Sovereignty of God

In the World

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

…having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. – John 13:1

You are in the world, and, as you all too surely feel, temptations have shown you that you are not yet in Heaven; you have sighed for a lodge in some vast wilderness, that you might cease from the troublers of earth, for what with the evil language which you hear, the corrupt practices which come under your notice, the temptations that are thrust in your own way, and the persecutions and the cruel mockings with which you are tried, you feel that this is a wretched world to live in. Now mark, Jesus loves His own who are in the world. You men that have to work with so many bad fellows, you tradesmen who have to go in among many who shock you, you good work girls, who meet with so many tempters, if you are His, He loves His own which are in the world.

As the sparks fly upward, so were we born to trouble-why do we count it a strange thing? But Jesus loves His own which are in this dolorous world: this is the balm of our griefs, and I call upon you to hold to it, and not let the devil delude you into the idea that the Lord does not love you because affliction happens to you as it does to other men. Of course, it must so happen so long as you are in the world. How can you expect exemption? Would you have a glass case made for you to keep you snug away from all the frosts and winds of this world? Would you have your heavenly Father indulge you with all the sweet things of this life, and spoil you for the life to come? Would you strike the root in this world and never be transplanted to the heavenly Eden? Do you wish to have your rest and portion in this life? Oh! no; you could not wish for that. Well, then, take what God sends to you, receive evil as well as good from Jehovah’s hand, as Job aforetime did; but never let it be the thought of your heart that Jesus does not love you because you are subjected to evils which are necessary to the place in which, for wise reasons, He suffers you for a little to remain. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0810.cfm

He Stood Surety for Us

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

Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. – John 13:1

The love of Jesus Christ in the past has been attested by many deeds of love. That He loved us He proved by the fact that He stood surety for us when the covenant was made, and entered into stipulations on our behalf that He would fulfill the broken law, and that He would offer satisfaction to the justice of God, which had been provoked. In the fullness of time, He took upon Himself our nature. What higher proof of love than that? In that nature He lived a life of blameless service, in that nature He died a death in which all the weight of divine vengeance for sin was compressed into a few hours of bodily and spiritual anguish. Now that He lives exalted in the highest heaven, He is still His people’s servant, interceding for them, representing them at the right hand of God, preparing a place for them, and by His mighty Spirit fetching them out from the mass of mankind, and preparing them for the place which He has prepared for them in glory. All these proofs show indeed, my dear brethren and sisters, how in the past Jesus Christ has loved His people. Grasp it, I pray you, now, for a minute, grasp it! realize it by putting out the hand of individual faith, and saying, “He loved me in those hoary ages; He loved me ere time began to be counted, and days and years were first mapped out; He loved me ere He had made a star or given light to the sun; He loved me, yes, me in particular, me with a speciality, me as much as any of those on whom His heart is set.” …having loved His own, He loved you, even you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0810.cfm

Return to Your Lord, Backslider

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

…but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, saith the LORD. – Jeremiah 3:1

It is sadly probable that there are some who once loved God very earnestly, but now they have declined and become grievously indifferent; God’s love to us never changes, but ours too often sinks to a low ebb. Perhaps some of you have become so cold in your affections that it is difficult to be sure that you ever did love God at all. It may be that your life has become lax, so as to deserve the censure of the Church. You are a backslider, and you are in a dangerous condition; yet, if there be indeed spiritual life in you, you will wish to return. You have gone astray like a lost sheep, but your prayer is, “seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments.” Now, note well, that the cause which originated your love is the same which must restore it. You went to Christ as a sinner at first, and your first act was to believe the love of God to you when there was nothing in you that evidenced it. Go the same way again. Do not stop, my dear brother, to pump up love out of the dry well within yourself! Do not think it possible that love will come at your bidding. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Think of the Lord’s unchanging grace, and you will feel the spring-time of love returning to your soul. Still doth the Lord reserve mercy for the sinful, still He waiteth to be gracious; He is as willing to receive you now that you have played the prodigal, as He was to have retained you at home in the bosom of His love. Many considerations ought to aid you, backslider, to believe more in the love of God than ever you did. For think what love it must be that can invite you still to return; you, who after knowing so much have sinned against light and knowledge; you, who after having experienced so much, have given the lie to your profession…But thus saith the Lord, “Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return unto Me.” What matchless love is this. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Look to God’s Eternal, Costly Love

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

He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? – Romans 8:32

The soul grows rich in love to God when she rests on the bosom of divine lovingkindness. You, who are tossed about with doubts and fears as to whether you are now accepted or shall persevere to the end, you can scarcely guess the ardours of heart which inflame those saints who have learned to cast themselves wholly upon Jesus and know beyond a doubt His love immutable. Whether I sink or swim, I have no hope but in Christ, my life, my all.

