The Father

Manasseh: A Monument of Grace

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, The Father 3 Comments

So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel…And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, And prayed unto Him: (and He heard his supplication), and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God. 2 Chronicles 33:9, 12-13

Oh! I do not wonder at Manasseh’s sin one half so much as I wonder at God’s mercy. There was the man in the prison. He had never thought of his God except to despise His prerogative, and offend against His laws, till he was immured in that dungeon. Then his pride began to break; his haughty spirit had to yield at last. “Who is Jehovah, that I should serve Him?” he had often said. But now he is in Jehovah’s hand. Lying there half-starved in the prison, a crushed man, he begins to cry, “Jehovah, what a fool I have been! I have stood out against Thee until at length Thy sovereign power has arrested me, and Thy infinite justice has begun to avenge my crimes. What shall I do? Where shall I hide from Thy wrath? How can I escape? Is it possible to obtain Thy pardon?”…but in this awful despair he felt he must pray; and surely the first prayer he breathed must have been, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” And in his deep abasement, he continued still to pray and plead with God. And that dear Father of ours who is in heaven heard him.

If ever you can bring Him a praying heart, He will bring you a forgiving message. As soon as He saw His poor child broken down, and confessing his wrong, He took pity on him, heard, and answered him, and blotted out his sins like a cloud, and his transgressions like a thick cloud. And so it came to pass that he was delivered…Here is one that murdered men, defied God, and worshipped devils, yet he finds the way to repentance. If thou be vile as he, know that it is not thy sin, but thy impenitence, that bars heaven against thee. Who can now despair of Thy mercy, O God, that sees the tears of a Manasseh accepted?” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3505.cfm

 

Poor and Yet Very Dear to Your Father

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, The Father 9 Comments

…but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. -Zecharih 14:7

No child of God can be very long without trouble of some kind or other, for sure it is that the road to heaven will always be rough…There is a pilgrimage, and a weary pilgrimage too, which must be taken before you can obtain entrance into those gates. Still, in all their trials, God’s people always find it true that at evening time it shall be light. Are you suffering from temporal troubles. You cannot expect to be without these. They are hard to bear. This, however, should cheer you, that God is as much engaged to succour and support you in your temporal, as He is in your spiritual, interests. Beloved, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Not a sparrow falls on the ground without your Father knowing it. Well, now, taking quite a material view of the question, you are of more value than many sparrows. You may be very poor, yet be very, very dear to your Father in heaven. Your poverty may reduce you to the utmost pinch, but that will be the time of your sweetest relief.

You may, my dear hearer, be so tried that you think nobody ever had such a trial. Well, then, your faith may look out for such a deliverance as nobody else ever experienced. If you have an excess of grief, you shall have the more abundant relief. If you have been alone in sorrow, you shall, by-and-bye, have a joy unspeakable, with which no stranger can intermeddle…Do cast your burden on God. Let me beseech those of you who love Him, not to be shy of Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3508.cfm

True Salvation

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father 3 Comments

“I will rejoice in Thy salvation.”- Psalm 9:4

Salvation is of God because it draws toward God. If thou hast God’s salvation, thou art being drawn towards thy heavenly Father, nearer and nearer every day. The ungodly forget God; the awakened seek God; but the saved rejoice in God. Ask thyself this question, Couldst thou live without God? The ungodly man would be happier without God than he is with. It would be the best piece of news in the newspaper to thousands, if we could publish it to-morrow, that God was dead. To ungodly men it would be like ringing the bells of universal Joy; they would run riot after their own will. And where would the believer be? He would be an orphan. His sun would be blotted out; his hopes would be dead and buried. Judge by this whether thou art saved. If thou art saved, thou art drawn to God, thou seekest to be like God, thou desirest to honour God. If there be none of these things in thee, then I charge thee see to it, for thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bonds of iniquity. God have mercy upon thee! I need not further say that the salvation is of God, and God must have all the glory of it. All on earth who are saved, and all in heaven who are saved, will ascribe their salvation entirely to the ever blessed God, and join with Jonah, who in the very depths of the sea made this, his confession of faith, “Salvation is of the Lord.”

“I will rejoice in Thy salvation.” If I were righteous, I would not say so. Had I a perfect holiness, I would not mention it in comparison with the righteousness of Christ; but being an unworthy sinner, without a single merit of my own, I will not be so foolish as to patch up a fictitious righteousness, but I will rejoice in Thy salvation. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3503.cfm

The Debt is Paid

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, prayer, promises, salvation, The Father 3 Comments

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. -Hebrews 8:12

Oh! how sweet it is to reflect upon the great and wonderous works which Christ hath done, whereby He hath become “the High Priest of our profession,” able to save us! It is pleasant to look back to Calvary’s hill, and to behold that bleeding form expiring on the tree; it is sweet, amazingly sweet, to pry with eyes of love between those thick olives, and hear the groanings of the Man who sweat great drops of blood. Sinner, if thou askest me how Christ can save thee, I tell thee this: He can save thee, because He did not save Himself; He can save thee, because He took thy guilt and endured thy punishment. There is no way of salvation apart from the satisfaction of divine justice. Either the sinner must die, or else some one must die for him. Sinner, Christ can save thee, because, if thou comest to God by Him, then He died for thee. God has a debt against us, and He never remits that debt; He will have it paid. Christ pays it, and then the poor sinner goes free.

