Sovereignty of God

Jesus Lives

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

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

He always lived. There never was a time when He was not. “Before the hills were brought forth I was there,” saith He. The eternal Wisdom of God is from everlasting. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. The same was in the beginning with God.” The life, however, which we think is intended in the text, is not His divine life, His life as Deity, but His life as man, His life as Mediator between God and man. In that life He lives. We needed not to be assured of His divine life: but seeing that, as a Mediator He died, it was necessary to assure us that as a Mediator He descended into the tomb; it is well for us to be assured that as a Mediator He rose again from His grave, and now lives at the right hand of the Father, no more to bleed and die.

Jesus Christ at this time lives in His proper manhood. He lives as to His soul: His human soul is as it was on earth. He lives as to His human body. He is a man before the throne; and I have no doubt that He wears the symbol, of course, mightily glorified, of his sufferings.

“Looks like a Lamb that had been slain.
And wears His priesthood still.”

That very Christ, who did once as a babe lie upon His mother’s breast, and who afterwards trod the waves of Gennesaret: who, after His resurrection, ate a piece of broiled fish and of honeycomb-that very Christ is now before the eternal throne. In very soul and body the man Christ Jesus is there. He lives. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3401.cfm

Imitating Our Lord

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 6 Comments

We love Him, because He first loved us. -1 John 4:19

We have known some saints who showed their love to their Lord by weeping over sinners and praying for their conversion. There have been gracious men and women, who could not sleep at night because of their anxiety about the eternal welfare of their relatives and friends, or even of lost ones who were personally unknown to them; and they have risen from their beds to agonize in prayer for sinners who were either calmly sleeping, and not even dreaming of their doom, or else at that very hour were adding to their previous transgressions. There have been others, who could not hear a blasphemous word, as they passed along the street, without feeling a holy indignation at the injury that was being done to their best Friend, and at the same time their eyes filled with tears of pity for the poor blasphemers, and their hearts poured out a stream of supplication for those who were thus ignorantly or wantonly sinning against the Most High.

Others have proved their love to their Lord by the way in which they have been given of their substance to His cause. They have not only given a tithe of all they had to the great Melchizdeck, but they have counted it a high privilege to lay all that they had upon his altar, counting that their gold was never so golden as when it was all Christ’s and that their lands were never so valuable to them as when they were gladly surrendered to Him. Alas, that there should be so few, even in the Church of Christ, who thus imitate their Lord who freely gave Himself and all He had that He might save His people! Blessed will the Church be when she gets back to the Pentecostal consecration which was the fitting culmination of the Pentecostal blessing: “all that believed were together, and had all things in common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

Behold How He Loves His Lord

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

We love Him because He first loved us. -1 John 4:19

Did anybody ever say of any one of us here, “Behold how he loves Christ”? If someone did say that of you, my brother or sister, was it true? I think I hear your answer, ” Oh, I do love Him! He knows all things, and He knows that I love Him.” But do you love Him so fervently that strangers or even your more intimate acquaintances would say of your love to Jesus what the Jews said of His love to Lazarus, “Behold how He loved him”? “I wish,” says one, “I could do so.” Then listen while I tell you of what some saints have done to show how they have loved their Lord.

There have been those who have suffered for Christ’s sake. They have lain in damp dungeons, and have refused to accept liberty at the price of treachery to their Lord and His truth. They have been stretched upon the rack, yet no torture could make them yield up their fidelity to God. If you have read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, you know how hundreds of brave men and women, and children too, stood at the stake, gloriously calm, and often triumphantly happy, and were burnt to death for Christ’s sake, while many of those who looked on learnt to imitate their noble example, and others who heard their dying testimonies, and their expiring songs, (not groans,) could not help exclaiming, “Behold how these martyrs love their Master!”

There have been others, who have shown their love to their Lord by untiring and self-sacrificing service. They have laboured for Him, at times, under great privations and amid many perils, some as missionaries in foreign lands, and others with equal zeal in this country. Their hearts were all aglow with love for their dear Lord and Saviour, and they spent their whole time and strength in seeking to win souls for Him, so that those who knew them could not help saying, “Behold how they love their Lord!” Some of us can never hope to wear the ruby crown of martyrdom, yet we may be honoured by receiving the richly-jewelled crown from the hand of Christ ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

Heaven is Our Home (Maranatha!)

