Sovereignty of God

Free from Envy

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

As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. – Psalm 17:15

Notice, that the Psalmist has been speaking of the wicked. “They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly.” “They are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.” But David envies them not. “Go,” says he, “rich man, in all thy riches-go, proud man, in all thy pride-go, thou happy man, with thine abundance of children; I envy thee not; as for me, my lot is different: I can look on you without desiring to have your possessions. I can well keep that commandment, ‘Thou shalt not covet,’ for in your possessions there is nothing worth my love; I set no value upon your earthly treasures; I envy you not your heaps of glittering dust; for my Redeemer is mine.” The man is above envy, because he thinks that the joy would be no joy to him-that the portion would not suit his disposition. Therefore, he turns his eye heavenward, and says, “As for me I shall behold Thy face in righteousness.” Oh! beloved, it is a happy thing to be free from envy. Envy is a curse which blighteth creation; and even Eden’s garden itself would have become defaced, and no longer fair, if the wind of envy could have blown on it, envy tarnisheth the gold; envy dimmeth the silver; should envy breathe on the hot sun, it would quench it; should she cast her evil eye on the moon, it would be turned into blood, and the stars would fly astonished at her. Envy is accursed of heaven; yea, it is Satan’s first-born-the vilest of vices…

Yea, give me such a love to my fellow creatures that I can rejoice in their joy, and the more they have the more glad I am of it. My candle will burn no less brightly because theirs outshines it. I can rejoice in their prosperity. Then am I happy, for all around tends to make me blissful, when I can rejoice in the joys of others, and make their gladness my own. Envy! oh! may God deliver us from it! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0025.cfm

The Hope of Future Bliss

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

“As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.”- Psalm 17:15

It would be difficult to say to which the gospel owes most, to its friends or to its enemies…Jesus Christ would never have preached many of His discourses had not His foes compelled Him to answer them; had they not brought objections, we should not have heard the sweet sentences in which He replied. So with the book of Psalms: had not David been sorely tried by enemies, had not the foemen shot their arrows at him, had they not attempted to malign and blast his character, had they not deeply distressed him, and made him cry out in misery, we should have missed many of those precious experimental utterances we here find, much of that holy song which he penned after his deliverance, and very much of that glorious statement of his trust in the infallible God. We should have lost all this, had it not been wrung from him by the iron hand of anguish…Then was it that he gave honour to God, then he shouted aloud to that mighty Jehovah, who for him had gotten the victory. This sentence follows a description of the great troubles which the wicked bring upon the righteous, wherein he consoles himself with the hope of future bliss.; As for me,” says the patriarch, casting his eyes aloft; As for me,” said the hunted chieftain of the caves of Engedi-“As for me,” says the once shepherd boy, who was soon to wear a royal diadem-“As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied, when I awake with Thy likeness.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0025.cfm

A Babe’s Lisping

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

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. – Romans 8:15

There are seasons when doubts and fears abound, and so suffocate us with their fumes that we cannot even raise a cry, and then the indwelling Spirit represents us, and speaks for us, and makes intercession for us, crying in our name, and making intercession for us according to the will of God. Thus does the cry “Abba, Father” rise up in our hearts even when we feel as if we could not pray and dare not think ourselves children. Then we may each say, “I live, yet not I, but the Spirit that dwelleth in me.” On the other hand, at times our soul gives such a sweet assent to the Spirit’s cry that it becometh ours also, but then we more than ever own the work of the Spirit, and still ascribe to Him the blessed cry, “Abba, Father.”

God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, and that Spirit cries in us exactly according to the cry of the Son. If you turn to the gospel of Mark, at the fourteenth chapter, thirty-sixth verse, you will find there what you will not discover in any other evangelist (for Mark is always the man for the striking points, and the memorable words), he records that our Lord prayed in the garden, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee; take away this cup from Me: nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt.” So that this cry in us copies the cry of our Lord to the letter-“Abba, Father.” “Abba” is not a word, somehow, but a babe’s lisping. Oh, how near we are to God when we can use such a speech! How dear He is to us and dear we are to Him when we may thus address Him, saying, like the great Son Himself, “Abba, Father.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1435.cfm

