The Father

The Day Will Come

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

I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto Me; for I have redeemed thee. – Isaiah 44:22

There are times when our unbelief makes new clouds and threatens new storms. Though our sin was all forgiven at the very first, and when we were first washed we were clean every whit, so that we needed not ever afterwards to wash again, except to wash our feet, yet unbelief can revive the memories of sin, and defile the conscience with dead works, and so it can create clouds between us and God: nevertheless, when our Lord reveals Himself He blotteth out our sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud our transgressions, and again we return unto Him and rejoice in Him. We need not come under these returning glooms, and we ought not to do so; but should it happen to us that we come under a cloud, it will be a blessed thing to look up and remember that the Lord can clear the skies in a moment and turn our dreariest shades into the brightness of the morning.

The day will come when the gospel shall have been preached for the last time, when the chosen of God shall have been all gathered out from among men, and the dispensation shall be fulfilled. Then shall all the saints rise to glory at the call of God. The elect multitude shall be all there, every one according to the purpose of the Father, every one according to the redemption of the Son, every one according to the calling of the Spirit, all there; upon their faces there shall be no spot nor wrinkle, and on their garments no stain nor defilement, for they are without fault before the throne of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1240.cfm

The Great Fountain

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

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. – James 1:17

And I was afraid and went and hid Thy talent in the earth: lo, there Thou hast that is Thine. – Matthew 25:25

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.” All that men have they must trace to the Great Fountain, the giver of all good. Hast thou talents? They were given thee by the God of talents. Hast thou time? hast thou wealth, influence, power? Hast thou powers of tongue? Hast thou powers of thought? Art thou poet, statesman, or philosopher? Whatever be thy position, and whatever be thy gifts, remember that they are not thine, but they are lent thee from on high. No man hath anything of his own, except his sins. We are but tenants at will. God hath put us into His estates, and He hath said, “Occupy till I come.” Though our vineyards bear never so much fruit, yet the vineyard belongs to the King, and though we are to take the hundred for our hire, yet King Solomon must have his thousand. All the honor of our ability and the use of it must be unto God, because He is the Giver. The parable tells us this very pointedly; for it makes every person acknowledge that his talents come from the Lord. Even the man who digged in the earth and hid his Lords money, did not deny that his talent belonged to his Master; for though his reply, “Lo, there thou hast that is thine,” was exceedingly impertinent, yet it was not a denial of this fact. So that even this man was ahead of those who deny their obligations to God, who superciliously toss their heads at the very mention of obedience to their Creator and spend their time and their powers rather in rebellion against Him than in His service. Oh, that we were all wise to believe and to act upon this most evident of all truths, that everything we have, we have received from the Most High. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0175.cfm

Victory in the Sinner’s Battle

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

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions…Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. – Psalm 51:1,7

Do not appeal to justice, sinner. That is against you; appeal to mercy. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness!” This prayer he brings before God is prayer tipped with a hope in the mercy of God. Go, sinner, and plead with God and fight your sins with hope in His mercy. When he had done that, he then turns to confession: “I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me.” There is no weapon to drive away guilty fears like making a clean breast of your sins. Tell your Father whom you have offended; do not plead any extenuations or mitigations. Confess that you deserve His wrath. Put yourself before the throne of God’s clemency. Confess that if it were turned to a throne of vengeance, you deserve it well. Prayers, tears, pleas for mercy, and full confession-these are weapons to conquer with.

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Hyssop was a little bunch, a brush, used to dip into the blood-a basin full of blood, and then with this brush of hyssop the priest sprinkled the guilty man, the unclean man, and he was counted clean. The master argument in this verse is blood. Oh! how this destroys our sins, how this scatters all our doubts and fears-the almighty weapon of the cross, the divine weapon of the atonement. Let sins come on, and let them be more than the hairs of my head, loftier than mountains and deeper than the unfathomed ocean, let them come on-God’s flaming wrath behind them, hell itself coming to devour me; yet if I can but take the cross and hold it up before me, if I can plead the precious blood I shall be safe, for I shall be saved and proved a conqueror, notwithstanding all. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0972.cfm

The Mercies of God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, The Father, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. – Psalm 130:7

