promises

Here It Is Ye Learn Love

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

“He laid down His life for us” – 1 John 3:16

Pause at the remembrance of thy convictions; think of thy conversion; recollect thy preservation, and how God’s grace hath been working upon thee, in adoption, in justification, and in every item of the new covenant; and when thou hast summed up all these things, let me ask thee this question: Do all these things produce in thee such a sense of gratitude as the one thing that I shall mention now, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? For, my brother, if thy mind is like mine, although thou wilt think highly enough of all these things that God hath given thee, thou wilt be obliged to confess that the thought of the death of Christ upon the cross swallows them all up. This I know, my brethren, I may look back, I may look forward, but whether I look back to the decrees of eternity, or look forward to the pearl-gated city, and all the splendours that God has prepared for His own beloved children, I can never see my Father’s love so beaming forth, in all its effulgence, as when I look at the cross of Christ, and see Him die thereon. I can read the love of God in the rocky letters of the eternal covenant, and in the blazing letters of heaven hereafter; but, my brethren, in those crimson lines, those lines written in blood, there is something more striking than there is anywhere else, for they say, “He laid down His life for us” Ah, here it is ye learn love. You know the old story of Damon and Pythias, how the two friends struggled together as to which should die for the other; there was love there. But, ah! there is no comparison between Damon and Pythias, and a poor sinner and his Saviour. Christ laid down His life, His glorious life, for a poor worm; He stripped Himself of all His splendours, then of all His happiness, then of His own righteousness, then of His own robes, till He was naked to His own shame; and then He laid down His life, that was all He had left, for our Saviour had not kept anything back.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

How Great is His Love

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

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God…because He laid down His life for us – 1 John 3:1, 16

Did the Saviour lay down His life for me? We will read it now, “He laid down His life for me;” and I pray the Lord to help each of you, by faith, to read it so, because, when we say “us”, that is dealing in generalities- blessed generalities it is true -but let us, at this time, deal in specialities, and say, each one of us who can do so truthfully, “He laid down His life for me.” Then, HOW GREATLY HE MUST HAVE LOVED ME!

Ah, Lord Jesus! I never knew Thy love till I understood the meaning of Thy death. Beloved, we shall try again, if we can, to tell the story of our own experience, to let you see how God’s love is to be learned. Come, saint, sit down, and meditate on thy creation, note how marvellously thou hast been formed, and all thy bones fitted to one another, and see love there. Mark, next, that predestination which placed thee where thou art; for the lines have fallen unto thee in pleasant places, and, notwithstanding all thy troubles, thou hast, compared with many a poor soul, “a goodly heritage.” Mark, then, the love of God displayed in the predestination that has made thee what thou art, and placed thee where thou art. Then look thou back, and see the lovingkindness of thy Lord, as displayed to thee in all thy journey up till now. Thou art getting old, and thy hair is whitening above thy brow; but He hath carried thee all the days of old; not one good thing hath failed of all that the Lord thy God hath promised. Recall thy life-story. Go back now, and look at the tapestry of thy life, which God has been working every day with the golden filament of His love, and see what pictures of grace there are upon it. Canst thou not say that Jesus has loved thee? Turn thine eye back, and read the ancient rolls of the everlasting covenant, and see thy name amongst the firstborn, the elect, the Church of the living God. Say, did He not love thee when He wrote thy name there? Go and remember how the eternal settlements were made, and how God decreed and arranged all things so that thy salvation should come to pass. Say, was there not love there?~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

“Man, behold thy Saviour!”

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

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us. – 1 John 3:16

O heir of heaven, lift now thine eye, and behold the scenes of suffering through which thy Lord passed for thy sake! Come in the moonlight, and stand between those olives; see Him sweat great drops of blood. Go from that garden, and follow Him to Pilate’s bar. See your Master subjected to the grossest and filthiest insult; gaze upon the face of spotless beauty defiled with the spittle of soldiers; see His head pierced with thorns; mark His back, all rent, and torn, and scarred, and bruised, and bleeding beneath the terrible lash. And O Christian, see Him die! Go and stand where His mother stood, and hear Him say to thee, “Man, behold thy Saviour!” Come thou, and stand where John stood; hear Him cry, “I thirst,” and find thyself unable either to assuage His griefs or to comprehend their bitterness. Then, when thou hast wept there, lift thine hand, and cry, “Revenge!” Bring out the traitors; where are they? And when your sins are brought forth as the murderers of Christ, let no death be too painful for them; though it should involve the cutting off of right arms, or the quenching of right eyes, and putting out their light for ever; do it! For if these murderers murdered Christ, then let them die. Die terribly they may, but die they must. Oh! that God the Holy Ghost would teach you that first lesson, my brethren, the boundless wickedness of sin, for Christ had to lay down His life before your sin could be wiped away.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

