The Father

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

 

A Marvelous Increase

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

Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?- Isaiah 60:8

The ancient church, in the foresight of her mighty increase in these latter days lifts up her hands in astonishment, and having been so used to see the Lord’s grace confined to a small nation, she exclaims in amazement, “Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?” “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Oh! thou distrustful church, dost thou marvel because thy Lord giveth thee many children? Is it not written-“More are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife,” saith the Lord. I tell thee, the Lord will show thee greater things than these. The increase we have had shall yet be exceeded, if God wills it. Nothing is impossible with Him. He who converts one, could as easily convert a hundred; and He who redeems a hundred, could save a thousand by the self-same power. Is not the blood of Jesus sufficient? Is not the Holy Ghost powerful enough? and is not the mighty Three-One God “able to do for us exceeding abundantly above what we can ask or think?” Yet, so it is; so little are our expectations, and so unprepared are we for God’s mercies, that when He pours out a blessing upon us, so that we have not room enough to receive it, we begin shutting up the windows altogether, and think, “Surely it cannot come from God, because there is so much of it.” Why, that is the very reason why we should believe it to be. If there were few conversions, then we might tremble, and fear lest they might be man’s; but when there are so many none but God can accomplish it. When one or two are brought to join a church, we may shake for fear and examine them with caution; but when they fly like a cloud, we can only say, “Great art Thou, O God, marvelous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.” Doubtless, brethren, until larger views of God’s power and increased faith shall diminish the wonder, we shall always stand in amazement, and say, “Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0063.cfm

To Be Like Our Master

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

It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? -Matthew 10:25

It often happens, however, that when we are really earnest about some purpose, some enemy will rise up. Unconscious, perhaps, of the nobility of our purpose, he will misconstrue our motives, vilify our character, and tread our fair name in the dust. There is a strong temptation at such seasons to defend one’s self. We want to say just a word about one’s own sincerity and heartiness of purpose. The temptation comes very strongly on us, because we think that we ourselves are so wrapped up, so intimately connected with the work, that perhaps, if our name be injured that work may suffer also. How many good and great men have fallen into this snare, so that they have left their work in order to take care of themselves, and have at least diminished some little of their ardor, or commingled the ardor which they feel for those objects with another fervency of spirit-the fervency of self-defense.

Now, in our Lord Jesus Christ you see nothing of this. He is so set upon His purpose that when they call Him a drunkard He doth not deny it; when they say He is a Samaritan and is mad, He takes it silently and seems to say, “Be it so; think so, if you will.” Now and then there is a word of complaint, but not of accusation. When it is really for their good He will rebuke them, and say, “How can Beelzebub cast out Beelzebub?” But there is no elaborate defense of His character. Christ has left on record, in His sermons, no apology for anything He said. He just went about His work and did it, and left men to think what they pleased about Him. He knew right well that contempt and shame from some men are but another phase of glory, and that to suffer the despite of a depraved race was to be glorified in the presence of His Father, and in the midst of His holy angels…And so, too good to be selfish, too glorious to care for any one’s esteem, He could not and would not turn aside, but as an arrow from the bow of some mighty archer, He sped on His way towards His destined target.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0302.cfm

 

The Father’s Work

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

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.…And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. -Genesis 1:1-2; 3:15

We know that when this world was made, the Father did not make it without reference to the Spirit, for “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” brooded over chaos, and brought order out of confusion. Nor did He make it without the Son; for we are told by John the Apostle, “Without Him was not anything made that was made.” Yet, at the same time, creation was the Father’s work. So also is it in salvation; the Father does not save without the Spirit, for “the Spirit quickeneth whom He will.” He doth not save without the Son, for it is through the merit of the Redeemer’s death that we are delivered from the demerit of our iniquity. But, notwithstanding this, God the Father is the worker of salvation as much as He is the worker of creation. Let us look up then, with eyes of delight, to our reconciled God and Father. O Lord our GOD, Thou art not an angry one! Thou art not an austere ruler! “Thou art not merely the Judge but Thou art the grand patriarch of Thy people! Thou art their great friend! Thou lovest them better than Thou didst Thy Son! For Thou didst not spare Him-Thou didst send Him down to suffer and to die, that Thou mightest bring Thy children home. “Glory be unto the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0302.cfm