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

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. -John 14:3

He has made us long for heaven, and given us at least a measure of preparation for it. We are expecting that, one of these days, if the chariot and horses of fire do not stop at our door, our dear Lord and Saviour will fulfil to us His promise, “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also,” To a true believer in Jesus, the thought of departing from this world, and going to be “for ever with the Lord,” has nothing of gloom associated with it. This earth is the place of our banishment and exile; heaven is our home. We are like the loving wife who is sundered by thousands of miles of sea and land from her dear husband, and we are longing for the great re-union with our beloved Lord, from whom we shall then never again be separated. I cannot hope to depict the scene when He shall introduce us to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, and bid us sit with Him in His throne, even as He sits with His Father in His throne. Surely then the holy angels, who have never sinned, will unite in exclaiming, “Behold, how He loved them!” It is a most blessed thought, to my mind, that we may be up there before the hands of that clock complete another round; and if not so soon as that, it will not be long before all of us who love the Lord will be with Him where He is, and then the last among us shall know more of His love than the greatest of us can ever know while here below. Meanwhile, we have much of the joy of heaven even while we are upon this earth; for, as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

What A Wondrous Proof of Love

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

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. – Matthew 8:17

“Being found in fashion as a man,” He took upon Himself human sickness and suffering. All our infirmities that were not sinful Jesus Christ endured,-the weary feet, the aching head, and the palpitating heart, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sickness.” This was a wondrous proof of love, that the ever-blessed Son of God, who needed not to suffer, should have been willing to be compassed with infirmity just like any other man is. “We have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. – John 16:24

Christ has so completely given Himself to us that all that He has is ours. He is the glorious Husband, and His Church is His Bride, the Lamb’s wife; and there is nothing that He has which is not also hers even now, and which He will not share with her for ever. By a marriage bond which cannot be broken, for He hateth putting away, He hath espoused her unto Himself in righteousness and truth, and she shall be one with Him throughout eternity. He has gone up to His Father’s house to take possession of the many mansions there, not for Himself, but for His people; and His contrary prayer is, “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.” Jesus has an ever-flowing fountain of joy in His heart, but He desires that His joy may be in you if you belong to Him, and that your joy may be full; and everything else that He has is yours as much as it is His, so surely you will again join with me in saying, “Behold how He loved us!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

A Wonder of Condescending Grace and Mercy

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

That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him -Ephesians 1:10

In the fulness of time, our Lord Jesus Christ left the glories of heaven, and took upon Him our nature. We know so little of what the word “heaven” means that we cannot adequately appreciate the tremendous sacrifice that the Son of God must have made in order to become the Son of Mary. The holy angels could understand far better than we can what their Lord and ours gave up when He renounced the royalties of heaven, and all the honour and glory which rightly belonged to Him as the Son of the Highest, and left His throne and crown above to be born as the Babe of an earthly mother, yet even to them there were mysteries about His incarnation which they could not fathom; and as they followed the footprints of the Son of man on His wondrous way from the manger to the cross and to the tomb, they must often have been in that most suggestive attitude of which Peter wrote, “which things the angels desire to look into.” To us, the incarnation of Christ is one of the greatest marvels in the history of the universe, and we say, with Paul, “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.” The omnipotent Creator took the nature of a creature into indissoluble union with his divine nature; and, marvel of marvels, that creature was man.

O glorious Bridegroom of our hearts, there never was any other love like Thine! That the eternal Son of God should leave His Father’s side, and stoop so low as to become one with His chosen people, so that Paul could truly write, “We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, is such a wonder of condescending grace and mercy that we can only exclaim again and again, “Behold how He loved us!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

Behold How He Loved Us!

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

And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him. -Isaiah 59:16

When did Christ’s love begin to work for us? It was long before we were born, long before the world was created; far, far back, in eternity, our Saviour gave the first proof of His love to us by espousing our cause. By His divine foresight, He looked upon human nature as a palace that had been plundered, and broken down, and in its ruins He perceived the owl, the bittern, the dragon, and all manner of unclean things. Who was there to undertake the great work of restoring that ruined palace? No one but the Word, who was with God, and who was God. “He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore His own arm brought salvation unto Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him.” Ere the angels began to sing, or the sun, and moon, and stars threw their first beams athwart primeval darkness, Christ espoused the cause of His people, and resolved not only to restore to them all the blessings that He foresaw that they would lose, but also add to them richer favours that could ever have been theirs except through Him.

Jesus Christ, “that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,” undertook to redeem and guard the whole flock entrusted to His care, so that when, at the last great muster, they should pass under the hand of Him that telleth them, not one of them should be missing, and the blessed Shepherd-Son should be able to say to His Father, “Those that Thou gavest me I have kept, and not one of them is lost.” It was in the everlasting covenant that our Lord Jesus Christ became our Representative and Surety and engaged on our behalf to fulfill all His Father’s will; and as we think of this great mystery of mercy, surely all of us who are truly His must exclaim with grateful adoration, “Behold how He loved us!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm