Sovereignty of God

To See God’s Elect Ingathered

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 4 Comments

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! – Romans 10:15

Beloved, the greatest help that the gospel brings is help to the soul. Ah, Christian men, ye know what this means: your brothers and sisters are this day wandering blindfold, they know not whither. Ye know, for the Bible tells you that they are wending their weary way down to the gulf of black despair! Oh does not your heart desire that the blind eye should be opened, that the misguided should be directed on the path to heaven: would not your pity desire to snatch the fire brand from the flame? Do you not anxiously seek to know how you can lead the vicious to virtue, and the virtuous to the righteousness that is in Jesus Christ? Have you no desire to see God’s elect ingathered, to see them washed, and sanctified, and perfected? Remember this is to be, and since it is to be it is certain that ye must send the gospel far and wide, for by no other means can God’s elect be gathered home. How can they believe without a preacher? How can they preach except they be sent? The gospel must go throughout all lands, that the elect may be gathered home, and the Messiah’s kingdom come. Oh! ye who love the souls of men, is it to you an awful thought that hell’s caverns are filling; is it a dreary thing to you to see the broad road so crowded with its many travelers? You are longing and wishing that the narrow way might have more pilgrims, I beseech you, then, look to it, that by every mean. and by all means ye aid the preaching of the gospel of Jesus; for it is the help for which the earth calls, and the help which you must render to it. Come over and help us by preaching Christ’s holy gospel. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0189.cfm

Divine Sovereignty

Sherry Attributes of God, salvation, Sovereignty of God 18 Comments

Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. -Acts 16:7-9

Bithynia must not hear the gospel; the apostle desires to go and preach it there; but as yet, it seems, God does not intend that Bithynia should be evangelised. He desires to tarry in Asia, and there throughout its length and breadth preach the gospel; but he is strictly forbidden, and the command comes to him that he is to go across to Europe, and there proclaim the gospel. Was not this sovereignty? Why was it that God shut the door in Bithynia, and opened it in Philippi! Was it that Philippi was more worthy, or that Bithynia needed it less? Assuredly not. It was of God’s mercy that he sent the gospel at any time, and when he sent to Philippi the most eminent of apostles to preach it, who shall blame him? Has he not a right to do what he wills with his own? But we may rest quite assured, that his sovereignty was not an arbitrary exercise of despotic will. It was a sovereignty dictated by the highest wisdom; for while God rules all things according to his own will, yet we are expressly told, that he doeth it according to the counsels of his will, his will being no blind headstrong thing, willing for no reason whatever, but being always subject to his own sense of that which is the wisest, and which will promote his glory and his creature’s profit. However, we must still observe, Divine sovereignty is that which casts a rich lustre upon grace, when we recollect that it is sovereign and free. Oh ye, of the race of Britain! bless the Lord, that he hath sent the gospel unto you; for while doubtless there is wisdom in it, remember there is also sovereignty in it. “He hath not dealt so with any nation. Praise ye the Lord.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0189.cfm

Under His Observing Eye

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 4 Comments

Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?- Proverbs 15:11

Your God can both see and hear: would your conduct be in any respect different, if you had a god such as those that the heathen worship? Suppose for one minute, that Jehovah, who is nominally adored in this land, could be (though it is almost blasphemy to suppose it) smitten with such a blindness, that He could not see the works and know the thoughts of man: would you then become more careless concerning Him than you are now? I trow not. In nine cases out of ten, and perhaps in a far larger and sadder proportion, the doctrine of Divine Omniscience, although it is received and believed, has no practical effect upon our lives at all. The mass of mankind forget God: whole nations who know His existence and believe that He beholds them, live as if they had no God at all. Merchants, farmers, men in their shops, and in their fields, husbands in their families, and wives in the midst of their households, live as if there were no God; no eye inspecting them; no ear listening to the voice of their lips, and no eternal mind always treasuring up the recollection of their acts. Ah! we are practical Atheists, the mass of us; yea, all but those that have been born again, and have passed from death unto life, be their creeds what they may, are Atheists, after all, in life; for if there were no God, and no hereafter, multitudes of men would never be affected by the change; they would live the same as they do now-their lives being so full of disregard of God and His ways, that the absence of a God could not affect them in any great degree…I would endeavor to set before you, God, the all-seeing one, and press upon your solemn consideration the tremendous fact, that in all our acts, in all our ways, and in all our thoughts, we are continually under His observing eye.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0177.cfm

