The Father

Unstaggering Confidence

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

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace… – Hebrews 4:16

The right spirit in which to approach the throne of grace, is that of unstaggering confidence. Who shall doubt the King? Who dares impugn the Imperial word? It was well said that if integrity were banished from the hearts of all mankind besides, it ought still to dwell in the hearts of kings. Shame on a king if he can lie. The veriest beggar in the streets is dishonoured by a broken promise, but what shall we say of a king if his word cannot be depended upon? Oh, shame upon us, if we are unbelieving before the throne of the King of heaven and earth. With our God before us in all His glory, sitting on the throne of grace, will our hearts dare to say we mistrust Him? Shall we imagine either that He cannot, or will not, keep His promise? Banished be such blasphemous thoughts, and if they must come, let them come upon us when we are somewhere in the outskirts of His dominions, if such a place there be, but not in prayer, when we are in His immediate presence, and behold Him in all the glory of His throne of grace. There, surely, is the place for the child to trust its Father, for the loyal subject to trust his Monarch; and, therefore, far from it be all wavering or suspicion. Unstaggering faith should be predominant before the mercy-seat.

“The gospel bears my spirit up,
A faithful and unchanging God
Lays the foundation for my hope
In oaths, and promises, and blood.”

May God the Holy Spirit help us to use aright from this time forward “the throne of grace.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1024.cfm

Love is of God

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

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. – 1John 4:7

We must love, if we are begotten of God, all those who are also born of God. It would be an insult to you if I were to prove that a brother should love his brother. Doth not nature herself teach us that? Those, then, who are born of God ought to love all those of the same household. And who are they? Why, all those who have believed that Jesus is the Christ, and are resting their hopes where we rest ours, namely, on Christ the Anointed One of God. We are to love all such. We are to do this because we are of the family. We believe, and therefore we have been begotten of God. Let us act as those who are of the divine family; let us count it our privilege we are received into the household, and rejoice to perform the lovely obligations of our high position. We look around us and see many others who have believed in Jesus Christ; let us love them because they are of the same kindred… I love God, and therefore I desire to promote God’s truth and to keep God’s gospel free from taint. I am to love all those whom God has begotten, despite the infirmities and errors I see in them, being also myself compassed about with infirmities. Life is the reason for love, the common life which is indicated by the common faith in the dear Redeemer is to bind us to each other.

“Little children, love one another,” is the rule of Christ’s family, may we observe it. May the love of God which has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us, reveal itself by our love to all the saints. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0979.cfm

Glorify Christ!

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

Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth… – John 16:13

If you sit down and try to study the mystery of the Eternal, well, I believe that the longer you look, the more you will be like persons who look into the sea from a great height, until they grow dizzy, and are ready to fall and to be drowned. Believe what the Spirit teaches you, and adore your Divine Teacher; then shall His instruction become easy to you. I believe that, as we grow older, we come to worship God as Abraham did, as Jehovah, the great I AM. Jesus does not fade into the background; but the glorious Godhead seems to become more and more apparent to us. Our Lord’s word to His disciples, “Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.” And as we come to full confidence in the glorious Lord, the God of nature, and of providence, and of redemption, and of heaven, the Holy Spirit gives us to know more of the glories of Christ.

Go ye who love the Lord, and glorify Him. Try to do it by your lips and by your lives. Go ye, and preach Him, preach more of Him, and preach Him up higher and higher, and higher. The old lady, of whom I have heard, made a mistake in what she said, yet there was a truth behind her blunder. She had been to a little Baptist chapel, where a high Calvinist preached, and on coming away she said that she liked “High Calvary” preachers best. So do I. Give me a “High Calvary” preacher, one who will make Calvary the highest of all the mountains. I suppose it was not a hill at all, but only a mound; still, let us lift it higher and higher, and say to all other hills, “Why leap ye, ye high hills? This is the hill which God desires to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever.” The crucified Christ is wiser than all the wisdom of the world. The cross of Christ has more novelty in it than all the fresh things of the earth. O believers and preachers of the gospel, glorify Christ! May the Holy Ghost help you to do so! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2382.cfm

Christ’s Glory is His Father’s Glory

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

All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you. – John 16:15

Christ has all that the Father has. Do think that. No more man dares to say, “All things that the Father hath are mine.” All the Godhead is in Christ; not only all the attributes of it, but the essence of it. The Nicene Creed well puts it, and it is not too strong in the expression: “Light of Light, very God of very God,” for Christ has all that the Father has. When we come to Christ, we come to omnipotent omnipresent omniscience; we come to almighty immutability; we come, in fact, to the eternal Godhead. The Father has all things, and all power is given unto Christ in heaven and on earth, so that He has all that the Father has.

And further, the Father is glorified in Christ’s glory. Never let us fall into the false notion that, if we magnify Christ, we are depreciating the Father. If any lips have ever spoken concerning the Christ of God so as to depreciate the God of Christ, let those lips be covered with shame. We never did preach Christ up as merciful, and the Father as only just, or Christ as moving the Father to be gracious. That is a slander which has been cast upon us, but there is not an atom of truth in it. We have known and believed what Christ Himself said, “I and My Father are one.” The more glorious Christ is, the more glorious the Father is; and when men, professedly Christians, begin to cast off Christ, they cast off God the Father to a large extent. Irreverence to the Son of God soon becomes irreverence to God the Father Himself. But dear friends, we delight to honour Christ, and we will continue to do so. Even when we stand in the heaven of heavens, before the burning throne of the infinite Jehovah, we will sing praises unto Him and unto the Lamb, putting the two evermore in that divine conjunction in which they are always to be found.

Thus, you see, Christ has all that the Father has, and when He is glorified, the Father also is glorified. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2382.cfm

The Chief Office of the Holy Spirit

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

“He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you” -John 16:14-15

Observe, that the Holy Ghost glorifies Christ by showing to us the things of Christ. It is a great marvel that there should be any glory given to Christ by showing Him to such poor creatures as we are. What! To make us see Christ, does that glorify Him? For our weak eyes to behold Him, for our trembling hearts to know Him, and to love Him, does this glorify Him? It is even so, for the Holy Ghost chooses this as His principal way of glorifying the Lord Jesus. He takes of the things of Christ, not to show them to angels, not to write them in letters of fire across the brow of night, but to show them unto us. Within the little temple of a sanctified heart, Christ is praised, not so much by what we do, or think, as by what we see. This puts great value upon meditation, upon the study of God’s Word, and upon silent thought under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, for Jesus says, “He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it unto you.”

Poor sinner, conscious of your sin, it is possible for Christ to be glorified by Him being shown unto you. If you look to Him, if you see Him to be a suitable Saviour, an all-sufficient Saviour, if your mind’s eye takes Him in, if He is effectually shown to you by the Holy Spirit, He is thereby glorified. Sinner as you are, unworthy apparently to become the arena of Christ’s glory, yet shall you be a temple in which the King’s glory shall be revealed, and you poor heart, like a mirror, shall reflect His grace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2382.cfm

 

Very God of Very God

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

…to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ… – 2 Peter 1:1

The word “through” in our translation, might, quite as correctly, have been rendered “in”-“faith in the righteousness of our God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” True faith, then, is a faith in Jesus Christ, but it is a faith in Jesus Christ as divine. That man who believes in Jesus Christ as simply a prophet, as only a great teacher, has not the faith which will save him. Charity would make us hope for many Unitarians, but honesty compels us to condemn them without exception, so far as vital godliness is concerned. It matters not how intelligent may be their conversation, nor how charitable may be their manners, nor how patriotic may be their spirit, if they reject Jesus Christ as very God of very God, we believe they shall without doubt perish everlastingly. Our Lord uttered no dubious words when He said, “He that believeth not shall be damned,” and we must not attempt to be more liberal than the Lord Himself. Little allowance can I make for one who receives Jesus the prophet, and rejects Him as God. It is an atrocious outrage upon common sense for a man to profess to be a believer in Christ at all, if he does not receive His divinity. I would undertake, at any time, to prove to a demonstration, that if Christ were not God, He was the grossest impostor who ever lived. One of two things, He was either divine or a villain… He was the grossest of all deceivers, if He was not “very God of very God.” O beloved, you and I have found no difficulties here; when we have beheld the record of His miracles, when we have listened to the testimony of His divine Father, when we have heard the word of the inspired apostles, when we have felt the majesty of His own divine influence in our own hearts, we have graciously accepted Him as “the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father;” and, as John bear witness of Him and said, “The Word was in the beginning with God, and the Word was God,” even so have we received Him; so that at this day, He that was born of the virgin Mary, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews, is to us “God over all, blessed for ever.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0551.cfm

Quickened from Above

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

And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins… – Ephesians 2:1

No man ever made himself to live. No preacher, however earnest, can make one hearer to live. No parent, however prayerful, no teacher, however tearful, can make a child live unto God. “You hath HE quickened,” is true of all who are quickened. It is a divine spark, a light from the great central Sun of light, the great Father of Lights. Is it so with us? Have we had a divine touch, a superhuman energy, a something which all the learning and all the wisdom and all the godliness of man could never work in us? Have we been quickened from above? If so, I daresay that we remember something of it. We cannot describe it; no man can describe his first birth; it remains a mystery. Neither can he describe his new birth; that is still a greater mystery, for it is a secret inward work of the Holy Ghost, of which we feel the effect, but we cannot tell how it is wrought.

If a person had never lived before, and had come into life a full-grown man, everything would be as strange to him as it is to a little child; and everything is strange to a new-born man in the spiritual realm into which he is born. He is startled a hundred times. Sin appears as sin; he cannot understand it. He had looked at sin before but had never seen it to be sin. And Christ appears now so glorious to him; he had heard of Christ before and had some apprehensions of Him; but now he is surprised to find that the One who he said had no form nor comliness is, after all, altogether lovely. To the new-born soul everything is a surprise. He makes no end of blunders; he makes many miscalculations because everything is new to him. He that sitteth upon the throne saith, “Behold, I make all things new;” and the renewed man says, “My Lord, it is even so.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2267.cfm