salvation

Rejoice in His Works

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

The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which He hath planted; Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rooks for the conies. – Psalm 104:16-18

This Psalm is all through a song of nature, the adoration of God in the great outward temple of the universe. Some in these modern times have thought it to be a mark of high spirituality never to observe nature; and I remember sorrowfully reading the expressions of a godly person, who, in sailing down one of the most famous rivers in the world, closed his eyes, lest the picturesque beauties of the scene should divert his mind from scriptural topics. This may be regarded by some as profound spirituality; to me it seems to savor of absurdity. There may be persons who think they have grown in grace when they have attained to this; it seems to me that they are growing out of their senses. To despise the creating work of God, what is it but, in a measure, to despise God Himself? “Whoso mocketh the poor despiseth his Maker.” To despise the Maker, then, is evidently a sin; to think little of God under the aspect of the Creator is a crime…David tells us that “The Lord shall rejoice in His works.” If He rejoices in what He has made, shall not those who have communion with Him rejoice in His works also? “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of them that have pleasure therein.” Despise not the work, lest thou despise the Worker…Here on this earth is Calvary where the Savior died, and by His sacrifice, offered not within walls and roofs, He made this outer world a temple wherein everything doth speak of God’s glory. If thou be unclean, all things will be unclean to thee; but if thou hast washed thy robe and made it white in the blood of the Lamb, and if the Holy Spirit hath overshadowed thee, then this world is but a nether heaven; it is but the lower chamber of which the upper story glows with the full splendor of God, where angels see Him face to face, and this lower story is not without glory, for in the person of Christ Jesus we have seen God, and have communion and fellowship with Him even now. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

Have Patience Despite the Changes

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

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. – Galatians 6:9

The farmer waits under changing circumstances, and various contingences. At one time he sees the fair prospect of a good crop; the wheat has come up well; he has never seen greener springing from the ground! But perhaps it may be too strong and may need even to be put back. By-and-by, after long showers and cold nights, the wheat looks yellow, and he is half afraid about it; in a while there comes, or he fancies there is blight, or a black smut; nobody knows what may happen! Only a farmer knows how his hopes and fears alternate and fluctuate from time to time. It is too hot, too cold; it is too dry; it is too wet. It is hardly ever quite right, according to his judgment, or rather according to his unbelief. He is full of changes in his mind because the season is full of changes; yet he waits, and he waits with patience. Ah dear friends, when we work for God, how often will this happen! I speak from no inconsiderable experience; there are always changes in the field of Christian labor. At one time we see many conversions, and we bless God that there are so many seals to our testimony. But some of the converts after a while disappoint us; there was the blossom, but it produced no fruit; then there will come a season when many appear to backslide; the love of many waxes cold. Perhaps we have found in the church the black smut of heresy; some deadly heresy creeps in, and the anxious farmer fears there will be no harvest after all. Oh, patience, sir, patience!

So, too, maybe, O evangelical worker, it will be with you. When God shall give you a rich return for all you have done for Him, you will blush to think you ever doubted; you will be ashamed to think you ever grew weary in His service; you shall have your reward. Not tomorrow, so wait; not the next day perhaps, so be patient. You may be full of doubts one day, your joys sink low. It may be rough windy weather with you in your spirit; you may even doubt whether you are the Lord’s, but if you have rested in the name of Jesus; if by the grace of God you are what you are; if He is all your salvation, and all your desire—have patience, have patience, for the reward will surely come in God’s good time! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1025.cfm

By this Divine Remedy

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

…with His stripes we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5

By this Divine remedy our life is healed of its rebellion. This medicine has worked within the heart, and it has also worked outside in the life. Now has the drunk become sober and he hates the cup he used to love. Now has the swearer’s foul mouth been washed and his lips, once so polluted, are like lilies dropping sweet, smelling myrrh. Now has the cruel and unkind one becomes tender, gentle and loving—the false has become true, the proud bends his neck in humility, the idle has become a diligent servant of Christ! The transformation is wonderful and this is the secret, “With His stripes we are healed.”

Yet again, our consciousness assures us that we are healed. We know that we are healed, and we rejoice in the fact— and we are not to be argued out of it. There seems to be a theory, held by some people, to the effect that we cannot tell whether we are saved or not. When we have had a disease in our body, we can tell whether we have been healed or not, and the marks and evidence of the supernatural change that takes place within the spirit are as apparent, as a usual rule, and certainly as positive and sure as the changes worked in the body by healing medicine! We know that we are healed. I am not talking to you of a thing which I do not know personally for myself. When the text says, “We,” my heart says, “I,” and I am longing that everybody here should be able to put his own seal to it and say, “That is true! With His stripes we are healed! With His stripes we are healed! With His stripes we are healed!” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2499.cfm

Our Cry

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

…and with His stripes we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5

And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again. – 2 Corinthians 5:15

(T)hose who have believed in the stripes of Jesus are witnesses to the instant and perfect efficacy of the medicine. We can, many of us, speak from experience, since we can say that “we are healed.” HOW are we healed?

Well, first, our conscience is healed of every smart. God is satisfied with Christ and so are we. If, for Christ’s sake, He has put away sin without dishonor to Himself, then are we, also, perfectly content and full of rejoicing in the Atonement and we need nothing else to keep our conscience quiet.

