salvation

Patiently Hope and Quietly Wait

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

It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. – Lamentations 3:26

I know that God’s children are not long without tribulation. As long as the wheat is on the threshing-floor, it must expect to feel the flail. Perhaps you have had a bereavement, or you may have had losses in business, or crosses in your family, or you have been sorely afflicted in your own body, and now you are crying to God for deliverance out of your temporal trouble. That deliverance will surely come. “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” “I have been young,” said David, “and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken.” The Lord will yet light your candle, and surround your path with brightness. Only patiently hope and quietly wait, and you shall yet see the salvation of the Lord…

We want- I cannot say how much we want- a revival of pure and undefiled religion in this our day. Will it come? Why should it not come? If we long for it, if we pray for it, if we believe for it, if we work for it, and prepare for it, it will certainly come. The day will break, and the shadows will flee away. The mockers think that they have buried our Lord Jesus Christ. So, perhaps, they have; but He will have a resurrection. The cry is, “Who will roll us away the stone?” The stone shall be rolled away, and He, even the Christ in whom our fathers trusted, the Christ of Luther and of Calvin, of Whitefield and of Wesley, that same Christ shall be among us yet in the fullness and the glory of His power by the working of the Holy Ghost upon the hearts of myriads of men. Let us never despair; but, on the contrary, let us brush the tears from our eyes, and begin to look for the light of the morning, for “the morning cometh,” and the day will break, and the shadows will flee away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2477.cfm

Here, Jesus, Here I Am!

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

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. – Mark 16:16

To believe is as a man would do in a stream. It is said, that if we were to fold our arms, and lie motionless, we could not sink. To believe is to float upon the stream of grace. I grant you, you shall do afterward; but you must live before you can do. The gospel is the reverse of the law. The law says, “Do and live;” the gospel says, “Live first, then do.” The way to do, poor sinner, is to say, “Here, Jesus, here I am; I give myself to Thee.” I never had a better idea of believing than I once had from a poor countryman. I may have mentioned this before; but it struck me very forcibly at the time, and I can not help repeating it. Speaking about faith he said, “The old enemy has been troubling me very much lately; but I told him that he must not say any thing to me about my sins, he must go to my Master, for I had transferred the whole concern to Him, bad debts and all.” Believing is giving up all we have to Christ, and taking all Christ has to ourselves. It is changing houses with Christ, changing clothes with Christ, changing our unrighteousness for His righteousness, changing our sins for His merits. Execute the transfer, sinner; rather, may God’s grace execute it, and give thee faith in it; and then the law will be no longer thy condemnation, but it shall acquit thee. May Christ add His blessing! May the Holy Spirit rest upon us! And may we meet at last in heaven! Then will we “sing to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

Examine Thyself

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

I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. – Isaiah 43:25

Hast thou ever felt thyself to be acquitted by Christ? “No,” saith one, “I never expected to feel that; I thought that we might know it perhaps when we came to die-that a few eminent Christians might then possibly know themselves to be forgiven; but I think, sir, you are very enthusiastic to ask me whether I have ever felt myself to be forgiven.” My dear friend, you mistake. Do you think, if a man had been a galley-slave, chained to an oar for many a year, if he were once set free he would not know whether he were free or not? Do you think that a slave who had been toiling for years, when once he trod upon the land of freedom, if you should say to him: “Do you know that you are emancipated?” Do you think he would not know it? Or a man that has been dead in his grave, if he were awakened to life, do you think he would not know it? There may be times when he hath forgotten the season; but he will know himself to be alive; he will feel and know himself to be free. Tell me it is enthusiastic to ask you whether you have ever felt your chains broken? Sirs, if you have never felt your chains fall off from you, then be it known that your chains are on you; for when God breaketh our chains from off us, we know ourselves to be free. The most of us, when God did set us free from our prison-house, did leap for very joy; and we remember the mountains and the hills did burst forth before us into singing, and the trees of the field did clap their hands. We shall never forget that gladsome moment; it is impressed upon our memory; we shall remember it till life’s latest hour. I ask thee, again, Didst thou ever feel thyself forgiven? And if thou sayest “No,” then thou hast no right to think thou art. If Jesus hath never whispered in thine ear, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions,” thou hast no right to think thyself pardoned. O! I beseech thee, examine thyself, and know whether thou hast been condemned by the law, and whether thou hast been acquitted by Christ!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

