Sovereignty of God

Your Life is as Sure as His

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

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. – John 11:25

Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

From causes variable the effects are variable; but remaining causes produce permanent effects. Now Jesus always lives. Yesterday, dear brother you were exalted in fellowship with Him, and stood upon the mountain top; then your heart was glad, and your spirit rejoiced, and you could say, “I live in Christ.” To-day darkness has intervened, you do not feel the motions of the inner life as you did yesterday, but do not therefore conclude that the life is not there. What is to be your sign; what is to be the rainbow of the covenant to you? Why, that Jesus lives. Do you doubt that He lives? You dare not. You trust Him, doubt not then that you live, for your life is as sure as His. Believe also that you shall live, for that also is as sure as the fact that He lives. God gave to Noah, a token that He would not destroy the earth-it was the rainbow: but then the rainbow is not often seen; there are peculiar circumstances before the bow is placed in the cloud. You, brother, you have a token of God’s covenant given you in the text which can always be seen, neither sun nor shower are needful to its appearance. The living Christ is the token that you live too. God gave to David the token of the sun and the moon; He said if the ordinances of day and night should be changed, then would He cast off the seed of David. But there are times when neither sun nor moon appear, but your token is plain when these are hidden. Christ at all times lives. When you are lowest, when you cannot pray, when you can hardly groan, when you do not seem to have spiritual life enough even to heave a desire, still if you cling to Jesus this life is as surely in you as there is life in Christ Himself at the right hand of the Father. What? Is there such a bond between me and Christ? Is there such a link between His life and mine? Blessed be His name! Adored be His infinite condescension! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

The Promise is for All Saints

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

Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

The promise is, “Ye shall live,” that is to say, every child of God shall live. Everyone who sees Christ, as the world sees Him not, is living and shall live. I can understand such a promise given to eminent saints who live near to God, but my soul would prostrate herself before the throne in reverent loving wonder when she hears this word spoken to the very least and meanest of the saints, “Ye shall live.” Thou art not exempted, thou whose faith is but as a smoking flax, thou shalt live. The Lord bestows security upon the least of His people as well as upon the greatest. It is plain that the reason given for the preservation of the new life is as applicable to one saint as another. If it had been said, “Because your faith is strong, ye shall live” then weak faith would have perished; but when it is written, “Because I live,” the argument is as powerful in the one case as in the other. Take it home to thyself, my brother, however heavy thy heart, or dim thy bone, Jesus lives, and you shall live…Though besetting sins may be as arrows, and fleshly lusts like drawn swords, yet grace shall not be slain. Neither the fever of hasty passion, nor the palsy of timorousness, nor the leprosy of covetousness, nor any other disease of sin, shall so break forth in the old nature as to destroy the new. Nor shall outward circumstances overthrow the inner life. “For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. If providence should cast you into a godless family, where you dwell as in a sepulcher, and the air you breathe is laden with the miasma of death, yet shall you live. Evil example shall not poison your spirit, you shall drink this deadly thing and it shall not hurt you, you shall be kept from giving way to evil. You shall not be decoyed by fair temptation; you shall not be cowed by fierce persecution; mightier is He that is in you than he which is in the world. Satan will attack you, and his weapons are deadly, but you shall foil him at all points. To you is it given to tread upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shall you trample under foot…Let the future be bright or black, we need not wish to turn the page; that which we prize best, namely, our spiritual life, is hid with Christ in God, beyond the reach of harm, and we shall live. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

The Sureness of the Promise

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

Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

Continuance is indeed the main element of this promise-“Ye shall live.” It means certainly that during our abode in this body we shall live. We shall not be again reduced to our death-state during our sojourn here. Ten thousand attempts will be made to bring us under dominion to the law of sin and death, but this one word baffles all. Your soul may be so assailed that it shall seem as if you could not keep your hold on Christ, but Christ shall keep His hold on you. The incorruptible seed may be crushed, bruised, buried, but the life within it shall not be extinguished, it shall yet arise. “Ye shall live.” When ye see all around you ten thousand elements of death, think ye believers, how grand is this word, “Ye shall live.” No falling from grace for you; no being cast out of the covenant, no being driven from the Father’s house and left to perish. “Ye shall live.”

Nor is this all, for when the natural death comes, which indeed to us is no longer death, our inner life shall suffer no hurt whatsoever; it will not even be suspended for a moment. It is not a thing which can be touched by death. The shafts of the last enemy can have no more effect upon the spiritual, than a javelin upon a cloud. Even in the very crisis, when the soul is separated from the body, no damage shall be done to the spiritual nature. And in the awful future, when the judgment comes, when the thrones are set, and the multitudes are gathered, and to the right the righteous, and to the left the wicked, let what may of terror and of horror come frothy, the begotten of God shall live. Onward through eternity, whatever may be the changes which yet are to be disclosed, nothing shall affect our God-given life. Like the life of God Himself-eternal, and ever-blessed, it shall continue. Should all things else be swept away, the righteous must live on; I mean not merely that they shall exist, but they shall live in all the fullness of that far-reaching, much-comprehending word “life.” Bearing the nature of God as far as the creature can participate in it, the begotten from the dead shall prove the sureness of the promise, “Ye shall live.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Our Eternal Union with Jesus