By these same wounds of Christ our heart is healed of its love of sin. It was once in love with sin, but now it hates all iniquity. If our Redeemer died because of our sin, how can we live any longer therein? All our past thoughts concerning sin are turned upside down or reversed. Sin once gave us pleasure, but now it gives us the utmost pain and we desire to be free from it, and to be perfectly holy—there is no evil that we would harbor in our bosoms. It did seem an amazing thing that we should look to Christ and so find pardon and that at that same moment we should be totally changed in our nature as to our view of sin, yet it did so happen! While sin was on us, we felt as if we had no hope and, therefore, we went on in sin. But when sin was pardoned, then we felt great joy and, consequently, gratitude and love to God. Our cry is, “Death to sin, now that Christ has died for sin!” “If the One died for all, then all died” and, as in Christ we died to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2499.cfm

The Grandest of All Truths

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

By His stripes we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Leviticus 17:11

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit… – 1 Peter 3:18

Remember that the sufferings of Christ were vicarious. He stood in our place that we might stand in His place. He took our sin upon Himself and, being found with that sin upon Him, He was made to bear the penalty that was due to it. And He did bear it—and this is the way whereby we are healed—by Jesus Christ, Himself, taking our infirmities and bearing our sicknesses. This Doctrine of Substitution is the grandest of all Truths of God and though all these years I have continued to preach nothing else but this, what better news can I tell a poor sinner than that the Savior has taken his sins and borne his sorrows for him? Take away the Doctrine of the Substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ and you have torn out the very heart of the Gospel! “The blood is the life thereof” and you have no living Gospel to preach if Atonement by blood is once put into the background! But, O poor Soul, if you believe that Jesus is the Christ and that Christ took your sins and bore them in His own body on the tree where He died, “the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God,” you are saved, and saved forever!

Does someone enquire, “How am I to get this Atonement applied to my soul?” …If you believe on Jesus Christ—if you will accept the testimony of God concerning His Son whom He has set forth to be the Propitiation for sin—and rely upon Him, alone, for salvation, you shall be saved! …Trust yourself with Him who died for you, and you are saved! And, continuing to trust Him, you shall daily feel the power of His expiation, the marvelous healing that comes by His stripes! Repentance is the first symptom of that healing. When the proud flesh begins to yield; when the wretched gathering commences to break and the soul that was formerly swollen through trying to conceal its sin bursts with confession and acknowledgment of its transgression— then is it being healed by the stripes of Jesus! This is God’s wondrous remedy for the soul-sickness of sin! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2499.cfm

The Heavenly Medicine

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

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5

Jesus Christ, His dear Son, has taken upon Himself our nature and suffered on the Cross in our place—and God the Father has delivered Him up for us all—that we might be able to say, “With His stripes we are healed.” (D)ear Friends, behold the heavenly medicine—the stripes of Jesus in body and in soul! Picture Him before your mind’s eyes. He is scourged by the rough Roman soldiers till the sacred stream rolls down His back in a crimson tide. And He is scourged within as well as outside till He cries, in utmost agony, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He is fastened to the cruel Cross—His hands and feet and brow are all bleeding and His inmost soul is poured out even unto death—whatever that wonderful expression may mean. He bears the sin of many, the chastisement of their peace is upon Him. He is bruised for their iniquities and wounded for their transgressions. If you would be healed of sin’s sickness, here is the Medicine! Is it not amazing surgery? Surgeons usually give us pain while trying to cure us, but here is a Physician who bears the pain, Himself, and thereby heals us! Here is no medicine for us to take, for it has all been taken by Him! He suffers, He groans, He dies—and it is by His grief and agonies that we are healed!

(I)f you are healed by His stripes, you should go and live like healthy men. When a man is healed of disease, he does not continue to lie in bed! So, dear Friends, do not any of you be lazy Christians! When a man is healed, he does not sit down and groan about the disease that is gone. So do not any of you be continually groaning and croaking and sighing. When a man is healed, he likes to go and tell about the remedy to others. So, dear Friends, do not keep to yourselves the news of this blessed heavenly balsam, but go and tell the tidings everywhere, “With His stripes we are healed.” When a man is healed, he is joyful and begins to sing with gladness. So, go and sing, and praise and bless the Lord all your days! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/isa/53/5/s_732005

This Wondrous Prescription

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

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. – Romans 6:23

…and with His stripes we are healed. -Isaiah 53:5

(S)in is like disease because it tends to increase in the man and will, one day, prove fatal to him. You cannot say to a disease, “To here shall you come, but no further.” There are some diseases that seem to come very gradually, but they come very surely. There is the hectic flush, the trying cough, the painful breathing—and we begin to feel that consumption is coming. And very soon—terribly soon to those who love them—those who were once hale and hearty, to all appearance, become like walking skeletons, for the fell disease has laid its cruel hand upon them and will not let them go. So, my Friend, as long as sin is in you, you need not deceive yourself and think you can get rid of it when you will, for you cannot. It must be driven out by a higher Power than your own—this disease must be cured by the Great Physician or else it will keep on increasing until, at last, you die! Sin will grow upon you till, “when it is finished, it brings forth death.” God grant that before that awful ending is reached, the Lord Jesus Christ may come and cure you, so that you may be able to say, “With His stripes we are healed.”

Sin is a contagious disease which passes from one to another. It is hereditary. It is universal. It is incurable. It is a mortal malady. It is a disease which no human physician can heal. Death, which ends all bodily pain, cannot cure this disease—it displays its utmost power in eternity, after the seal of perpetuity has been set upon it by the mandate— “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still.” It is, in fact, such a disease that you were born with it and you will bear it with you forever and ever, unless this wondrous prescription…shall be accepted by you and shall work in you the Divine good pleasure, so that you shall be able to say, “With His stripes we are healed.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2499.cfm