salvation

Unbelief Due to Fears

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

Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ -Philippians 1:6

I have known not a few whose unbelief has arisen through a sacred anxiety to be right-a most proper anxiety if not pushed beyond its sphere. The idea has been suggested to them: “Suppose I should be after all presumptuous, and should deceive myself, by thinking I am saved, whereas I am not? What if I should film the wound, when it ought to be lanced, before there can be effectual healing.” How I wish that all hypocrites would be troubled with this sort of fear. It would be a great mercy for many boastful professors if they had grace enough to doubt.

Some others have been made to shiver with unbelief on account of fears for the future. “I am afraid I shall not hold on,” says one. “Why, to be a Christian you must persevere to the end. With such a heart as mine, how can I hope to be steadfast: and in such a position as mine, surrounded by so many ungodly associates, how can I hope to persevere? I see so-and-so made a profession, and he is gone back; and I know such an one who said he was a Christian, and he is a worse man than he used to be. Suppose the last end of me should be worse than the first; suppose I should put my hand to the plough and should look back and prove unworthy of the kingdom.” Poor heart, it forgets that word, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee;” and remembers not that other word, “I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.” Rightly filled with a holy anxiety to hold on to the end, it gives way to improper unbelief, for it ought to rest confident that Jesus changeth not; and, where He has begun the good work, He will carry it on and perfect it unto the day of Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1033.cfm

Tried with Unbelief

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

We have transgressed and have rebelled: Thou hast not pardoned. -Lamentations 3:42

..help Thou mine unbelief -Mark 9:24

There are many true believers who at the first are tried with unbelief, because they have now, more than ever they had before, a sense of their past sins. Many a man receives a far deeper sense of sin after he is forgiven than he ever had before. The light of the law is but moonlight compared with the light of the gospel, which is the light of the sun. Love makes sin to become exceeding sinful.

“My Sins, my Sins, my Savior!
How sad on Thee they fall;
Seen through Thy gentle patience,
I tenfold feel them all.

I know they are forgiven,
But still their pain to me
Is all the grief and anguish
They laid, my Lord, on Thee.”

The light of the promise gleaming in the soul reveals the infinite abyss of horror which lies in indwelling sin. In the light of God’s countenance we discover the filthiness, the abomination, the detestable ingratitude of our past conduct. We loathe ourselves in our own sight. While we bless God that sin is pardoned, we are staggered to think it should have been such sin as it is, and the natural feeling resulting from our discovery is a fear that we cannot be pardoned. We ask ourselves: can it be that such sins are forgiven? Thus, under a sense of sin, though there is the belief that we are pardoned, there may also arise the unbelief against which we need the Lord to help us. “Lord, help Thou mine unbelief!” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1033.cfm

Power Enough in Christ’s Atoning Blood

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

Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. -Hebrews 7:25

Have you never found it to be wonderfully easy to believe for other people? I know when I was seeking the Savior, I had no doubt about His receiving any other penitent. I felt certain that if the vilest sinner out of hell had come to Him, He was able to save him: and though I had no faith in Him on my own account, yet had I met with another distressed soul in a similar condition to myself, I believe I should have encouraged him to put his trust in Jesus, though I was afraid to do so myself. To believe for others is an easy matter, but when it comes to your own case, to believe that sins like yours can be blotted out, that you, who have so badly played the prodigal, may be received by your loving Father, that your spiritual diseases can be cured, and that the devil can be cast out of you,  here is the labor, here is the difficulty. But, beloved, we must believe this or else we have not saving faith. O my Savior, shall I trifle in faith by believing or pretending to believe that Thou canst heal a case parallel to mine, and yet cannot heal mine? Shall I draw a line and limit Thee, thou Holy One of Israel, and say, “Thou canst save up to me, but not so far as I have gone?” Shall I dream that Thy precious blood has some power, but not power enough to blot out my sins? Shall I dare, in the arrogance of my despair, to set a boundary to the merits of Thy plea, and to the virtue of Thine atoning sacrifice? God forbid. Jesus is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him,-He is able to save me. He that cometh unto Him He will in no wise cast out; I come to Him, and He will not, cannot cast me out. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1033.cfm

Saving Faith Accepts the Truth of God

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

Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief. -Mark 9:24

I am not saved because I believe the Scriptures, or because I believe the doctrines of grace, but I am saved if I believe Christ; or, in other words, trust in Him. Jesus is my creed. He is the truth. In the highest sense the Lord Jesus is the Word of God. To know Him is life eternal. By His knowledge He justifies many. I do not know that the father in the narrative before us had heard many sermons. I am not sure that he had very clear notions about everything that concerned the Savior’s kingdom: it was not essential that he should have in order to obtain a cure for his son. It was a very desirable thing that he should be an instructed disciple, but in the emergency before us the main thing was that he should believe Christ to be both able and willing to cast the devil out of his son. Up to that point he did believe; and, though his faith may have been deficient as well in breadth as in depth, yet it enabled him to realize that the Messiah who stood before him was the Lord, and it led him to place all his reliance upon Him… When he heard Him say, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth,” he at once said, “Lord, I believe.”

Beloved hearer, I hope that thou hast come to put thy trust in Jesus in the same way, believing Him to be able and willing to save thee. This is the faith that will effectually save thee. if all thy trust is stayed in Him, if thou bringest all thy help from Him, if His wounds are thine only shelter, His blood thine only plea, Himself thine only confidence, then art thou a saved man, thy transgressions are forgiven thee for His name’s sake, thou art accepted in the Beloved. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1033.cfm

Our Good Father’s Love

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

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. -Galatians 4:6

When I was racked some months ago with pain, to an extreme degree, so that I could no longer bear it without crying out, I asked all to go from the room, and leave me alone; and then I had nothing I could say to God but this, “Thou art my Father and I am Thy child; and Thou, as a Father, art tender and full of mercy. I could not bear to see my child suffer as Thou makest me suffer, and if I saw him tormented as I am now, I would do what I ‘could to help him, and put my arms under him to sustain him. Wilt Thou hide Thy face from me, my Father? Wilt Thou still lay on a heavy hand, and not give me a smile from Thy countenance?” I held the Lord to that. I talked to Him as Luther would have done, and pleaded His Fatherhood in right down earnest. “Like as a father pitieth his children, even so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” If He be a Father, let Him show Himself a Father-so I pleaded, and I ventured to say, when I was quiet, and they came back who watched me: “I shall never have such pain again from this moment, for God has heard my prayer.” I bless God that ease came and the racking pain never returned. Faith mastered the pain by laying hold upon God in His own revealed character, that character in which in our darkest hour we are best able to appreciate Him. I think that is why that prayer, “Our Father which art in heaven,” is given to us, because, when we are lowest, we can still say, “Our Father,” and when it is very dark, and we are very weak, our childlike appeal can go up, “Father, help me! Father rescue me!” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1021.cfm

The Heights of His Blessedness

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

I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. -Hosea 11:4

Israel had been like oxen, with a heavy yoke upon them, and God had come and taken the yoke away; and there they stood, as we see horses stand when they are made to rest when the bearing-rein is loosened, and they stand at ease. And this God has as surely done for us as for His ancient people. He has fulfilled that word unto us, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” We enjoy the peace of God, which passeth all understanding: it keeps our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus. Nor is this all for the gracious Redeemer takes care to fill His people’s mouths with good things; hence, He does not forget the feeding, and it is added, “I laid meat unto them.” The Lord refreshed His weary people with “food convenient for them.” As the oxen, after the yoke was removed, were fed, so God, when He had removed our yoke of guilty bondage, fed us with the finest of the wheat, as He made us understand the gospel of His Son. The doctrines and promises of His word are substantial meat for hungry souls. “My soul shall be satisfied with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips.” Certain under-shepherds are afraid of laying too much doctrinal food before the Lord’s people, but it is a great mistake. Truth never surfeits, though it always satisfies. The Good Shepherd does not stint His sheep, but He gives them so much, that they lie down amid the exceeding plenty of the green pastures. They cannot eat it all, and they lie down in the midst of a superabundance, which infinite mercy has provided. See, then, how God’s boundless love piles mountain upon mountain, as the old classics used to say, Pelion upon Ossa, that we, up from the depths of our distress, may climb to the heights of His blessedness, and enjoy the fullness of the glory which God has treasured up for us in the person of Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1021.cfm

Our Teacher and Healer

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

“I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love” -Hosea 11:3

Calvin says this text means, “I have led him on foot. As a child who cannot yet walk with a firm foot is, by degrees, accustomed to do so, and the nurse, or the father, or the mother, who leads him, has a regard for his infancy; so, also, have I led Israel, as much as his feet could bear.” And, as if this mercy and condescension of God, in thus comparing Himself to a woman with her babe, were not sufficient, in addition to this He becomes a physician too, and grants healing; He says, “I healed them.” They had not only weakness that needed to be supported, and ignorance that needed to be tutored; but they had, in addition, sickness and infirmity that needed medicine. “I healed them.” He who had carried them as Shaddai-the Lord All-sufficient, became to them Jehovah Rophi -the Lord that healeth them. Who shall tell how much we all owe to heavenly pharmacy? Our diseases are deep-seated and most dangerous; how happy are we in having an omnipotent Physician, whose word alone is more than a match for all our maladies. Surely we have a sickness for every day in the year, but the Beloved Physician has a remedy for every complaint. Glory be unto Him who forgiveth all our iniquities, and healeth all our diseases. Then, as if all this were not enough, we find him drawing them on in the paths of obedience and holiness-not with ropes and chains, that would compel against their will, overhauling them roughly- but with forces suited for minds and hearts. “I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love.” Thus does the gracious Spirit of God work in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure. “The love of Christ constraineth us:” “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God:” “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1021.cfm