“I know that safe with Him remains,
Protected by His power,
What I’ve committed to His hands
Till the decisive hour:”

And in proportion as I am thus scripturally confident, and rest in my Lord, will my love to Him engross all my heart, and consecrate my life to the Redeemer’s glory.

Beloved, I desire to make this very clear, that to feel love to God we must tread along the road of faith. Truly, this is not a hard or perilous way but one prepared by infinite wisdom. It is a road suitable for sinners, and indeed saints must come that way too. If thou wouldst love God, do not look within thee to see whether this grace or that be as it ought to be, but look to thy God, and read His eternal love, His boundless love, His costly love, which gave Christ for thee; then shall thy love drink in fresh life and vigour. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Trust Christ

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

That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. – John 3:15

“Whosoever believeth in Jesus Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting life;” believest thou this? Canst thou now believe in Jesus; that is, trust Him? Then, Christ died for thee; Christ the Son of God, in thy stead, suffered for thy guilt. God gave His only Son to die for thee. “Oh,” saith one, “if I believed that, how I would love God!” Yes, indeed, thou wouldst, and that is the only consideration which can make thee do so. Thou, a sinner, must take Christ to be thy Saviour, and then love to God shall spring up spontaneously in thy soul, as the grass after showers. Love believed is the mother of love returned. The planet reflects light, but first of all it receives it from the sun; the heliotrope turns its face to the orb of day, but first the sunbeams warm and woo it. You shall turn to God, and delight in God, and rejoice in God; but it must be because you first of all believe, and know, and confide in the love of God to you. “Oh,” saith one, “it cannot be that God should love an unloving sinner; that the pure One should love the impure, that the Ruler of all should love His enemy.” You think that God loves men because they are godly but listen to this: “God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” “He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” “While we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Think of His “great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins.” God has love in His heart towards those who have nothing in them to love. He loves you, poor soul, who feel that you are most unloveable; He loves you who mourn over a stony heart, which will not warm or melt with love to Him. Thus saith the Lord: “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins; return unto Me; for I have redeemed thee.” O that God’s gracious voice might so call some of His poor wandering ones that they may come and believe His love to them, and then cast themselves at His feet to be His servants for ever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

An Encouraging Truth

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

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16

It is certain, beloved brethren, that faith in the heart always precedes love. We first believe the love of God to us before we love God in return. And, oh what an encouraging truth this is. I, a sinner, do not believe that God loves me because I feel I love Him, but I first believe that He loves me, sinner as I am, and then having believed that gracious fact, I come to love my Benefactor in return. Perhaps some of you seekers are saying to yourselves, “Oh, that we could love God, for then we could hope for mercy.” That is not the first step. Your first step is to believe that God loves you, and when that truth is fully fixed in your soul by the Spirit, a fervent love to God will spontaneously issue from your soul, even as flowers willingly pour forth their fragrance under the influence of the dew and the sun. Every man that ever was saved had to come to God not as a lover of God, but as a sinner, and to believe in God’s love to him as a sinner. We all wish to take money in our sacks when we go down hungry to this Egypt to buy the bread of life; but it must not be; heaven’s bread is given to us freely, and we must accept it freely without money and without price. Do you say, “I do not feel in my heart one good emotion; I do not appear to possess one good thought; I fear I have no love to God at all.” Do not remain in unbelief until you feel this love, for if you do, you will never believe at all. You ought to love God, it is true, but you never will till you believe Him, and especially believe in His love as revealed in His only begotten Son. If you come to God in Christ and believe this simple message (2 Corinthians 5:19): “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,” you shall find your heart going out after God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

The Proof of God’s Love

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

…because He first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

John does not say, “We love Him because we admire Him,” but “We love Him because He first loved us.” Love to God, wherever it really exists, has been created in the bosom by a belief of God’s love to us. No man loves God till he knows that God loves him; and every believer loves God for this reason first and chiefly, that God loves him. He has seen himself to be unworthy of divine favour, yet he has believed God’s love in the gift of His dear Son, and he has accepted the atonement that Christ has made as a proof of God’s love, and now being satisfied of the divine affection towards him, he of necessity loves his God. Observe, then, that love to God does not begin in the heart from any disinterested admiration of the nature of God…I, a poor sinner, by nature sunk in the mire, full of everything that is evil, condemned, guilty of death, so that my only desert is to be cast into hell, am under such obligations to my Saviour and my God, that it would be idle for me to talk about a disinterested affection for Him, since I owe to Him my life, my all. Besides, until I catch the gleams of His mercy and His loving-kindness to the guilty, His holy, just, and righteous character are not loveable to me; I dread the purity which condemns my defilement, and shudder at the justice which will consume me for my sin. Do not, O seeker, trouble your heart with nice distinctions about disinterested love, but be you content with the beloved disciple John to love Christ because He first loved you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm