Sovereignty of God

No Two Alike

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

Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies. – Psalm 104:17,18

God has not made two creatures precisely alike. You shall gather leaves from a tree, and you shall not find two veined in precisely the same way. In Christian experience it is the same. Wherever there is living Christian experience, it is different from everybody else’s experience in some respect. In a family of children each child may be like its father, and yet each child shall be different from each other child; and amongst the children of God, though they all have the likeness of Christ in a measure, yet are they not all exactly the one like the other. You read the other day the life of John Bunyan, and you said, “Oh, if I had experience like John Bunyan, then I should know I was a child of God.” This was foolish. The biographies that are published in our magazines in many cases do some good, but more mischief; for there are Christian people who begin at once to say, “Have I felt precisely thus? Have I felt exactly that? If not, I am lost.” Hast thou felt thyself a sinner and Christ a Savior? Art thou emptied of self and dost thou look to Christ alone? Well, if no other soul hath trod the same path as thou hast done, thou art in a right path; and though thy experience may have eccentricities in it that differ from all others, it is right it should be so. God has not made the wild goat like the cony, nor has He made the stork like any other bird, but He has made each to fit the place it is to occupy, and He makes your experience to be suitable to the bringing out some point of His glory, which could not be brought out otherwise. Some are full of rejoicing, others are often depressed; a few keep the happy medium; many soar aloft, and then dive into the deeps again; let these varied experiences, as they are all equally clear phases of the same divine lovingkindness, be accepted, and let them be rejoiced in. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

Our Providential Position 

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

Where the birds make their nests… – Psalm 104:17

Birds with their nests for the cedars of Lebanon, storks for the fir trees, wild goats for the high hills, and conies for the rocks. Each of these creatures looks most beautiful at home. Go into the Zoological Gardens, and see the poor animals there under artificial conditions, and you can little guess what they are at home. A lion in a cage is a very different creature from a lion in the wilderness. The stork looks wretched in his wire pen, and you would hardly know him as the same creature if you saw him on the housetops or on the fir trees. Each creature looks best in its own place. Take that truth, now, and use it for yourself. Each man has by God a providential position appointed to him, and the position ordained for each Christian is that in which he looks best; it is the best for him and he is the best for that; and if you could change his position, and shift him to another, he would not be half as happy, nor half as useful, nor half so much himself. Put the stork on the high hills, put the wild goat on the fir trees-what monstrosities! Take my dear brother who has been a working-man this last twenty years, and always been a spiritually-minded man, and make him Lord Mayor of London, and you would spoil him altogether. Take a good hearer and set him preaching, and he would make a sorry appearance. A man out of place is not seen to advantage, you see the wrong side of him, the gracious side is hidden. The position in which God has placed me is the best for me. Let me remember this when I am grumbling and complaining. It may be I have got past that foolish discontent which is altogether selfish, but perhaps I repine because I think, if I were in a different position, I could glorify God more. This species of discontent is very insinuating, but let us beware of it. It is foolish to cry, “if I were placed in a different position, I could do so much more for God!” You could not do so much as you can do now. I am sure the goat would not show the wisdom of God so well in a fir tree, as he would up on a high hill; and you would not display the grace of God so well anywhere else as you can do where you are…God knows better than you what is best for you; bow your soul to His sovereign will. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

