The Father

The Sureness of the Promise

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

Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

Continuance is indeed the main element of this promise-“Ye shall live.” It means certainly that during our abode in this body we shall live. We shall not be again reduced to our death-state during our sojourn here. Ten thousand attempts will be made to bring us under dominion to the law of sin and death, but this one word baffles all. Your soul may be so assailed that it shall seem as if you could not keep your hold on Christ, but Christ shall keep His hold on you. The incorruptible seed may be crushed, bruised, buried, but the life within it shall not be extinguished, it shall yet arise. “Ye shall live.” When ye see all around you ten thousand elements of death, think ye believers, how grand is this word, “Ye shall live.” No falling from grace for you; no being cast out of the covenant, no being driven from the Father’s house and left to perish. “Ye shall live.”

Nor is this all, for when the natural death comes, which indeed to us is no longer death, our inner life shall suffer no hurt whatsoever; it will not even be suspended for a moment. It is not a thing which can be touched by death. The shafts of the last enemy can have no more effect upon the spiritual, than a javelin upon a cloud. Even in the very crisis, when the soul is separated from the body, no damage shall be done to the spiritual nature. And in the awful future, when the judgment comes, when the thrones are set, and the multitudes are gathered, and to the right the righteous, and to the left the wicked, let what may of terror and of horror come frothy, the begotten of God shall live. Onward through eternity, whatever may be the changes which yet are to be disclosed, nothing shall affect our God-given life. Like the life of God Himself-eternal, and ever-blessed, it shall continue. Should all things else be swept away, the righteous must live on; I mean not merely that they shall exist, but they shall live in all the fullness of that far-reaching, much-comprehending word “life.” Bearing the nature of God as far as the creature can participate in it, the begotten from the dead shall prove the sureness of the promise, “Ye shall live.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Our Eternal Union with Jesus

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

He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already... – John 3:18

And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. – Ephesians 2:1

Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

The text secures that the death-penalty of the law shall never fall upon believers. The quickened man shall never fall back into the old death from which he has escaped; He shall not be numbered with the dead and condemned either in this life or the next. Never shall the spiritually living become dead again in sin. As Jesus being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him; even so sin shall not have dominion over us again. Once, through the offense of one, death reigned in us; but now having received abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, we shall reign in life by one, Christ Jesus. Rom 5:17 “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Rom 5:10

We are united to Christ this day by bands of spiritual life which neither things present nor things to come can separate. Our union to Jesus is eternal. It may be assailed; but it shall never be destroyed. The old body of this death may for a while prevail but it cannot die. Who shall condemn to death that which is not under the law? Who shall slay that which abides under the shadow of the Almighty? Even as sin reigned unto death, even so must grace reign unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

The Soul’s Highest Life

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

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. – Romans 8:6

Christ is our life, but He works in us through His Holy Spirit, who dwelleth in us evermore. We know that this life very much consists in union with God. “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither again can be. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Death as to the body consists in the body being separated from the soul; the death of the soul lies mainly in the soul’s being separated from its God. For the soul to be in union with God is the soul’s highest life; in His presence it unfolds itself like an opening flower; away from Him it pines, and loses all its beauty and excellence, till it is as a thing destroyed. Let the soul obey God, let it be holy, pure, gracious, then is it happy and truly living; but a soul sundered from God is a soul blasted, killed, destroyed; it exists in a dreadful death; all its true peace, dignity, and glory, are gone; it is a hideous ruin, the mere corpse of manhood. The new life brings us near to God, makes us think of Him, makes us love Him, and ultimately makes us like Him. My brethren, it is in proportion as you get near to God that you enter into the full enjoyment of life-that life which Jesus Christ gives you, and which Jesus Christ preserves in you. “In His favour is life.” Psa 30:5 “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.” Pro 14:27 To turn to God is “repentance unto life.” To forget God is for a man to be “dead whilst he liveth.” To believe the witness of God is to possess the faith which overcometh the world. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Alive from the Dead

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

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses… – Colossians 2:13

“In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” was the Lord’s threatening to our first parent, who was the representative of the race. He did eat of the fruit, and since God is true, and His word never fails, we may be sure of this, that in that selfsame day Adam died. It is true that he did not cease to exist, but that is quite another thing from dying. The threatening was not that he should ultimately die, but “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;” and it is beyond all doubt that the Lord kept His word to the letter. If the first threatening was not carried out, we might take liberty to trifle with all others. Rest assured, then, that the threat was on the spot fulfilled. The spiritual life departed from Adam; he was no longer at one with God, no more able to live and breathe in the same sphere as the Lord. He fell from his first estate; he had need if he should enter into spiritual life to be born again, even as you and I must be. As he hides himself from his Maker, and utters vain excuses before his God, you see that he is dead to the life of God, dead in trespasses and sins. We also, being heirs of wrath even as others, are through the fall dead, dead in trespasses and sins; and if ever we are to possess spiritual life, it must be said of us, “And you hath He quickened.” We must be as “those that are alive from the dead.” The fall brought universal death, in the deep spiritual sense of that word, over all mankind; and Jesus delivers us from the consequences of the fall by implanting in us spiritual life. By no other means can this death be removed: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” The work of regeneration, in which the new life is implanted, effectually restores the ruin of the fall, for we are born again, “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

