By His Blood and Righteousness

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

For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time…- 1 Timothy 2:5-7

Our Lord Jesus is said to be the Mediator between God and man. Now, observe, that the office of mediator implies at once that he should be approachable. A daysman, as Job says, is one who can put his hand upon both; but if Jesus will not familiarly put His hand on man, certainly He is no daysman between God and man. A mediator is not a mediator of one-he must be akin to both the parties between whom he mediates. If Jesus Christ shall be a perfect mediator between God and man, He must be able to come to God so near that God shall call Him His fellow, and then He must approach to man so closely that He shall not be ashamed to call him brother. This is precisely the case with our Lord. Do think of this, you who are afraid of Jesus. He is a mediator, and as a mediator you may come to Him. Jacob’s ladder reached from earth to heaven, but if He had cut away half-a-dozen of the bottom rungs, what would have been the good of it? Who could ascend by it into the hill of the Lord? Jesus Christ is the great conjunction between earth and heaven, but if He will not touch the poor mortal man who comes to Him, why then, of what service is He to the sons of men? You do need a mediator between your soul and God; you must not think of coming to God without a mediator; but you do not want any mediator between yourselves and Christ. There is a preparation for coming to God-you must not come to God without a perfect righteousness; but you may come to Jesus without any preparation, and without any righteousness, because as mediator He has in Himself all the righteousness and fitness that you require and is ready to bestow them upon you. You may come boldly to Him even now; He waits to reconcile you unto God by His blood. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0809.cfm

Our Beloved’s Condescending Tenderness

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. – Luke 15:1,2

The philosophical teachers of our Lord’s day affected very great seclusion. They considered their teachings to be so profound and eclectic that they were not to be uttered in the hearing of the common multitude. “Far hence, ye profane,” was their scornful motto. Like Simeon Stylites, they stood upon a lofty pillar of their fancied self-conceit, and dropped down now and then a stray thought upon the vulgar herd beneath, but they did not condescend to talk familiarly with them, considering it to be a dishonor to their philosophy to communicate it to the multitude. One of the greatest philosophers wrote over his door, “Let no one who is ignorant of geometry enter here;” but our Lord, compared with whom all the wise men are but fools, who is, in fact, the wisdom of God, never drove away a sinner because of his ignorance, never refused a seeker because he was not yet initiated, and had not any thirsty spirit to be chased away from the crystal spring of truth divine. His every word was a diamond, and His lips dropped pearls, but He was never more at home than when speaking to the common people and teaching them concerning the kingdom of God.

You may thus contrast and compare our Lord’s gentle manners with those of kings, and nobles, and sages, but you shall find none to equal Him in condescending tenderness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0809.cfm

The King’s Highway Open and Cleared

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

Sermon Text

Our Approachable Lord and Savior

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

“Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him.”-Luke 15:1

The most depraved and despised classes of society formed an inner ring of hearers around our Lord. I gather from this that He was a most approachable person, that He was not of repulsive manners, but that He courted human confidence and was willing that men should commune with Him…Eastern monarchs affected great seclusion and were wont to surround themselves with impassable barriers of state. It was very difficult for even their most loyal subjects to approach them. You remember the case of Esther, who, though the monarch was her husband, yet went with her life in her hand when she ventured to present herself before the king Ahasuerus, for there was a commandment that none should come unto the king except they were called at peril of their lives. It is not so with the King of kings. His court is far more splendid; His person is far more worshipful; but you may draw near to Him at all times without let or hindrance. He hath set no men-at-arms around His palace gate. The door of His house of mercy is set wide open. Over the lintel of His palace gate is written, “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

Though He is greater than the greatest, and higher than the highest, He has been pleased to put out of the way everything which might keep the sinner from entering into His halls of gracious entertainment. From His lips we hear no threatenings against intrusion, but hundreds of invitations to the nearest and dearest intimacy. Jesus is to be approached, not now and then, but at all times, and not by some favored few, but by all in whose hearts His Holy Spirit has enkindled the desire to enter into His secret presence. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0809.cfm

Conformed to the Likeness of Christ

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

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. – 2 Corinthians 12:10

…they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

“They that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.” “Ah!…I have been in obscurity, lost my friends, been despised, felt quite broken down; do you mean to tell me that that has been a good thing?” I do. God has blessed it to you. He will enable you to say, “Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept Thy law.” And if you get more grace, you will say it is a good thing, for is it not a good thing for you to be conformed to the likeness of Christ? How can you be if you have no suffering? If you never suffer with Him, how can you expect to reign with Him? How are you to be made like Him in His humiliation, if you never are humbled? Why, methinks every pain that shoots through the frame and thrills the sensitive soul helps us to understand what Christ suffered, and being sanctified, gives us the power to pass through the rent veil, and to be baptized with His baptism, and in our measure to drink of His cup, and, therefore, it becomes a good thing, and our Father gives it us, because His promise is that He will not deny or withhold any good thing from those that walk uprightly…Give yourselves up to God wholly and live for Him, and you shall never want anything that is really good for you; your life shall be the best life for you, all things considered in the light of eternity, that a life could have been. Only mind you keep to this-the seeking of the Lord. There is the point of it. Get out of that, and there may be some promise for you, but certainly not this one. You have got out of the line of the promise; but keep to that and seek the Lord, and your life shall be, even if it be a poverty-stricken one, such a life that if you could have the infinite intelligence of your heavenly Father, you would ordain it to be precisely as it now is. “They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

Look at the Martyrs

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

…but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:10

“Look at the martyrs; did not they seek the Lord above all men? …they wanted many good things; they were in prison, sometimes in cold, and nakedness, and hunger; they were on the rack tormented, many of them went to heaven from the fiery stake.” Yes, but they never wanted any good thing…Who are the brightest before the eternal throne? Those who suffered most below. lf they could speak to you now, they would tell you that that noisome dungeon was, because it enabled them to glorify God, a good thing to them. They would tell you that the rack whereon they did sing sweet hymns of praise was a good thing for them, because it enabled them to show forth the patience of the saints, and to have their names written in the book of the peerage of the skies. They would tell you that the fiery stake was a good thing, because from that pulpit they preached Christ after such a fashion as men could never have heard it from cold lips and stammering tongues. Did not the world perceive that the suffering of the saints were good things, for they were the seed of the Church? They helped to spread the truth, and because God would not deny them any good thing He gave them their dungeons, He gave them their racks, He gave them their stakes, and these were the best things they could have had, and with enlarged reason, and with their mental faculties purged, those blessed spirits would now choose again, could they live over again, to have suffered those things. They would choose, were it possible, to have lived the very life, and to have endured all they braved, to have received so glorious a reward as they now enjoy. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm

God Knows What is Best for You

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

O fear the LORD, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that fear Him…they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. – Psalm 34:9,10

I think sometimes it would be a good thing for me if I had more talents, but if it were a good thing I should have more, I should have them. You think it were a good thing, if you were to have more money. Well, if He saw it to be good, you would have it. “Oh!” say you, “but it would have been a good thing if my poor mother had been spared to me: if she had been alive now, it would have been a good thing, and it would be a good thing certainly for us to be in the position I was five years ago before these terrible panic times came.” Well, if it had been a good thing for you to have been there, you would have been there. “I don’t see it.” says one. Well, do not expect to see it, but believe it. We walk by faith, not by sight. But the text says so. It says not that every man shall have every good thing, but it does say that every man that seeks the Lord shall have every good thing. He shall not want any good thing, be it what it may. “Well, I doubt it,” says one. Very well, I do not wonder that you do, for your father Adam doubted it, and that is how the whole race fell. Adam and Eve were in the garden, and they might have felt quite sure that their heavenly Father would not deny them any good thing, but the devil came and whispered, and said to them, “God doth know that in the day you eat of the fruit of that tree you will be as gods; that fruit is very good for you, a wonderfully good thing; never anything like it, and that one good thing God has kept away from you.” “Oh!” said Eve, “then I will get it,” and down we all fell. The race was ruined through their doubting the promise. If they had continued to seek the Lord, they would not have wanted any good thing. That fruit was not a good thing to them; it might have been good in itself, but it was not good to them, or else God would have given it to them, and their doubting it brought all this terrible sorrow on us. So it will upon you, for let me show you-you say, perhaps, “It would be a very good thing for me to be rich.” God has stopped you up many times. You have never prospered when you thought you were going to. You will put out your hand, perhaps, to do a wrong thing to be rich, but if you say, “No, I will work, and toil, and do what I can, but if I am not prospered, it is not a good thing for me to be prospered, and I would not do a wrong thing, if it would bring me all the prosperity that heart could desire,” then you will walk uprightly and God will bless you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3409.cfm