promises

Creator of Peace

Sherry Attributes of God, promises 4 Comments

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. -Genesis 1:1

Go back in your imagination to the time when the majestic Father stepped from His solitude and commenced the work of creation. Picture to yourself the moment when He speaks the word and the first matter is formed. Before that time there had been neither space, nor time, nor aught existing, save Himself. He speaks and it is done, He commands and it stands fast…

God created no war. The evil angel brought it first. Left to his free will, he fell. The elect angels being confirmed by grace, stood fast and firm; but God was not the author of any war, or any strife. Satan of himself conceived the rebellion, but God was not the author of it. He may from all eternity have foreseen it, and it may even be said in some sense that He ordained it to manifest His justice and His glory, and to show His mercy and sovereignty in redeeming man; but God had no hand in it whatsoever. The Eternal abjures war; He was not the author of it. Satan led the van, that morning star who sang together with the rest, fell of himself, God was not the author of his confusion, but the author of eternal and blessed order…He is in no sense whatever the author of the present confusion in this world; that was brought about by our first parents through the temptation of the evil one. God did not create this world for strife. When He first fashioned it, peace, peace, peace, was the universal order of the day. May there come a time when peace once more shall be restored to this great earth, and tranquility to this world! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0049.cfm

The God of Peace

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

Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen -Romans 15:33

If you consider God in the trinity of His persons for a few moments, you will see that in each-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-the title is apt and correct, “the God of peace.” There is God the everlasting Father, He is the God of peace, for He from all eternity planned the great covenant of peace, whereby He might bring rebels nigh unto Him, and make strangers and foreigners fellow-heirs with the saints, and joint-heirs with His Son Christ Jesus.

So is Jesus Christ, the second person, the God of peace for “He is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.” He makes peace between God and man. His blood sprinkled on the fiery wrath of God turned it to love, or rather that which must have broken forth in wrath, though it was love for ever, was allowed to display itself in loving-kindness through the wondrous mediatorship of Jesus Christ; and He is the God of peace because He makes peace in the conscience and in the heart.

So is the Holy Ghost the God of peace. He of old brought peace, when chaotic matter was in confusion, by the brooding of His wings: He caused order to appear where once there was nothing but darkness and chaos. So in dark chaotic souls He is the God of peace…When by earthly cares we are tossed about, like the sea-bird, up and down, up and down, from the base of the wave to the billows’ crown, He says, “Peace be still.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0049.cfm

A Holy Strife

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, prayer, promises 5 Comments

Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen,”-Romans 15:33

Paul once advised the Romans to strive. Three verses before our text he actually gives them an exhortation to strive, and yet he here utters a prayer that the God of peace might be with them all. Lest you should think him to be a man of strife, you must read the verse. He says: “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.” That is a holy strife, and such a strife as that we wish always to see in the church, a strife in prayer, a surrounding the throne together, besieging God’s mercy seat, a crying out before God, until it actually amounts to a striving together in our prayers. There is also another kind of striving which is allowed in the church, and that is striving earnestly after the best gifts: a sweet contention which of us shall excel all others in love, in duty, and in faith. May God send us more strife of that kind in our churches, a strife in prayer, a strife in duty; and when we have mentioned these strifes we find them of so peaceable a kind that we come back to the benediction of our text: “Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.”

Mars amongst the heathens was called the god of war; Janus was worshipped in periods of strife and bloodshed; but our God Jehovah styles Himself not the God of war, but the God of peace…Peace is His delight; “peace on earth and goodwill towards men.” Peace in heaven (for that purpose He expelled the angels): peace throughout His entire universe, is His highest wish and His greatest delight.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0049.cfm

Extra Time in Prayer

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. -1 Corinthians 2:9

Ordinary closet prayer will only make ordinary Christians of us. It is in extraordinary seasons, when we are led by God to devote, say an hour, to earnest prayer; when we feel an impulse, we scarce know why, to cut off a portion of our time during the day to go alone. Then, beloved, we kneel down, and begin to pray in earnest. It may be that we are attacked by the devil; for when the enemy knows we are going to have a great blessing, he always makes a great noise to drive us away; but if we keep at it, we shall soon get into a quiet frame of mind, and hear him roaring at a distance. Presently you get hold of the Angel, and say, “Lord, I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.” He asks your name. You begin to tell him what your name was:

“Once a sinner, near despair,
Sought Thy mercy-seat by prayer;
Mercy heard and set him free;
Lord, that mercy came to me.”

