The Father

This Holy Fear, This Sacred Caution

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

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise… – Ephesians 1:13

A man who becomes a partaker of divine grace, and receives the new nature, is ever afterwards a partaker of daily helps from God’s Holy Spirit. God the Holy Ghost deigns to dwell in the bosom, of every man whom God has saved by His grace. Is not that a wonderful means of sanctifying? By what process can men be better kept from sin than by having the Holy Spirit Himself to dwell as Vice-regent within their hearts? The Ever- blessed Spirit leads believers to be much in prayer, and what a power for holiness is found in the child of grace speaking to the heavenly Father! The tempted man flies to his chamber, unbosoms his grief to God, looks to the flowing wounds of his Redeemer, and comes down strong to resist temptation. The divine Word also, with its precepts and promises, is a never-failing source of sanctification. Were it not that we every day bathe in the sacred fountain of eternal strength we might soon be weak and irresolute; but fellowship with God renews us in our vigorous warfare with sin. How is it possible that the doctrines of grace should suggest sin to men who constantly draw near to God? The renewed man is also by God’s Spirit frequently quickened in conscience; so that things which heretofore did not strike him as sinful are seen in a clearer light and are consequently condemned. I know that certain matters are sinful to me today which did not appear so ten years ago: my judgment has, I trust, been more and more cleared of the blindness of sin. The natural conscience is callous and hard; but the gracious conscience grows more and more tender till at last it becomes as sensitive as a raw wound. He who has most grace is most conscious of his need of more grace. The gracious are often afraid to put one foot before another for fear of doing wrong. Have you not felt this holy fear, this sacred caution? It is by this means that the Holy Spirit prevents your ever turning your Christian liberty into licentiousness, or daring to make the grace of God an argument for folly. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1735.cfm

Seeing Jesus in the Ordinances

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

And the scribe said unto Him…for there is one God; and there is none other but He: And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. – Mark 12:32,33

Suppose this man had really loved God with all his heart, and understanding, and soul, and strength…Would he not have exclaimed, “This Man, too, loves God with all His heart”? He must have perceived it, for the zeal which Christ had for the Father was immeasurable; it flashed in every gleam of His eye, it tinctured every word that fell from His lips. Jesus lived for God and glorified the Father with all His heart and soul, and any person who truly loved God would soon have perceived that fact. “Ah!” he would have exclaimed, “here is one who loves God better than I do; here is one who honors God more than I do; here is one who is more consecrated, more devoted, more godlike than I am.” By that door he would have been led to admiration of Jesus, to communion with Him, and ultimately to belief in Him as the Messiah. Let us hope that the scribe was so led, for the way is plain enough.

You notice that he said that to love God was more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices…Suppose he had begun to try and read the meaning of the paschal lamb, or of the daily lamb, or of the sin-offering, why, methinks, if he turned to that blessed fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and began to read it in order to understand the sacrifices of the old law, it would have happened to him as it did to the eunuch when Philip opened to him the Scriptures-he would have seen Jesus in them all. He must have seen Him. And if you, dear friend, have come to see the right place of gospel ordinances through candidly searching out their meaning, you have seen that their whole teaching is Christ Jesus, the sacrifice for sin. Christ’s sufferings, death, burial, and resurrection set forth in baptism: Christ’s death set forth until He come at the communion table- life given us by our Savior’s death, and life sustained by the same means. Jesus is the body of the ordinances of the Old Testament, and the soul of those of the New. If you are but candid enough to desire to push through the veil and get at the real meaning of every outward ordinance, you will see Jesus ere long. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1517.cfm

God Will Be Faithful for His Name’s Sake

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

And Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses. – Exodus 14:31

Do I hear some one say, “I fear that I shall never get out of my difficulties”? Yet you believe that the Lord has brought you out from the dominion of Satan? Tell me, has God brought you so far to let you perish? He has broken off the yoke of sin; He has given you a hope in Christ, and you are a changed man. Do you think that He would do all this for you, and then leave you? Come, my brother, has the Lord brought you out of Egypt, by the precious blood of the Lamb, that you should die in the wilderness? Do you believe that Jesus has redeemed you to let you be lost after all? …Do not doubt Him now, I pray you. Do not please the devil by distrusting your faithful God.

Suppose that the Israelites had been left to perish when Pharaoh said they were shut in, what then? What would the Lord have done for His great name? Would not the Egyptians have exulted over Israel’s God? A Scotch minister tells the story of an aged saint who, on her dying bed, said that her Saviour would never leave her to perish. “But suppose that He did not keep His promise, and you were to be lost?” She answered, “He would be a greater loser than I.” When asked what she meant, she answered, “It is true that I would lose my soul; but God would lose His honor and His glory if He were not true.” Brethren, if we have trusted in God, and have come out of the Egypt of the world through His grace, and have left all its sins behind us, if we were left to die in the wilderness, the Lord Jesus Christ would lose His glory as a Saviour, the divine Father would lose His name for immutable faithfulness, and the Holy Ghost would lose His honor for perseverance in completing every work which He undertakes. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2188.cfm

O impenitent man, I plead with thee!

