The Father

The Believer’s Comfort

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

The believer’s comfort under his afflictions is this-

“I shall not die, but live.” – Psalm 118:18

Forecasts of good from the Lord may come to those who are sore sick; and when they do, they help them to recover. We are of good courage when an inward confidence enables us to say, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

When a believer is in trouble he derives great comfort from his reliance upon the compassion of God. The Lord scourges His sons, but He does not slay them. The believer says, “My Father may make me smart with the blow of a cruel one; but He will do me no real harm, nor allow anyone else to injure me. He will not lay upon me more than is right, nor above what I am able to bear. He will stay His hand when He sees that I have no strength left. Moreover, I know that even when He brings me very low, still underneath me are the everlasting arms. If the Lord kills, it is to make alive: if He wound, it is that He may heal. I am sure of that.” O believer, never let anything drive you away from this confidence, for it has sure truth for its foundation! The Lord is good, and His mercy endureth forever. It is not killing, but curing, that God means when He takes the sharp lancet in His hand. The nauseous medicine, which makes the heart sick, works the cure of a worse sickness. “His compassions fail not.” He may often put His hand into the bitter box, but He has sweet cordials ready to take the taste away. For a small moment has He forsaken us, but with great mercies will He return to us. You have an effectual comfort if your faith can keep its hold upon the blessed fact of the Lord’s fatherly compassion. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Jehovah’s Rod

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

If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” – Hebrews 12:7; Revelation 3:19

There is not a more profitable instrument in all God’s house than the rod. No honey was sweeter than that which dropped from the end of Jonathan’s rod; but that is nothing to the sweetness of the consolation which comes through Jehovah’s rod. Our brightest joys are the birth of our bitterest griefs. When the woman has her travail pangs, joy comes to the house because the man-child is born; and sorrow is to us also, full often, the moment of the birth of our graces. A chastened spirit is a gracious spirit; and how shall we obtain it except we are chastened? Like our Lord Jesus, we learn obedience by the things which we suffer. God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without sorrow, and He never will have while the world stands. Let us, therefore, bless God for all His dealings, and in a filial spirit confess, “Thou, Lord, hast chastened me.”

“If God appoints the number ten,
There ne’er can be eleven.”

Whenever the Lord mixes a potion for His people, He weighs each ingredient, measures the bitters, grain by grain, and allows not even a particle in excess to mingle in the draught. Like a careful dispenser, He will not pour out a drop too little or too much.

“To His Church, His joy, and treasure,
Every trial works for good:
They are dealt in weight and measure,
Yet how little understood;
Not in anger,
But from His dear covenant love.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

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