The Father

Oh, Miracle of Love!

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

But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. – Romans 5:20,21

It is clear that those of you who are ungodly-and if you are unconverted you are that-are in great danger. Jesus would not interpose his life and bear the bloody sweat and crown of thorns, and nails, and spear, and scorn unmitigated, and death itself, if there were not solemn need and imminent peril. There is danger, solemn danger, for you. You are under the wrath of God already, and you will soon die, and then, as surely as you live, you will be lost, and lost forever; as certain as the righteous will enter into everlasting life, you will be driven into everlasting punishment.

Only Christ can deliver the ungodly, and He only through His death. If a less price than that of the life of the Son of God could have redeemed men, He would have been spared…If, then, “God spared not His Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all,” there must have been a dread necessity for it. It must have stood thus: die He, or the sinner must, or justice must; and since justice could not, and the Father desired that the sinner should not, then Christ must; and so He did. Oh, miracle of love! I tell you, sinners, you cannot help yourselves, nor can all the priests of Rome or Oxford help you, let them perform their antics as they may; Jesus alone can save, and that only by His death. There on the bloody tree hangs all man’s hope; if you enter heaven it must be by force of the incarnate God’s bleeding out His life for you. You are in such peril that only the pierced hand can lift you out of it. Look to Him, at once, I pray you, ere the proud waters go over your soul. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1191.cfm

Mercy Seeks the Guilty; Grace Saves the Sinner

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

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. – Luke 19:10

To-day I see the Good Shepherd in all the energy of His mighty love, going forth into the dreadful wilderness. For whom is He gone forth? For the ninety and nine who feed at home? No, but into the desert His love sends Him, over hill and dale, to seek the one lost sheep which has gone astray. Behold, I see Him arousing His church, like a good housewife, to cleanse her house. With the besom of the law she sweeps, and with the candle of the word she searches, and what for? For those bright new coined pieces fresh from the mint, which glitter safely in her purse? Assuredly not, but for that lost piece which has rolled away into the dust, and lies hidden in the dark corner. And lo! grandest of all visions! I see the Eternal Father, Himself, in the infinity of His love, going forth in haste to meet a returning child. And whom does He go to meet? The elder brother returning from the field, bringing his sheaves with him? An Esau, who has brought him savoury meat such as his soul loveth? A Joseph whose godly life has made him lord over all Egypt? Nay, the Father leaves His home to meet a returning prodigal, who has companied with harlots, and grovelled among swine, who comes back to him in disgraceful rags, and disgusting filthiness! It is on a sinner’s neck that the Father weeps; it is on a guilty cheek that he sets his kisses; it is for an unworthy one that the fatted calf is killed, and the best robe is worn, and the house is made merry with music and with dancing. Yes, tell it, and let it ring round earth and heaven, Christ died for the ungodly. Mercy seeks the guilty, grace has to do with the impious, the irreligious and the wicked. The physician has not come to heal the healthy, but to heal the sick. O ye guilty ones, believe in Him and live. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1191.cfm

His Life is Our Example, but Not His Death

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

No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father. – John 10:18

Some have said that Jesus died as our example; but that is not altogether true. Christ’s death is not absolutely an example for men, it was a march into a region of which He said, “Ye cannot follow Me now.” His life was our example, but not His death in all respects, for we are by no means bound to surrender ourselves voluntarily to our enemies as He did, but when persecuted in one city we are bidden to flee to another. To be willing to die for the truth is a most Christly thing, and in that Jesus is our example; but into the winepress which He trod it is not ours to enter, the voluntary element which was peculiar to His death renders it inimitable. He said, “I lay down My life of Myself; no man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” One word of His would have delivered Him from His foes; He had but to say “Begone!” and the Roman guards must have fled like chaff before the wind. He died because He willed to do so; of His own accord He yielded up His spirit to the Father. It must have been as an atonement for the guilty; it could not have been as an example, for no man is bound voluntarily to die. Both the dictates of nature, and the command of the law, require us to preserve our lives. “Thou shalt not kill” means “Thou shalt not voluntarily give up thine own life any more than take the life of another.” Jesus stood in a special position, and therefore He died; but His example would have been complete enough without His death, had it not been for the peculiar office which He had undertaken. We may fairly conclude that Christ died for men who needed such a death; and, as the good did not need it for an example-and in fact it is not an example to them- He must have died for the ungodly. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1191.cfm

The Most Deadly Death

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

But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8

The text says Christ died. He did a great deal besides dying, but the crowning act of His career of love for the ungodly, and that which rendered all the rest available to them, was His death for them. He actually gave up the ghost, not in fiction, but in fact. He laid down His life for us, breathing out His soul, even as other men do when they expire. That it might be indisputably clear that He was really dead, His heart was pierced with the soldier’s spear, and forthwith came there out blood and water. The Roman governor would not have allowed the body to be removed from the cross had He not been duly certified that Jesus was indeed dead. His relatives and friends who wrapped Him in linen and laid Him in Joseph’s tomb, were sorrowfully sure that all that lay before them was a corpse. The Christ really died, and in saying that, we mean that He suffered all the pangs incident to death; only He endured much more and worse, for His was a death of peculiar pain and shame, and was not only attended by the forsaking of man, but by the departure of His God. That cry, “My God, my God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?” was the innermost blackness of the thick darkness of death.

Our Lord’s death was penal, inflicted upon Him by divine justice; and rightly so, for on Him lay our iniquities, and therefore on Him must lay the suffering. “It pleased the Father to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief.” He died under circumstances which made His death most terrible. Condemned to a felon’s gibbet, He was crucified amid a mob of jesters, with few sympathising eyes to gaze upon Him; He bore the gaze of malice and the glance of scorn; He was hooted and jeered by a ribald throng, who were cruelly inventive in their taunts and blasphemies. There He hung, bleeding from many wounds, exposed to the sun, burning with fever, and devoured with thirst, under every circumstance of contumely, pain, and utter wretchedness; His death was of all deaths the most deadly death, and emphatically “Christ died.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1191.cfm

The Father’s Ordained and Appointed Saviour

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

“Christ died for the ungodly.” – Romans 5:6 (see also v.8)

“Christ died for the ungodly.” Never did the human ear listen to a more astounding and yet cheering truth. Angels desire to look into it, and if men were wise they would ponder it night and day. Jesus, the Son of God, Himself God over all, the infinitely glorious One, Creator of heaven and earth, out of love to me stooped to become a man and die. Christ, the thrice holy God, the pure-hearted man, in whom there was no sin and could be none, espoused the cause of the wicked. Jesus, whose doctrine makes deadly war on sin, whose Spirit is the destroyer of evil, whose whole self abhors iniquity, whose second advent will prove His indignation against transgression, yet undertook the cause of the impious, and even unto death pursued their salvation. The Christ of God, though He had no part or lot in the fall and the sin which has arisen out of it, has died to redeem us from its penalty, and, like the psalmist, He can cry, “Then I restored that which I took not away.” Let all holy beings judge whether this is not the miracle of miracles!

Christ, the name given to our Lord, is an expressive word; it means “Anointed One,” and indicates that He was sent upon a divine errand, commissioned by supreme authority. The Lord Jehovah said of old, “I have laid help upon One that is mighty, I have exalted One chosen out of the people”; and again, “I have given Him as a covenant to the people, a leader and commander to the people.” Jesus was both set apart to this work, and qualified for it by the anointing of the Holy Ghost. He is no unauthorised saviour, no amateur deliverer, but an ambassador clothed with unbounded power from the great King, a Redeemer with full credentials from the Father. It is this ordained and appointed Saviour who has “died for the ungodly.” Remember this, ye ungodly! Consider well who it was that came to lay down His life for such as you are. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1191.cfm

Let Us Glorify God, as God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit 5 Comments

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:20

Let us glorify God, as God, every one of us. “Oh,” says one, “I am full of sin.” Come and glorify God, then, by confessing it to Him. “Oh, but I am not pardoned.” Come and glorify Him by accepting pardon through the blood of His dear Son. “Oh, but I am of an evil heart.” Come and glorify Him by telling Him so, and asking His Spirit to renew you in your mind. Come, yield yourself to His sweet gospel. May His blessed Spirit incline you so to do. Come, take Him now to be your God. Have you forgotten Him? Remember Him. Have you neglected Him? Seek Him. Have you offended Him? Mourn before Him. Say, “I will arise, and go unto my Father.” Your Father waits to receive you. Glorify Him as God.

And then, let us begin to be very thankful, if we have not been so before. Let us praise God for common mercies, for they prove to be uncommonly precious when they are once taken away. Bless God for your reason: bless Him for your existence. Bless God for the means of grace, for an open Bible, for the throne of grace, for the preaching of the Word. You that are saved must lead the song. “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name.” Bless Him for His Son. Bless Him for His Spirit. Bless Him for His Fatherhood. Bless Him that you are His child. Bless Him for what you have received. Bless Him for what He has promised to give. Bless Him for the past, the present, and the future… ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1763.cfm

Give Him Thanks

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

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights… – James 1:17

We know God, but I am afraid that there are many thousands and millions of our fellow-creatures who glorify Him not as God; let us see to it that we do not ourselves belong to the unhappy number…Yes, and we have among us men who talk neither of “fortune” nor of “Nature,” but of themselves. They are styled “self-made men,” and they are very prone to worship the great self who made them: they are never backward in that cult. Their adoration of themselves is constant, reverent, and sincere. “Self-made men,” indeed! Infinitely better is it to be a God-made man. If there be anything about us that is worth the having, it must be from Him from whom every good gift and every perfect gift has evermore descended; let us therefore give Him thanks. There is no other sun for our sky than (His) sun in the heavens: there is no other source of good but the ever-blessed God, who has made Himself known to us, whom with all our hearts we now adore.

But may I not be addressing some who, at this moment, do not bow before God, and bless Him for their prosperity? They attribute it to their industry, and to their good luck. Oh, sirs, you come under the head of those who know God, and yet do not glorify Him as God; neither are you thankful. The Lord help such to confess this sin, and may His grace wash them clean of it, for indeed it is a great and heinous sin in the judgment of the Most High. Justice makes a black mark against those who do not ascribe their good things to God, from whom they flow with such sweet constancy of kindness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1763.cfm