The Father

Faith That Saves-a Divine Operation

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father 6 Comments

“I and My Father are one.” Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him…”For a good work we stone Thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God.”…”If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not.” – John 10:30-31, 33, 37

Either our Lord was the Son of God, equal with the Father, or else He was an impostor, for He most distinctly claimed that He was the Son of God…Jesus said to the Jews, “If I honour Myself, My honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth Me; of whom ye say that He is your God.” Then they took up stones to cast at Him because He said that He was the Son of God…To believe in Christ merely as a prophet is not saving faith. It may be a step towards salvation, and it may lead up to it; but the faith that is absolutely necessary is that belief in Him as the Son of God; and he who does not believe in the Deity of Christ has not a Saviour who can save him. The work of saving a soul is a divine operation, and no one but a divine Being can accomplish it. It is He who sitteth upon the throne who saith, “Behold, I make all things new!” There cannot be anyone except the Creator who can create; and the Creator must, in every case, be God. To save a soul, there must be a work performed which is analogous to the resurrection; but, in order to raise the dead, there must be the presence and power of God. It is one of those operations which it is not conceivable that it can be performed by an angel or by any created being. The Highest alone can accomplish it; has He not said of Himself, “I kill, and I make alive”? The power of life and death must rest with God alone. Hence, then, the work of salvation needs a power nothing less than divine. He who believes in Christ as a mere man has not believed in a person who can give him salvation; and Christ cannot accomplish the stupendous task if He be only man, for the Saviour must be God.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2667.cfm

Let the Lord Do As He Wills

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

Therefore his sisters sent unto Him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick…When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was. – John 11:3, 6

No doubt when Mary and Martha sent to tell Jesus they looked to see Lazarus recover as soon as the messenger reached the Master; but they were not gratified. For two days the Lord remained in the same place, and not till He knew that Lazarus was dead did He speak of going to Judea. This teaches us that Jesus may be informed of our trouble, and yet may act as if He were indifferent to it. We must not expect in every case that prayer for recovery will be answered, for if so, nobody would die who had chick or child, friend or acquaintance to pray for him. In our prayers for the lives of beloved children of God we must not forget that there is one prayer which may be crossing ours, for Jesus prays, “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.” We pray that they may remain with us, but when we recognize that Jesus wants them above, what can we do but admit His larger claim and say, “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt”? In our own case, we may pray the Lord to raise us up, and yet though He loves us He may permit us to grow worse and worse, and at last to die. Hezekiah had fifteen years added to his life, but we may not gain the reprieve of a single day. Never set such store by the life of any one dear to you, or even by your own life, as to be rebellious against the Lord. If you hold the life of any dear one with too tight a hand, you are making a rod for your own back; and if you love your own earthly life too well, you are making a thorny pillow for your dying bed. Children are often idols, and in such cases their too ardent lovers are idolaters. We might as well make a god of clay, and worship it, as the Hindus are said to do, as worship our fellow-creatures, for what are they but clay? Shall dust be so dear to us that we quarrel with our God about it? If our Lord leaves us to suffer, let us not repine. He must do that for us which is kindest and best, for He loves us better than we love ourselves. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1518.cfm

The Rod of Our Chastening God

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

For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous – Psalm 125:3

You are never liable as a believer to punishment for your sins. You will be chastised on account of them, as a father chastises his child; that is a part of the Gospel dispensation; but you will not be smitten for your sins as the lawgiver smites the criminal. Your Father may often punish you as He punisheth the wicked. But, never for the same reason. The ungodly stand on the ground of their own demerits; their sufferings are awarded as their due deserts. But your sorrows do not come to you as a matter of desert; they come to you as a matter of love…I know some people say, “You deserved the trouble.”…But I know that the rod of the covenant is as much the gift of grace as the blood of the covenant. It is not a matter of desert or merit; it is given to us because we need it. But I question whether we were ever so good as to deserve it. We were never able to get up to so high a standard as to deserve so rich, so gracious a providence as this covenant blessing, the rod of our chastening God. Never at any time in your life has a law-stroke fallen upon you. Since you believed in Christ you are out of the law’s jurisdiction…You are not under the law, but you are under grace… You are not the son of Hagar or the son of a handmaid, you are the son of Sarah, and are come to Jerusalem and are free…You are a child of promise, and you shall have God’s own inheritance. Believe this, that never shall a law-stroke fall on you; never shall God’s anger in a judicial sense drop on you. He may give you a chastising stroke, not as the result of sin, but rather as the result of His own rich grace, that would get the sin out of you, that you may be perfected in sanctification, even as you are now perfect and complete before Him in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0362.cfm

Pure in God’s Sight

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

He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. – Micah 7:19

As soon as a man believeth in Christ Jesus, his sins are gone from him, and gone away for ever. They are blotted out now. What if a man owe a hundred pounds, yet if he has got a receipt for it, he is free; it is blotted out; there is an erasure made in the book, and the debt is gone. Though the man commit sin, yet the debt having been paid before even the debt was acquired, he is no more a debtor to the law of God. Doth not Scripture say, that God has cast His people’s sins into the depths of the sea? Now, if they are in the depths of the sea, they cannot be on His people too. Blessed be His name, in the day when He casts our sins into the depth of the sea, He views us as pure in His sight, and we stand accepted in the Beloved. Then He says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” They cannot be removed and be here still. Then if thou believest in Christ, thou art no more in the sight of God a sinner; thou art accepted as though thou wert perfect, as though thou hadst kept the law for Christ has kept it, and His righteousness is thine. You have broken it, but your sin is His, and He has been punished for it. Mistake not yourselves any longer; you are no more what you were; when you believe, you stand in Christ’s stead, even as Christ of old stood in your stead. The transformation is complete, the exchange is positive and eternal. They who believe in Jesus are as much accepted of God the Father as even His Eternal Son is accepted; and they that believe not, let them do what they will, they shall but go about to work out their own righteousness; but they abide under the law, and still shall they be under the curse. Now, ye that believe in Jesus, walk up and down the earth in the glory of this great truth. You are sinners in yourselves, but you are washed in the blood of Christ.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

The Sinner’s Business

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

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16

Christians have to trust the Spirit after conversion, but the sinner’s business, if he would be saved, is not with trusting the Spirit nor with looking to the Spirit, but looking to Christ Jesus, and to Him alone…When thou hast thus believed, believe in Him as man. Believe the wondrous story of his incarnation; rely upon the testimony of the evangelists, who declare that the Infinite was robed in the infant, that the Eternal was concealed within the mortal; that He who was King of heaven became a servant of servants and the Son of man…Then, specially, if thou wouldst be saved, let thy faith behold Christ in His perfect righteousness. See Him keeping the law without blemish, obeying His Father without error; preserving His integrity without flaw. All this thou are to consider as being done on thy behalf. Thou couldst not keep the law; He kept it for thee. Thou couldst not obey God perfectly-lo! His obedience standeth in the stead of thy obedience-by it, thou art saved…Believe on Him, then, who on yonder tree with nailed hands and feet pours out His life for sinners. There is the object of thy faith for justification; not in thyself, nor in anything which the Holy Spirit has done in thee, or anything He has promised to do for thee; but thou art to look to Christ and to Christ alone. Then let thy faith behold Christ as rising from the dead. See Him-He has borne the curse, and now He receives the justification. He dies to pay the debt; He rises that He may nail the handwriting of that discharged debt to the cross. See Him ascending up on high, and behold Him this day pleading before the Father’s throne. He is there pleading for His people, offering up today His authoritative petition for all that come to God by Him. And He, as God, as man, as living, as dying, as rising, and as reigning above,-He, and He alone, is to be the object of thy faith for the pardon of sin.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

The Object of Faith

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

“He that believeth on Him is not condemned” – John 3:18

I am told in the Word of God to believe-What am I to believe? I am bidden to look-to what am I to look? What is to be the object of my hope, belief, and confidence? The reply is simple. The object of Faith to a sinner is Christ Jesus. How many make a mistake about this and think that they are to believe on God the Father! Now belief in God is an after-result of faith in Jesus. We come to believe in the eternal love of the Father as the result of trusting the precious blood of the Son. Many men say, “I would believe in Christ if I knew that I were elect.” This is coming to the Father, and no man can come to the Father except by Christ. It is the Father’s work to elect; you cannot come directly to Him, therefore you cannot know your election until first you have believed on Christ the Redeemer, and then through redemption you can approach to the Father and know your election. Some, too, make the mistake of looking to the work of God the Holy Spirit. They look within to see if they have certain feelings, and if they find them their faith is strong, but if their feelings have departed from them, then their faith is weak, so that they look to the work of the Spirit which is not the object of a sinner’s faith. Both the Father and the Spirit must be trusted in order to complete redemption, but for the particular mercy of justification and pardon the blood of the Mediator is the only plea.~  C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

 

It Ought Not So to Be

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

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. -1 John 3:2

I have known unbelief arise in some souls through a most proper reverence for Christ, and a high esteem for all that belongs to Him...You remember…John, who when he saw his Master in all His glory fell at His feet as dead. Ah, when the soul gets near to Jesus it perceives His perfection, and becomes conscious of its own imperfection; it sees His glory, and becomes aware of its own nothingness; it sees His love, and blushes at its own unloveliness; and then it is very, very apt to be tortured with mistrust, though it ought not so to be.

And I have even known when children of God just converted have come into the church, they have had such a high esteem for their brethren and sisters, that they have feared to be numbered with them. When they have heard some earnest brother pray they have said, “Oh, what a prayer, I shall never be like that man;” and, perhaps, they have listened to the preachings of some servant of God and said, “Ah, I cannot come up to that standard; the very existence of such a man as that condemns me.” It is beautiful to see the little children loving the elder sons of the family, and admiring what they see of the Father in them; but even this holy modesty may be turned into unbelief, though it ought not so to be; for, O child of God, if Christ be so lovely, thou art on the way to be made like Him; and if there be anything beautiful in any of His people, that same shall be given unto thee, for they also are as thou art, men of like passions with thyself; and God who has done great things for them will do the like for thee, for He loves thee with the self-same love.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1033.cfm