, I mean, who hear His word, and yet refuse it! They slight His love, and yet He perseveres in it. Justice lays its hand on the sword, but mercy holds it back in its scabbard. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1714.cfm

It is a Wonder of Wonders

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

Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering..? – Romans 2:4

O impenitent man, you are placed in the very focus of Christian light, and yet you follow evil! Will you not think of this? Time was when a man would have to work for years to earn enough money to buy a Bible. There were times when he could not have earned one even with that toil; now the Word of God lies upon your table, you have a copy of it in almost every room of your house; is not this a boon from God? This is the land of the open Bible, and the land of the preached Word of God; in this you prove the riches of God’s goodness. Do you despise this wealth of mercy? What is more, you have been favoured with a tender conscience. When you do wrong you know it, and smart for it. What means those wakeful nights after you have yielded to a temptation? What means that miserable feeling of shame? that fever of unrest? You find it hard to stifle the inward monitor, and difficult to resist the Spirit of God. Your road to perdition is made peculiarly hard; do you mean to follow it at all costs, and go over hedge and ditch to hell?

Be it never forgotten that sin is to God much more intolerable than it is to us. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Things which we call little sins are great and grievous evils to Him: they do, as it were, touch the apple of His eye. “Oh, do not,” He says, “do not this abominable thing that I hate!” His Spirit is grieved and vexed with every idle word and every sensual thought; and hence it is a wonder of wonders that a God so sensitive of sin, a God so able to avenge Himself of His adversaries, a God who knows the abundance of human evil, and marks it all, should nevertheless exhibit riches of goodness and forbearance and longsuffering. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1714.cfm

God’s Multiplied Mercies Upon the Ungodly

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? – Romans 2:4

Let me speak this morning to thee, O unregenerate, impenitent man: Men may be without the fear of God, and yet, for all that, God may be pleased to prosper their endeavours in business…He allows them to enjoy good health, vigour of mind, and strength of constitution: they are happy in the wife of their youth, and their children are about them. Theirs is an envied lot…I know that it is thus with many who do not love God and have never yielded to the entreaties of His grace. They love not the hand which enriches them, they praise not the Lord who daily loadeth them with benefits. How is it that men can receive such kindness, and yield no return? O sirs, you are to-day blessed with all that need requires; but I pray you remember that you might have been in the depths of poverty. An illness would have lost you your situation; or a slight turn in trade would have left you bankrupt. You are well to-day; but you might have been tossing to and fro upon a bed of sickness; you might have been in the hospital, about to lose a limb. Shall not God be praised for health and freedom from pain? You might have been shut up in yonder asylum, in the agonies of madness. A thousand ills have been kept from you; you have been exceedingly favoured by the goodness of the Most High. Is it not so? And truly it is a wonderful thing that God should give His bread to those that lift up their heel against Him, that He should cause His light to shine upon those who never perceive His goodness therein, that He should multiply His mercies upon ungodly men who only multiply their rebellions against Him and turn the gifts of His love into instruments of transgression…I wonder that the Lord does not sweep away the moral nuisance of a guilty race from off the face of earth. Man’s sin must have been terribly offensive to God from day to day, and yet still He shows kindness, love, forbearance. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1714.cfm

A Hypocrite’s Judgement

Sherry Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

“Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”- Romans 2:4

Observe that the apostle singled out an individual (Romans 2:1) who had condemned others for transgressions, in which he himself indulged. This man owned so much spiritual light that he knew right from wrong, and he diligently used his knowledge to judge others, condemning them for their transgressions. As for himself, he preferred the shade, where no fierce light might beat on his own conscience and disturb his unholy peace. His judgment was spared the pain of dealing with his home offenses by being set to work upon the faults of others. He had a candle, but he did not place it on the table to light his own room; he held it out at the front door to inspect therewith his neighbours who passed by. Paul looks this man in the face and says… “Thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?” Well did the apostle aim that piercing arrow; it hits the center of the target and strikes a folly common to mankind.

