repentance

All Sins Blotted Out

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

Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.  – Hebrews 7:25

There is no exception made in my commission to any form of sin-unless it be the sin against the Holy Ghost-which carries its own evidence as well as its consequence. Those to whom I now speak, if they feel any drawings of heart towards God have not committed that mortal crime. Murder, theft, forgery, felony, fornication, adultery, and covetousness, which is idolatry-black and hideous as is the catalogue-here is pardon for the whole. Ransack the kennels, however filthy; rake the slums, however odious; drag out the abominations of the age, however degrading; here is pardon not only possible, probable, but positive. Bring a man here who has stained himself crimson all over with every sort of infamy, though it be not the lapse of an hour, but the habit of a life, yet God is still able to forgive. Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him…  Thus saith the Lord, I have blotted out like a cloud thine iniquities, and like a thick cloud thy sins. Return unto Me, for I am married unto thee. I have given my blood to redeem thee. Return, O wandering child of man; return, return, and I will have mercy upon thee, for I am God, and not man.”

“If your ears refuse
The language of His grace,
And hearts grow hard like stubborn Jews,
That unbelieving race,
The Lord in anger drest,
Shall lift His trend and swear
Ye that despised My promised rest
Shall have no portion there.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3497.cfm

The Universal Proclamation

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

That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. – John 3:15

Our message goes on to announce that whosoever in the wide world will come to Jesus Christ, and commit his cause to Him as Redeemer, Saviour, and Friend, shall forthwith be at peace with God, receive full pardon for all offences, and be welcomed as a favourite of the Most High. He shall know that for him Jesus Christ did die in his stead, and as surety did stand for him when He appeared before God… This proclamation, I say, is to be made universally… The same message, that God has accepted Christ as a substitute for every man that will believe in Christ, and that whosoever trusts Christ to save him is in that moment saved, will suffice for all. Yea, we would tell them that before the sinner does trust Christ he is reconciled unto God by His death, because the atonement which He offered had been accepted, and there was peace forestalled between God and that sinner.

What a message I have to present! What a proclamation I have to make! Nothing is necessary on your part. God expects nothing of you to merit His esteem, or to enhance the value of His gift. If repentance be indispensable, He is prepared to give it to you. If a tender heart be needed, He is ready to give you a heart of flesh. If you feel that you have a heart of stone, He has engaged to take it away. Does your guilt oppress you, He says, “I will sprinkle clean water, water of pure fountains, upon them, and they shall be cleansed from all their filthiness, and from all their uncleanness will I save them.” Know, all men, that there is no exception made…I have to proclaim an indemnity of such universal import that it is indiscriminate, “Whosoever believeth on Him shall never perish, but shall have everlasting life.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3497.cfm

Thou Cannot Stand Against Him

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, repentance 15 Comments

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men – 2 Corinthians 5:11

Ambassadors are always specially welcome to a people who are engaged in a war which is beyond their strength, when their resources are exhausted, and the peril of defeat is imminent. If some tiny little principality has ventured to rebel against a great empire, when it is absolutely certain that its villages will be consumed, its provinces, ravaged, and that all its power will be crushed, ambassadors are pretty sure to receive a cordial welcome. Ah! man, thou best bid defiance to the King of Heaven, whose power is irresistible; by whom rocks are thrown down; whose voice breaketh the cedars of Lebanon; whose hand controlleth the great deep sea. He it, is who bindeth the clouds with a cord, and girdleth the earth with a belt! Angels that excel in strength cannot stand against Him. From the lofty battlements of heaven He hurled down Satan, the great archangel, and the mighty host of rebellious morning stars! How canst thou stand against Him; shall the stubble contend with the fire? Shall the potter’s vessel resist the rod of iron? What art thou but a moth, easily crushed beneath His finger! The breath is in thy nostrils, and that is not thine own; how then canst thou, poor mortal, contend with Him who only hath immortality? Thy breath broken more rapidly than a sear leaf by the wind! How canst thou venture to be at war with the One who has heaven and earth at His command, who holds the keys of hell and of death, and who has Tophet as His source of ammunition against thee? Listen to His thunders, and let thy blood curdle! Let His lightning flash, and how art thou amazed! How, then, canst thou stand against the greatness of His power, or endure the terror of His wrath? Happy for thee that terms of peace are proclaimed in your ears. God is willing to cease the warfare; He would not have thee be His adversary. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3497.cfm

Ambassadors for Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”- 2 Corinthians 5:20