“O My Father! forgive____!” Why, He mentioned your own name! “O My Father, forgive him; he knew not what he did. It is true he sinned against light, and knowledge, and warnings; sinned wilfully and woefully; but, Father, forgive him!” Penitent, if thou canst listen, thou wilt hear Him praying for thee. And that is why He is able to save.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0084.cfm

Through Christ Alone

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

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. – John 14:6

We have known many persons who call themselves natural religionists. They worship the God of nature, and they think that they can approach God apart from Jesus Christ. There be some men we wot of who despise the mediation of the Saviour, and, who, if they were in an hour of peril, would put up their prayer at once to God, without faith in the Mediator. Do such of you fancy that you will be heard and saved by the great God your Creator, apart from the merits of His Son? Let me solemnly assure you, in God’s most holy name, there never was a prayer answered for salvation, by God the Creator, since Adam fell, without Jesus Christ the Mediator. “No man can come unto God but by Jesus Christ;” and if any one of you deny the Divinity of Christ, and if any soul among you do not come to God through the merits of a Saviour, bold fidelity obliges me to pronounce you condemned persons; for however amiable you may be, you cannot be right in the rest, unless you think rightly of Him. I tell you, ye may offer all the prayers that ever may be prayed, but ye shall be damned, unless ye put them up through Christ. It is all in vain for you to take your prayers and carry them yourself to the throne. “Get thee hence, sinner; get thee hence,” says God; “I never knew thee. Why didst not thou put thy prayer into the hands of a Mediator? It would have been sure of an answer. But as thou presentest it thyself, see what I will do with it!” And He reads your petition, and casts it to the four winds of heaven; and thou goest away unheard, unsaved. The Father will never save a man apart from Christ; there is not one soul now in heaven who was not saved by Jesus Christ; there is not one who ever came to God aright, who did not come through Jesus Christ. If you would be at peace with God, you must come to Him through Christ, as the way, the truth, and the life, making mention of His righteousness, and of His only. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0084.cfm

The God of Peace

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

Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen -Romans 15:33

If you consider God in the trinity of His persons for a few moments, you will see that in each-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-the title is apt and correct, “the God of peace.” There is God the everlasting Father, He is the God of peace, for He from all eternity planned the great covenant of peace, whereby He might bring rebels nigh unto Him, and make strangers and foreigners fellow-heirs with the saints, and joint-heirs with His Son Christ Jesus.

So is Jesus Christ, the second person, the God of peace for “He is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.” He makes peace between God and man. His blood sprinkled on the fiery wrath of God turned it to love, or rather that which must have broken forth in wrath, though it was love for ever, was allowed to display itself in loving-kindness through the wondrous mediatorship of Jesus Christ; and He is the God of peace because He makes peace in the conscience and in the heart.

So is the Holy Ghost the God of peace. He of old brought peace, when chaotic matter was in confusion, by the brooding of His wings: He caused order to appear where once there was nothing but darkness and chaos. So in dark chaotic souls He is the God of peace…When by earthly cares we are tossed about, like the sea-bird, up and down, up and down, from the base of the wave to the billows’ crown, He says, “Peace be still.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0049.cfm

Returning to God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father, The Holy Spirit 4 Comments

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. -Hebrews 12:2

This generation hath gradually, and almost imperceptibly, become to a great extent a godless generation. One of the diseases of the present generation of mankind, is their secret, but deep-seated, godlessness by which they have so far departed from the knowledge of God. Science has discovered to us second causes; and hence, many have too much forgotten the first Great Cause, the Author of all: they have been able so far to pry into secrets, that the great axiom of the existence of a God, has been too much neglected. Even among professing Christians, while there is a great amount of religion, there is too little godliness: there is much external formalism, but too little inward acknowledgment of God, too little living on God, living with God, and relying upon God. Hence arises the sad fact that when you enter many of our places of worship you will certainly hear the name of God mentioned; but except in the benediction, you would scarcely know there was a Trinity. In many places dedicated to Jehovah the name of Jesus is too often kept in the background; the Holy Spirit is almost entirely neglected; and very little is said concerning His sacred influence. Even religious men have become to a large degree godless in this age. We sadly require more preaching regarding God; more preaching of those things which look not so much at the creature to be saved, as at God the Great One to be extolled. My firm conviction is, that in proportion as we have more regard for the sacred godhead, the wondrous Trinity in Unity, shall we see a greater display of God’s power, and a more glorious manifestation of His might in our churches. May God send us a Christ-exalting, Spirit-loving ministry-men who shall proclaim God the Holy Ghost in all His offices and shall extol God the Saviour as the author and finisher of our faith, not neglecting that Great God, the Father of His people, who, before all worlds, elected us in Christ His Son, justified us through His righteousness, and will inevitably preserve us and gather us together in one, in the consummation of all things at the last great day.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0050.cfm