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

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” – Mark 1:15

“He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. – Mark 16:16

If you were in God’s stead, could you bear to be treated as you have treated Him? If you were all goodness and tenderness, and had borne with a creature now for thirty or forty years, how would you bear to see that creature still stand out, and even draw an inference from your gentleness to encourage him in his rebellion? Would you not say, “Well, if my longsuffering makes him think little of sin, I will change my hand. If tenderness cannot win him, I must leave him; if even my love does not affect him, I will let him alone. He is given unto his evil ways-I will cease from him and see what his end will be”? Oh that hearts may be touched with pity for their slighted Saviour, that they may seek His face! Here is the way of salvation: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” You know how the Master bade us put it. “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature: he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” First, we are to preach faith, whereby we lay hold on Christ; then baptism, whereby we confess that faith, and own that we are dead and buried with Christ that we may live with Him in newness of life. Those are the two points He bids us set before you, and I do set them before you. Weary, but not quite wearied out, O impenitent man, I plead with thee! Though thou hast so often been pleaded with in vain, once more I speak with thee in Christ’s stead, and say-Repent of thy sin, look to thy Saviour, and confess thy faith in His own appointed way. If “the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance,” then be sure of this, that the goodness of God will receive thee when thou dost repent, and thou shalt live in His sight as His well-beloved and forgiven child. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1714.cfm

Yield to God’s Sweet Leading

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

…not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? – Romans 2:4

I want you to notice that the text does not say, “The goodness of God calleth thee to repentance,” but “leadeth thee.” This is a much stronger word. God calls to repentance by the gospel; God leads to repentance by His goodness. It is as though He plucked at your sleeve and said, “Come this way.” His goodness lays its gentle hand on you, drawing you with cords of love and bands of a man. God’s forbearance cries, “Why wilt thou hate Me? What wrong have I done thee? I have spared thee; I have spared thy wife and children to thee; I have raised thee up from the bed of sickness; I have loaded thy board; I have filled thy wardrobe; I have done thee a thousand good turns; wherefore dost thou disobey Me? Turn unto thy God and Father and live in Christ Jesus.”

If, on the other hand, you have not received rich temporal favours, yet the Lord still leads you to repentance by a rougher hand; as when the prodigal fain would have filled his belly with husks, but could not, and the pangs of hunger came upon him; those pains were a powerful message from the Father to lead him to the home where there was bread enough and to spare. “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” Oh, that thou wouldest yield to its sweet leading, and follow as a child follows the guidance of a nurse. Let thy crosses lead thee to the cross; let thy joys lead thee to find joy in Christ.

Do you not think that all this should encourage you to repent, since God himself leads you that way? If God leads you to repentance He does not mean to cast you away…Follow His gracious leading till His divine Spirit shall lead you with still greater power and still greater efficacy; till at last you find that He has wrought in you both repentance and faith, and you are saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1714.cfm

God’s Riches Despised?

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

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering..? – Romans 2:4

Our apostle adds to goodness and forbearance the riches of “longsuffering.” We draw a distinction between forbearance and longsuffering. Forbearance has to do with the magnitude of sin; longsuffering with the multiplicity of it: forbearance has to do with present provocation; longsuffering relates to that provocation repeated and continued for a length of time. Oh, how long doth God suffer the ill manners of men! Forty years long was He grieved with that generation whose carcasses fell in the wilderness. Has it come to forty years yet with you, dear hearer? Possibly it may have passed even that time, and a half-century of provocation may have gone into eternity to bear witness against you. What if I should even have to say that sixty and seventy years have continued to heap up the loads of their transgressions, until the Lord saith, “I am pressed down under your sins; as a cart that is full of sheaves I am pressed down under you.” Yet for all that, here you are on praying ground and pleading terms with God; here you are where yet the Saviour reigns upon the throne of grace; here you are where mercy is to be had for the asking, where free grace and dying love ring out their charming bells of invitation to joy and peace! Oh, the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering. Three-fold is the claim: will you not regard it? Can you continue to despise it? …If God were a tyrant, if He were unrighteous or unkind, it were not so much amiss that men stood out against Him; but when His very name is love, and when He manifests the bowels of a Father towards His wandering children it is shameful that He should be so wantonly provoked…Every single minute of our life is cheered with the tender kindness of God, and every spot is gladdened with His love. I wonder that the Lord does not sweep away the moral nuisance of a guilty race from off the face of earth. Man’s sin must have been terribly offensive to God from day to day, and yet still He shows kindness, love, forbearance. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1714.cfm

The Plainly Written Truth of God

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

 …who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. – Romans 9:4,5

“Israel is my first-born,” says God…They had the first hold of all the spiritual gifts which the Lord bestowed upon the sons of men. They had, as it were, a monopoly of Light and Truth among them. The Jewish people had been singularly favored—they had seen God revealing His Son to them by types, by priests, by sacrifices, by the temple, by a thousand signs and marks. Verily the kingdom of God had come very near to them. But the privileges of the Jews were not greater than the privileges of men and women who hear the Gospel in these days, for Christ is not so well seen in bleeding bulls and rams and hyssop and scarlet wool as He is seen in the preaching of the Gospel! In the Gospel, God has torn the veil and made bare His heart to us in the Person of His dying Son.

You have no longer to search for the mind of God by mysterious hieroglyphs—it is written in plain letters and the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein! You have but to hear it and with the exercise of an ordinary understanding, the letter of its meaning may be comprehended. And if there is a willing heart, no matter how small the capacity of the mind, there is intellect enough to receive the saving Truth of God! You do not now live in the moonlight of the Jewish dispensation, but you bask in the noontide sunlight of the Truth of God! God, who spoke to our fathers by the Prophets, has, in these last days, spoken to us by His Son who is the express image of His Person and the brightness of His Glory! “See that you refuse not Him that speaks.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1425.cfm