Sovereignty of God

Four Strong Consolations

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

“Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us”- Romans 8:34

We have before us in the text the four marvellous pillars upon which the Christian rests his hope. Any one of them were all-sufficient. Though the sins of the whole world should press on any one of these sacred columns, it would never break nor bend. Yet for our strong consolation, that we may never tremble or fear, God hath been pleased to give us these four eternal rocks, these four immovable foundations upon which our faith may rest and stand secure. But why is this? why needeth the Christian to have such firm, such massive foundations? For this simple reason: he is himself so doubtful, so ready to distrust, so difficult to be persuaded of his own security. Therefore hath God, as it were, enlarged his arguments. One blow might, we should have imagined, have been enough to have smitten to death our unbelief for ever; the cross ought to have been enough for the crucifixion of our infidelity, yet God, foreseeing the strength of our unbelief, hath been pleased to smite it four times that it might be razed to rise no more. Moreover, He well knew that our faith would be sternly attacked. The world, our own sin, and the devil, He foresaw would be continually molesting us; therefore hath He entrenched us within these four walls, He hath engarrisoned us in four strong lines of circumvallation. We cannot be destroyed. We have bulwarks, none of which can possibly be stormed, but when combined they are so irresistible, they could not be carried, though earth and hell should combine to storm them. It is, I say, first, because of our unbelief; and secondly, because of the tremendous attacks our faith has to endure, that God has been pleased to lay down four strong consolations, with which we may fortify our hearts whenever the sky is overcast, or the hurricane is coming forth from its place. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0256.cfm

There is Life in a Look at Him!

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

And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. – Matthew 17:8

If I want to know whether a certain estate is mine, do I look into my own heart to see if I have a right to it? But I look into the archives of the estate, I search testaments and covenants. Now, Christ Jesus is God’s covenant with the people, a leader and commander to the people. To-day, I personally can read my title clear to heaven, and shall I tell you how I read it? Not because I feel all I wish to feel, nor because I am what I hope I yet shall be, but I read in the word that “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” I am a sinner, even the devil cannot tell me I am not. O precious Saviour, then thou hast come to save such as I am. Then I see it written again, “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved.” I have believed, and have been baptized; I know I trust alone in Jesus, and that is believing. As surely then as there is a God in heaven, I shall be in heaven one day. It must be so, because he that believeth must be saved. You see it is not by looking within, it is by looking to Jesus only that you perceive at last your name graven on His hands. I wish to have Christ’s name written on my heart, but if I want assurance, I have to look at His heart till I see my name written there. O turn your eye away from your sin and your emptiness to His righteousness and His fullness. See the sweat drops bloody as they fall in Gethsemane, see His heart pierced and pouring out blood and water for the sins of men upon Calvary! There is life in a look at Him! O look to Him, and though it be Jesus only, though Moses should condemn you, and Elias should alarm you, yet “Jesus only” shall be enough to comfort and enough to save you. May God grant us grace every one of us to take for our motto in life, for our hope in death, and for our joy in eternity, “Jesus only.” May God bless you for the sake of “Jesus only.” Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

The Most Divine of All Joys

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

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him…And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. – Matthew 17:3,8

A sight of Jesus, of what He is to sinners, of what He makes sinners, of what He is in Himself, will more tend to make you feel your need of Him than all your poring over your poor miserable self. You will get no further there, look to “Jesus only.” I do desire for my fellow Christians and for myself, that more and more the great object of our thoughts, motives, and acts may be “Jesus only.” I believe that whenever our religion is most vital, it is most full of Christ. Moreover, when it is most practical, downright, and common sense, it always gets nearest to Jesus. I can bear witness that whenever I am in deeps of sorrow, nothing will do for me but “Jesus only.” I can rest in some degree in the externals of religion, its outward escarpments and bulwarks, when I am in health; but I retreat to the innermost citadel of our holy faith, namely, to the very heart of Christ, when my spirit is assailed by temptation, or besieged with sorrow and anguish. What is more, my witness is that whenever I have high spiritual enjoyments, enjoyments right, rare, celestial, they are always connected with Jesus only. Other religious things may give some kind of joy, and joy that is healthy too, but the sublimest, the most inebriating, the most divine of all joys, must be found in Jesus only…I believe that anything which we add to Christ lowers our position, and that the more elevated our soul becomes, the more nearly like what it is to be when it shall enter into the religion of the perfect, the more completely everything else will sink, die out, and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus only, will be first and last, and midst and without end, the Alpha and Omega of every thought of head and pulse of heart. May it be so with every Christian. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

All the Savior We Want is in Christ Only

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

And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. – Matthew 17:8

“They saw no man, save Jesus only.” This was all they wanted to see for their comfort. They were sore afraid: Moses was gone, and he could give them no comfort; Elias was gone, he could speak no consolatory word; yet when Jesus said, “Be not afraid,” their fears vanished. All the comfort, then, that any troubled heart wants, it can find in Christ. Go not to Moses, nor Elias, neither to the old covenant, nor to prophecy: go straight away to Jesus only. He was all the Saviour they wanted. Those three men all needed washing from sin; all needed to be kept and held on their way, but neither Moses nor Elias could have washed them from sin, nor have kept them from returning to it. But Jesus only could cleanse them, and did; Christ could lead them on, and did. Ah! brethren, all the Saviour we want, we find in Jesus only. The priests of Rome and their Anglican mimics officiously offer us their services. How glad they would be if we would bend our necks once again to their yoke! But we thank God we have seen “Jesus only,” and if Moses has gone, and if Elias has gone, we are not likely to let the shavelings of Rome come in and fill up the vacancy. “Jesus only,” is enough for our comfort, without either Anglican, Mosaic, or Roman priestcraft….Though the apostles saw “Jesus only,” they saw quite sufficient, for Jesus is enough for time and eternity, enough to live by and enough to die by…At this day, my brethren, we have no Master but Christ; we submit ourselves to no vicar of God; we bow down ourselves before no great leader of a sect, neither to Calvin, nor to Arminius, to Wesley, or Whitfield, “One is our Master,” and that one is enough, for we have learned to see the wisdom of God and the power of God in Jesus only. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

