salvation

But One Sacrifice and No Other

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

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation. – Hebrews 9:28

Jesus died to finish transgression and make an end of sin. Our Lord made atonement for sin when He died- the just for the unjust: He made peace for us when the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. When the LORD had laid upon Him the iniquity of us all, divine wrath fell upon Him on account of our sins, until He cried, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Then sin was put away. There, but never anywhere else, was full atonement presented, and iniquity was blotted out. There is no other place of expiation for sin but the place of our Lord’s sacrifice of Himself. Believing in Him that died on the cross, our sins are put away; but without faith in Him there is no remission of sin. Beyond our Lord’s, other sacrifice there is none; other sacrifice there will never be. If any of you here are entertaining some “larger hope”, I would say to you, Hope what you please; but remember, that hope without truth at the bottom of it, is an anchor without a holdfast. A groundless hope is a mere delusion. Wish what you will; but wishes without promises from God to back them, are vain imaginings. Why should you imagine or wish for another method of salvation? Rest you assured that the Lord God thinks so highly of the one sacrifice for sin, that for you to desire another is evil in His sight. If you reject the one sacrifice of the Son of God, there remains no hope for you; nor ought there to be. Our Lord’s way of putting away sin is so just to God, so honoring to the law, and so safe for you, that if you reject it your blood must be on your own head…Blessed be the name of the Lord, the sin of the world, which kept God from dealing with men at all, was put away by our Lord’s death! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2194.cfm

Sin is Put Away

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

…but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. – Hebrews 9:26

By His coming and sacrifice He accomplished many things; but His first end and object was “to put away sin.” You know what the modern babblers say: they declare that He appeared to reveal to us the goodness and love of God. This is true; but it is only the fringe of the whole truth. The fact is, that He revealed God’s love in the provision of a sacrifice to put away sin. Then, they say that He appeared to exhibit perfect manhood, and to let us see what our nature ought to be. Here also is a truth; but it is only part of the sacred design. He appeared, say they, to manifest self-sacrifice, and to set us an example of love to others. By His self-denial He trampled on the selfish passions of man. We deny none of these things; and yet we are indignant at the way in which the less is made to hide the greater…The great object of our Lord’s coming here was not to live, but to die. He hath appeared, not so much to subdue sin by His teaching, as to put it away by the sacrifice of Himself. The master purpose which dominated all that our Lord did, was not to manifest goodness, nor to perfect an example, but to put away sin by sacrifice. That which the moderns would thrust into the background, our Lord placed in the forefront. He came to take away our sins, even as the scapegoat typically carried away the sin of Israel into the wilderness that the people might be clean before the living God. The Lord Jesus has come hither as a priest to remove sin from His people: “Ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins.” Do not let us think of Jesus without remembering the design of His coming. I pray you, brethren, know not Christ without His cross, as some pretend to know Him. We preach Christ; so do a great many more: but, “we preach Christ crucified”; so do not so many more. We preach concerning our Lord, His cross, His blood, His death; and upon the blood of His cross we lay great stress, extolling much “the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” …The putting away of sin was a Godlike purpose; and it is a wellspring of hope to us that, for this reason, Jesus appeared among men. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2194.cfm

He Was Everywhere Accessible

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

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many… – Hebrews 9:28

Our Lord Jesus Christ has once appeared, and though He will appear again, it will not be for the same purpose. On His first appearing fix your thoughts; for the like of it will never be seen again. In the bosom of the Father He lay concealed as God; as the second person of the divine Trinity in Unity He could not be seen, for “no man hath seen God at any time.”…In the manger He might be seen with the eyes, and looked upon, and handled; for there the Word was made flesh, and God was incarnate. He whom the ages could not contain, the glorious One who dwelt with the Father for ever unseen, now appeared within the bounds of time and space, and humble shepherds saw Him, and adored Him. By Gentiles he was seen; for wise men from the East beheld and worshipped Him whose star had led them. As He grew up, the children of Nazareth beheld Him as a child obedient to His parents; and by-and-by He was made manifest to men by the witness of John and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him at His baptism…He dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory: He was the revelation of God to men, so that He could say, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” He was made still more manifest by His death; for in His crucifixion He was lifted up from the earth, that all might behold Him. He was exalted upon the cross, even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, on purpose that whosoever looked to Him might live…Thus we may look into His inmost heart. High on the cross the Saviour hung, without veil or curtain to conceal Him. “Once in the end of the world hath He appeared.” I know of no appearance that could have been more complete, more unreserved. He moved in the midst of crowds, He spake to men and women one by one. He was on the mountain, and by the sea; He was in the desert, and by the river; He was both in house and in temple; He was everywhere accessible; in the fullest sense “once in the end of the world hath He appeared.” Oh, the glory of this gracious epiphany! This is the greatest event in history: the invisible God has appeared in human form. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2194.cfm