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

He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already... – John 3:18

And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. – Ephesians 2:1

Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

The text secures that the death-penalty of the law shall never fall upon believers. The quickened man shall never fall back into the old death from which he has escaped; He shall not be numbered with the dead and condemned either in this life or the next. Never shall the spiritually living become dead again in sin. As Jesus being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him; even so sin shall not have dominion over us again. Once, through the offense of one, death reigned in us; but now having received abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, we shall reign in life by one, Christ Jesus. Rom 5:17 “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Rom 5:10

We are united to Christ this day by bands of spiritual life which neither things present nor things to come can separate. Our union to Jesus is eternal. It may be assailed; but it shall never be destroyed. The old body of this death may for a while prevail but it cannot die. Who shall condemn to death that which is not under the law? Who shall slay that which abides under the shadow of the Almighty? Even as sin reigned unto death, even so must grace reign unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Safe and Secure

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

 Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

“Ye shall live.” I think I see in that much more than lies upon the surface. Whatever is meant by living shall be ours. All the degree of life, which is secured in the covenant of grace, believers shall have. Moreover, all your new nature shall live, shall thoroughly live, shall eternally live. By this word it is secured that the eternal life implanted at regeneration shall never die out. As our Lord said so shall it be…”Ye shall live,” applies to all the parts of our new-born nature. If there be any believer here who has not lived to the full extent he might have done, let him lay hold upon this promise; and seeing that it secures the preservation of all his new nature, let him have courage to seek a higher degree of health. “I am come,” saith Christ, “that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly.” There is no reason, Christian, why your love to Jesus should not become flaming, ardent, conquering; for it lives, and ever must live…Here in your Lord’s promise the abiding nature of the vital faculties of your spirit is guaranteed. There is no stint in the fullness of Christian life. Beneath the skies I would labour to attain it, but herein is my joy, that it shall be most surely mine, for this word is faithful and true. As surely as I have this day eternal life by reason of faith in Christ Jesus, so surely shall I reach its fullness when Christ who is my life shall appear. Even here on earth I have the permit to seek for the fullest development of this life; nay I have a precept in this promise bidding me to seek after it. “Ye shall live,” means that the new life shall not be destroyed-no, not as to any of its essentials. All the members of the spiritual man shall be safe; we may say of it as of the Lord Himself, “Not a bone of Him shall be broken.” The shield of Christ’s own life covers all the faculties of our spiritual nature. We shall not enter into life halt or maimed; but He will present us faultless before the presence of His glory, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, much less any dead limbs or decayed faculties. It is a grand promise and covers the spiritual nature as with the wings of God. Psalm 91:4 ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Have You This God-Given Life?

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

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. – John 3:36

Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

Blessed is that man who hath everlasting life, who is made a partaker of the divine nature, who is born again from above, who is born of God by a seed which remaineth in him; for he is the man upon whom the second death hath no power, who shall enjoy life eternal when the wicked go away into everlasting punishment.

We have now to ask each of you whether you have received it. Have you been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God? Was there a time with you when you passed from death unto life, or are you abiding in death? Have you the witness in yourself that you have been operated upon by a divinely spiritual power? Is there something in you which was not once there, not a faculty developed by education, but a life implanted by God Himself? Do you feel an inward craving unknown to carnal minds, a longing desire which this world could neither excite nor gratify? Is there a strange sighing for a land as yet unseen, of which it is a native, and for which it yearns? Do you walk among the sons of men as a being of another race, not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world? Can you say, with the favoured apostle, “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” Oh! then, thank God for this, and thank God yet more that you have an infallible guarantee for this, and thank God yet more that you have an infallible guarantee that your life shall be continued and perfected, for so saith the text, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Alive from the Dead

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

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses… – Colossians 2:13

“In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” was the Lord’s threatening to our first parent, who was the representative of the race. He did eat of the fruit, and since God is true, and His word never fails, we may be sure of this, that in that selfsame day Adam died. It is true that he did not cease to exist, but that is quite another thing from dying. The threatening was not that he should ultimately die, but “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;” and it is beyond all doubt that the Lord kept His word to the letter. If the first threatening was not carried out, we might take liberty to trifle with all others. Rest assured, then, that the threat was on the spot fulfilled. The spiritual life departed from Adam; he was no longer at one with God, no more able to live and breathe in the same sphere as the Lord. He fell from his first estate; he had need if he should enter into spiritual life to be born again, even as you and I must be. As he hides himself from his Maker, and utters vain excuses before his God, you see that he is dead to the life of God, dead in trespasses and sins. We also, being heirs of wrath even as others, are through the fall dead, dead in trespasses and sins; and if ever we are to possess spiritual life, it must be said of us, “And you hath He quickened.” We must be as “those that are alive from the dead.” The fall brought universal death, in the deep spiritual sense of that word, over all mankind; and Jesus delivers us from the consequences of the fall by implanting in us spiritual life. By no other means can this death be removed: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” The work of regeneration, in which the new life is implanted, effectually restores the ruin of the fall, for we are born again, “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm