For the Sake of His Honor

Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed; can He give bread also? can He provide flesh for His people? – Psalm 78:20

Let me remind you that the Lord will not and cannot leave His people, because of His relationship to them. He is your Father; will your Father leave you? Has He not said-“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” Would you, being evil, leave your child to perish? Never, never! Remember, Christ is your husband. Would you, a husband, neglect your wife? Is it not a shame to a man, unless he nourisheth and cherisheth her even as his own body, and will Christ become one of these ill husbands? Hath He not said-“I hate putting away,” and will He ever put thee away? Remember, thou art part of His body. No man yet ever hated his own flesh. Thou mayest be but as a little finger, but will He leave His finger to rot, to perish, to starve? Thou mayest be the least honorable of all the members, but is it not written that upon these He bestoweth abundant honor, and so our uncomely parts have abundant comeliness? If He be father, if He be husband, if He be head, if He be all-in-all, how can He leave thee? Think not so hardly of thy God.

Then,  His honor binds Him never to forsake thee. When we see a house half-built and left in ruins, we say, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.” Shall this be said of thy God, that He began to save thee and could not bring thee to perfection? Is it possible that He will break His word, and so stain His truth? Shall men be able to cast a slur upon His power, His wisdom, His love, His faithfulness? No! thank God, no! “I give,” saith He “unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” If thou shouldest perish, believer, hell would ring with diabolical laughter against the character of God; and if ever one whom Jesus undertook to save shouldest perish, then the demons of the pit would point the finger of scorn for ever against a defeated Christ, against a God that undertook but went not through. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0477.cfm

There is No Denial

…for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. – Hebrews 13:6

“When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.”- Isaiah 41:17

You may be brought to this state to-day. Your soul may need Christ, but you may not be able to find Him. You may feel that without the mercy which comes from the atoning blood you are lost. You may have gone to works and ceremonies, to prayings and doings, to alms-givings and to experiences, and have found them all dried wells, and now you can hardly pray, for your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth for thirst. Now in your worst condition, brought to the lowest state into which a creature ever can be cast, Christ will not forsake you, He will appear for your help.

When God opens a well for one man it is that all may drink. When the manna falls, it is not only for those in the wilderness, but we by faith do eat the manna still. No promise is of private interpretation. When God openeth a granary-door to give out food, there may be some one starving man who is the occasion of its being opened, but all the hungry besides may come and feed too. Whether He gave the word to Abraham or to Moses matters not; He has given it to thee as one of the covenanted seed. There is not a high blessing too lofty for thee; nor a wide mercy too extensive for thee. Lift up now thine eyes to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west, for all this is thine. Climb to Pisgah’s top, and view the utmost limit of the divine promise, for the land is all thine own. There is not a brook of living water of which thou mayest not drink. If the land floweth with milk and honey, eat the honey and drink the milk. The fattest of the kine, yea, and the sweetest of the wines, let all be thine, for there is no denial of any one of them to any saint… To put everything in one, there is nothing you can want, there is nothing you can ask for, there is nothing you can need in time or in eternity, there is nothing living, nothing dying, there is nothing in this world, nothing in the next world, there is nothing now, nothing at the resurrection-morning, nothing in heaven that is not contained in this text-“I will never leave thee; I will never forsake thee.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0477.cfm

“I will not leave thee”

“Behold, I am with thee and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”- Genesis 28:15

Here we have this promise in the case of a man of trials. More than either Abraham or Isaac, Jacob was the son of tribulation. He was now flying away from his father’s house, leaving the over-fondness of a mother’s attachment, abhorred by his elder brother, who sought his blood. He lies down to sleep, with a stone for his pillow, with the hedges for his curtains, with the earth for his bed, and the heavens for his canopy; and as he sleeps thus friendless, solitary, and alone, God saith to him “I will never, never leave thee.” Mark his after career: He is guided to Padan-aram; God, his guide, leaves him not. At Padan-aram Laban cheats him, wickedly and wrongfully cheats him in many ways; but God doth not leave him, and he is more than a match for the thievish Laban. He flees at last with his wives and children; Laban, in hot haste pursues him, but the Lord does not leave him; Mizpah’s Mount bears witness that God can stop the pursuer and change the foe into a friend. Esau comes against him; let Jabbok testify to Jacob’s wrestling, and through the power of Him who never did forsake His servant, Esau kisses his brother, whom once he thought to slay. Anon Jacob dwells in tents and booths at Succoth; he journeys up and down throughout the land, and his sons treacherously slay the Shechemites. Then the nations round about seek to avenge their death, but the Lord again interposes, and Jacob is delivered. Poor Jacob is bereaved of his sons. He cries-“Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and now ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me.” But they are not against him; God has not left him, for He has not yet done everything that He had spoken to him of. The old man goes into Egypt; his lips are refreshed while he kisses the cheeks of his favourite son, Joseph, and until the last, when he gathers up his feet in the bed and sings of that coming Shiloh and the scepter that should not depart from Judah, good old Jacob proves that in six troubles God is with His people, and in seven He doth not forsake them; that even to hoar hairs He is the same, and until old age He doth carry them. You Jacobs, full of affliction, you tried and troubled heirs of heaven, He hath said to you, each one of you-oh! believe Him! – “I will never leave thee; I will never forsake thee.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0477.cfm

God’s Will is the Glory of Saints

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. – Mark 6:10

Brethren, if God should leave us, mark the result: I picture to myself the very best state of one forsaken of God-it is uncertainty and chance. I would rather be an atom, which hath God with it, predestinating its track and forcing it onward according to His own will, than I would be an archangel left to my own choice, to do as I would and to act at I please, without the control of God; for an archangel, left without God, would soon miss his way, and fall to hell; or he would melt away, and drop and die; but the tiny atom, having God with it, would fulfill its predestinated course; it would be ever in a sure track, and throughout eternity would have as much potence in it as at its first creation. I cannot think why some people are so fond of free-will. I believe free-will is the delight of sinners, but that God’s will is the glory of saints. There is nothing I desire more to get rid of than my own will, and to be absorbed into the will and purpose of my Lord. To do according to the will of Him who is most good, most true, most wise, most mighty, seems to me to be heaven. Let others choose the dignity of independence, I crave the glory of being wholly dead in Christ, and only alive in Him.