If the Law Condemn Thee, God Will Acquit Thee

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

Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. – Galatians 3:10

Let me ask thee this, my friend-Wast thou ever condemned by the law in thine own conscience? “Nay, sayest thou, “I know not what thou meanest.” Of course thou dost not; and thou hast no hope, then, that thou art safe. But I will ask thee yet again: Hast thou been condemned by the law in thy conscience? Hast thou ever heard the word of God saying in thy own soul, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them?” And hast thou felt that thou wast cursed? Didst thou ever stand before God’s bar, like a poor condemned criminal before the judge, ready for execution? …Hast thou ever felt thyself to be a worthless, ruined, sin-condemned, law-condemned, conscience-condemned sinner? Hast thou ever fallen down before God, and said: “Lord, Thou art just; though Thou slay me, I will say, Thou art just; for I am sinful, and I deserve Thy wrath?” As the Lord liveth, if thou hast never felt that, thou art a stranger to His grace; for the man who acquits himself God condemneth; and if the law condemn thee, God will acquit thee. So long as thou hast felt thyself condemned, thou mayest know that Christ died for condemned ones, and shed His blood for sinners; but and if thou foldest thine arms in self-security, if thou sayest: “I am good, I am righteous, I am honorable,” be thou warned of this-thine armor is the weaving of a spider; it shall be broken in pieces; the garments of thy righteousness are light as the web of the gossamer, and shall be blown away by the breath of the Eternal, in that day when He will unspin all that nature hath ever woven. Ay, I bid thee now take heed; if thou hast never been condemned by the law, thou hast never been acquitted by grace.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

Christ, Our Substitute

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

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

The curse of God is not easily taken away; in fact, there was but one method whereby it could be removed. The lightnings were in God’s hand; they must be launched; He said they must. The sword was unsheathed; it must be satisfied; God vowed it must. How, then, was the sinner to be saved? The only answer was this. The Son of God appears; and He says, “Father! launch Thy thunderbolts at Me; here is My breast-plunge that sword in here; here are My shoulders-let the lash of vengeance fall on them;” and Christ, the Substitute, came forth and stood for us, “the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”

We have heard some preach a gospel, something after this order-that though God is angry with men, yet out of His great mercy, for the sake of something that Christ has done, He does not punish them, but remits the penalty. Now, we hold, that this is not of God’s gospel; for it is neither just to God, nor safe to man. We believe that God never remitted the penalty, that He did not forgive the sin without punishing it, but that there was blood for blood, and stroke for stroke, and death for death, and punishment for punishment, without the abatement of a solitary jot or tittle; that Jesus Christ, the Saviour, did drink the veritable cup of our redemption to its very dregs; that He did suffer beneath the awful crushing wheels of divine vengeance, the self-same pains and sufferings which we ought to have endured. O! the glorious doctrine of substitution! When it is preached fully and rightly, what a charm and what power it hath. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

Begotten Again to a Lively Hope

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

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. – 1 Peter 1:3

Can men really believe that, after having been “begotten again to a lively hope,” that birth in God, through Christ, and by His Spirit, can yet fail? We have asked ourselves, Can men imagine that, after God hath once broken our chains, and set us free, He will call us back, and bind us once again, like Prometheus, to the great rocks of despair? Will He once blot out the handwriting that is against us, and then record the charge again? Once pardoned, then condemned? We trow, that had Paul been in the way of such men, he would have said, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died; yea, rather, that is risen again. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” There is no condemnation to us, being in Christ Jesus; we “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” It is a sweet thought, that Satan himself can never rob me of my pardon. I may lose my copy of it, and lose my comfort; but the original pardon is filed in heaven. It may be that gloomy doubts may arise, and I may fear to think myself forgiven: but

“Did Jesus upon me shine?
Then Jesus is for ever mine.”

“O! my distrustful heart!
How small thy faith appears.
Far greater, Lord, Thou art,
Than all my doubts and fears.
‘Midst all my sin, and fear, and woe,
Thy Spirit will not let me go.”

I love, at times, to go back to the hour when I hope I was forgiven through a Saviour’s blood. There is much comfort in it to remember that blessed hour when first we knew the Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

“Unwrite the curse,” says God

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

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us… – Galatians 3:13

Some of you, my dear friends, will be able to follow me in your experience, while I just remind you how it was, that in your salvation Christ removed the curse. You will agree with me when I say that the removal of the curse from us is done in a moment. It is an instantaneous thing. I may stand here one moment under the curse; and if the Spirit look upon me, and I breathe a prayer to heaven-if by faith I cast myself on Jesus-in one solitary second, ere the clock hath ticked, my sins may be all forgiven. Hart sung truly, when he said-

“The moment a sinner believes,
And trusts in his crucified God,
His pardon at once he receives,
Salvation is full through His blood.”

We do not say that the great work of conversion is instantaneous; that may take some time; for Christ commences in the heart a work, which is to be carried on through life in sanctification; but the justification, the taking away the curse, is done in a single moment. “Unwrite the curse,” says God. It is done. The acquittal is signed and sealed; it taketh not long.

“Fully discharged by Christ I am,
From sin’s tremendous curse and blame.”

We may be fully absolved in a moment.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm