The Father

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

Sorrow at His Cross but Worship at His Throne

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

“And He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God; and they shall abide: for now shall He be great unto the ends of the earth.”-Micah 5:4.

You have a very vivid idea of the sufferings of Christ. Your faith has seen Him sweating great drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane. You have looked on with amazement while He gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them who plucked off the hair, and hid not His face from shame and spitting. With sorrowful sympathy you have followed Him through the streets of Jerusalem, weeping and bewailing Him with the women. You have sat down to watch Him when He was fastened to the tree; yon have wept at His bitter complaint-“My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me?” and you have rejoiced in His shout of victory-“It is finished!” With Magdalene and Nicodemus, you have followed His dead body to the tomb, and seen it wrapped about with spices, and left to its lonely sleep. Are your perceptions quite as keen concerning the glory which did follow and is following? Can you see Him quite as distinctly when on the third morn the Conqueror rises, bursting the bonds of death with which He could not be holden? Can yon as clearly view Him ascending up on high, leading captivity captive? Can you hear the ring of angelic clarions, as with dyed garments from Bozrah the Victor returns from the battle, dragging death and hell at His chariot wheels? Do you plainly perceive Him as He takes His seat at the right hand of the Father, henceforth expecting until His enemies be made His footstool? And can you be as clear about the reigning Christ as you have been about the suffering Christ? Behold Him, my brethren, in His present plenitude of glory, and endeavor to get as clear a perception of it as you have had of His shame. Not only weep at His burial, but rejoice at His resurrection; not only sorrow at His cross, but worship at His throne. Do not merely think of the nails and of the spear but behold the imperial purple which hangs so nobly upon His royal shoulders, and of the divine crown which He wears upon His majestic brow. “He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

A Rest for the People of God.

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

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. – Hebrews 4:9

Oh! happy truth, there remaineth a rest for the people of God. ” They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” Others of you are always in the field of battle; you are so tempted within, and so molested by foes without, that you have little or no peace. I know where your hope lies. It lies in the victory, when the banner shall be waved aloft, and the sword shall be sheathed, and you shall hear your Captain say, “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast fought a good fight; thou hast finished thy course: henceforth wear thou the crown of life which fadeth not away.” Some of you are tossed about with many troubles; you go from care to care, from loss to loss: it seems to you as if all God’s waves and billows had gone over you; but you shall soon arrive at the land of happiness, where you shall bathe your weary soul in seas of heavenly rest, You shall have no poverty soon; no mud-hovel, no rags, nor hunger. “In My Father’s house are many mansions,” and there shall you dwell, satisfied with favor, and full of every blessing. You have had bereavement after bereavement; the wife has been carried to the tomb, the children have followed, father and mother are gone, and you have few left to love you here; but you are going to the land where graves are unknown things, where they never see a shroud, and the sound of the mattock and the spade are never heard; you are going to your Father’s house in the land of the immortal, in the country of the hereafter, in the home of the blessed, in the habitation of God Most High, in the Jerusalem which is above, the mother of us all. Is not this your best joy, that you are not to be here for ever, that you are not to dwell eternally in this wilderness, but shall soon inherit Canaan? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0562.cfm