…I know those who caricature Calvinism say we teach that let a man live as he likes, yet if God be with him, he will be safe at the last. We teach no such thing, and our adversaries know better. They know that our doctrines are invulnerable if they will state them correctly, and that the only way in which they can attack us is to slander us and to misrepresent what we teach. Nay, verily, we say not so, but we say that where God begins the good work, the man will never live as he likes, or if he does, he will like to live as God would have him live; that where God begins a good work He carries it on; that man is never forsaken of God, nor does he forsake God, but is kept even to the end. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0477.cfm

Terror Heaped on Terror! To Be Forsaken of God!

I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. – Hebrews 13:5

Every man who is eminently useful in the Church will know seasons when as the champion of Israel he must go forth alone. This, however, is compensated by stronger faith, and the moral grandeur of solitary heroism. But what must it be to be some poor wretch whose parents have long since been buried; who has lost his most distant relatives; who, passing along the street remembers the name of one who was once his father’s friend, knocks at the door, and is repulsed; recollects another-and this is his last hope-one he played with in his infancy-stands at that door asking for charity and is bidden to go his way, and paces the cold November streets while the rain is pouring down, feeling to his utter dismay that no friend breathes for him? Should he return to his own parish it would be like going to his own dungeon, and if he enters the workhouse no eye there will flash sympathy upon him!.. Our Lord and Master was brought to this state, and knew what it was to be forsaken, for He had no friends left. “He that eateth bread with Me hath lifted up his heel against Me.” “All the disciples forsook Him and fled.” Brethren, many saints have lost all their friends, but have bravely borne the trial, for turning their eye to heaven, they have felt that though without friends they were still befriended. They have heard the voice of Jesus say, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come unto you;” and, made strong by Divine friendship, they have felt that they were not utterly bereaved. But to be forsaken of God! Oh, may you and I never know it! To be without a friend in heaven; to look to that throne of glory and to see the blackness of darkness there; to turn to mercy and receive a frown; to fly to love and receive a rebuke; to turn to God and find that His ear is heavy that He will not hear, and His hand restrained that He will not help-oh! this is terror, terror heaped on terror, to be thus forsaken!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0477.cfm

Never, No Never Forsake

Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. – Hebrews 13:5

It seems from our text that “He hath said” is not only useful to chase away doubts, fears, difficulties, and devils, but that it also yieldeth nourishment to all our graces. You perceive that when the apostle would make us contented, he says, “Be content with such things as ye have, for He hath said;” and when he would make us bold and courageous, he puts it, “He hath said, therefore, we may boldly say, God is my helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me.” When the apostle would nourish faith, he does it by quoting from Scripture the examples of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses, of Gideon, of Barak, and of Jephthah. When he would nourish our patience, he says, “Ye remember the patience of Job;” or if it be our prayerfulness, he says, “Elias was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed and prevailed.” “He hath said” is food for every grace as well as death for every sin. Here you have nourishment for that which is good, and poison for that which is evil. Search ye, then, the Scriptures, for so shall ye grow healthy, strong, and vigorous in the divine life.

“The soul that on Jesus hath lean’d for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0477.cfm

Sweetened Waters

O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. – Psalm 34:8

We can recollect the sayings of great men; we treasure up the verses of renowned poets; ought we not to be profound in our knowledge of the words of God? The Scriptures should be the classics of a Christian, and as our orators quote Homer, or Virgil, or Horace, when they would clinch a point, so we should be able to quote the promises of God when we would solve a difficulty or overthrow a doubt. “He hath said,” is the foundation of all riches and the fountain of all comfort, let it dwell in you richly as “a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life.” And, oh, my brethren, how diligently should we test the Scriptures! Besides searching them by reading, and treasuring them by memory, we should test them by experience, and so often as a promise is proven to be true we should make a mark against it, and note that we also can say, as did one of old, “This is my comfort in my affliction: for Thy word hath quickened me.” “Wait on the Lord,” said Isaiah, and then he added “Wait, I say, on the Lord,” as if his own experience led him to echo the voice of God to his hearers. Test the promise, take God’s banknote to the counter, and mark if it be cashed. Grasp the lever, which He ordains to lift your trials, and try if it possesses real power. Cast this divine tree into the bitter waters of your Marah, and learn how it will sweeten them. Take this salt, and throw it into the turbid waters, and witness if they be not made sweet, as were the waters of old by the prophet Elisha. Taste and see that the Lord is good, for there is no want to them that fear Him.

“He hath said;” let us do the same, for, though the words of ministers may be sweet, the words of God are sweeter; and though original thoughts may have the novelty of freshness, yet the ancient words of God have the ring, and the weight, and the value of old and precious coins, and they shall not be found wanting in the day when we shall use them. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0477.cfm