The punishment which is due to sin the guilty reckon to be surely impending upon others, but they scarce believe that it can ever fall upon themselves. A personal doom for themselves is an idea which they will not harbour: if the dread thought should light upon them they shake it off as men shake snow-flakes from their cloaks…Do men indeed believe that they alone shall go unpunished? No man will subscribe to that notion when it is written down in black and white, and yet the mass of men lives as if this were true; I mean the mass of men who have sufficient light to condemn sin in others. They start back from the fact of their own personal guiltiness and condemnation and go on in their ungodliness as if there were no great white throne for them, no last assize, no judge, no word of condemnation, and no hell of wrath. Alas, poor madmen, thus to dream! O Spirit of Truth save them from this fatal infatuation. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1714.cfm

The Blood Heat of Christ’s Love

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

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh… – Romans 9:1-3

I wish all felt it, but there are generally some in every church who will never warm up to the right point. If we could once get the whole Church up to blood heat, we might be content. I never want you to get to fever heat, but to blood heat—the heat of the blood of Christ—to love as He loved! Oh, to get there and to stay there! Well, what would be the result, if we all felt as Paul did? The first effect would be likeness to Christ! After that manner He loved—He did become a curse for us! He entered under the awful shadow of Jehovah’s wrath for us. He did what Paul could wish but could not do. He passed under the awful sword that we might be delivered from its edge forever!

Brethren, I want you to feel that you would pass under poverty if you could save souls better by being poor! That you would gladly endure sickness if from your sick bed you could speak better for Christ than now! Yes, and that you would be ready to die if your death might give life to those dear to you! …Oh, to be willing to die if others may be saved from the eternal death! God give us just such a spirit as that! This should be our constant feeling—how else can we become like Christ? …When the Spirit of God has brought you to it, you will pray day and night for those whom you love! As you go down the road, something will suggest your praying for them. The very oaths and blasphemies so common in our streets will make you pray for sinners. A gracious meeting where some are saved will move you to prayer. A thousand things will lead you to pray, and that prayer will lead you to effort—to proper and fitting effort. It is wonderful how a man can talk to souls when he loves them! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm

Our Deep Love for the Lost Souls

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

I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. – Romans 9:2

Our concern for souls must be worked in us by the Holy Spirit. It must come irresistibly upon us and become a master passion. Just as the birds, when the eggs are in the nest, have upon them a natural feeling that they must sit on those eggs and that they must feed those little fledglings which will come from the eggs—so if God calls you to win souls, you will have a natural love for them, a longing worked in you by the Holy Spirit so that the whole of your being will run out in that direction, seeking the salvation of men. The Apostle goes on to say that he had great heaviness—not only heaviness, but great heaviness. Was he, therefore, an unhappy man? By no means! He had great joy in other things, though he had great heaviness on this point…Whenever Paul’s thoughts turned towards his Jewish brethren, a great heaviness came upon him. It bore him down and he would have sunk under it if it had not been for sustaining grace. “O God,” he said, “shall my nation perish? Shall my people die? Shall my kinsmen be anathema? Shall it come to this, that they shall hear the Gospel in vain and perish, after all?” …He thought of his brethren and their unbelief—and then he thought of how they had been the enemies of Christ and, therefore, sorrow filled his heart. I could wish that in full many a professor the same sorrow reigned, for then there would be much more holy work done for souls! …Let other men’s sins grieve you! Let their eternal destiny be often on your mind! No better spur can be needed. You will labor for their good in proportion as you feel for them. I do not think that I can ask a better thing for the unconverted than that the converted may be in heaviness over them! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm

Mourning Over Sinners

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

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. – Romans 9:1,2

There was no sham about it. It is pretty easy to work yourself up into a state of feeling, but it was not passing emotion with Paul, it was deep, true, constant grief. He says, “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit.” He did not fancy that he felt, but he really was heart-broken for guilty souls. He did not sometimes get up into that condition or down into it, but he lived in it. “I lie not,” he says, “I do not speak more than the truth. I do not exaggerate.” For fear he should not be believed he asserts as strongly as is allowed to a Christian man— “I say the truth in Christ. I lie not.” His was true heaviness, real sorrow…Paul’s feeling was very gracious. It was not an animal feeling, or a natural feeling—it was a gracious feeling, for He says, “I say the truth in Christ.” When he was nearest to his Lord. When he felt most his union with Christ and communion with Him, then he felt that he did mourn over men’s souls.

It was truth in Christ that he was expressing because he was one with Christ! He had a love for sinners because his very soul was knit to Christ. He had a heaviness such as his Master knew when He, also, was very heavy and sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane, in the day of His passion. O Beloved, we need the Spirit of God to work this feeling in us! It is of no use to try to get it by reading books, or to pump yourself up to it in private—this feeling is the work of God! A soul-winner is a creation. As a Christian has to be created, so out of a Christian the soul-winner has to be fashioned. There has to be a careful preparation, a softening of the soul to make the worker know how naturally to care for the welfare of others. Paul had been trained and qualified for soul-saving work. He says that his conscience bore him witness that he spoke the truth and then he says the Holy Spirit bore witness with his conscience. May we have such a manifest love for sinners that we can ask the Holy Spirit to bear witness that we have it! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm