The Father

The Great Object of the Father

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

“The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son..” – Matthew 22:2

A certain king of wide dominions and great power designed to give a magnificent banquet, with a grand object in view. The crown prince, his well-beloved heir, was about to take to himself a fair bride, and therefore the royal father desired to celebrate the event with extraordinary honors. From earth, look up to heaven. The great object of God the Father is to glorify His Son. It is His will “that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.” Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is glorious already in His divine person. He is ineffably blessed, and infinitely beyond needing honor. All the angels of God worship Him, and His glory fills all heaven. He has appeared on the stage of action as the Creator and as such His glory is perfect, “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him.” Nothing is lacking to the glory of the Word of God, who was in the beginning with God, who spake and it was done, who commanded, and it stood forth. He is highly exalted also as the preserver, for He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. He is that nail fastened in a sure place, upon which all things hang. The keys of heaven, and death, and hell, are fastened to His girdle, and the government shall be upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful…He is God over all. He is blessed for ever. To Him that is, and was, and is to come, the universal song goeth up. He hath a name which is above every name, before which all things shall bow, in heaven, and earth, and under the earth. He is God over all. He is blessed for ever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0975.cfm

Christ’s Power to Speak the Word of Absolution

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

And when He saw their faith, He said unto Him, Man, thy sins be forgiven thee. Luke 5:20

It was the business of the four bearers to bring the man to Christ; but there their power ended. It is our part to bring the guilty sinner to the Savior: there our power ends. Thank God, when we end, Christ begins, and works right gloriously. Observe that He began by saying: “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” He laid the axe at the root; He did not desire that the man’s sins might be forgiven, or express a good wish in that direction, but He pronounced an absolution by virtue of that authority with which He was clothed as the Savior. The poor man’s sins there and then ceased to be, and he was justified in the sight of God. Believest thou this, my hearer, that Christ did thus for the paralytic man? Then I charge you believe something more, that if on earth Christ had power to forgive sins before He had offered an atonement, much more hath He power to do this, now that He hath poured out His blood, and hath said, “It is finished,” and hath gone into His glory, and is at the right hand of the Father. He is exalted on high, to give repentance and remission of sin. Should He send His Spirit into thy soul to reveal Himself in thee, thou wouldst in an instant be entirely absolved. Does blasphemy blacken thee? Does a long life of infidelity pollute thee? Hast thou been licentious? Hast thou been abominably wicked? A word can absolve thee-a word from those dear lips which said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I charge thee ask for that absolving word. No earthly priest can give it thee; but the great High Priest, the Lord Jesus, can utter it at once. Ye twos and fours who are seeking the salvation of men, here is encouragement for you. Pray for them now, while the gospel is being preached in their hearing; pray for them day and night, and bring the glad tidings constantly before them, for Jesus is still able “to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0981.cfm

For the Sake of a Clear Conscience

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

I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth… – Psalm 40:10 

How awful to remember that every hour there are hundreds of men and women who are dying without Christ. Turn to the bills of mortality of this one city. Be our sentiments ever so charitable, let us judge with the utmost liberality, the dreadful fact fills our mind, and every knell speaks it to our heart, “They go out of this world unforgiven; they go before their Maker’s bar without a hope!” I think our hearts would break with the dread recollection of this if we could not say, “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation; lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth from the great congregation.”

And how many deaths there always are among our hearers! What comfort can any Christian who knows you have if you die unsaved, unless he is able to appeal to God, and say, “My Father, I did all I could to teach that soul the way of salvation; I did all I could to persuade him to accept the Christ of God”?

Dear friends, whenever you see any of your neighbors, your relatives, your acquaintance die, can you forbear to ask yourselves, shall their blood be required at my hands? Are your skirts stained? Are there no blood drops there? Come, look them down, and say if you can ponder with a clear conscience the fact of a sinner dying in a Christless state without your being able to say, “I have done all I could to bring that soul to Christ”? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

What Men Must Know of God

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

I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. – Psalm 40:10

Our Lord, with eagle eye, descries what is most important for men to know, and upon that He dwells. Sinners must know of God’s righteousness; they will never know their sinfulness else knowing it they will think it to be a little thing. The righteousness of God comes like a stream of light into the soul and reveals its corruption. God’s salvation, again, must be shown in its true colors. It does not owe its origin, its accomplishment, or its application to our works or our merits, but it proceeds from God’s grace, and redounds to His glory…Jesus Christ preached God’s righteousness, and showed God’s righteousness even in salvation, and then He preached that salvation fully.

