Earth Sinks as Jesus Rises

August 16, 2025August 2, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last… – Revelation 1:10,11

When our thoughts of Jesus are expanded and elevated, we obtain right ideas upon other matters. In the light of His love and atoning sacrifice, we see the depth of the degradation from which such a Redeemer has uplifted us, and we hate, with all our hearts, the sins which pierced such an altogether lovely one, and made it needful for the Lord of life to die. Forming some adequate estimate of what Jesus has done for us, our gratitude grows, and with our gratitude our love-while love compels us to consecration, and consecration suggests heroic self-denying actions. Then are we bold to speak for Him, and ready, if needs be, to suffer for Him while we feel we could give up all we have to increase His glory, without so much as dreaming that we had made a sacrifice.

Let your thoughts of Christ be high, and your delight in Him will be high too; your sense of security will be strong, and with that sense of security will come the sacred joy and peace which always keep the heart which confidently reposes in the Mediator’s hands. If thou wouldst thyself be raised, let thy thoughts of Christ be raised. If thou wouldst rise above these earthly toys, thou must have higher and more elevated thoughts of Him who is high above all things. Earth sinks as Jesus rises. Honor the Son even as thou wouldst honor the Father, and, in so doing, thy soul shall be sanctified and brought into closer fellowship with the great Father of Spirits, whose delight it is to glorify His Son. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

Lord, Deliver Us from this Evil!

August 15, 2025August 15, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, repentance, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. – Revelation 1:17-18.

Low thoughts of the Lord Jesus Christ are exceedingly mischievous to believers. If you sink your estimate of Him, you shift everything else in the same proportion. He who thinks lightly of the Savior thinks so much the less of the evil of sin; and, consequently, he becomes callous as to the past, careless as to the present, and venturesome as to the future. He thinks little of the punishment due to sin, because he has small notions of the atonement made for sin. Christian activity for right is also abated, as well as holy horror of wrong. He who thinks lightly of the Lord Jesus renders to Him but small service; he does not estimate the Redeemer’s love at a rate high enough to stir his soul to ardor; if he does not count the blood wherewith he was redeemed an unholy thing, yet he thinks it a small matter, not at all sufficient to claim from him life-long service. Gratitude is weak when favors are undervalued. He serves little who loves little, and he loves little who has no sense of having been greatly beloved. The man who thinks lightly of Christ also has but poor comfort as to his own security. With a little Savior I am still in danger, but if He be the mighty God, able to save unto the uttermost, then am I safe in His protecting hand, and my consolations are rich and abounding. In these, and a thousand other ways, an unworthy estimate of our Lord will prove most solemnly injurious. The Lord deliver us from this evil.

If our conceptions of the Lord Jesus are very enlarged, they will only be His due. We cannot exaggerate here. He deserves higher praise than we can ever render to Him. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high is He above our loftiest conceptions. Even when the angels strike their loudest notes and chant His praises most exultingly on their highest festal days, the music falls far short of His excellence. He is higher than a seraph’s most soaring thought! Rise then, my brethren, as on eagle’s wings, and let your adoring souls magnify and extol the Lord your Savior. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm

The Clean Made Unclean to Clean the Unclean

August 14, 2025July 26, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? – Hebrews 9:13,14

Solomon, according to the Jewish tradition, declared that he did not understand why the ashes of the heifer made everybody clean except those who were unclean already. You saw in the reading that the priest, the man who killed the red cow, the person who swept up the ashes and he who mixed the ashes with water and sprinkled them were all rendered unclean by those acts—and yet the ashes purified the unclean! Is not this analogous to the riddle of the bronze serpent? It was by a serpent that the people were bitten—and it was by a serpent of brass that they were healed! Christ’s being regarded as unclean that we become clean and the operation of His Sacrifice is just like that of the ashes, for it both reveals uncleanness and removes it.

If you are clean and you think of Christ’s death, what a sense of sin it brings upon you! You judge of the sin by the Atonement. If you are unclean, drawing near to Christ takes that sin away!—

“Thus while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of Grace,
It seals my pardon, too.”

If we think we are unclean, a sight of the atoning blood makes us see how unclean we are. And if we judge ourselves unclean, then the application of the atoning Sacrifice gives our conscience rest. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm

Peace, at Once and Forever!

August 13, 2025July 26, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

The sprinkling of the ashes of the heifer upon the unclean was not comprehensible as to its effect by anybody who received it. I mean that there was no obvious connection between the cause and the effect. Supposing an Israelite had been unclean and had been sprinkled with this water? He might now go up to the house of the Lord—but would he see any reason for the change? He would say, “I have received the water of separation, and I am clean, but I do not know why the sprinkling of those ashes should make me clean except that God has so appointed.” Brethren, you and I know how it is that God has made us clean, for we know that Christ has suffered in our place! Substitution explains the mystery and, therefore, it has much more effect upon the conscience than an outward, ritualistic form which could not be explained. Conscience is the understanding exercised upon moral subjects and that which convinces the understanding that all is right soon gives peace to the conscience.

As the ashes of the heifer were for all the camp, so are Christ’s merits for all His people. As they were put where they were accessible, so may you always come and partake of the cleansing power of Christ’s precious Atonement. As a mere sprinkling made the unclean clean, even so may you come and be cleansed even though your faith is but little and you seem to get but little of Christ. O Brothers and Sisters, the Lord God in His infinite mercy gives you to know the power of the great Sacrifice to work peace in you—not after three or seven days, but at once! And peace not merely for a time, but forever! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm

The Purifying Power of the Blood of Christ

August 12, 2025July 26, 2025Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

The purifying power of the blood of Christ must be much greater than the purging power of the water mixed with the ashes of the heifer, for, first, that could not purge conscience from sin, but the application of the Atonement can and does do it. Did you ever feel the Atonement of Christ applied by the Holy Spirit to your conscience? Then I am certain of it that the change upon your mind has been as sudden and glorious as if the darkness of midnight had glowed into the brightness of noonday!

I remember well its effects upon my soul at the first—how it broke my bonds and made my heart dance with delight! But I have found it equally powerful since then, for when I am examining myself before God, it sometimes comes to pass that I fix my eyes upon some one evil which I have done and I turn it over until the memory of it eats into my very soul like caustic acid, or like a gnawing worm, or like coals of fire! I have tried to argue that the fault was excusable in me, or that there were certain circumstances which rendered it almost impossible that I could do otherwise. But I have never succeeded in quieting my conscience in that fashion! Yet I am soon at rest when I come before the Lord and cry, “Lord, though I am Your own dear child, I am unclean by reason of this sin! Apply, again, the merit of my Lord’s atoning Sacrifice, for have You not said— “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous?”

Lord, hear His advocacy and pardon my offenses!” My Brothers and Sisters, the peace which thus comes is very sweet. You cannot pray acceptably before that peace and you may thank God that you cannot, for it is a dreadful thing to be able to go on with your devotions under a sense of guilt as when the conscience is at rest! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm

He Was Made a Curse for Us

August 11, 2025July 26, 2025Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

This [is] the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein [is] no blemish, [and] upon which never came yoke… – Numbers 19:2

How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? – Hebrews 9:14

Now, my brethren, I want you, for a moment, to remember that our Lord Himself was spotless, pure and perfect. And yet—speak it with bated breath—God “has made Him to be sin for us,” even Him who knew no sin. Whisper it with still greater awe, “He was made a curse for us”—yes, a curse, as it is written, “Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.” That red heifer, though without spot and never having borne a yoke, was regarded as a polluted thing. Take it out of the camp. It must not live. Kill it. It is a polluted thing; burn it right up, for God cannot endure it! Behold and wonder that God’s own Ever-Blessed, adorable Son in inconceivable condescension of unutterable love, took the place of sin, the place of the sinner—and was numbered with the transgressors!

He must die! Hang Him up on a cross! He must be forsaken of men and even deserted of God! “It pleased the Father to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief; He shall make His soul an offering for sin.” “All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all”—not merely the punishment, but the iniquity, the very sin itself was laid upon the Ever-Blessed! The wise men of our age say it is impossible that sin should be lawfully imputed to the innocent. That is what the philosophers say, but God declares that it was done! “He has made Him to be sin who knew no sin.” Therefore, it was possible! Yes, it is done! It is finished! The Sacrifice, then, is much greater. “How much more,” we may cry exultingly as we think of it, “shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1481.cfm