Love Beyond an Angel’s Dream

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

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

…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

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

Our Numbered Days

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. -Psalm 90:12

Listen for one moment to the ticking of that clock!…It is the beating of the pulse of eternity. You hear the ticking of that clock!-it is the footstep of death pursuing you. Each time the clock ticks, death’s footsteps are falling on the ground close behind you. You will soon enter another year. This year will have gone in a few seconds…where will the next year be spent, my friends? One has been spent on earth; where will you spend the next? “In heaven!” says one, “I trust.” Another murmurs, “Perhaps I shall spend mine in hell!” Ah! solemn is the thought, but before that clock strikes 12, some here may be in hell; and blessed be the name of God! some of us may be in heaven! But O, do you know how to estimate your time, my hearers? do you know how to measure your days? Oh! I have not words to speak to-night. Do you know that every hour you are nearing the tomb? that every hour you are nearing judgment?…Do you know where the stream of life is hastening some of you? To the rapids-to the rapids of woe and destruction! What shall the end of those be who obey not the gospel of God?…O take care! take care! time is precious! and whenever we have little of it, it is more precious; yea, it is most precious. May God help you to escape from hell and fly to heaven! I feel like the angel, to-night, who put his hand upon Lot, and cried-“Escape! look not behind thee! stay not in all the plain; flee to the mountain, lest thou be consumed!”

“Ye virgin souls, arise!
With all the dead awake;
Unto salvation wise;
Oil in your vessels take:
Upstarting at the midnight cry,
Behold Your heavenly bridegroom nigh.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0059.cfm

Seek to Know Him

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. _ John 17:3

Should a man despise the wine of which he has never sipped. It may be sweeter than he dreams. Oh! taste and see that the Lord is good, and so sure as ever you taste, you will see His goodness. I will venture to say, again, that there are many who make light of the gospel, simply through ignorance; and if that is so, I am somewhat in hopes that when they are a little enlightened by sitting under the Word, the Lord may be pleased graciously to bring them to Himself; and then I know they will never make light of Christ again. Oh! do not be ignorant, “for that the soul be without knowledge is not good.” Seek to know Him whom to know aright is life eternal; and when you know Him you will never make light of Him.

In America, it is said, they worship the almighty dollar; I believe that in London many men worship the almighty sovereign; they have the greatest possible respect for an almighty bank note; that is the god which many men are always adoring. The prayer-book they carry so religiously in their hands is their cash-book…. it is the height of folly, the very climax of absurdity, excelling all that the fool, with his cap and bells, ever did, to be living just to gather up the pelf of this world, and not for things to come. Worldliness is a demon that hath wrung the neck of many souls; God grant that we may not perish through our worldliness!! C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0098.cfm

Making Light of the King’s Only Son

But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. – Matthew 22:7

Ah! sinner, when thou makest light of the gospel, thou makest light of Christ-of that Christ before whom glorious cherubs bow themselves-of that Christ at whose feet the high archangel thinks it happiness to cast his crown; thou makest light of Him with whose praise the vault of heaven rings; thou makest light of Him whom God makes much of, for He has called Him, “God over all, blessed for ever.” Ah! it is a solemn thing to make light of Christ. Despise a prince, and ye shall have little honour at the king’s hand for it; but despise the Son of God, and the Father will have vengeance on you for His slighted Son. Oh! my dear friends, it seems to me to be a sin, not unpardonable, I know, but still most heinous, that men should ever despise my blessed Lord Jesus Christ and treat Him with cruel scorn. Make light of Thee, sweet Jesus! Oh! when I see Thee with Thy shirt of gore, wrestling in Gethsemane, I bow myself o’er Thee, and I say, “O, Redeemer, bleeding for sin, can any sinner make light of Thee?” When I behold Him with a river of blood rolling down His shoulder, beneath the cursed flagellation of Pilate’s whip, I ask, “Can a sinner make light of such a Saviour as this?” And when I see Him yonder, covered with His blood, nailed to a tree, expiring in torture, shrieking, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” I ask myself, “Can any make light of this?” Ay, if they do, then, indeed, it were sin enough to damn them, if they have no other sin-that they have lightly esteemed the Prince of Peace, who is glorious and altogether lovely. Oh! my friend, if thou makest light of Christ, thou hast insulted the only One who can save thee-the only One who can bear thee across the Jordan-the only One who can unbolt the gates of heaven and give thee welcome. O, sinner, think of thy sin, if thou art making light of Him, for then art thou making light of the King’s only Son.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0098.cfm