God’s Children May be Found in Strange Places

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 5 Comments

Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies. – Psalm 104:17,18

There are to be found God’s people in every city. Some of you are going away, it may be, to the ends of the earth, and this word may be comfortable to you. The Lord has an elect people everywhere. The wild goats are on the rocks, and the conies amongst the stones, and the storks in the trees. Go you where you will, you shall find that God has a living people; or if you should be sent to a country where as yet there are no converted men or women, let not that discourage you, but rather say, “I am sent with the purpose of finding out God’s elect, who as yet are hidden in sin. I am to be the instrument of finding out the Lord’s own blood-bought but hidden ones here.” When thou goest into a city that is given to idolatry, thou shalt hear it said to thee, “I have much people in this city;” go, therefore, and labor to find out the much people. Introduce the gospel, tell of the love of Jesus, and you shall soon find that your efforts are rewarded by the discovery of those who shall love your Savior, and delight in the same truth which now charms your heart. Do not believe that there is a rock without its wild goat; do not think that there is a fir-forest without its stork; or that there are to be found trees by the brook without their birds. Expect to find where God dwells that there are some who are sojourners with Him, as all their fathers were. I love to think that the Lord has His hidden ones even in churches that have sadly degenerated from the faith; and, although it is yours and mine to denounce error unsparingly, and with the iconoclastic hammer to go through the land and break the idols of all the churches in pieces as far as God gives us strength, yet there is not a lamb amongst Christ’s flock that we would disdain to feed; there is not the least of all His people, however mistaken in judgment, whom our soul would not embrace an ardent love. God, in nature, has placed life in singular spots, and so has He put spiritual life into strange out-of-the-way places, and has His own chosen where least we should look for them. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

The Tie of Brotherhood

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

The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies. – Psalm 104:18

I know it is the notion of the bigot, that all the truly godly people belong to the denomination which he adorns. Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is anybody else’s doxy who does not agree with me. All the good people go to little Bethel, and nowhere else: they all worship at Zoar, and they sing out of such-and-such a selection, and as for those who cannot say Shibholeth, and lay a pretty good stress on the “h,” but who pronounce it “Sibboleth;”let the fords of the Jordan be taken, and let them be put to death. True, it is not fashionable to roast them alive, but we will condemn their souls to everlasting perdition, which is the next best thing, and may not appear to be quite so uncharitable. Many suppose that because there is grievous error in a church, concerning an ordinance or a doctrine, therefore no living children of God are there. Ah, dear brethren, this severe opinion arises from want of knowing better. A mouse had lived in a box all its life, and one day crawled up to the edge of it and looked round on what it could see. Now the box only stood in a lumber room, but the mouse was surprised at its vastness and exclaimed: “How big the world is!” If some bigots would get out of their box, and only look a little way round them, they would find the realm of grace to be far wider than they dream. It is true that these pastures are a most proper place for sheep, but yet upon yonder hill-tops wild goats are pastured by the Great Shepherd. It is true that yonder plains covered with verdure are best fitted for cattle, but the Lord of all has His beasts in the forest, and His conies among the rocks…You may have to look a long while before you find these living things, but He sees them when you do not, and it is a deal more important to a cony for God to see it, than it is for a man to see it; and so it is an infinitely more weighty matter for a child of God for his Father to know that he is His child, than for his brother to know it. If my brother will not believe me to be a Christian, he cannot help being my brother; he may do what he will in his unkindness, but if I am one of God’s children, and he also is one, the tie of brotherhood cannot be broken between us…God, in nature, has placed life in singular spots, and so has He put spiritual life into strange out-of-the-way places, and has His own chosen where least we should look for them. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

Each Age Has Its Saints

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

Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies. – Psalm 104:17,18

Almost every part of God’s world was meant to be the abode of some creature or another…The teaching of this fact is clear. We shall find that for all parts of the spiritual universe God has provided suitable forms of divine life. Think out that thought a moment. Each age has its saints. The first age had its holy men, who walked with God: and when the golden age had gone, and men everywhere had polluted themselves, God had his Noah. In after days, when men had again multiplied upon the face of the earth, and sin abounded, there was Job in the land of Uz, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob dwelling in tents in the land which had been given to them by promise. On whatever period of the world’s history you choose to place your finger you may rest assured that as God is there, so is there also some form of the divine life extant; some of God’s twice born creatures are to be found even in the most barren ages. If you come to a period like that of Ahab, when a lonely Elijah bitterly complains, “I, only I am left, and they seek my life to destroy it,” you shall hear a still small voice that saith, “Yet have I reserved unto Myself seven thousand men that have not bowed the knee to Baal.” God has still His elect remnant in the most wicked times to whom He has given a banner, because of the truth. When the light was almost gone from Israel, and formalism had eclipsed the sun of Judaism, there were still a Simeon and an Anna waiting for the coming of the Messiah. Times of fearful persecution, when to mention the name of Christ was to sentence yourself to death, have not been devoid of saints, but rather in the hottest times of oppression God has brought forth heroes equal to the emergency. The fiercer the trial the stronger the men. The church of God, like the fabled Salamander, has lived and flourished amid the flames, and has seemed to feed upon the flames that threatened to devour her. As on the crags where it appears impossible for life to exist God places wild goats, so on the high crags of persecution He upholds men whose feet are like hind’s feet, and who glory as they tread upon their high places. Oppression brings out the heavenly manhood of the saints and lets the devil see what strength God can put into the weakness of man. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