There has long been war between man and his Maker. Our federal head, Adam, threw down the gauntlet in the garden of Eden. The trumpet was heard to ring through the glades of Paradise, the trumpet which broke the silence of peace and disturbed the song of praise. From that day forward until now there has been no truce, no treaty between God and man by nature… Never in the heart of any natural man, unless divine grace has put it there, has a desire to re-establish peace been felt or entertained. If any of you long to be at peace with your Maker, it is because His Spirit has made you long for it. Left to yourselves, you would go from conflict to conflict, from struggle to struggle, and perpetuate the encounter, until it ended in your eternal destruction… That He anxiously desires man to be reconciled unto Him, He proves by taking the first step. He, himself, sends His ambassadors… and He commands those ambassadors to be very earnest, and to plead with men, to pray them, to beseech them that they would be reconciled to God. I take this to be a sure pledge that there is love in the heart of God. Why, at the very announcement of these tidings, the rebellious sinner’s ears should be opened! It were enough to make him say, “I will hearken diligently; I will hear what God the Lord shall speak, for if it be true that He takes the first step towards me, and that He is willing to take up this deadly quarrel, God forbid that I should turn away; I will even now hear and attend to all that God shall speak to my soul.” May He bless the message to you, that you may be reconciled to Him without a moment’s delay. ~ C.H, Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3497.cfm

Confession, Then Peace

Sherry Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are indeed with us, and we know our iniquities: – Isaiah 59:12

In many cases persons violating the law of God have hoped to cover their transgression by secrecy. They have done the deed in darkness. They hope that no ear of man heard their footfall, or listened to their speech… So was it with Achan. I dare say he took the wedge of gold and the Babylonish garment, mid the confusion of the battle, and hid it when his comrades seemed too much engaged to notice so trivial an affair. While they were rushing over the fallen walls of Jericho, amidst the debris and the dust, he might be unmolested; and then, in the dead of night, while they slept, he turned the sod of his tent, dug into the earth, and buried there his coveted treasure. All looks right, to his heart’s content. He has smoothed it down, and spread his carpet over the grave of his lust. Little did he reckon of the Omniscient eye. Little did he count on the unerring lot that would come home to the tribe of Judah, to the family of the Zarhites, to the house of Zabdir, and, at last, to the son of Carmi, so that Achan himself would have to stand out confessed as a traitor-a robber of his God. Men little know the ways in which the Almighty can find them out, and bring the evidence that convicts, out of the devices that were intended to cover their sin.

There are those who have got a sin, if not a lie in their right hand, yea, a lie in their heart, and it is eating into their very life. They dare not confess it. If they would confess it to their God, and make restitution to those whom they have offended, they would soon come to peace; but they vainly hope that they can cover the sin, and hide it from the eyes of God and man. He that covereth his sin in this fashion shall not prosper. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3500.cfm

The Great Heart-Searcher

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

“Know well the condition of your flocks, and pay attention to your herds.” Proverbs 27:23

Every wise merchant will occasionally hold a stock-taking, when he will cast up his accounts, examine what he has on hand, and ascertain decisively whether his trade is prosperous or declining. Every man who is wise in the kingdom of heaven, will cry, “Search me, O God, and try me;” and he will frequently set apart special seasons for self-examination, to discover whether things are right between God and his soul. The God whom we worship is a great heart-searcher; and of old His servants knew Him as “the Lord who searches the heart and tries the reins of the children of men.” Let me stir you up in His name to make diligent search and solemn trial of your state, lest you come short of the promised rest. That which every wise man does, that which God Himself does with us all, I exhort you to do with yourself this evening. Let the oldest saint look well to the fundamentals of his piety, for grey heads may cover black hearts: and don’t let the young professor despise the word of warning, for the greenness of youth may be joined to the rottenness of hypocrisy. Every now and then a cedar falls into our midst. The enemy still continues to sow tares among the wheat. It is not my aim to introduce doubts and fears into your mind; no, but I shall rather hope that the rough wind of self-examination may help to drive them away. It is not security, but carnal security, which we would kill; not confidence, but fleshly confidence, which we would overthrow; not peace, but false peace, which we would destroy. By the precious blood of Christ, which was not shed to make you a hypocrite, but that sincere souls might show forth His praise, I beseech you, search and look, lest at the last it be said of you, “Mene, Mene, Tekel: you are weighed in the balances, and are found wanting.”~Charles Spurgeon

Truth Will Be Victorious

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 18 Comments

…and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return… – Isaiah 6:12,13

Certain of you have heard the gospel preached plainly and honestly, and yet you have never received it: is there not creeping over you a fatal indifference? Are not your hearts turning to stone? Possibly you are professors of religion, and yet you do not feel the power of it; what does this mean? If you are not a praying people, nor a holy people, and yet you are a professing people, what an awful doom awaits you!… Oh, shall it be so? Will you die? Dear hearers, I should not like to meet one of you at that day of judgment and have to feel that I preached you into a greater blindness than you might have known. Oh, be converted! Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? May God in infinite mercy speak to you that you may believe in Jesus now, lest that should come upon you which is spoken of by the prophet, “Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish!”

The tree is leveled by the axe; but weep not despairing tears, for it shall sprout again, for life is still in it. Even so the Church must live; truth must be victorious; purity must conquer, the Christ must reign. Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him. Reject Christ if you will to-day, Oh ye who think yourselves so exceeding wise, but there is a people who love Him, a secret people who cling to Him; and when He comes, as come He must ere long, they will welcome Him and partake in His glory. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1844.cfm