salvation

Come Now to Your Divine Help

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

Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, Thou shalt purge them away. Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest, and causest to approach unto Thee, that he may dwell in Thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple. – Psalm 65:3,4

Dear brethren and sisters, there may be difficulties in your way; iniquities may hinder you, or infirmities; but there is the promise, “Thou shalt purge them away.” Infirmities may check you, but note the word of divine help, “Blessed is the man whom Thou causest to approach unto Thee.” He will come to your aid and lead you to Himself. Infirmities, therefore, are overcome by divine grace. Perhaps your emptiness hinders you: “he shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house.” It is not your goodness that is to satisfy either God or you, but God’s goodness is to satisfy. Come, then, with thine iniquity, come with thine infirmity; come with thy emptiness. Come, dear brethren, if you have never come to God before. Come and confess your sin to God and ask for mercy; you can do no less than ask. Come and trust His mercy, which endures for ever; it has no limit. Think not hardly of Him but come and lay yourself down at His feet. If you perish, perish there. Come and tell your grief; pour out your hearts before Him. Bottom upwards turn the vessel of your nature, and drain out the last dreg, and pray to be filled with the fullness of His grace. Come unto Jesus; He invites you; He enables you. “(I) have not prayed before,” you say. Everything must have a beginning. Oh, that that beginning might come now. It is not because you pray well that you are to come, but because the Lord hears prayer graciously, therefore, all flesh shall come. You are welcome; none can say you nay. Come! ’tis mercy’s welcome hour. May the Lord’s bands of love be cast about you; may you be drawn now to Him. Come by way of the cross; come resting in the precious atoning sacrifice, believing in Jesus; and He has said, “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.” The grace of our Lord be with you. Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Vowed Unto Christ

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

…unto Thee shall the vow be performed. – Psalm 65:1

We are not given to vow-making in these days. Time was when it was far oftener done. It may be that had we been better men we should have made more vows; it may possibly be that had we been more foolish men we should have done the same. The practice was so abused by superstition, that devotion has grown half-ashamed of it. But we have, at any rate, most of us bound ourselves with occasional vows. I do confess to-day a vow I have not kept as I should desire; the vow made on my first conversion. I surrendered myself, body, soul, and spirit, to Him that bought me with a price, and the vow was not made by way of excess of devotion or supererogation, it was but my reasonable service. You have done that. Do you remember the love of your espousal, the time when Jesus was very precious, and you had just entered into the marriage bond with Him? You gave yourselves up to Him, to be His for ever and for ever. O brethren and sisters, it is a part of worship to perform that vow. Renew it, make another surrender of yourselves to Him whose you are and whom you serve.

Beloved, many of us did, in effect, make a most solemn vow at the time of our baptism. We were buried with Christ in baptism unto death, and, unless we were greatly dissembling, we avowed that we were dead in Christ and buried with Him; wherein, also, we professed that we were risen with Him. Now, shall the world live in those who are dead to it, and shall Christ’s life be absent from those who are risen with Him? We gave ourselves up there and then, in that solemn act of mystic burial. Recall that scene, I pray you; and as you do it blush, and ask God that your vow may yet be performed, as Doddridge well expresses it:-

“Baptised into your Saviour’s death
Your souls to sin must die;
With Christ your Lord ye live anew,
With Christ ascend on high.”
~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Praise Him for This!

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

Praise waiteth for Thee, O God…Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, Thou shalt purge them away. -Psalm 65:1,3

Infinite love has made us clean every whit! -though we were black and filthy. We are washed -washed in priceless blood. Praise Him for this! Go on with the passage, “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest and causest to approach unto Thee.” Is not the blessing of access to God an exceeding choice one? Is it a light thing to feel that, though once far off, we are made nigh through the blood of Christ; and this because of electing love! “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest.” Ye subjects of eternal choice, can you be silent? Has God favored you above others, and can your lips refuse to sing? No, you will magnify the Lord exceedingly, because He hath chosen Jacob unto Himself, and Israel for His peculiar treasure. Let us read on, and praise God that we have an abiding place among His people-“That we may dwell in Thy courts.”-Blessed be God we are not to be cast forth and driven out after a while, but we have an entailed inheritance amongst the sons of God. We praise Him that we have the satisfaction of dwelling in His house as children. “We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple.” But I close the psalm, and simply say to you, there are ten thousand reasons for taking down the harp from the willows; and I know no reason for permitting it to hang there idle. There are ten thousand times ten thousand reasons for speaking well of “Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.” “The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad.” I remember hearing in a prayer-meeting this delightful verse mutilated in prayer, “The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we desire to be glad.” Oh, brethren, I dislike mauling, and mangling, and adding to a text of Scripture. If we are to have the Scriptures revised, let it be by scholars, and not by every ignoramus. “Desire to be glad,” indeed! This is fine gratitude to God when He hath done great things for us.” If these great things have been done, our souls must be glad and cannot help it; they must overflow with gratitude to God for all His goodness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

The Great Redeemer Lives

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

I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:18

The Lord in the glory of His tenderness mentions…His atoning death. He says, “I was dead,” the original more correctly rendered is “was made dead.” Here we come upon the human nature of our Redeemer. As God and as man He had two natures, but He was not two persons. As one person He ever lives, and yet He was made to die. He came into this world in human form that He might be capable of death; the pure spirit of God could not die, it was not possible that He, the I AM, could be subject to death; but He allied Himself with humanity, and in that human form Jesus could die, and did die. In very deed, and truth, and not in semblance; Jesus bowed His head, and gave up the ghost, and they laid His corpse in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Here to the child of God is a fruitful source of consolation. He died, then the atonement is complete; without the shedding of blood there is no remission, but the death of the Son of God brings plenteous pardon. There must be in the death of such a one of sufficient merit to remove guilt and cleanse transgression. Is it not written, “He hath washed us from our sins in His own blood?” Dost thou not hear that song in heaven? Will not its music make thee glad? His own blood hath washed thee; if thou believest in Him thou art clean. Look to Calvary, and as thou lookest there and perceivest that He was dead, “fear not.”

