The Father

True Christian Worship

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

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”-John 4:23-24.

True Christian worship addresses God, not merely as Creator and Preserver, or as the great Lord of the Universe, but as one who is very near of kin to us, our Father, beloved of our souls. Jesus likewise states that gospel worship is to be of a kind which does not result from the man himself merely, but comes from God, and is a work of grace. This is implied in the sentence, “The Father seeketh such to worship Him,” as if no true worship would come from any man unless God sought it. True devotion under the Christian dispensation is not merely human but also divine. These are very grave points, and draw a broad line of distinction between the living worship of the chosen of God and the dead formal worship of the world which lieth in the wicked one.

Furthermore, the Savior goes on to say that they who worship God are to worship Him “in spirit.” No longer with the visible sacrifice of a lamb, but inwardly trusting in Him who is the Lamb of God’s Passover; no more with the sprinkled blood of goats, but heartily relying upon the blood once shed for many; no longer worshipping God with ephod, breastplate, and mitre, but with prostrate soul, with uplifted faith, and with the faculties not of the body but of the inward spirit. We who worship God under this Christian dispensation are no longer to fancy that bodily exercise in worship profiteth anything, that genuflexions and contortions are of any value, but that acceptable worship is wholly mental, inward, and spiritual. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0695.cfm

Continual Praises

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

Praise is awaiting You, O God, in Zion… – Psalm 65:1

It is to be feared that some of our praise ascends nowhere at all, but it is as though it were scattered to the winds. We do not always realize God. Now, “he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him;” this is as true of praise as of prayer. “God is a Spirit,” and they that praise Him must praise Him “in spirit and in truth,” for “the Father seeketh such” to praise Him, and only such; and, if we do not lift our eyes and our hearts to Him, we are but misusing words and wasting time. Our praise is not as it should be, if it be not reverently and earnestly directed to the Lord of Hosts. Vain is it to shoot arrows without a target: we must aim at God’s glory in our holy songs, and that exclusively.

“Jesus, where’er Thy people meet,
There they behold Thy mercy-seat;
Where’er they seek Thee, Thou art found,
And every place is hallow’d ground,

For Thou within no walls confined,
Inhabitest the humble mind;
Such ever bring Thee where they come,
And going, take Thee to their home.”

There should be in all our solemn assemblies a spiritual incense altar, always smoking with “the pure incense of sweet spices, mingled according to the art of the apothecary”: the thanksgiving which is made up of humility, gratitude, love, consecration, and holy joy in the Lord. It should be for the Lord alone, and it should never go out day nor night. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

The Great Redeemer Lives

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I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:18

The Lord in the glory of His tenderness mentions…His atoning death. He says, “I was dead,” the original more correctly rendered is “was made dead.” Here we come upon the human nature of our Redeemer. As God and as man He had two natures, but He was not two persons. As one person He ever lives, and yet He was made to die. He came into this world in human form that He might be capable of death; the pure spirit of God could not die, it was not possible that He, the I AM, could be subject to death; but He allied Himself with humanity, and in that human form Jesus could die, and did die. In very deed, and truth, and not in semblance; Jesus bowed His head, and gave up the ghost, and they laid His corpse in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Here to the child of God is a fruitful source of consolation. He died, then the atonement is complete; without the shedding of blood there is no remission, but the death of the Son of God brings plenteous pardon. There must be in the death of such a one of sufficient merit to remove guilt and cleanse transgression. Is it not written, “He hath washed us from our sins in His own blood?” Dost thou not hear that song in heaven? Will not its music make thee glad? His own blood hath washed thee; if thou believest in Him thou art clean. Look to Calvary, and as thou lookest there and perceivest that He was dead, “fear not.”

And then the master declared His endless life, “I am alive for evermore.” He who offered up the atonement lives again to claim the effect of His sacrifice. He has presented the meritorious sacrifice, and now He has gone to heaven to plead the sacrifice before the throne of God, and to lay claim to the place which He has prepared for them that love Him. Thou hast no dead Savior to trust to: thou reliest in Him who once died-this is comfort to thee, but He lives, the great Redeemer lives. He has risen from the tomb; He has climbed the hills of heaven; He sits at the right hand of the Father, prepared to defend His people. If thou hadst a Christ in the sepulcher that were sorrow upon sorrow; but thou hast a Christ in heaven, who can die no more. Be thou of good cheer. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Only God is First and Last

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

And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:17,18

As to the Lord’s person, Jesus revealed to His disciple that He was most truly divine. “I am the first and the last.” This language can be used of none but God Himself; none but He is first; none but He is last; none but God can be first and last. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ was evidently first. He existed before He was born into the world. We read, “a body hast Thou prepared Me.” Then Christ was a previously existing one for whom that body was prepared; and He it is who said, “Lo, I come, to do Thy will O God.” He came into the world, but He had from old eternity dwelt in the bosom of the Father. John the Baptist was born into the world before the Savior, of whom he was the forerunner, but what does he say? His testimony is “He, coming after me, is preferred before me, for He was before me.” He is first in order of honor because first in order of existence. John was the elder as man, but as God the Lord Jesus is from everlasting. Go back in history as far as you will; with one leap ascend to the days of Moses, and there is Christ before you, for we read: “Let us not tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents.” There was Christ, then, in the wilderness vexed by the people. He it was whose voice then shook the earth, but who will yet shake not the earth only but also heaven.

By the words “the first and the last” are signified, in most languages, the sum and substance of all things. We say sometimes the top and the bottom of it is so and so; we mean that it is the whole of it. And the Greeks were wont to say, “This is the prow and stern of the business,” meaning that it is the whole. And so Jesus Christ, in being first and last, is all in all. And, truly, it is so in the working of redemption and salvation; He begins, carries on, completes; He asks no creature help and will have none. To us He is the author and the finisher of our faith, the alpha of our first comfort, and the omega of our final bliss. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

 https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Earth Sinks as Jesus Rises

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

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last… – Revelation 1:10,11

When our thoughts of Jesus are expanded and elevated, we obtain right ideas upon other matters. In the light of His love and atoning sacrifice, we see the depth of the degradation from which such a Redeemer has uplifted us, and we hate, with all our hearts, the sins which pierced such an altogether lovely one, and made it needful for the Lord of life to die. Forming some adequate estimate of what Jesus has done for us, our gratitude grows, and with our gratitude our love-while love compels us to consecration, and consecration suggests heroic self-denying actions. Then are we bold to speak for Him, and ready, if needs be, to suffer for Him while we feel we could give up all we have to increase His glory, without so much as dreaming that we had made a sacrifice.

Let your thoughts of Christ be high, and your delight in Him will be high too; your sense of security will be strong, and with that sense of security will come the sacred joy and peace which always keep the heart which confidently reposes in the Mediator’s hands. If thou wouldst thyself be raised, let thy thoughts of Christ be raised. If thou wouldst rise above these earthly toys, thou must have higher and more elevated thoughts of Him who is high above all things. Earth sinks as Jesus rises. Honor the Son even as thou wouldst honor the Father, and, in so doing, thy soul shall be sanctified and brought into closer fellowship with the great Father of Spirits, whose delight it is to glorify His Son. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Our Sorrow, His Cleansing, Our Peace

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

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? – Heb 9:13-14

Beloved, you and I know what it is, at times, to have defilement upon the conscience and to go mourning because we have erred from the Lord’s commands. The ungodly do not thus sorrow—their conscience, by fits and starts, accuses them, but they never listen to its accusations so as to feel their inability to draw near to God. No, they will even go with a guilty conscience to their knees and pretend to offer to God the sacrifice of prayer and praise while they are unforgiven, alienated and rebellious! You and I, if we are, indeed, the Lord’s people, cannot do this! Guilt on our conscience is to us a horrible thing. There are no pains of body—there are no tortures inflicted by the Inquisition which are at all comparable to the whips of burning wire which lash the guilty conscience! It is an awful thing to feel yourself guilty. And the better a man you are, the more will it grieve you to be consciously in a wrong state. We can come to God as sinners to seek pardon, but we cannot come before the Lord as dear children while there is any quarrel between us and our great Father. No, we must be clean, or we cannot approach our God! See how the priests washed their feet at the laver before they offered incense unto the Lord. We cannot have fellowship with God while there is a sense of unconfessed and unforgiven sin upon us…Sin on the conscience is a natural wall between God and the soul. You cannot get into loving communion until the conscience is at ease! Therefore, I charge you, fly at once to Jesus for peace! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm

A People Near unto Him

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

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?—‍Hebrews 9:13-14

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you dwell in great nearness to God. He calls you “a people near unto Him.” His Grace has made you His sons and daughters and He is a Father unto you. In you is His Word fulfilled, “I will dwell in them and walk with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Remember that your favored position as children of God has placed you under a peculiar discipline, for now God deals with you as with sons—and sons are under household law. The Lord will be sanctified in them that come near to Him. Special favor involves special rules. There were no strict laws made as to the behavior of the Amalekites, Amorites and Egyptians because they were far off from God and the times of their ignorance He winked at.

But the Lord set Israel apart to be His people and He came and dwelt in the midst of the congregation. The sacred tent wherein He displayed His Presence was pitched in the center of the camp and there the great King uplifted His banner of fire and cloud! Therefore, as the Lord brought the people so near to Himself, He put them under special laws, such as belong to His palace rather than to the outskirts of His dominion. They were bound to keep themselves very pure, for they bore the vessels of the Lord and were a nation of priests before Him. They ought to have been spiritually holy, and being in their childhood, they were taught this by laws referring to external cleanliness. Just as the children of Israel in the wilderness were put under stringent regulations, so do those who live near to God come under a holy discipline in the house of the Lord. “Even our God is a consuming fire.” We are not, now, speaking of our salvation, or of our justification as sinners, but of the Lord’s dealings towards us as saints. In that respect we must walk carefully with Him and watch our steps that we offend not…Our heart’s desire and inward longing is that we may never lose our Father’s smile. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm