The Father

The Honey of Grace

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

“He (the Holy Spirit) shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore, said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you.”-John 16:14, 15

Ralph Erskine, in his preface to a sermon upon the fifteenth verse, has a notable piece. He speaks of grace as honey-honey for the cheering of the saints, for the sweetening of their mouths and hearts; but he says that in the Father “the honey is in the flower, which is at such a distance from us that we could never extract it.” In the Son “the honey is in the comb, prepared for us in our Immanuel, God-Man, Redeemer, the Word that was made flesh, saying, ‘All things that the Father hath are Mine; and Mine for your use and behoof’: it is in the comb. But then, next, we have honey in the mouth; the Spirit taking all things, and making application thereof, by showing them unto us, and making us to eat and drink with Christ, and share of these ‘all things’; yea, not only eat the honey, but the honeycomb with the honey; not only His benefits, but Himself.” It is a very beautiful division of the subject. Honey in the flower in God, as in mystery; really there. There never will be any more honey than there is in the flower. There it is. But how shall you and I get at it? We have not wisdom to extract the sweetness. We are not as the bees that are able to find it out. It is bee-honey, but not man-honey. Yet you see in Christ it becomes the honey in the honeycomb, and hence He is sweet to our taste as honey dropping from the comb. Sometimes we are so faint that we cannot reach out a hand to grasp that honeycomb; and alas! there was a time when our palates were so depraved that we preferred bitter things and thought them sweet. But now the Holy Ghost has come, we have got the honey in the mouth, and the taste that enjoys it; yea, we have now so long enjoyed it, that the honey of grace has entered into our constitution, and we have become sweet unto God; His sweetness having been conveyed by this strange method unto us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2213.cfm

Our Holy Confidence

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

And he answered, “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them”…and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. – 2 Kings 6:16,17

Elisha’s young attendant, when his eyes were opened, saw that God’s people are safe. He perceived that there were more with Elisha, after all, than could possibly be against him, and he felt that he himself was safe as the servant of the servant of God. Thus, he believed in his master’s God, and found a shelter from his own fears. The invaders were flesh and blood, but the defenders were of fire, and thus were able to consume the adversaries at once. He saw, and saw it so joyfully, that God’s horses of fire, and chariots of fire, were more than a match for all the forces of evil. I pray that the eyes of every Christian person here may be so opened that they shall never doubt that the powers on the side of truth and righteousness and God are, after all, mightier than the hosts of evil. It may be that you live among those who scoff at your faith, and despise all that you hold dear; indeed, it seems that, wherever you turn, everybody is against you in this day of doubt. I think I hear you cry with David, “My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.” Courage, my comrade, God is near thee! His angels are keeping watch and ward about thee! We are not alone, for the Father is with us. Oh, that our eyes may be so opened as to see that more are they that are with us than all that are against us! Indeed, “if God be for us, who can be against us?” Let us be strangers to fear. In holy confidence, let us be “stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” Never allow a doubt as to the ultimate issue. Is God Himself your shield, and your exceeding great reward? Then, what can man do unto you? …Hold fast your integrity. Believe the truth of God even to the end, for the Lord Jesus will not fail, nor be discouraged, till all His foes are beneath His feet. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2215.cfm

Seeing the Most Real Things

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

“Lord, open the young man’s eyes, that he may see!” – 2 Kings 6:17

Elisha, no doubt, felt that the answer to his prayer would be precisely what it really was. “The Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” We want men’s eyes to be opened, that they may know that spiritual forces really exist. The things which we see are not the only real things, nor even the most real things. The things that are seen are temporal; they are, in truth, but shadows of the unseen…Faith teaches us to believe in the existence of that most glorious of all spirits, the great God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Faith reveals to the heart the existence of that divine and ever-adorable Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is at this hour with His Church, and will abide with her to the end of the world. Faith also makes us know the existence, and power, and presence of the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth with believers, and is in them, working out the eternal purpose of God in their sanctification. No knowledge is more sublime than to know the Trinity in Unity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one Jehovah. When we come to realize that the Lord God is the source of all things; that our Lord hath made us, and not we ourselves, and that all things come into being by His sovereign will and power; then we come to recognize His presence, to consult His will, and to lean upon His might. God becomes real in our thought and apprehension. Since He whom we cannot see nevertheless supporteth all things that are, we feel that the invisible is the basis of all things. Oh, that we could get men’s minds out of these time-worn ruts of things seen, these narrow bounds of space, and time, and seeing, and handling! Oh, that they could rise into the region where the dim faculties, which are bounded by so small a circle, would give place to perceptions which know the infinite, the eternal, the true the divine! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2215.cfm

Serving Our Own Generation

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

For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. – Acts 13:36

Though our citizenship is in heaven, yet as we live on earth, we should seek to serve our generation while we pass as pilgrims to the better country. What, then, is it for a man to serve his own generation?

