The Father

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

The Loving Angry Father

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

For whom the LORD loveth He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. – Proverbs 3:12

Has your father treated you badly lately? I have this word to you, then; your father loves you quite as much when he treats you roughly as when he treats you kindly. There is often more love in an angry father’s heart than there is in the heart of a father who is too kind. I will suppose a case. Suppose there were two fathers, and their two sons went away to some remote part of the earth where idolatry is still practiced. Suppose these two sons were decoyed and deluded into idolatry. The news comes to England, and the first father is very angry. His son, his own son, has forsaken the religion of Christ and become an idolater. The second father says, “Well, if it will help him in trade I don’t care, if he gets on the better by it, all well and good.” Now, which loves most, the angry father, or the father who treats the matter with complacency? Why, the angry father is the best. He loves his son; therefore he cannot give away his son’s soul for gold. Give me a father that is angry with my sins, and that seeks to bring me back, even though it be by chastisement. Thank God you have got a Father that can be angry, but that loves you as much when He is angry as when He smiles upon you. Go away with that upon your mind, and rejoice. But if you love not God and fear Him not, go home, I beseech you, to confess your sins, and to seek mercy through the blood of Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0213.cfm

Lord, Give Me What I Want

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father 3 Comments

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him? Matthew 7:11

“Lord, give me what I want.” If I come to a stranger, I have no right to expect he will give it me. He may out of his charity; but if I come to a father, I have a claim, a sacred claim. “My Father, I shall have no need to use arguments to move Thy bosom; I shall not have to speak to Thee as the beggar who crieth in the street: for because Thou art my Father Thou knowest my wants, and Thou art willing to relieve me. It is Thy business to relieve me; I can come confidently to Thee, knowing Thou wilt give me all I want.” If we ask our Father for anything when we are little children, we are under an obligation certainly; but it is an obligation we never feel. If you were hungry and your father fed you, would you feel an obligation like you would if you went into the house of a stranger? You go into a stranger’s house trembling, and you tell him you are hungry. Will he feed you? He says yes, he will give you somewhat; but if you go to your father’s table, almost without asking, you sit down as a matter of course, and feast to your full, and you rise and go, and feel you are indebted to him; but there is not a grievous sense of obligation. Now, we are all deeply under obligation to God, but it is a child’s obligation-an obligation which impels us to gratitude, but which does not constrain us to feel that we have been demeaned by it. Oh! if He were not my Father, how could I expect that He would relieve my wants? But since He is my Father, He will, He must hear my prayers, and answer the voice of my crying, and supply all my needs out of the riches of His fullness in Christ Jesus the Lord.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0213.cfm

When Ye Pray, Say, Our Father…

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

When ye pray, say, Our Father… – Luke 11:2

“Lord, if I call Thee King Thou wilt say, ‘Thou art a rebellious subject; get thee gone.’ If I call Thee Judge Thou wilt say, ‘Be still, or out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee.’ If I call Thee Creator Thou wilt say unto me ‘It repenteth Me that I made man upon the earth.’ If I call Thee my Preserver Thou wilt say unto me, ‘I have preserved thee, but thou hast rebelled against Me.’ But if I call Thee Father, all my sinfulness doth not invalidate my claim. If Thou be my Father, then Thou lovest me; if I be Thy child, then Thou wilt regard me, and poor though my language be, Thou wilt not despise it.” …When I talk to my Father, I am not afraid He will misunderstand me; if I put my words a little out of place He understands my meaning somehow. When we are little children, we only prattle; still our father understands us…  So, when we come to God, our prayers are little broken things; we cannot put them together, but our Father will hear us. Oh! what a beginning is “Our Father,” to a prayer full of faults, and a foolish prayer perhaps, a prayer in which we are going to ask what we ought not to ask for! “Father, forgive the language! forgive the matter!” as one dear brother said the other day at the prayer meeting. He could not get on in prayer, and he finished up on a sudden by saying, “Lord, I cannot pray to-night as I should wish; I cannot put the words together; Lord, take the meaning take the meaning,” and sat down. That is just what David said once, “Lo, all my desire is before Thee”-not “my words” but “my desire” and God could read it. We should say, “Our Father,” because that is a reason why God should hear what we have to say. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0213.cfm

My Father!

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

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. – Romans 8:14

And what is “the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father?” I cannot tell you; but if you have felt it you will know it. It is a sweet compound of faith that knows God to be my Father, love that loves Him as my Father, joy that rejoices in Him as my Father, fear that trembles to disobey Him because He is my Father and a confident affection and trustfulness that relies upon Him, and casts itself wholly upon Him, because it knows by the infallible witness of the Holy Spirit, that Jehovah, the God of earth and heaven, is the Father of my heart. Oh! have you ever felt the spirit of adoption? There is nought like it beneath the sky. Save heaven itself there is nought more blissful than to enjoy that spirit of adoption. Oh! when the wind of trouble is blowing and waves of adversity are rising, and the ship is reeling to the rock how sweet then to say “My Father,” and to believe that His strong hand is on the helm!-when the bones are aching, and when the loins are filled with pain, and when the cup is brimming with wormwood and gall, to say “My Father,” and seeing that Father’s hand holding the cup to the lip, to drink it steadily to the very dregs because we can say, “My Father, not my will, but Thine be done.”  “My Father!” Oh! there is music there; there is eloquence there; there is the very essence of heaven’s own bliss in that word, ” My Father,” when applied to God, and when said by us with an unfaltering tongue, through the inspiration of the Spirit of the living God.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0213.cfm

The Brotherhood in Christ

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

…Our Father… – Matthew 6:9

It does not say my Father, but our Father. It seems there are a great many in the family. “Our Father.” When you pray that prayer, remember you have a good many brothers and sisters that do not know their Father yet, and you must include them all; for all God’s elect ones, though they be uncalled as yet, are still His children, though they know it not.

When thou prayest to God put in the poor; for is he not the Father of many of the poor, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom, though they be poor in this world. Come my sister, if thou bowest thy knee amid the rustling of silk and satin, yet remember the cotton and the print. My brother, is there wealth in thy hand, yet I pray thee, remember thy brethren of the horny hand and the dusty brow; remember those who could not wear what thou wearest, nor eat what thou eatest, but are as Lazarus compared with thee, while thou art as Dives. Pray for them; put them all in the same prayer and say, “Our Father.”

And pray for those that are divided from us by the sea-those that are in heathen lands, scattered like precious salt in the midst of this world’s putrefaction. Pray for all that name the name of Jesus, and let thy prayer be a great and comprehensive one. “Our Father, which art in heaven.” And after thou hast prayed that rise up and act it. Say not “Our Father,” and then look upon thy brethren with a sneer or a frown. I beseech thee, live like a brother, and act like a brother Help the needy; cheer the sick; comfort the faint-hearted; go about doing good, minister unto the suffering people of God, wherever thou findest them, and let the world take knowledge of thee, that thou art when on thy feet what thou art upon thy knees-that thou art a brother unto all the brotherhood of Christ, a brother born for adversity, like thy Master Himself. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0213.cfm