He Took the Sinner’s Sin Upon Himself

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 7 Comments

For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

I thought surely I had seen the worst of sin, when I had laid it side by side, first with the character of God, and afterwards with His bounties. I cursed sin from my inmost heart and thought I had seen enough of it. But, ah! my brethren, I had not. That sense of gratitude passed away, and I found myself still prone to sin, and still loving it. But, oh, there came a thrice-happy, yet thrice-mournful hour! One day, in my wanderings, I heard a cry, a groan; me thought ’twas not a cry such as came from mortal lip, it had in it such unutterable depths of wondrous woe. I turned aside, expecting to see some great sight; and it was indeed a great sight that I saw. Lo, there, upon a tree, all bleeding, hung a man. I marked the misery that made His flesh all quiver on His bones; I beheld the dark clouds come rolling down from heaven, like the chariots of misery; I saw them clothe His brow with blackness; I saw even in the thick darkness, for mine eyes were opened, and I perceived that His heart was as full of the gloom and horror of grief as the sky was full of blackness. Then I seemed to look into His soul, and I saw there torrents of unutterable anguish, wells of torment of such an awful character that mortal lip dare not sip, lest it should be burned with scalding heat. I said, “Who is this mighty sufferer? Why doth He suffer thus? Hath He been the greatest of all sinners, the basest of all blasphemers?” But a voice came forth from the excellent glory, and it said, “This is My beloved Son; but He took the sinner’s sin upon Himself, and He must bear its penalty.” O God! I thought, I never saw sin till that hour, when I saw it tear Christ’s glories from His head, when it seemed for a moment even to withdraw the lovingkindness of God from Him, when I saw Him covered with His own blood, and plunged into the uttermost depths of oceans of grief. Then I said, “Now shall I know what Thou art, O sin, as never before I knew it!” Never, till I saw the Saviour on the tree, did I understand how base a traitor man’s guilt was to man’s God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

This Man, This God

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

“Hereby perceive we the love of God.” – 1John 3:16

It will be well for me, in commencing my discourse, to remind you that there is no understanding the death of Christ unless we understand the person of Christ. If I were to tell you that God died for us, although I might be telling you a truth, and you might possibly not misunderstand what I meant, yet I should be at the same time uttering an error. God cannot die; it is, of course, impossible, from His very nature, that He could even for a moment cease to exist. God is incapable of suffering. It is true that we sometimes use words to express emotions on the part of God; but, then, we speak after the manner of men. He is impassive; He cannot suffer; it is not possible for Him to endure aught; much less, then, is it possible for Him to suffer death…We must always understand, and constantly remember, that our Lord Jesus Christ was “very God of very God,” and that, as God, He had all the attributes of the Most High, and could not, therefore, be capable either of suffering or death. But then He was also man, “man of the substance of His mother,” man, just like ourselves, sin alone excepted. And the Lord Jesus died not as God; it was as man that He gave up the ghost; as man, He was nailed to the cross. As God, He was in heaven, even when His body was in the tomb; as God, He was swaying the sceptre of all worlds even when the mock sceptre of reed was in His hand, and the imperial robe of universal monarchy was on the eternal shoulders of His Godhead when the soldier’s old purple cloak was wrapped about His manhood. He did not cease to be God, He did not lose His Omnipotence, and His eternal dominion, when He became man; nor did He, as God, die or suffer; it was as man that He “laid down His life for us.”

Come, now, my soul, and worship this man, this God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

Contemplate This Sublime Truth

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

“He laid down His life for us.”- 1John 3:16

Come, believer, and contemplate this sublime truth, thus proclaimed to thee in simple monosyllables: “He laid down His life for us.” There is not one long word in the sentence; it is all as simple as it can be; and it is simple because it is sublime. Sublimity in thought always needs simplicity in words to express itself. Little thoughts require great words to explain them; little preachers need Latin words to convey their feeble ideas, but great thoughts and great expressers of those thoughts are content with little words.

“He laid down His life for us.” Here there is not much upon which any man can display his eloquence; here is little room for metaphysical discussion or for deep thought; the text sets before us a simple yet sublime doctrine. What, then, shall I do with it? If I would speak of it profitably to myself, since I need not employ my wit to dissect it, nor my oratory to proclaim it, let me exercise my adoration to worship it; let me prostrate all my powers before the throne, and, like an angel when his work is done, and he has nowhere else to fly at his Lord’s command, let me fold the wings of my contemplation, and stand before the throne of this great truth, and meekly bow myself, and worship Him that was, and is, and is to come, the great and glorious One who “laid down His life for us.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm

The God of Lust Pulled Down

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance 1 Comment

Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars… – 2 Chronicles 31:1

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. – Matthew 5:28

Let me tell you of another god, which is to be pulled down as certainly by any man who worships Jehovah aright, and that is the god of lust; Oh! this world is not so good as it seems to be. You scarcely hear the minister in these days talk of whoremongers, adulterers, and such like: but they are not all dead. There are such to be found, such in every congregation, I fear. Our streets have not yet become such as Chastity might pace at midnight, nor are the chief places of the earth become clean and purified. There is much hidden pollution to be dragged forth, and cast into Kishon. Even in high places, sin is tolerated, men are respectable who have sent their fellow-creatures to hell, and are going there themselves; but once let grace come into the heart, and away with these: the most darling lust is given up, and that which was thought to be the greatest pleasure, is now looked upon with abhorence and detestation. If thou, my hearer, livest in lust, and yet dost make profession of religion, away with thy profession, for it is an awful lie. Away with that profession, for it is an empty vanity! away with it! It will but add to thy destruction, and cannot save thee from the dreadful doom of the man that goeth on in his iniquity. A happy thing it is for a man when he goes from the house of God, with the resolve that lust shall be abandoned, and every sinful pleasure cast away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0238.cfm