God’s Work

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

Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.-John 4:34

It is peculiarly pleasing to the Christian to observe the interest which God the Father takes in the work of salvation. In our earlier days of childhood in grace, we conceived the idea that God the Father was only made propitious to us through the atonement of Christ that Jesus was the Savior, and that the Father was rather an austere Judge than a tender friend. But since then, we have learned the Father through the Son: for it was not possible we could come unto the Father except through Jesus Christ. But, now, having seen Christ, we have seen the Father also, and from henceforth, we both know the Father, and have seen Him, since we know the love of Christ, and have felt it shed abroad in our hearts. It is always refreshing then, to the enlightened Christian, to call to mind the intense interest which the Father takes in the work of salvation…Salvation-work is called the Father’s will. “It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish;” but more, it is His will that His chosen, the blood-bought ones of Christ, should every one of them be redeemed from the ruins of the fall, and brought safely home to their Father’s house.

He gave up His only begotten Son; He withheld not the darling of His bosom, but sent away His well-beloved, and sent Him down with messages of love to man. Jesus Christ comes willingly, but still He comes by His Father’s appointment and sending…Salvation is here called God’s work: “It is my meat to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0302.cfm

A Little Stay on Earth

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

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.-Philippians 1:21

We conceive that the greatest blessing we shall ever receive of God is to die; but doubtless it would not be for our good to withdraw from this world as soon as we had escaped from sin. It is better for us to tarry a little while; far better. And the reasons for this are, first, because a little stay on earth will make heaven all the sweeter. Nothing makes rest so sweet as toil; nothing can render security so pleasant as a long exposure to alarms, and fears, and battles. No heaven will be so sweet as a heaven, which has been preceded by torments and pains. Methinks the deeper draughts of woe we drink here below, the sweeter will be those draughts of eternal glory which we shall receive from the golden bowls of bliss; the more we are battered and scarred on earth the more glorious will be our victory above, when the shouts of a thousand times ten thousand angels welcome us to our Father’s palace. The more trials the more bliss, the more sufferings the more ecstasies, the more depression the higher the exaltation. Thus we shall gain more of heaven by the sufferings we shall pass through here below. Let us not then, my brethren, fear to advance through our trials: they are for our good; to stop here awhile is for our benefit. Why! we should not know how to converse in heaven if we had not a few trials and hardships to tell of, and some tales of delivering grace to repeat with joy. An old sailor likes to have passed through a few shipwrecks and storms, however hazardous they may have been, for he anchors in Greenwich Hospital, he will there tell, with great pleasure, to his companions, of his hair-breadth escapes. There will be some old soldiers in heaven, too, who will recount their fights, how their Master delivered them, and how He won the victory and kept off all their foes.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0047.cfm

We Are, For Now, to be Earthbound

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

“I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world…” -John 17:15

Some hermits and others have fancied that if we were to shut ourselves from the world and live alone, we should then be more devoted to God and serve Him better…Why, brethren, common sense tells us at once that living alone is not the way to serve God. It may be the way to serve self, and wrap ourselves in a garment of self-complacency; but it cannot be the way to worship God truly. If it be possible, by this means, to fulfil one part of the great law of God, we cannot possibly carry out the other portion-to love our neighbour as ourselves, for we thus become unable to bind up the broken-hearted, to bring the wanderer back, or to win souls from death and sin. Out of the heart proceedeth all evil, and if we were in retirement we should sin, because we should carry our hearts with us into whatever solitude we entered.

…But it may be understood in a second sense. “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of this world”–by death…But Jesus does not pray that one of His chosen people should be too soon removed, He does not desire to see His newly begotten souls plume their wings and fly aloft to heaven until their time shall come…He leaves it to His Father, until, like shocks of corn fully ripe, we shall each of us be gathered into our Master’s garner… Christ does not pray that we should be taken out of the world, because our abode here is for our own good, for the world’s benefit, and for His glory. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0047.cfm