promises

Rely On the Boundless Power of Jesus

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ… – Hebrews 13:20,21

Sometimes it seems to a burdened heart to be more than difficult to believe in the pardon of innumerable sins: it appears impossible. Guilty one, do not try to believe in pardon in the abstract, but believe in Jesus the Sacrifice and Savior, who has once for all appeared to put away sin. Believe in the divine Substitute, and then you will believe that the forgiveness of your sins is a thing provided for by Him. Do not even say, “I can never be sanctified; such a wretched sinner as I am could never be made into a saint. “Do not try to believe in sanctification but rely upon the boundless power of Jesus to “make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight.” For all parts of salvation, hope in the Lord, and look to His hand for the working thereof. Forget yourself now, and only think of Him who worketh all things according to the good pleasure of His will. Cease looking for the water and look for the well. You will more readily see the Savior than see salvation, for He is lifted up, even He who is God, and beside Him there is none else. You will more easily fix your eye on Jesus than upon justification, sanctification, or any other separate blessing. When the work seems hard, look to His hand: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” You may fix your eye upon a covenant promise till it dazzles you; but if you see Jesus, the sight will strengthen your eyes, and you will see the promise in Him, and perceive it to be yea and amen to the glory of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/heb/13/21/s_1146021

First Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation Leave a comment

Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. – Matthew 11:28,29

Suppose for a moment that it were possible for you to obtain pardon without Christ, what good would it do you? I would remind you that no blessing is a covenant blessing, or a blessing at all, except as it is connected with Christ Jesus, and so with the Lord God. No comfort is worth having if Jesus does not comfort us. No forgiveness is worth the words which utter it if Jesus does not forgive. There is no coming to the Father except by Christ. If, therefore, I imagine that I have come to the Father without Christ, it is clear that I have not come. If I fancy that I have saving blessings apart from the appointed Savior, I am a deceived man. Beloved, do not seek after mercy, pardon, holiness, heaven, except through Christ Jesus our Lord, for you will be seeking counterfeits, shadows, delusions. Begin at the cross. See how Jesus puts it: -“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He does not first say, “Take My yoke upon you;” but first “Come unto Me.” He first gives us rest, and then afterwards we find it; but we begin with coming to Him. First Christ, and then His yoke. First Christ, and then rest…Come ye, then, and begin with Jesus. It is the necessary order of your coming: first to Christ, and then to His yoke, and to His peace. Let your faith exercise itself, not so much on what you ought to be, or on what you hope to be, as on what Christ is, and on His ability to make you all that your heart pines after. _ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2199.cfm

Look at the Savior Himself!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

…for with the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. – Psalm 130:7

You seek pardon, look to the pardoning God. You will soon believe in forgiveness if you cause the first exercise of your faith to refer to the Forgiver, even Christ Jesus Himself. When you have believed in Him as able to say, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” then you will believe in sins being forgiven. This is the natural order of things. To be healed, you believe first in the Healer. So, also, if you desire to believe for salvation, and to be assured that you have it, or may have it at once, the simple course-the natural course-is to believe in the Savior. When you have believed in the Savior, then you will believe in the salvation. If you know that Jesus can save you, if you desire to be saved, you will trust Him to save you. You will be readily able to believe that you can be saved when you trust in Jesus as able to save to the uttermost. Poor trembling heart, do not look at the blessing, and say, “Alas, it is too great!” Look at the Savior Himself! Is anything too great for Him to give who gave His heart’s blood to redeem? Do not say, “My heart is so hard, it cannot be changed.” Look at the Savior; is anything impossible to Him to whom the Father has committed all power? Is He not mighty to save? Fix your eye, first and foremost, upon Him who is both God and man, and has therefore power and sympathy, majesty and mercy, omnipotence and brotherliness. I pray you, do not consider so much the greatness of the effect as the unlimited power of the Cause. I may doubt my washing, but not when I believe in the cleansing virtue of the precious blood. It may be difficult to believe in my salvation, but not to believe in my Savior. It may be hard to hope for heaven; but the text sets me an easier task-“Let Israel hope in the Lord.“ ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2199.cfm

A Very Encouraging Truth

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

 “Let Israel hope in the Lord; for with the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption.” – Psalm 130:7

We do not read, “Let Israel hope for mercy;” but we read, “Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy.” Neither does it say, “Let Israel hope for plenteous redemption;” but it is worded thus, “Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the LORD there is…plenteous redemption.” To me this has the look of a very encouraging truth: the sinner is not to hasten with his first thoughts to the mercy that he wants, nor even to the promise of God to which he may look; but he is to go to the Lord Jesus’ Christ Himself, as the Lord of mercy, and fountain of redemption.

Look first to the Giver, and then to the gift. Look for the Helper, and then for the help. Do not be saying, “I long to be forgiven. I labor to believe that I am forgiven. I desire to be saved. I want to know that I am saved.” This is looking for the fruit, when you have need first to find the tree. Your first business, as a seeker of pardon and salvation, is to believe in Jesus Christ, that is, to trust yourself with the divine Savior. The natural order is, believe in the Promiser, and then you will believe the promise. You never say to yourself, “I should like to be able to take that man’s word. I will sit down and try to make my mind confident of the truth of what he says.” This would be a foolish and futile method of procedure. You follow a much more reasonable course: you enquire about the individual’s character and standing; you find out who he is, and what he is, and what he has done; and thus, you gather arguments for confidence and faith. You cannot help believing the promise when once you believe in the Promiser. Faith prizes the promises of her faithful God and calls them precious. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2199.cfm

The Great Salvation in God Alone

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

Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. – Psalm 130:7,8

At this moment the manifestation of God standeth thus: His dear Son has descended from the highest heavens, and taken upon Himself our human nature, so that He is God and man in one sacred and mysterious Person. In that complex form, the Word made flesh dwelt among men on earth some thirty years and more; and then He took upon Himself the weight of human sin and bare it upon His shoulders up to the cross. He was arrested by the hand of divine justice and treated by justice as if He had been a sinner, though sinner He could never be. He was numbered with the transgressors, and given over to wicked men, who, in their willful malice, scourged Him, spit upon Him, crowned Him with thorns, and condemned Him to a felon’s death. He died, not for any iniquity of His own; but for the transgression of His people was He smitten. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; yea, “He was made a curse for us;” and even more: “He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” “He died, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” If then, we would trust God for our personal salvation, we must confide in Him as He manifests Himself for that purpose; and as we perceive that God sets forth Christ to be a propitiation for our sin, we must accept that ordained way of putting away our sin. This is the way in which “with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption;” and thus it is that “He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2199.cfm

“De Profundis”

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation 3 Comments

Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice: let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications….I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope…Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption… – Psalm 130

When we meet with a man who has been in special trouble, and he has escaped from it, we are anxious to know how it came to pass, in order that, if we are cast into similar trial, we also may resort to the same door of hope. You meet with a man that has long been sorely afflicted, and to find him full of joy at his relief is a pleasure and a personal comfort. You heard him lamenting for years, and now you hear him rejoicing; and this excites your wonder and your hope. It is as though a cripple saw another lame man leaping and running. He very naturally enquires, “How is this?” The other day you saw a man blind, begging in the street, and now he has an eye bright as that which sparkles on the face of a gazelle, and you cry in astonishment-“Tell me who was the oculist that operated on your eyes; for I may be in a like case, and I should be glad to know where to go.” Here, then, we have a gate of knowledge opened before us. The Psalmist found salvation and deliverance in going direct to God, and trusting in Him; let us follow his example, and in all times of distress, caused by our own iniquity, or by anything else, let us repair to the throne of grace; for the Most High will deal with us also even as He dealt with His servant of old time, to whose cries, out of the depths, He lent an attentive ear. This psalm is called “De Profundis”; its teaching is not only profound but practical. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2199.cfm

He Shall Redeem Israel

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

“Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O LORD...Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption.”- Psalm 130:1,7

When he penned this psalm, the writer, David, was in deep distress, if not of circumstances, yet of conscience. He constantly mentions iniquities and begs forgiveness. He felt like a shipwrecked mariner, carried overboard into the raging sea. Thus, he reviews the situation-“Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord.” Yet he lived to tell the tale of deliverance.

Two things the rescued sufferer tells us. First, that, as God delivered him from the power of sin, so He will deliver all His praying, wrestling, believing people. That is the last verse of the psalm-He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” The argument is-He delivered me. What am I more than others? The gracious Lord who saved me will save all those who call upon Him in truth. He delivered me, though laden with iniquities, and His pardoning mercy is unfailing; and therefore, He can and will rescue others from their uttermost distresses. This is a good line of reasoning, for the Lord’s ways are constant, and He will do for all believers what He has done for one of them. The other thing which the Psalmist sets before us is this: we are wise if we apply to God alone for help. He says, “I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.” He incidentally tells us that it is vain to wait upon man, and put our trust in any human support, for the way of deliverance lies alone in reliance upon God, immediately and alone…The psalm encourages us to this by the assurance that the Lord can and will help all that seek Him; and it urges us to let that seeking be distinctly and directly turned to the Most High, to Him alone, and to none other. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2199.cfm