The Father

The Father’s Loving Wisdom Toward His Child

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

“The Lord hath chastened me sore.” – Psalm 118:18

When a child is chastised, two things are clear: first, that there is something wrong in him, or that there is something deficient in him, so that he needs to be corrected or instructed; and, secondly, it shows that his father has a tender care for his benefit, and acts in loving wisdom towards him. This is certainly true if his father is an eminently kind and yet prudent parent. Children do not think that there can be any need for chastening them; but when years have matured their judgment, they will know better. “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous;” if it did seem joyous, it would not be chastening. The “need be” is not only that we have manifold trials, but that we be in heaviness through them. In the smart of the sorrow lies the blessing of the chastisement. God chastens us in the purest love, because He sees that there is an absolute necessity for it: “for He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” Our fathers, according to the flesh, too often corrected us according to their own pleasure, and yet we gave them reverence; but the Father of our spirits corrects us only of necessity-a necessity to which He is too wise to close His eyes. Shall we not, therefore, pay greater reverence to Him, and bow before Him, and live? When Hezekiah was recovered of his sickness, he wrote, “O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.” I find not that men live by carnal pleasure, nor that the life of the spirit is ever found in the wine-vat or in the oil-press; but I do find that life and health often come to saints through briny tears, through the bruising of the flesh, and the oppression of the spirit. So have I found it, and I bear my willing witness that sickness has brought me health, loss has conferred gain, and I doubt not that one day death will bring me fuller life. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm

The Lord Hath Done It

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

“He maketh sore, and bindeth up: He woundeth, and His hands make whole.” – Job 5:18

If you strike a dog with a stick, he will bite the stick; if he were more intelligent, he would snap at the person using the stick; and, if that intelligence were governed by the spirit of obedience, he would yield to the blow, and learn a lesson from it. Thus, when Shimei reviled David, and Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said unto the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head;” David meekly replied, “So let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say, Wherefore hath thou done so?” A sight of God’s hand in a trial is the end of rebellion against it in the case of every good man. He says, “It is the Lord: let Him do what seemeth Him good.” We may lie at His feet, and cry, “Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me;” but, if the reason does not appear, we must bow in reverent submission, and say with one of old, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because Thou didst it.” Job saw the Lord in his many tribulations, and therefore praised Him, saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Surely there is nothing better for a man of God than to perceive that his smarts and sorrows come from his Father’s hand, for then he will say, “The will of the Lord be done.” This is the great point in the believer’s view of his afflictions: “He maketh sore, and bindeth up: He woundeth, and His hands make whole.” ~ C.H. Spurtgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2237.cfm

The Saints’ Inheritance

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

And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. – Acts 20:32

Beloved, if you come to Christ, you shall never need to go away from Him to find variety of joys. In His teaching you shall find Lebanons of sublime doctrine, and Sharons of pleasant precept. Here are Hermons of experience, Tabors of communion, Jabboks of prevailing prayer, and Cheriths of divine providence. The revelation of God is a blessed country, full of all manner of delights. They that live in Christ dwell in spiritual realms, which for light and joy are as heaven below. Above all things, it is “Thy land, O Immanuel!” That is the dearest name for the Canaan of grace. The saints’ inheritance is the choicest form of life, and peace, and joy. We come to live with Christ, in Christ, for Christ, as Christ: we rise in Him to fellowship with the Father, and with the Church of the Firstborn. One heart sympathizes with all the purposes of God, and we joy in God Himself. I cannot properly describe all this, but I live in the enjoyment of it. We live through our Lord, and with our Lord; and this is life eternal. This is “the life which is life indeed.” Compared with it all other life is death. Grace is glory in the bud: it will be full-blown by-and-by.

All that is in Christ is meant for all believers, and therefore all believers may have all that is in Christ, who is all in all. We should not be content with pence when He endows us with pounds. No child of God could ever yet say, “I have taken all that God can give me, and still I am wanting more.” God all-sufficient is our heritage, and He more than fills our deepest need, our highest aspiration. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2086.cfm

God Will Comfort You

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

And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever… – John 14:16

Our God would not have His children unhappy, and therefore, He Himself, in the third Person of the blessed Trinity, has undertaken the office of Comforter. Why does your face such mournful colours wear? God can comfort you. You that are under the burden of sin; it is true no man can help you into peace, but the Holy Ghost can. O God, to every seeker here who has failed to find rest, grant Thy Holy Spirit! Put Thy Spirit within him, and he will rest in Jesus. And you dear people of God, who are worried, remember that worry and the Holy Ghost are very contradictory one to another. “I will put My spirit within you” means that you shall become gentle, peaceful, resigned, and acquiescent in the divine will. Then you will have faith in God that all is well… David says- “God my exceeding joy”; and such He is to us. “Yea, mine own God is He”! Can you say, “My God, my God”? Do you want anything more? Can you conceive of anything beyond your God? Omnipotent to work all for ever! Infinite to give! Faithful to remember! He is all that is good. Light only: “in Him is no darkness at all.” I have all light, yea, all things, when I have my God. The Holy Spirit makes us apprehend this when He is put within us. Holy Comforter, abide with us, for then we enjoy the light of heaven. Then are we always peaceful and even joyful; for we walk in unclouded light. In Him our happiness sometimes rises into great waves of delight, as if it leaped up to the glory! Amen! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