You say, “What is Thy name, Lord?” He will not tell you. You hold Him fast still; at last He deigns to bless you. That is certainly some foretaste of heaven, when you feel alone with Jesus. Let no man know your prayers; they are between God and yourselves; but if you want to know much of heaven, spend some extra time in prayer; for God then reveals it to us by His Spirit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0056.cfm

The Season of Quiet Contemplation

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 4 Comments

My beloved spoke, and said to me: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, And come away…” -Song of Songs 2:10

There are precious hours, blessed be God, when we forget the world-times and seasons when we get quite away from it, when our weary spirit wings its way far, far from scenes of toil and strife. There are precious moments when the angel of contemplation gives us a vision. He comes and puts his finger on the lip of the noisy world; he bids the wheels that are continually rattling in our ears be still; and we sit down, and there is a solemn silence of the mind. We find our heaven and our God; we engage ourselves in contemplating the glories of Jesus, or mounting upwards towards the bliss of heaven-in going backward to the great secrets of electing love, in considering the immutability of the blessed covenant, in thinking of what wind which “bloweth where it listeth,” in remembering our own participation of that life which cometh from God, in thinking of our blood-bought union with the Lamb, of the consummation of our marriage with Him in realms of light and bliss, or any such kindred topics. Then it is that we know a little about heaven.

Christian! when you are enabled by the Spirit to hold a season of sweet contemplation, then you can say, “But He hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit;” for the joys of heaven are akin to the joys of contemplation, and the joys of a holy calm in God.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0056.cfm

Of Holy Calm and Trust

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 4 Comments

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. -1 Corinthians 2:9

We think a Christian gets a gaze of what heaven is when, in the midst of trials and troubles, he is able to cast all his care upon the Lord because He careth for him. When waves of distress and billows of affliction pass over the Christian there are times when his faith is so strong that he lies down and sleeps though the hurricane is thundering in his ears and though billows are rocking him like a child in its cradle, though the earth is removed and the mountains are carried into the midst of the sea, he says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Famine and desolation come; but he says, “Though the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall there be fruit on the vine, though the labour of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no increase, yet will I trust in the Lord, and stay myself on the God of Jacob.” Affliction smites him to the ground; he looks up, and says, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” The blows that are given to him are like the lashing of a whip upon the water, covered up immediately, and he seems to feel nothing. It is not stoicism; it is the peculiar sleep of the beloved. “So He giveth His beloved sleep.” Persecution surrounds him; but he is unmoved. Heaven is something like that; a place of holy calm and trust:

“That holy calm, that sweet repose,
Which none but he who feels it knows.
This heavenly calm within the breast
Is the dear pledge of glorious rest,
Which for the church of God remains,
The end of cares, the end of pains.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0056.cfm

The Deep Things of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.-1 Corinthians 2:9-10

How very frequently at our prayer meetings do we hear our brethren describing heaven as a place of which we cannot conceive! They say, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him;” and there they stop, not seeing that the very marrow of the whole passage lies in this: “But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.”

Any one who reads the connection will discover that the apostle is not talking about heaven at all. He is only speaking of this: that the wisdom of this world is not able to discover the things of God; that the merely carnal mind is not able to know the deep spiritual things of our most holy religion. He says, “We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.”…”But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” I take it, that this text is a great general fact, capable of specific application to certain cases; and that the great fact is this: that the things of God cannot be perceived by eye, and ear, and heart, but must be revealed by the Spirit of God; as they are unto all true believers. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0056.cfm