(S)ometimes we seek mercies apart from God the Giver, or apart from Christ, the channel of their bestowal: and this is always ill of us. Avoid such dangerous error…Now, dear brother, do you want mercy? In your prayers for pardoning mercy, quote the Savior’s sacrifice. Do you want sparing mercy? Mention Him whom God did not spare in the great atoning day. Do you want restoring mercy? Plead Him whom God brought again from the dead. Do you want to behold the light of Jehovah’s countenance? Plead Him who said, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” In hoping for mercy, set the eye of your hope upon the Lord Jesus, and let no mercy be hoped for by you apart from Him….As the stars called “the Pointers” always point to the pole-star, so must our faith ever look to God in Christ Jesus. Having begun with Jesus, our faith must not look elsewhere. Let Israel always hope in the Lord, for with Him is what she still requires. What want you, dear friend? Ask, and you shall receive; but ask only of the Lord. Knock, but knock still at the same door. Plead, but when you are pleading, still plead the name of Jesus. Whenever you are expecting a heavenly favor, expect it from the Father, through His dear Son, by the Holy Ghost. Whenever you are longing, long for nothing more than there is in Christ; and whenever you obtain a mercy, remember that you have received it only because you have by faith received Jesus, and so have become a child of God. Whenever you rejoice in a mercy, take care that you do not so much glory in it as in the Lord from whom it came. Hope still in the Lord, and never have any hope in yourself, for that would be a fruitless, groundless, rootless, sapless hope. You are still to find mercy and plenteous redemption in the Lord alone. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2199.cfm

Thy Will Be Done

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

And He said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. – Luke 11:2

Beloved in the Lord, you know that He is Sovereign, and that His will is law. You feel that God, your Maker, your Preserver, your Redeemer, and your Father, should have your unswerving service. We unite, also, in confessing that we are not our own, we are bought with a price. The Lord our God has a right to us which we would not wish to question. He has a greater claim upon our ardent service than He has upon the services of angels; for, while they were created as we have been, yet they have never been redeemed by precious blood. Our glorious Incarnate God has an unquestioned right to every breath we breathe, to every thought we think, to every moment of our lives, and to every capacity of our being. We believe in Jehovah as rightful Lawgiver, and as most fitly our Ruler. This loyalty of our mind is based on faith and is a chief prompter to obedience. Cultivate always this feeling. The Lord is our Father, but He is, “our Father which art in heaven.” He draws near to us in condescension; but it is condescension, and we must not presume to think of Him as though He were such a one as ourselves. There is a holy familiarity with God which cannot be too much enjoyed; but there is a flippant familiarity with God which cannot be too much abhorred. The Lord is King; His will is not to be questioned; His every word is law. Let us never question His sovereign right to decree what He pleases, and to fulfil the decree; to command what He pleases, and to punish every shortcoming. Because we have faith in God as Lord of all, we gladly pay Him our homage, and desire in all things to say: “Thy will be done in earth, as it is done in heaven.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2195.cfm

A Passion for Obedience

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

By faith Abraham…obeyed… – Hebrews 11:8

The obedience that comes of faith is of a noble sort. The obedience of a slave ranks very little higher than the obedience of a well-trained horse or dog, for it is tuned to the crack of the whip. Obedience which is not cheerfully rendered is not the obedience of the heart, and consequently is of little worth before God. If the man obeys because he has no opportunity of doing otherwise, and if, were he free, he would at once become a rebel-there is nothing in his obedience. The obedience of faith springs from a principle within, and not from compulsion without. It is sustained by the mind’s soberest reasoning and the heart’s warmest passion. The man reasons with himself that he ought to obey his Redeemer, his Father, his God; and, at the same time, the love of Christ constrains him so to do, and thus what argument suggests affection performs. A sense of great obligation, an apprehension of the fitness of obedience, and spiritual renewal of heart, work an obedience which becomes essential to the sanctified soul. Hence, it is not relaxed in the time of temptation, nor destroyed in the hour of losses and sufferings. Life has no trial which can turn the gracious soul from its passion for obedience; and death itself doth but enable it to render an obedience which shall be as blissful as it will be complete. Yes, this is a chief ingredient of heaven-that we shall see the face of our Lord and serve Him day and night in His temple. Meanwhile, the more fully we obey at this present time, the nearer we shall be to His temple-gate. May the Holy Spirit work in us, so that, by faith, like Abraham, we may obey! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2195.cfm

His Glory and Majesty

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

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… – Philippians 2:10

Jesus Christ is greatly to be reverenced; the familiarity with which we approach Him is always to be tempered with the deepest and most reverent adoration. He is our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, but still, He counteth it not robbery to be equal with God. I know He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and He calleth Himself to-day our Husband, and maketh us to be members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones; but yet we must never forget that it is written, “Let all the angels of God worship Him,” and “At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Yes, Christ is majestic in His Church. I would, brethren, we always thought of this. There is a glory and a majesty about all the laws of Christ, and all His commands, so that whether we baptize at His command, or break bread in remembrance of Him, or lift up His cross in ministry-in whatever we do, in His name, which is in fact, what He does through us, there is an attendant majesty which should make our minds feel perpetually reverent before Him.  O that the world could see the glory of Christ in the Church! O that the world did but know who it is that is in the midst of the few, the feeble, the weak, the foolish as they call them…There is a true and mysterious presence of Christ with His people, according to the promise “Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world;” it is because the world ignores this that she despises and sneers at the Church of God. Therein is our comfort and our glory. We have a majesty about us if we be the people of God, which is not to be gainsayed; angels see it and wonder-a majesty of indwelling Godhead, for the Lord is in the midst of us for a glory and around us for a defense. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0560.cfm