The King of the Jews

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

Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. – Matthew 21:9

But they cried, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him! – Luke 23:21

Jesus was the son of David, and therefore He was by natural right the King of the Jews. If He had taken possession of His own, He would have been sitting on the throne of the chosen dynasty of David by right of birth. He was, moreover, as the Messiah, and Christ, the King of His people Israel. Concerning Him it had been said by the prophet, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” Our Lord Jesus literally came to Zion in this manner. As King He rode to His capital and entered His palace. In His priestly royalty the Son of God went to His Father’s house, to the temple of sacrifice and sovereignty. Among the tribes of Israel is He seen to be “one chosen out of the people,” whom the LORD had given to be a leader and commander for the people. Although they might afterwards choose Barabbas, and cry that they had no king but Caesar, yet Jesus was their King, as Pilate reminded them, when he said, “Shall I crucify your king?” and as His cross declared when it bore the legal inscription, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews.” Before His trial and His condemnation, He had put in a public claim to the rights and prerogatives of Zion’s king, whom God has set upon His holy hill. Would to God all my hearers fully recognized our Lord’s kingdom and yielded to His sway! Oh, that you would bow before Him, and put your trust in Him! Part of His intent in riding through Jerusalem was that we also might know Him and reverence Him as King of kings and Lord of lords. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2196.cfm

We Must Speak of Our Bleeding Savior

Sherry Character of Jesus, salvation, The Father Leave a comment

…and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him... – Matthew 20:18, 19

The priests, whose office made them types of Himself, and the scribes, who were the official interpreters of His Father’s Book, these condemned the holy One and the just. They count Him worthy of death: nothing less will serve their turn. This the Christ could plainly see; and it was no small trial to come under the censure of His country’s governors. They could not put Him to death themselves. If they dared, they would have stoned Him, and that would have broken the prophecy, which declared that in death His enemies must pierce His hands and His feet. They can condemn Him to death, but they cannot execute the sentence. Yet none the less this iron entered into His soul, that those who were professedly the servants of God condemned Him to die…They delivered Him to the Gentiles. The Master dwells on this. It opens another gate through which His sorrows poured. At the hands of the Gentiles He dies, and for Gentiles He suffered. Beloved, I like to see how the Master notes this point. He makes distinctions; He does not say that He should be condemned by Pilate; but He is condemned to die by the chief priests, and then He is delivered to the Gentiles…O believer, behold thy Lord bound and taken away to the hall of Pilate. See Him delivered to the Gentiles, while His fellow-countrymen cry, “We have no king but Caesar”! They shout, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” and the Gentiles carry out their cruel demand…These three words follow-“To mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him.”…What dreadful scorning He endured! It was cruel, cutting, cursed scorn. They mocked Him and they scourged Him…We must exhibit the bleeding Savior, if we would make men’s hearts bleed for sin. The cries of His great grief must ring in their ears, or they will remain deaf. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2212.cfm

For Jehovah’s Glory

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

Saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done. – Luke 22:42

On the third day, it would all be over, and the recompense would begin. A few hours of bitter grief; a night of bloody sweat, a night and a morning of mockery, when He should be flouted by the abjects and made nothing of by the profane; a direful afternoon of deadly anguish on the cross, and of dark desertion by Jehovah; and then the bowing of the head, and a little rest in the grave for His body; and on the third day the light would break upon mankind, for the Sun of righteousness would arise with healing in His wings. The light that would come when He should rise would lighten the Gentiles and be the glory of His people Israel…He would shortly afterward ascend to reap His reward in personal glorification, and in receiving gifts for men-yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.

Surely our Lord’s thoughts were all the while upon His Father! He remembered ever the beloved Father to whom He was to be “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” That twenty-second psalm, which might well be our Lord’s on the Cross, is full of God: it is an appeal to God. As our Lord went on His way with the twelve, conversing upon the road, they must have seen that He was in close communion with God. There was about Him a deep solemnity of spirit a rapt communion with the Unseen, a heavenly walking with God, even beyond His usual wont. This, mixed with His deeply fixed resolve, and that stern joy which only they can feel who are resolved to accomplish a great purpose through bowing to the divine will, let it cost what it may. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus was everything to Him, and in all His acts His heart was set upon Jehovah’s glory. – C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2212.cfm