A Clearer Light

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

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him…And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. – Matthew 17:3,8

As I read my Bible I see there that the age of the symbolical, the typical, the pictorial, has passed away. I am glad of the symbols, and types, and pictures, for they remain instructive to me; but the age in which they were in the foreground has given way to a clearer light, and they are gone forever. There are, however, certain persons who profess to read the Bible and to see very differently, and they set up a new system of types and shadows-a system, let me say, ridiculous to men of sense, and obnoxious to men of spiritual taste. There are some who delight in outward ordinances; they must have rubric and ritual, vestments and ceremonial, and this superabundantly, morning, noon and night. They regard days, and seasons, and forms of words and postures. They consider one place holy above another. They regard a certain caste of men as being priestly above other believers, and their love of symbols is seen in season and out of season. One would think, from their teachings, that the one thing needful was not “Jesus only,” but custom, antiquity, outward performance, and correct observance! Alas! for those who talk of Jesus, but virtually see Moses, and Moses only. Ah! unhappy change for the heart if it could exchange spiritual fellowship with Jesus for outward acts and symbolical representations. It would be an unhappy thing for the Christian church if she could ever be duped out of the priceless boons which faith wins from her living Lord in His fullness of grace and truth, to return to the beggarly elements of carnal ordinances. Unhappy day, indeed, if Popish counterfeits of legal shadows should supplant gospel fact and substance. Blessed be God, we have not so learned Christ. We see something better than Moses only.

Oh how blessed is it to escape from the voice of command and threatening and come to the blood of sprinkling, where “Jesus only” speaketh better things! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

Jesus Only

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

“And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.”- Matthew 17:8

“Jesus only.” When Peter saw our Lord with Moses and Elias, he exclaimed, “Master, it is good to be here,” as if he implied that it was better to be with Jesus, and Moses, and Elias, than to be with Jesus only. Now it was certainly good that for once in his life he should see Christ transfigured with the representatives of the law and the prophets; it might be for that particular occasion the best sight that he could see, but as an ordinary thing an ecstasy so sublime would not have been good for the disciples; and Peter himself very soon found this out, for when the luminous cloud overshadowed him, and the voice was heard out of heaven, we find that he with the rest became sore afraid. The best thing after all for Peter, was not the excessive strain of the transfiguration, nor the delectable company of the two great spirits who appeared with Jesus, but the equally glorious, but less exciting society of “Jesus only.” Depend on it, brethren, that ravishing and exciting experiences and transporting enjoyments, though they may be useful as occasional refreshments, would not be so good for every day as that quiet but delightful ordinary fellowship with “Jesus only,” which ought to be the distinguishing mark of all Christian life…. “Jesus only” is, after all, upon the whole a better thing than Jesus, Moses, and Elias. “Jesus only,” as the common Jesus, the Christ of every day, the man walking among men, communing in secret with His disciples, is a better thing for a continuance while we are in this body, than the sight even of Jesus Himself in the excellence of His majesty. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

All Nations Blessed and a Blessing

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

And blessed be His glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory; Amen, and Amen. – Psalm 72:19

Men shall be blessed in Christ, because where He comes oppression cannot live. You may tell me that the governor of such an empire is a despot. Oh, yes; but despots cannot long flourish where there is an open Bible. Tyrannies may last a generation or two, but all the world knows that their time is short. They will go down: they must go down where Christ is lifted up. That inspired Book is a testimony for human liberty, louder than all others. It is a declaration of the rights of men under King Jesus: despotism must fall before it sooner or later. We, in this country, owe our liberties, beyond everything, to the Christianity which is the outflow of a present Christ among us. Slavery? What a plague-spot it was upon the fair hand of our sister nation across the Atlantic! The spot is washed away; and it was true religion which forced the washing. There would have been no freeing of the slave from fetters if it had not been for the Christianity which, after long silence, at last spoke out, and when it spake, it was as when a lion roareth…Leave our politicians alone, and we shall soon have all the infamies alive again. Slavery would be tolerated, if not encouraged, if there were not Christian souls upon the watch. What saves us from war at this moment? What influence is it that is always contrary to war, and always cries for peace? Why, it is the Christian element among us which counts anything better than bloodshed! Let the Christian element spread, and it will be a power to bless mankind. It shall, in proportion as it spreads, put down evil, and foster good. Already, many a monopoly has been ended, and many a liberty has been gained. Much religious intolerance has been subdued by the power of Jesus Christ over His people; and I do pray, dear friends, that we may live to see all nations more manifestly affected by the gospel of Jesus Christ. May every nation be ruled by just and righteous laws! May every nation be willing to submit exterior disputes to the arbitration of justice! It will be so one day. The nations shall be friends, and all men shall feel that they are members of one great family…From every corner of the whole earth, the song shall go up, “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!” Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2187.cfm