The Spirit’s Cry Within Us

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

God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. – Galatians 4:6

Where the Holy Ghost enters there is a cry. “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son, crying, ‘Abba, Father.'” Now, notice, it is the Spirit of God that cries-a most remarkable fact. Some are inclined to view the expression as a Hebraism, and read it, He “makes us to cry;” but, beloved, the text saith not so, and we are not at liberty to alter it upon such a pretence. We are always right in keeping to what God says, and here we plainly read of the Spirit in our hearts that He is crying “Abba, Father.” The apostle in Romans 8:15 says, “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father,” but here he describes the Spirit Himself as crying “Abba, Father.” We are certain that when he ascribed the cry of “Abba, Father” to us, he did not wish to exclude the Spirit’s cry, because in the twenty-sixth verse of the famous eighth of Romans he says, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Thus he represents the Spirit Himself as groaning with unutterable groanings within the child of God, so that when he wrote to the Romans he had on his mind the same thought which he here expressed to the Galatians,-that it is the Spirit Himself which cries and groans in us “Abba, Father.” How is this? Is it not ourselves that cry? Yes, assuredly; and yet the Spirit cries also. The expressions are both correct. The Holy Spirit prompts and inspires the cry. He puts the cry into the heart and mouth of the believer. It is His cry because He suggests it, approves of it, and educates us to it. We should never have cried thus if He had not first taught us the way. As a mother teaches her child to speak, so He puts this cry of “Abba, Father” into our mouths; yea, it is He who forms in our hearts the desire after our Father God and keeps it there. He is the Spirit of adoption, and the author of adoption’s special and significant cry. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1435.cfm

Sonship Sealed by the Indwelling Spirit

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

“God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts.” – Galatians 4:6

Note, that it does not say into your heads or your brains. The Spirit of God doubtless illuminates the intellect and guides the judgement, but this is not the commencement nor the main part of His work. He comes chiefly to the affections, He dwells with the heart, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts.” Now, the heart is the centre of our being, and therefore doth the Holy Ghost occupy this place of vantage. He comes into the central fortress and universal citadel of our nature, and thus takes possession of the whole. The heart is the vital part; we speak of it as the chief residence of life, and therefore the Holy Ghost enters it, and as the living God dwells in the living heart, taking possession of the very core and marrow of our being. It is from the heart and through the heart that life is diffused. The blood is sent even to the extremities of the body by the pulsings of the heart, and when the Spirit of God takes possession of the affections, He operates upon every power, and faculty, and member of our entire manhood. Out of the heart are the issues of life, and from the affections sanctified by the Holy Ghost all other faculties and powers receive renewal, illumination, sanctification, strengthening, and ultimate perfection.

This wonderful blessing is ours “because we are sons;” and it is fraught with marvellous results. Sonship sealed by the indwelling Spirit brings us peace and joy; it leads to nearness to God and fellowship with Him; it excites trust, love, and vehement desire, and creates in us reverence, obedience, and actual likeness to God. All this, and much more, because the Holy Ghost has come to dwell in us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1435.cfm

So Great a Blessing is Ours

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

God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts… – Galatians 4:6

“God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts.” Here is a divine act of the Father. The Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son: and God hath sent Him forth into your hearts. If He had only come knocking at your hearts and asked your leave to enter, He had never entered, but when Jehovah sent Him He made His way, without violating your will, but yet with irresistible power. Where Jehovah sent Him there He will abide and go no more out for ever. Beloved, I have no time to dwell upon the words, but I want you to turn them over in your thoughts, for they contain a great depth. As surely as God sent His Son into the world to dwell among men, so that His saints beheld His glory, the “glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” so surely hath God sent forth the Spirit to enter into men’s hearts, there to take up His residence that in Him also the glory of God may be revealed. Bless and adore the Lord who hath sent you such a visitor as this.

There are many professors who know nothing of this; they listen to us with bewilderment as if we told them an idle tale, for the carnal mind knoweth not the things that be of God; they are spiritual and can only be spiritually discerned. Those who are not sons, or who only come in as sons under the law of nature, like Ishmael, know nothing of this indwelling Spirit, and are up in arms at us for daring to claim so great a blessing: yet it is ours, and none can deprive us of it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1435.cfm

Because You Are Not of the World

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

But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. – Galatians 4:23

You shall find, dear brother, that if you enjoy fellowship with God, if you live in the spirit of adoption, if you are brought near to the Most High, so as to be a member of the divine family, straightway all those who are under bondage to the law will quarrel with you. Thus saith the apostle, “As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.” The child of Hagar was found by Sarah mocking Isaac, the child of promise. Ishmael would have been glad to have shown his enmity to the hated heir by blows and personal assault, but there was a superior power to check him, so that he could get no further than “mocking.” So it is just now. There have been periods in which the enemies of the gospel have gone a great deal further than mocking, for they have been able to imprison and burn alive the lovers of the gospel; but now, thank God, we are under His special protection as to life and limb and liberty, and are as safe as Isaac was in Abraham’s house. They can mock us, but they cannot go any further, or else some of us would be publicly gibbeted. But trials of cruel mockings are still to be endured, our words are twisted, our sentiments are misrepresented, and all sorts of horrible things are imputed to us, things which we know not, to all which we would reply with Paul, “Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” This is the old way of the Hagarenes, the child after the flesh is still doing his best to mock him that is born after the Spirit. Do not be astonished, neither be grieved in the least degree when this happens to any of you, but let this also turn to the establishment of your confidence and to the confirmation of your faith in Christ Jesus, for he told you of old, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1435.cfm