The Father

My Salvation

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

He shall cry unto Me, You are my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. -Psalm 89:26

If any one should ask us what we would choose for our motto, as preachers of the gospel, we think we should reply, “God only is our salvation.” The late lamented Mr. Denham has put at the foot of his portrait, a most admirable text, “Salvation is of the Lord.” Now, that is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and the substance of it. If any one should ask you what you mean by a Calvinist, you may reply, “He is one who says, “salvation is of the Lord.”…By the term “salvation” here, I understand not simply regeneration and conversion, but something more. I do not reckon that to be salvation which regenerates me, and then puts me in such a position that I may fall out of the covenant and be lost; I cannot call that a bridge which only goes half-way over the stream; I cannot call that salvation, which does not carry me all the way to heaven, wash me perfectly clean, and put me among the glorified who sing constant hosannahs around the throne. By salvation, then if I may divide it into parts, I understand deliverance, preservation continually through life, sustentation, and the gathering up of the whole in the perfecting of the saints in the person of Jesus Christ at last.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0080.cfm

 

Our Father’s Love

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

Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with every good thing to do His will. And may He accomplish in us what is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. -Hebrews 13:20-21

As well by power are we redeemed as by price, for the blood-bought sheep had gone astray even as others. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way,” but, my brethren, the good shepherd has brought many of us back with infinite condescension: with boundless mercy He followed us when we went astray. Oh, what blind slaves we were when we sported with death! We did not know then what His love had ordained for us: it never entered our poor, silly heads that there was a crown for us; we did not know that the Father’s love had settled itself on us, or ever the day-star knew its place. We know it now, and it is He that has taught us; for He followed us over mountains of vanity, through bogs and miry places of foul transgression; tracked our devious footsteps on and on, through youth and manhood, till at last, with mighty grace, He grasped us in His arms and laid us on His shoulder, and is this day carrying us home to the great fold above, rejoicing as He bears all our weight and finds us in all we need. Oh, that blessed work of effectual grace! He has made us His own, He has defeated the enemy, the prey has been taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive has been delivered. “He hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron asunder,” to set His people free. “O that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/spurgeon/sermons17.xxviii.html

We Are Sons of the Freewoman

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

Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.” – Galatians 4:30. 31

Hagar was cast out, as well as her son; but Sarah never was. So the covenant of works has ceased to be a covenant. Not only have the people been cast away who trusted in it, not simply was Ishmael cast out, but Ishmael’s mother too. So the legalist may not only know himself to be damned, but the law as a covenant has ceased to be, for mother and son are both driven out by the gospel, and those who trust in law are sent away by God. You ask today who is Abraham’s wife? Why Sarah; does she not sleep side by side with her husband in the Machpelah’s cave at this instant? There she lies, and if she lie there for a thousand years to come, she will still be Abraham’s wife, while Hagar never can be. Oh, how sweet to think, that the covenant made of old was in all things ordered well, and never, never shall be removed. “Although my house be not so with God, yet hath He made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.” Ah! ye legalists, I do not wonder that ye teach the doctrine of falling away, because that is consistent with your theology. Of course, Hagar has to be driven out, and Ishmael too. But we who preach the covenant of free and full salvation know, that Isaac never shall be driven out, and that Sarah never shall cease to be the friend and wife of Abraham. Ye Hagarenes! ye ceremonialists! ye hypocrites! ye formalists! of what avail will it be, when at last ye shall say, “Where is my mother? Where is my mother, the law?” Oh! she is driven out, and thou mayest go with her into eternal oblivion. But where is my mother? the Christian can say at last; and it will be said, “There is the mother of the faithful, Jerusalem above, the mother of us all; and we shall enter in, and dwell with our Father and our God.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0069.cfm

The Two Covenants Compared

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

…which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—…but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. -Galatians 4: 24, 26

The first covenant for which Hagar stands, is the covenant of works, which is this: “There is my law, O man; if thou on thy side wilt engage to keep it, I on my side will engage that thou shalt live by keeping it. If thou wilt promise to obey my commands perfectly, wholly, fully, without a single flaw, I will carry thee to heaven. But mark Me, if thou violatest one command, if thou dost rebel against a single ordinance, I will destroy thee for ever.” …The Sarah covenant is the covenant of grace, not made with God and man, but made with God and Christ Jesus, which covenant is this: “Christ Jesus on His part engages to bear the penalty of all His people’s sins, to die, to pay their debts, to take their iniquities upon His shoulders; and the Father promises on His part that all for whom the Son doth die shall most assuredly be saved; that seeing they have evil hearts, He will put His law in their hearts, that they shall not depart from it, and that seeing they have sins, He will pass (these sins) by and not remember them any more for ever.”…There are no conditions whatever in the covenant of grace, or if there be conditions, the covenant gives them. The covenant gives faith, gives repentance, gives good works, gives salvation, as a purely gratuitous unconditional act; nor does our continuance in that covenant depend in the least degree on ourselves. The covenant was made by God with Christ, signed, sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0069.cfm

 

Now Are You a Son of God

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

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. -1John 3:2

How is it with your heart this morning? Are you in the lowest depths of sorrow and suffering? “Now are you a son of God.” Does corruption rise within your spirit, and grace seem like a poor spark trampled under foot? “Beloved, now are you a son of God.” Does your faith almost fail you? and are your graces like a candle well nigh blown out by the wind! Fear not, beloved; it is not your graces, it is not your frames, it is not your feelings, on which you are to live: you must live simply by naked faith on Christ. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” With all these things against us, with the foot of the devil on our neck, and the sword in his hand ready to slay us-beloved now in the very depths of our sorrow, wherever we may be-now, as much in the valley as on the mountain, as much in the dungeon as in the palace, as much when broken on the wheel of suffering as when exalted on the wings of triumph-“beloved, now are we the sons of God.” “Ah!” but you say, “see how I am arrayed! my graces are not bright; my righteousness does not shine with apparent glory.” But read the next: “It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.” We are not so much like Him now, but we have some more refining process to undergo, and death itself, that best of all friends, is yet to wash us clean. “We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0062.cfm

We Are The Sons of God

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

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.-1 John 3:1

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us.” Consider who we were, and who we are now; aye, and what we feel ourselves to be even when divine grace is powerful in us. And yet, beloved, we are called “the sons of God.” It is said that when one of the learned heathens was translating this, he stopped and said, “No; it cannot be; let it be written ‘Subjects,’ not ‘Sons,’ for it is impossible we should be called ‘the sons of God.’ ” What a high relationship is that of a son to his father! What privileges a son has from his father! What liberties a son may take with his father! and oh! what obedience the son owes to his father, and what love the father feels towards the son! But all that, and more than that, we now have through Christ. “Behold!” ye angels! stop, ye seraphs! here is a thing more wonderful than heaven with its walls of jasper. Behold, universe! open thine eyes, O world. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.” Well, we are content to go with Him in His humiliation, for we are to be exalted with Him.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0062.cfm

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