Nor, dear friends, did He withhold His testimony of the other attributes of God. Think for an instant of God’s faithfulness. Oh, what a delightful theme! As immutability is a glory that belongs to all His attributes, so faithfulness pertains to all His purposes and promises…Moreover, He will rest in His love, “for the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name’s sake.” He is “the Father of lights, with whom is, no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” His promises and His threatenings abide steadfast. Side by side with the faithfulness of God there is witness of His lovingkindness. Oh, what a glorious revelation! the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the God of pity and of pardon, the God of love…The God whom Jesus preached is full of gentleness and tenderness. May we learn to believe in the God and Father whom His only begotten Son Jesus Christ delighted to make known, and if called to testify of Him may we testify fully and heartily as Jesus did. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

The Great Testifier

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

 I have declared... – Psalm 40:10

Jesus was constantly testifying to the gospel of God, the gospel of His righteousness and of His grace. From the first moment when He, being full of the Holy Ghost, began to preach the gospel, until the day when He was taken up into heaven, while He blessed His disciples, He was instant in season and out of season. There were no wasted moments of time, no neglected opportunities, no talents held in reserve. “I must work,” was His motto. The zeal of God’s house consumed Him. It was His meat and His drink to do the will of Him that sent Him. Mark ye how He concentrated every attribute of His nature, every faculty of His mind, and every power of His body in the one work He had undertaken-to do His Father’s will? He seems all His life through to have challenged the enquiry, “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” He was continually preaching the gospel. “Never a man spake as this Man,” may apply to the quantity as well as the quality of His utterances…He could speak anywhere-even along the crowded thoroughfare, where the multitudes thronged Him. He went down the lowest streets, and from the poorest beggars He didn’t turn aside. He was not thwarted by the sneers, and sarcasms, and subtle questioning of the Pharisees and Sadducees. One thought possessed Him, and He persistently wrought it out. His life-sermon was so thorough that nothing of earthly splendor could allure or distract Him or break the thread. He was always and everywhere either pleading with God for men, or else pleading with men for God…”I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained My lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within My heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness, and Thy truth from the great congregation.” He was the great Witness for God, the great Testifier, who went proclaiming everywhere the kingdom of God, and the good tidings of salvation to man. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0977.cfm

But for the Divine Grace of God

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

And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. Hebrews 11:15

It is a wonder of wonders that we have not gone back to the world, with its sinful pleasures and its idolatrous customs. When I think of the strength of divine grace, I do not marvel that saints should persevere; but, when I remember the weakness of their nature, it seems a miracle of miracles that there should be one Christian in the world who could maintain his steadfastness for a single hour. It is nothing short of Godhead’s utmost stretch of might that keeps the feet of the saints and preserves them from going back to their old unregenerate condition. We have had opportunities to have returned. My brethren, we have such opportunities in our daily calling. Some of you are engaged in the midst of ungodly men, and those engagements supply you with constant opportunities to sin as they do, to fall into their excesses, to lapse into their forgetfulness of God, or even to take part in their blasphemies. Oh, have you not often strong inducements, if it were not for the grace of God, to become as they are? Or, if your occupation keeps you alone, yet, my brethren, there is one who is pretty sure to intrude upon our privacy, to corrupt our thoughts, to kindle strange desires in our breasts, to tantalise us with morbid fancies, and to seek our mischief. The Tempter he is, the Destroyer he would be, if we were not delivered from his snares. Ah, how frequently will solitude have temptations as severe as publicity could possibly bring. There are perils in company, but there are perils likewise in our loneliness. We have many opportunities to return…. Opportunities to return! Ah! Who that knows himself does not find strong, incentives to return. Ah! how often will our imagination paint sin in very glowing colors, and, though we loathe sin and loathe ourselves for thinking of it, yet how many a man might say, “had it not been for divine grace, where should I have been? -for my feet had almost gone, my steps had well-nigh slipped.” C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1030.cfm

Our Sympathetic Counsellor

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

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmaties; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. – Hebrews 4:15

There is one thing that is always necessary in a man, before we can rejoice in his being a counsellor. There are some counsellors concerning the legislation of our country in whom you or I could not rejoice much, because we feel that in their counsels the most of us would be forgotten. Our farming friends would probably rejoice in them; they will consult their interests, there is not much doubt; but whoever heard of a counsellor yet who counselled for the poor? or who has these many years heard as much as an inkling of the name of a man who really counselled for economy and for the good of his nation. We have plenty of men who promise us that they will counsel for us- an abundance of men who, if we would but return them to parliament would most assuredly pour forth such wisdom in our behalf that, without doubt, we should be the most happy and enlightened people in the world according to their promise. but alas! when they get into office, they have no hearty sympathy with us; they belong to a different rank from the most of us, they do not sympathize with the wants and the desires of the middle class and of the poor. But, with regard to Christ, we can put every confidence in Him, for we know that in that council from eternity He sympathized with man. He says, “My delights were with the sons of men.” Happy men to have a counsellor who delights in them! Moreover, He then, though He was not man, yet foresaw that He was to be “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,” and therefore in the counsels of eternity He pleaded His own cause when He pleaded our cause, for He well knew that He was to be tempted in all points like as we are and was to suffer our sufferings and to be our covenant head in union with ourselves. Sweet Counsellor! I love to think Thou wast in the everlasting council, my friend, my brother born for adversity! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0215.cfm