It is not to drop into the habits, customs, and ideas of the generation in which we live. People talk nowadays about Zeitgeist, a German expression which need frighten nobody; and one of the papers says, “Spurgeon does not know whether there is such a thing.” Well, whether he knows anything about Zeitgeist or not, he is not to serve this generation by yielding to any of its notions or ideas which are contrary to the Word of the Lord. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not only for one generation, it is for all generations. It is the faith which needed to be only “once for all delivered to the saints”…It cannot change because it has been given of God and is therefore perfect; to change it would be to make it imperfect. It cannot change because it has been given to answer for ever the same purpose, namely, to save sinners from going down to the pit, and to fit them for going to heaven. That man serves his generation best who is not caught by every new current of opinion, but stands firmly by the truth of God, which is a solid, immovable rock…

Is it not a grand thing to build up, from the beginning of life to the end of it, the same gospel? But to set up opinions to knock them down again, as though they were ninepins, is a poor business for any servant of Christ. David did not, in that way serve his own generation; he was the master of his age, and not its slave. I would urge every Christian man to rise to his true dignity and be a blessing to those amongst whom he lives, as David was. Christ “hath made us kings and priests unto God His Father”; it is not meet that we should cringe before the spirit of the age or lick the dust whereon “advanced thinkers” have chosen to tread. Beloved, see to this and learn the distinction between serving your own generation and being a slave to it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2243.cfm

There is No Other Way of Salvation

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

…For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation… – Revelation 5:9

How many have already entered into glory by the blood of the Lamb! When a man comes to die, nothing else will do for him but this: our own works are a poor staff for us when we pass through the river. All those who are now in the land of light have but one confidence, and but one song: they stand upon the merit of Jesus Christ, and they praise the Lamb who was slain, by whose blood they have been cleansed and sanctified. There is no other way of salvation but that. Even now that blood has virtue to take away your sin. Christ is a sufficient Saviour, because His death has unexhausted power. Believe that He can save you even now.

I would remind you that even now is a time of hope to you because the Spirit still can renew. He is yet at work, regenerating and sanctifying. He came down at Pentecost to dwell with His people and has never gone back again. He is still in the church. Sometimes we feel His mighty power more than at other times, but He is always at work. Oh, you that do not know anything about the power of the Holy Ghost, let me tell you that this is the most wonderful phenomenon that can ever be observed! Those of us who have seen and known His mighty energy can bear testimony to it…That same Holy Ghost is able to give you a new heart even now, to make you a new creature in Christ Jesus at this moment. Believest thou this?

How longingly the Father looks along the road, to see whether at length some of you are turning homeward! Ah! did you but know the joy that awaits those who come, and the feast which would load the welcoming table, you would say, “I will arise and go to my Father.” You should have returned long ago; but blessed be His love, which even now waits to clasp you to His heart! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2249.cfm

Christ is the Channel of All, the Pledge of All, the Sum of All

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

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

All love and mercy flow from God through Christ the mediator. We get nought apart from Him. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” Other conduits are dry, but this channel is always full. “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

When God gave us Christ, He did as much as say, “I have given you all things.” “He that spared not His own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” He is a covenant to us, the title-deed of the promised rest.

“Money answereth all things,” says the wise man, and this is true in a limited sense; but he that has Christ, has indeed all things: he has the essence, the substance of all good. I have only to plead the name of Jesus before the Father’s throne, and nothing desirable shall be denied me. If Christ is yours, all things are yours. God, who gave you Christ, has in that one gift summed up the total of all you will want for time and for eternity; to obliterate the sin of the past, to fulfill the needs of the present, and to perfect you for all the work and bliss of the future. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1006.cfm

If We are One with Christ…

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

Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. – 2 John 1:9

If we are one with Christ, we should go through the world like princes; we should be like Abraham among his fellows, who claimed no princedom, and wore no crown, yet who could say to the King of Sodom what he had already vowed to God, “I will not take from thee a thread unto a shoe-latchet, and I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.” If you are one with Christ, treat the world in that way. O world, thou canst not bless me! God hath blessed me. Thou canst not curse me! God hath blessed me. Dost thou laugh? Laugh if it pleaseth thee. Dost thou frown? What signifieth it to me? If God has smiled upon me, thou mayest spurn me. If I am one with Christ, I expect that thou shouldest think little of me; for thou didst spurn my Head. Should the body of Christ expect better treatment than the Head received?

If we are one with Christ, we shall remember that to dishonour ourselves is to implicate our Lord. If I dishonour any part of my body, my head feels the shame of it; and since we are the members of Christ, we should be very careful how to behave, lest we should cause Him pain. Men will judge Christ by His people. If I caught sight of a pair of legs very unsteadily walking along the street, I should be inclined to say that they belong to a drunken head. If our walk among men is not such “as becometh the gospel”, what hard thoughts those around us may have of our Saviour! Of course, we know that any ill estimate of Him will be false, for He is all fair, and there is no spot in Him; but still His name and His cause will suffer dishonour. Let us not, then, injure or defile ourselves, lest we should bring reproach upon Him whom we love! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2244.cfm