By the Spirit of God

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

And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them. – Ezekiel 36:27

Now when God’s own Spirit comes to reside within our mortal bodies, how near akin we are to the Most High! “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?” Does not this make a man sublime? Have you never stood in awe of your own selves, O ye believers? Have you enough regarded even this poor body, as being sanctified and dedicated, and elevated into a sacred condition, by being set apart to be the temple of the Holy Ghost? Thus are we brought into the closest union with God that we can well conceive of. Thus is the Lord our light and our life; while our spirit is subordinated to the divine Spirit. “I will put My spirit within you”-then God Himself dwelleth in you. The Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead is in you. With Christ in God your life is hid, and the Spirit seals you, anoints you, and abides in you. By the Spirit we have access to the Father; by the Spirit we perceive our adoption, and learn to cry, “Abba, Father”; by the Spirit we are made partakers of the divine nature, and have communion with the thrice holy Lord.

I cannot help adding here that it is a very condescending word- “I will put My spirit within you.” Is it really so, that the Spirit of God who displays the power and energetic force of God, by whom God’s Word is carried into effect- that the Spirit who of old moved upon the face of the waters, and brought order and life from chaos and death- can it be so that He will deign to sojourn in men?

“A sinner is a sacred thing,
The Holy Ghost hath made him so.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

An Individual and Personal Word

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

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. – Ezekiel 36:26

To me there is much charm in the thought that this text is an individual and personal word. The Lord means, “I will put My spirit within you”: that is to say, within you, as individuals. “I will put My spirit within you” one by one. This must be so since the connection requires it. Now, a new heart can only be given to one person. Each man needs a heart of his own, and each man must have a new heart for himself… “And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” -these are all personal, individual operations of grace. God deals with men one by one in the solemn matters of eternity, sin, and salvation. We are born one by one, and we die one by one: even so we must be born again one by one, and each one for himself must receive the Spirit of God. Without this a man has nothing. He cannot be caused to walk in God’s statutes except by the infusion of grace into him as an individual.

My dear hearers, you who have long been seeking salvation, but have not known the power of the Spirit-this is what you need. You have been striving in the energy of the flesh, but you have not understood where your true strength lieth. God saith to you, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord”; and again, “I will put My spirit within you.” …Lift up your heart in prayer to God, and ask Him to pour upon you the Spirit of grace and of supplications. Plead with the Lord, saying, “Let Thy good Spirit lead me. Even me.” Cry, “Pass me not, my gracious Father; but in me fulfil this wondrous word of thine, ‘I will put My spirit within you.'” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2200.cfm

For the Sake of His Honor

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

Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed; can He give bread also? can He provide flesh for His people? – Psalm 78:20

Let me remind you that the Lord will not and cannot leave His people, because of His relationship to them. He is your Father; will your Father leave you? Has He not said-“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” Would you, being evil, leave your child to perish? Never, never! Remember, Christ is your husband. Would you, a husband, neglect your wife? Is it not a shame to a man, unless he nourisheth and cherisheth her even as his own body, and will Christ become one of these ill husbands? Hath He not said-“I hate putting away,” and will He ever put thee away? Remember, thou art part of His body. No man yet ever hated his own flesh. Thou mayest be but as a little finger, but will He leave His finger to rot, to perish, to starve? Thou mayest be the least honorable of all the members, but is it not written that upon these He bestoweth abundant honor, and so our uncomely parts have abundant comeliness? If He be father, if He be husband, if He be head, if He be all-in-all, how can He leave thee? Think not so hardly of thy God.

Then,  His honor binds Him never to forsake thee. When we see a house half-built and left in ruins, we say, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.” Shall this be said of thy God, that He began to save thee and could not bring thee to perfection? Is it possible that He will break His word, and so stain His truth? Shall men be able to cast a slur upon His power, His wisdom, His love, His faithfulness? No! thank God, no! “I give,” saith He “unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” If thou shouldest perish, believer, hell would ring with diabolical laughter against the character of God; and if ever one whom Jesus undertook to save shouldest perish, then the demons of the pit would point the finger of scorn for ever against a defeated Christ, against a God that undertook but went not through. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0477.cfm