See the Wisdom of God

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

And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children. – Exodus 2:6

The very means which Pharaoh devised for the effectual crushing of the people-the destruction of the male children-became the direct, nay, the divine provision for educating a deliverer for them. Moses had never been, in all probability, trained in the courts of Pharaoh if he had not been put in the basket of bulrushes on the brink of the Nile; and his mother would certainly never have put him there if there had not been a pitiless edict that the male children should be put to death. Moved by maternal instinct to save her child and moved by faith in God not to obey the king’s command, she places her child in the ark. Pharaoh’s daughter finds the child, compassionates its cry, extricates it from peril, loves it fondly, adopts it capriciously, and educates it in the very court of Pharaoh. That child grows up to be the man who should vex the fields of Zoan-the man of God, who with a high hand and an outstretched arm, would lead forth the slaves of Egypt to become a great nation, which God should bless. So you see the Lord in all points meets Pharaoh and foils him. This Pharaoh was the great representative in those days of the power of evil, and he stands still to the Christian church as the type of the seed of the serpent. But the Lord withstands him, despoils him of his purpose, and turns all he does to the very highest and best end. Such the narrative, full of instruction, and charged with portent, that serves as a type of the Lord’s doing when He makes bare His arm for the salvation of His own heritage. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

Israel Rose Superior to All Her Disadvantages

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

“The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.” – Exodus 1:12

It did seem to be a deep-laid plot, very politic and crafty indeed, that as the kings of Egypt, themselves of an alien race, had subdued the Egyptians, they should prevent the other alien race, the Israelites, from conquering them. Instead of murdering them wholesale, it did seem a wise though a cruel thing to make them slaves; to divide them up and down the country; to subject them to toil till their spirits were broken; to appoint them to the most menial work in the land, that they might be crushed down and their spirits become so base that they would not dare to rebel. Thus we may suppose it was hoped that their physical strength would be so relaxed, and their circumstances so reduced, that the clan would soon be insignificant if not utterly extinct. But God met and overruled this policy in various ways. “The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied.” The census proved the error of their calculation. The cause looked likely, but it was not productive of the consequence expected. Had it been another people, the tactics might have been successful; but they were God’s people, endeared to Him by their ancestry, ennobled in His sight by their covenant destiny, and encompassed with His favor as with a shield. No conspiracy formed against them could thrive. And so it came to pass, that like certain herbs which spring up when trodden down, or like certain trees that grow taller if loaded with weights, Israel rose superior to all her disadvantages. “The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.” This cometh of the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.

O friendless one, O Christless sinner! dost thou not want God to be thy helper, and Christ to be thy friend? If thou dost, then on the cross behold the Savior. Turn to Him thine eye: penitently trust Him: rely upon Him, and He is yours, and then henceforth the Lord of Hosts shall be with you, and God of Jacob shall be your refuge, and your afflictions also shall work your good. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0997.cfm

Be Forgiving of Thy Neighbor

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

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. – Colossians 3:13

When we forgive, it is a poor and humble business compared with God’s forgiving us, because we are only forgiving one another, that is, forgiving fellow-servants; whereas when God forgives us it is the Judge of all the earth forgiving, not His fellows, but His rebel subjects, guilty of treason against His majesty. For God to forgive is something great; for us to forgive, though some think it great, should be regarded as a very small matter. Our Lord in His parable tells us that the fellow-servant owed a few pence, but the servant himself was debtor to his master many talents. What we owe to God is infinite, but what our fellow creature owes to us is a very small sum. What did he do which has so much offended you? “He said a very shameful thing about me.” It was very bad of him, no doubt. “Then he played me a very nasty trick, and acted very ungraciously; in fact, he behaved scandalously, and if you hear the story, you will be quite indignant.” Well, I am indignant. He is a bad fellow, there is no doubt about it; and so are you. So were you certainly when you first came to God; bad as he is to you, you have been much worse to the Lord. I will warrant that his blacks towards you are whites compared with your blacks in the presence of God. “Oh, but you would not believe how basely he acted.” No, and I dare say I should hardly believe it if I heard how base you have been to the Lord; at any rate, it should make our eyes fill with tears to think how we have grieved our God and vexed His Spirit. Some of us have had so much manifest forgiveness, so much outward sin forgiven, that for us to forgive ought to be as natural as to open our hands. After such forgiveness as the Lord has bestowed on some of us, we should be wicked servants indeed if we were to take our brother by the throat and say, “Pay me what thou owest.” We should deserve to be given over to the tormentors by our angry Master if we did not count it joy to pass by a brother’s fault. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm

Divinely Pardoned

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

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more. – Hebrews 8:12

There is such a truth, reality, and emphasis in the pardon of God as you can never find in the pardon of man; for though a man should forgive all you have done against him, if you have treated him very badly, yet it is more than you could expect that he should quite forget it, but the Lord says, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more for ever.” If a man has played you false, although you have forgiven him, you are not likely to trust him again. It is an old proverb, “Never ride a broken-knee’d horse,” and it is not a bad proverb either. But see how the Lord deals with His people. When Peter was set on his legs again he was a broken-knee’d horse enough, and yet see how gloriously the Lord rode that charger on the day of Pentecost. Did he not go forth conquering and to conquer? The Lord lets bygones be bygones so completely that He trusts pardoned souls with His secrets, for “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him”; and He entrusts some of us with His choicest treasures, for Paul said, “He hath put me in trust with the gospel, though I was a blasphemer.” He commits to our keeping that priceless casket which encloses the best hope of men, namely, the gospel of Jesus. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.” This shows how perfect is our forgiveness,-nay, I must put it, how divine is the forgiveness which we have received. Let us rejoice in that grand promise which comes to us by the mouth of Jeremiah of old, “In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.” Here is annihilation-the only annihilation I know of-the absolute annihilation of sin through the pardon which the Lord gives to His people. Let us sing it as though it were a choice hymn-“The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1448.cfm