Rejoice in His Works

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

The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which He hath planted; Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rooks for the conies. – Psalm 104:16-18

This Psalm is all through a song of nature, the adoration of God in the great outward temple of the universe. Some in these modern times have thought it to be a mark of high spirituality never to observe nature; and I remember sorrowfully reading the expressions of a godly person, who, in sailing down one of the most famous rivers in the world, closed his eyes, lest the picturesque beauties of the scene should divert his mind from scriptural topics. This may be regarded by some as profound spirituality; to me it seems to savor of absurdity. There may be persons who think they have grown in grace when they have attained to this; it seems to me that they are growing out of their senses. To despise the creating work of God, what is it but, in a measure, to despise God Himself? “Whoso mocketh the poor despiseth his Maker.” To despise the Maker, then, is evidently a sin; to think little of God under the aspect of the Creator is a crime…David tells us that “The Lord shall rejoice in His works.” If He rejoices in what He has made, shall not those who have communion with Him rejoice in His works also? “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of them that have pleasure therein.” Despise not the work, lest thou despise the Worker…Here on this earth is Calvary where the Savior died, and by His sacrifice, offered not within walls and roofs, He made this outer world a temple wherein everything doth speak of God’s glory. If thou be unclean, all things will be unclean to thee; but if thou hast washed thy robe and made it white in the blood of the Lamb, and if the Holy Spirit hath overshadowed thee, then this world is but a nether heaven; it is but the lower chamber of which the upper story glows with the full splendor of God, where angels see Him face to face, and this lower story is not without glory, for in the person of Christ Jesus we have seen God, and have communion and fellowship with Him even now. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1005.cfm

Hastening the Coming of Our Lord

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

Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. – James 5:7,8

While the farmer waits with his eyes upward, he waits with his hands at work, engaged in restless toil. He sows, and it is a busy time; when he sees the green blade, what then? He has to work! Yes, the farmer waits; he cannot push on the months; he cannot hasten the time of the harvest home, but he does not wait in silence, in sluggishness and negligence; he keeps to his work and waits. So do you, O Christian! Wait for the coming of your Lord, but let it be with your lamps trimmed, and your lights burning, as good servants attending to the duties of the house, until the Master of the house returns to give you the reward!

The keys of the rain clouds which water the earth hang at the belt of Jehovah. None but the eternal Father can send the Holy Spirit like showers on the church; only He can send the Comforter, and my labor will prosper; it will not be in vain in the Lord. But if He denies—if He withholds this covenant blessing, ah me, work is useless, patience is worthless, and all the cost is in vain. In spiritual, as in temporal things, “It is vain to rise up early and sit up late and eat the bread of carefulness.” “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” We must have the dew, O God, or else our seed shall rot under the clods; we must wait, and wait with our eyes upwards, or else our expectation will perish as a still-born child! So with regard to the comfort, and joy, and ultimate fruit of our faith, we must have our eyes upward looking for the coming of the Lord from heaven, for the day of His appearing will be the day of our manifestation! Our life is hid with Christ, but when He shall appear, we shall appear with Him; when He shall be revealed in glory before the eyes of the assembled multitude, we shall be conspicuous in glory! Not until then shall the fullness of the reward be bestowed, but the risen saints shall be glorified in the glorification of their coming Lord. Oh, for more of this living with the eyes upward, less minding of earthly things, and more looking for, and hastening unto the coming of the Son of God! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1025.cfm