And then the master declared His endless life, “I am alive for evermore.” He who offered up the atonement lives again to claim the effect of His sacrifice. He has presented the meritorious sacrifice, and now He has gone to heaven to plead the sacrifice before the throne of God, and to lay claim to the place which He has prepared for them that love Him. Thou hast no dead Savior to trust to: thou reliest in Him who once died-this is comfort to thee, but He lives, the great Redeemer lives. He has risen from the tomb; He has climbed the hills of heaven; He sits at the right hand of the Father, prepared to defend His people. If thou hadst a Christ in the sepulcher that were sorrow upon sorrow; but thou hast a Christ in heaven, who can die no more. Be thou of good cheer. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Only God is First and Last

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

And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:17,18

As to the Lord’s person, Jesus revealed to His disciple that He was most truly divine. “I am the first and the last.” This language can be used of none but God Himself; none but He is first; none but He is last; none but God can be first and last. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ was evidently first. He existed before He was born into the world. We read, “a body hast Thou prepared Me.” Then Christ was a previously existing one for whom that body was prepared; and He it is who said, “Lo, I come, to do Thy will O God.” He came into the world, but He had from old eternity dwelt in the bosom of the Father. John the Baptist was born into the world before the Savior, of whom he was the forerunner, but what does he say? His testimony is “He, coming after me, is preferred before me, for He was before me.” He is first in order of honor because first in order of existence. John was the elder as man, but as God the Lord Jesus is from everlasting. Go back in history as far as you will; with one leap ascend to the days of Moses, and there is Christ before you, for we read: “Let us not tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents.” There was Christ, then, in the wilderness vexed by the people. He it was whose voice then shook the earth, but who will yet shake not the earth only but also heaven.

By the words “the first and the last” are signified, in most languages, the sum and substance of all things. We say sometimes the top and the bottom of it is so and so; we mean that it is the whole of it. And the Greeks were wont to say, “This is the prow and stern of the business,” meaning that it is the whole. And so Jesus Christ, in being first and last, is all in all. And, truly, it is so in the working of redemption and salvation; He begins, carries on, completes; He asks no creature help and will have none. To us He is the author and the finisher of our faith, the alpha of our first comfort, and the omega of our final bliss. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

 https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Earth Sinks as Jesus Rises

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

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last… – Revelation 1:10,11

When our thoughts of Jesus are expanded and elevated, we obtain right ideas upon other matters. In the light of His love and atoning sacrifice, we see the depth of the degradation from which such a Redeemer has uplifted us, and we hate, with all our hearts, the sins which pierced such an altogether lovely one, and made it needful for the Lord of life to die. Forming some adequate estimate of what Jesus has done for us, our gratitude grows, and with our gratitude our love-while love compels us to consecration, and consecration suggests heroic self-denying actions. Then are we bold to speak for Him, and ready, if needs be, to suffer for Him while we feel we could give up all we have to increase His glory, without so much as dreaming that we had made a sacrifice.

Let your thoughts of Christ be high, and your delight in Him will be high too; your sense of security will be strong, and with that sense of security will come the sacred joy and peace which always keep the heart which confidently reposes in the Mediator’s hands. If thou wouldst thyself be raised, let thy thoughts of Christ be raised. If thou wouldst rise above these earthly toys, thou must have higher and more elevated thoughts of Him who is high above all things. Earth sinks as Jesus rises. Honor the Son even as thou wouldst honor the Father, and, in so doing, thy soul shall be sanctified and brought into closer fellowship with the great Father of Spirits, whose delight it is to glorify His Son. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

The Clean Made Unclean to Clean the Unclean

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

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? – Hebrews 9:13,14

Solomon, according to the Jewish tradition, declared that he did not understand why the ashes of the heifer made everybody clean except those who were unclean already. You saw in the reading that the priest, the man who killed the red cow, the person who swept up the ashes and he who mixed the ashes with water and sprinkled them were all rendered unclean by those acts—and yet the ashes purified the unclean! Is not this analogous to the riddle of the bronze serpent? It was by a serpent that the people were bitten—and it was by a serpent of brass that they were healed! Christ’s being regarded as unclean that we become clean and the operation of His Sacrifice is just like that of the ashes, for it both reveals uncleanness and removes it.

If you are clean and you think of Christ’s death, what a sense of sin it brings upon you! You judge of the sin by the Atonement. If you are unclean, drawing near to Christ takes that sin away!—

“Thus while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of Grace,
It seals my pardon, too.”

If we think we are unclean, a sight of the atoning blood makes us see how unclean we are. And if we judge ourselves unclean, then the application of the atoning Sacrifice gives our conscience rest. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm