The Father

For Christ’s Sake Imitate Him

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

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. -Romans 5:8

Oh! could I fetch the dying Jesus here, and let Him speak to you! My own tongue is tied this morning, but I would make His blood, His scars, and His wounds speak. Poor dumb mouths, I bid each of them plead in His behalf. How would Jesus, standing here, show you His hands this morning! “My friends,” He would say, “behold Me! These hands were pierced for you; and look ye here at this My side. It was opened as the fountain of your salvation. See My feet; there entered the cruel nails. Each of these bones were dislocated for your sake. These eyes gushed with torrents of tears. This head was crowned with thorns. These cheeks were smitten; this hair was plucked; My body became the centre and focus of agony. I hung quivering in the burning sun; and all for you, My people. And will ye not love Me now? I bid you be like Me. Is there any fault in Me? Oh! no. Ye believe that I am fairer than ten thousand fairs, and lovelier than ten thousand loves. Have I injured you? Have I not rather done all for your salvation? And do I not sit at My Father’s throne, and e’en now intercede on your behalf? If ye love Me,”-Christian, hear that word; let the sweet syllables ring forever in your ears, like the prolonged sounding of silver-toned bells;-“if ye love Me, if ye love Me, keep My commandments.” Oh, Christian, let that “if” be put to thee this morning. “If ye love Me.” Glorious Redeemer! is it an “if” at all? Thou precious, bleeding Lamb, can there be an “if?” What, when I see Thy blood gushing from Thee; is it an “if?” Yes, I weep to say it is an “if.” Oft my thoughts make it “if,” and oft my words make it “if.” But yet methinks my soul feels it is not “if,” either.

“Not to mine eyes is light so dear,
Nor friendship half so sweet.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0021.cfm

The Cruel Attack

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

The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength; and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel. – Gen. 49:23,24

Joseph’s enemies were archers. The original has it, “masters of the arrows;” that is, men who were well skilled in the use of the arrows. Though all weapons are alike approved by the warrior in his thirst for blood, there seems something more cowardly in the attack of the archer than in that of the swordsman. The swordsman plants himself near you, foot to foot, and lets you defend yourself, and deal your blows against him; but the archer stands at a distance, hides himself in ambuscade, and, without you knowing it, the arrow comes whizzing through the air, and perhaps penetrates your heart. Just so are the enemies of God’s people. They very seldom come foot to foot with us; they will not show their faces before us; they hate the light, they love darkness; they dare not come and openly accuse us to our face, for then we could reply; but they shoot the bow from a distance, so that we cannot answer them; cowardly and dastardly as they are, they forge their arrow-heads, and aim them, winged with hell-birds feathers, at the hearts of God’s people.

O ye foes of God, ye think God’s people are despicable and powerless; but know that they have true strength from the omnipotence of their Father, a might substantial and divine. Your own shall melt away, and droop and die, like the snow upon the low mountain top, when the sun shines upon it, it melteth into water; but our vigor shall abide like the snow on the summit of the Alps, undiminished for ages. It is real strength. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0017.cfm

Nothing to Lose

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

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

A Christian has nothing to lose by death. You say he has to lose his friends. I am not so sure of that. Many of you have many more friends in heaven than on earth; some Christians have more dearly beloved ones above than below. You often count your family circle, but do you do as that little girl of whom Wordsworth speaks, when she said, “Master, we are seven.” Some of them were dead and gone to heaven, but she would have it that they were all brothers and sisters still. Oh! how many brothers and sisters we have up stairs in the upper room in our Father’s house; how many dear ones, linked with us in the ties of relationship, for they are as much our relations now as they were then! Though in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, yet in that great world, who has said that the ties of affection shall be severed, so that we shall not even there claim kindred with one another, as well as kindred with Jesus Christ? What have we to lose by death? Come when he may, should we not open the door for him? I would love to feel like that woman who said, when she was dying, “I feel like a latch on the door, ready to be opened to let my Lord in.” Is not that a sweet state, to have the house ready, so that it will require no setting in order? When death comes to a wicked man, he finds him moored fast, he snaps his cable, and drives his ship to sea; but when he comes to the Christian, he finds him winding up the anchor, and he says, “When thou hast done thy work, and shipped the anchor, I will take thee home.” With sweet breath he blows on him, and the ship is wafted gently to heaven, with no regrets for life, but with angels at the brow, spirits guiding the rudder, sweet songs coming through the cordage, and canvass silvered o’er with light.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0043.cfm

 

Thy Father and Thy Love

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

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness. – Isaiah 41:10

Put me to sea, and let the ship be driven along, that wind is my Father’s breath; let the clouds gather, they are the dust of my Father’s feet; let the waterspout appear from heaven, it is my Father dipping His hand in the laver of His earthly temple. The child of God feareth nothing. All things are his Father’s; and divested now of everything that is terrible, he can look upon them with complacency, for he says, “The clouds are the dust of His feet.”

“He drives His chariot through the sky,
Beneath His feet His thunders roar;
He shakes the earth, He veils the sky,
My soul, my soul, this God adore-
He is thy Father, and thy love.”

Fall down before His feet and worship Him, for He hath loved thee by His grace. You know there are many fearful events which may befall us; but we are never afraid of them, if we are saints, because they are the dust of His feet. Pestilence may ravage this fair city once again; the thousands may fall, and the funeral march be constantly seen in our streets. Do we fear it? Nay; the pestilence is but one of our Father’s servants, and we are not afraid of it, although it walketh in darkness. There may be no wheat, the flocks may be cut off from the herd and the stall; nevertheless, famine and distress are our Father’s doings, and what our Father does we will not view with alarm. There is a man there with a sword in his hand; he is an enemy, and I fear him. My Father has a sword, and I fear him not; I rather love to see Him have a sword, because I know He will only use it for my protection. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0036.cfm

No Terror for the Child of God

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

The LORD has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. -Nahum 1:3

Sometimes clouds are very fearful things to mariners; they expect a storm when they see the clouds and darkness gathering. A cloud to many of us, when it forebodes a tempest is a very unpleasant thing. But let me read my text, and you will see what I mean by my remark that the most terrible things in nature are not terrible to the saints. The “clouds are the dust of His feet,”-of God’s feet. Do you not see what I mean? There is nothing terrible now, because it is only the dust of my Father’s feet. Did you ever know a child who was afraid of the dust of his father’s feet? Nay; if the child sees the dust of his father’s feet in the distance, what does he do? He rejoices because it is his father, and runs to meet him. So the most awful things in nature, even the clouds, have lost all their terror to a child of God, because He knows they are but the dust of His Father’s feet. If we stand in the midst of the lightning storm, a flash rives yon cedar, or splits the oak of the forest; another flash succeeds, and then another, till the whole firmament becomes a sea of flame. We fear not, for they are only the flashes of our Father’s sword as He waves it in the sky. Hark to the thunder as it shakes the earth, causes the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests; we shake not at the sound.

“The God that rules on high,
And thunders when He please,
That rides upon the stormy sky,
And manages the seas.

“This awful God is ours,
Our Father and our love.”

We are not afraid, for we hear our Father’s voice. And what favored child ever quaked at his Father’s speech. We love to hear that voice; although it is deep, bass, sonorous, yet we love its matchless melody, for it issues from the depths of affection. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0036.cfm

The God of Nature

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

The LORD hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. -Nahum 1:3

Wherever I look abroad in nature I love to discern my Father’s name spelled out in living characters; and if we had any fields a little greener than Moorfields, Smithfield, and Spafields, I would do as Isaac did, go into the fields at eventide and muse and meditate upon the God of nature. I thought in the cool of last evening I would muse with my God, by His Holy Spirit, and see what message He would give me. There I sat and watched the clouds, and learned a lesson in the great hall of Nature’s college. The first thought that struck me was this, as I saw the white clouds rolling in the sky, soon shall I see my Saviour mounted on a great white throne, riding on the clouds of heaven, to call men to judgment. My imagination could easily picture the scene, when the quick and the dead should stand before His great white throne, and should hear His voice pronounce their changeless destiny. I remembered, moreover, that text in the Proverbs, “He that observeth the wind shall not sow and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” I thought how many a time myself and my brother ministers have regarded the clouds. We have listened to the voice of prudence and of caution we have regarded the clouds, we have stops when we ought to have been sowing because we were afraid of the multitude, or we refused to reap and take in the people into our churches, because some good brother thought we were too hasty about the matter. I rose up and thought to myself, I will regard neither the clouds nor the winds, but when the wind blows a hurricane I will throw the seed with my hands, if peradventure the tempest may waft it further still; and when the clouds are thick, still I will reap, and rest assured that God will preserve His own wheat, whether I gather it under clouds or in the sunshine. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0036.cfm

‘Tis Mine to Obey, ‘Tis His to Provide

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

But seek you first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. -Matthew 6:33

When a man is anxious he cannot pray; when he is troubled about the world he cannot serve his Master, he is serving himself. If you could “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” beloved, “all things would then be added to you.” What a noble Christian you would be; how much more honorable you would be to Christ’s religion; and how much better you could serve Him.

“‘Tis mine to obey, ’tis His to provide”

You have been meddling with Christ’s business, you have been leaving your own; you have been trying the “providing” part and leaving the “obeying?” to somebody else. Now, you take the obeying part, and let Christ manage the providing. Come then, brethren, doubting and fearful ones, come and see your Father’s storehouse, and ask whether He will let you starve while He has stored away such plenty in His garner! Come and look at His heart of mercy, see if that will ever fail! Come and look at His inscrutable wisdom and see if that will ever go amiss: Above all, look up there to Jesus Christ your intercessor, and ask yourself, “while He pleads, can my Father forget me?” And if He remembers even sparrows, will He forget one of the least of His poor children? “Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He will sustain thee,” “He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0033.cfm