The Father

Quickened

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

“And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins… God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” – Ephesians 2:1, 4

Here is the point. God has quickened us, who were dead in trespasses and sins, spiritually dead. We were full of vigour towards everything which was contrary to the law or the holiness of God, we walked according to the course of this world; but as for anything spiritual, we were not only somewhat incapable, and somewhat weakened; but we were actually and absolutely dead. We had no sense with which to comprehend spiritual things. We had neither the eye that could see, nor the ear that could hear, nor the power that could feel… We have many who are lovely, amiable, morally admirably, like him whom the Saviour looked upon and loved; yet they are dead for all that. We have others who are drunken, profane, unchaste; they are dead, not more dead than the others; but their death has left its terrible traces more plainly visible. Sin brings forth death, and death brings forth corruption. Whether we were corrupt or not, is not a question that I need to raise here; let everyone judge concerning himself. But dead we were, most certainly. Even though trained by godly parents, though well instructed in the gospel scheme, though saturated with the piety that surrounded us, we were dead, as dead as the harlot of the street, as dead as the thief in the jail.

Now, the text tells us that, though we were dead, yet Christ has come, and by His Spirit He has raised us out of the grave…If you have been quickened, even though your life be feeble, you may cry to the living God with the “Abba, Father,” which never comes from any lip but that which has been touched and quickened by the Holy Spirit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Keep Yourselves to Your Lord

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

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you… – 2 Corinthians 6:17

Keep up a careful separateness from the works of darkness that are going on all around us. If it seems dark to you, gather up your skirts, and gird up your loins. The more sin abounds in the world, the more ought the Church of God to seek after the strictest holiness. If ever there was an age that wanted back again the sternest form of Puritanism, it is this age…O Christian people, if you could but know, as the most of you ought not to know, how bad this world is, you would not begin to talk about its wonderful improvements, or to question the doctrine of human depravity. We are going on, according to some teachers, by “evolution” into something; if I might prognosticate what it is, I should say that it is into devils that many men are being evolved. They are going down, down, down, save where eternal grace is begetting in the heart of men a higher and better and nobler nature, which must bear its protest against the ignorance or hypocrisy which this day talks about the improvements of our civilization, and the progress that we are making towards God. “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away,” keep yourselves to your Lord, and hear you this voice sounding through the darkness, the voice of a wisdom that sees more than you see, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, said the Lord Almighty.” “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away,” lift your hands to heaven, and pledge yourselves to walk a separated pilgrim life, until He cometh before whose face heaven and earth shall flee away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2477.cfm

Christ, Our Substitute

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

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit… – 1 Peter 3:18

The curse of God is not easily taken away; in fact, there was but one method whereby it could be removed. The lightnings were in God’s hand; they must be launched; He said they must. The sword was unsheathed; it must be satisfied; God vowed it must. How, then, was the sinner to be saved? The only answer was this. The Son of God appears; and He says, “Father! launch Thy thunderbolts at Me; here is My breast-plunge that sword in here; here are My shoulders-let the lash of vengeance fall on them;” and Christ, the Substitute, came forth and stood for us, “the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”

We have heard some preach a gospel, something after this order-that though God is angry with men, yet out of His great mercy, for the sake of something that Christ has done, He does not punish them, but remits the penalty. Now, we hold, that this is not of God’s gospel; for it is neither just to God, nor safe to man. We believe that God never remitted the penalty, that He did not forgive the sin without punishing it, but that there was blood for blood, and stroke for stroke, and death for death, and punishment for punishment, without the abatement of a solitary jot or tittle; that Jesus Christ, the Saviour, did drink the veritable cup of our redemption to its very dregs; that He did suffer beneath the awful crushing wheels of divine vengeance, the self-same pains and sufferings which we ought to have endured. O! the glorious doctrine of substitution! When it is preached fully and rightly, what a charm and what power it hath. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3254.cfm

The Covenant’s Sureness

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

For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. – 2 Corinthians 1:20

Beloved, in a covenant there are pledges given, and on those pledges we delight to meditate. You know what they were. The Father pledged His honour and His word. He did more; He pledged His oath; and “because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself.” He pledged His own word and sacred honour of Godhead that He would be true, to His Son, that He should see His seed; and that by the knowledge of Him Christ should “justify many.” But there was needed a seal to the covenant, and what was that Jesus Christ in the fulness of time set the seal to the covenant, to make it valid and secure, by pouring out His life’s blood to make the covenant effectual once for all. Beloved, if there be an agreement made between two men, the one to sell such-and-such an estate, and the other to pay for it, the covenant does not hold good until the payment is made. Now, Jesus Christ’s blood was the payment of His part of the covenant; and when He shed it, the covenant stood firm as the everlasting hills, and the throne of God Himself is not more sure than is the covenant of grace; and, mark you, that covenant is not sure merely in its great outlines, but sure also in all its details. Every soul whose name was in that covenant must be saved. Unless God can undeify Himself, every soul that Christ died for He will have. Every soul for which He stood Substitute and Surety He demads to have, and each of the souls He must have, for the covenant stands fast. Moreover, every blessing in which that covenant was guaranteed to the chosen seed was by the precious blood made eternally secure to that seed. Oh, how I delight to speak about the sureness of that covenant! How the dying David rolled that under his tongue as a sweet morsel! “Although my house,” said he, “be not so with God,”-there was the bitter in his mouth; “yet,” said he, and there came in the honey, “yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure.” And this sureness, mark you, lies in the blood; it is the blood of Christ that makes all things secure, for all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus, to the glory of God by us.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3293.cfm

The Blood Covenant

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

This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. – Hebrews 9:20

The blood of Jesus is the blood of the covenent. Long before this round world was made, or stars began to shine, God forsaw that He would make man. He also foresaw that man would fall into sin. Out of that fall of man His distinguishing grace and infinite sovereignty selected a multitude that no man can number to be His. But, seeing that they had offended against Him, it was necesary, in order that they might be saved, that a great scheme or plan should be devised, by which the justice of God should be fully satisfied, and yet the mercy of God should have full play. A covenant was therefore arranged between the persons of the blessed Trinity. It was agreed and solemnly pledged by the oath of the eternal Father that He would give unto the Son a multitude whom no man could number who should be His, His spouse, the members of His mystical body, His sheep, His precious jewels. These the Saviour accepted as His own, and then on His part, He undertook for them that He would keep the divine law that He would suffer all the penalties due on their behalf for offences against the law, and that He would keep and preserve every one of them until the day of His appearing. Thus stood the covenant, and on that covenant the salvation of every saved man and woman hangs…In that covenant, made between Himself and His Son, there was not a word said about our actions having any merit in them. We were regarded as though we were not, except that we stood in Christ, and we were only so far parties to the covenant as we were in the loins of Christ on that august day. We were considered to be the seed of the Lord Jesus Christ, the children of His care, the members of His own body. “According as He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Oh, what grace it was that put your name and mine in the eternal roll, and provided for our salvation, provided for it by a covenant, by a sacred compact between the Father and His eternal Son, that we should belong to Him in the day when He should make up His jewels!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3293.cfm

The Church Must Bring Forth Children

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

As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.- John 17:18

When a church is not serving God, mischief is brewing withing herself. While she is not bringing others in, her own heart is becoming weak in its pulsations, and her entire constitution is a prey to decline. The church must either bring forth children unto God, or else die of consumption: she has no alternative but that. A church must either be fruitful or rot, and of all things, a rotting church is the most offensive. Would God we could bury our dead churches out of our sight, as Abraham buried Sarah, for above ground they breed a pestilence of scepticism; for men say, “Is this religion?” and taking it to be so, they forego true religion altogether.

And then, worst of all is, God is not glorified. If there be no yearning of heart in the church, and no conversions, where is the travail of the Redeemer’s soul? Where, Immanuel, where are the trophies of Thy terrible conflict? Where are the jewels for Thy crown? Thou shalt have Thine own, Thy Father’s will shall not be frustrated; Thou shalt be adored; but as yet we see it not. Hard are men’s hearts, and they will not love Thee; unyielding are their wills, and they will not own Thy sovereignty. Oh! weep because Jesus is not honored. The foul oath still curdles our blood as we hear it, and blasphemy usurps the place of grateful song. Oh! by the wounds and bloody sweat, by the cross and nails, and spear, I beseech you followers of Christ, be in earnest, that Jesus Christ’s name may be known and loved through the earnest agonizing endeavors of the Christian church. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1009.cfm

A Gift of Free Grace

Sherry Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. – Acts 16:31

The readiness of God to pardon is to be seen in the fact that He makes no hard conditions with sinners. He does not say, “I will pardon if you suffer this or endure that penance; I will pardon if you perform this act of heroism or that deed of consecration.” No, He himself says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Receive what is freely given-that is the gospel precept, and nothing else. Only confess thy transgressions, or, in other words, own thine emptiness, and then trust thy Savior, and thou art saved.

That He is ready to forgive appears in this yet more glorious fact, that what God demands of man by the gospel He also works in him by His spirit; as for confession of sin He puts the words into the sinner’s mouth, repentance He works in the sinner’s heart, and saving faith His own Spirit creates in the sinner’s soul. Is He not ready to forgive when even what might be called the condition of pardon in one light is under another aspect a gift of free grace?

The sinner’s plea on his lip is, “for Jesus’ sake,” the sinner’s hope in his heart is “for Christ’s sake,”-and it is this that the Father looks at; when He sees that the poor trembling soul has embraced Jesus, His own dear Son, the Father puts the sin away at once without a word, and says, “Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1272.cfm