The Wheels are Full of Eyes

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 6 Comments

As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. -Ezekiel 1:18

There is the greatest wisdom in the workings of Providence. Now you were in great distress probably, and you could not see why. The next time you are in distress, you must say, The wheels are full of eyes: I have but two eyes; but God’s wheels are full of eyes-God can see every thing; I can only see one thing at a time. I see what the plant is now, I do not know what it will be tomorrow. I know not what kind of flower that herb will yield. This affliction is a cassava root, full of poison, and would soon destroy me; but God can put that in the oven, so that all the poison shall evaporate, and it shall become food for me to live upon. This trouble of mine seems to me to be destructive: God shall get all the destroying power out of it, and it shall be made food. Now, thou tried one, groaning down in the valley, up with thine heart; away with thy tears; put thy hand on thy breast, and make thy heart stop its hard beating-thou poor soul! dash the cup of misery from thine hand; thou art not condemned; thou art a pardoned Christian. Remember that God hath said, “All things work together for good”-more still, they “work together for good to them that love God, even to them that are called according to His purpose.” O! how I would like to make your hearts like flint and steel against trouble! We cannot bear the winds of trouble; we are soon cast down and broken-hearted. When we are in prosperity, we are giants; we think we can do like Samson; we can take hold of the two pillars of trouble and distress, and we can pull them down. But once tell us that the Philistines will be upon us, and we have no power.

Next time trouble comes, disease comes, pestilence comes, smile at it, and say:

“He that has made his refuge God,
Shall find a most secure abode;
Shall walk all day beneath His shade,
And there at night shall rest his head.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3114.cfm

Whatever God Ordains Must Be

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 19 Comments

Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone.-1 Chronicles 29:12

What is fate? Fate is this-Whatever is, must be. But there is a difference between that and Providence. Providence says, Whatever God ordains must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains any thing without a purpose. Every thing in this world is working for some one great end. Fate does not say that. Fate simply says that the thing must be; Providence says, God moves the wheels along, and there they are. If any thing would go wrong, God puts it right; and if there is any thing that would move awry, He puts His hand and alters it. It comes to the same thing; but there is a difference as to the object. There is all the difference between fate and Providence that there is between a man with good eyes and a blind man. Fate is a blind thing; it is the avalanche crushing the village down below and destroying thousands. Providence is not an avalanche; it is a rolling river, rippling at the first like a rill down the sides of the mountain, followed by minor streams, till it rolls in the broad ocean of everlasting love, working for the good of the human race. The doctrine of Providence is not, that what is, must be; but that, what is, works together for the good of our race, and especially for the good of the chosen people of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3114.cfm

Providence is Amazing

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 14 Comments

As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. -Ezekiel 1:18

Even the man that knows that every wave that dashes against the ship is washing him nearer home-that every breath of wind that rises comes to his sail and fills it, and sends it to the white cliffs of his native Albion-even the man that feels that all is for him-even he must say that Providence is amazing. O! that thought, it staggers thought! O! it is an idea that overwhelms me-that God is working all! The sins of man, the wickedness of our race, the crimes of nations, the iniquities of kings, the cruelties of wars, the terrific scourge of pestilence-all these things in some mysterious way are working the will of God! We must not look at it; we cannot look at it. I cannot explain it. I cannot tell you where human will and free agency unite with God’s sovereignty and with His unfailing decrees. This has been the place where intellectual gladiators have fought with each other ever since the time of Adam. Some have said, Man does as he likes; and others have said, God does as He pleases. In one sense, they are both true; but there is no man that has brains or understanding enough to show where they meet. We cannot tell how it is that I do just as I please as to which street I shall go home by; and yet I cannot go home but through a certain road… Last Sabbath-day I came down a certain street I do not know why-and there was a young man who wished to speak to me; he wished to see me many times before. I say that was God’s Providence-that I might meet that young man. Here was Providence, and yet there was my choice; how, I cannot tell. I cannot comprehend it… There is no half way between a mighty God that worketh all things by the sovereign counsel of His will and no God at all. A God that cannot do as He pleases-a God whose will is frustrated, is not a God, and cannot be a God. I could not believe in such a God as that.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3114.cfm

The Unchangeable God

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 24 Comments

When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went. -Ezekiel 1:17

The prophet saw the wheels, and he well says, they turned not when they went, they always went straight forward; they never turned to the right or to the left. Such is God’s Providence. Man marks out plans: he says, I shall build this tower; he gets it halfway up, and he finds he has not enough to finish it with; he has to pull it down, lay a smaller foundation, and build again. God never does so; He has a plan when He begins, and He carries that plan out: He lays the foundation, and always finishes the topstone. There are some who talk about God’s changing His purpose; such people do not know what God is at all. How could God change? God must either change from a better to a worse, or from a worse to a better. If He change from a worse to a better, He is not perfect now; and if He change from what He is to something worse, He will not be perfect then, and He will not be God. He cannot change. It is not possible that God should ever change or shift in any of His purposes. Can He change because He has not power? Why, sirs, He could girdle this globe with mountains, or move the hills into the sea. Can He change because He has not patience enough? What, He who from His purpose never swerves? Shall He change because He has made a mistake? Shall the Most High, Jehovah, ever have an error in His mighty mind? To err is human. With the divine Being the whole goes on, and what He has ordained shall be. On the iron rock of destiny it is written, and it cannot be altered. God moves the wheel, and the wheel goes on; and though a thousand armies stand to stop it, it goes on still. “They turned not to the right hand nor to the left when they went.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3114.cfm