The Most Daring Feat in All the World

September 9, 2017August 23, 2017Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation Leave a comment

Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him… – Hebrews 7:25

Faith is not to infer from something good within me that I shall be saved, but to say in the teeth, and despite of the fact, that I am guilty in the sight of God and deserve His wrath, yet I do, nevertheless, believe that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth me from all sin; and though my present consciousness condemns me, yet my faith overpowers my consciousness, and I do believe that “He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.” To come to Christ as a saint is very easy work; to trust to a doctor to cure you when you believe you are getting better, is very easy; but to trust your physician when you feel as if the sentence of death were in your body, to bear up when the disease is rising into the very skin, and when the ulcer is gathering its venom-to believe even then in the efficacy of the medicine-that is faith. And so, when sin gets the mastery of thee, when thou feelest that the law condemns thee, then, even then, as a sinner, to trust Christ, this is the most daring feat in all the world; and the faith which shook down the walls of Jericho, the faith which raised the dead, the faith which stopped the mouths of lions, was not greater than that of a poor sinner, when in the teeth of all his sins he dares to trust the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Do this, soul, then thou are saved, whosoever thou mayest be. The object of faith, then, is Christ as the substitute for sinners. God in Christ, but not God apart from Christ, nor any work of the Spirit, but the work of Jesus only must be viewed by you as the foundation of your hope.! C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

Trust in Your Substitute

September 8, 2017August 23, 2017Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

God is just, He must punish sin; God is merciful, He wills to pardon those who believe in Jesus. How is this to be done? How can He be just and exact the penalty,-merciful, and accept the sinner? He doeth it thus: He taketh the sins of His people and actually lifteth them up from off His people onto Christ, so that they stand as innocent as though they had never sinned, and Christ is looked upon by God as though He had been all the sinners in the world rolled into one…Then God came forth with His fiery sword to meet the sinner and to punish him. He met Christ. Christ was not a sinner Himself; but the sins of His people were all imputed to Him. Justice, therefore, met Christ as though He had been the sinner-punished Christ for His people’s sins-punished Him as far as its rights could go,-exacted from Him the last atom of the penalty, and left not a dreg in the cup. And now, he who can see Christ as being his substitute, and puts his trust in Him, is thereby delivered from the curse of the law. Soul, when thou seest Christ obeying the law-thy faith is to say, “He obeys that for His people.” When thou seest Him dying, thou art to count the purple drops, and say, “Thus He took my sins away.” When thou seest Him rising from the dead, thou art to say-“He rises as the head and representative of all His elect”; and when thou seest Him sitting at the right hand of God, thou art to view Him there as the pledge that all for whom He died shall most surely sit at the Father’s right hand. Learn to look on Christ as being in God’s sight as though He were the sinner. “In Him was no sin.” He was “the just,” but He suffered for the unjust. He was the righteous, but He stood in the place of the unrighteous; and all that the unrighteous ought to have endured, Christ has endured once for all, and put away their sins forever by the sacrifice of Himself…View Christ, by your faith, as being in His life, and death, and sufferings, and resurrection, the substitute for all whom His Father gave Him,-the vicarious sacrifice for the sins of all those who will trust Him with their souls. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

The Sinner’s Business

September 7, 2017August 23, 2017Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16

Christians have to trust the Spirit after conversion, but the sinner’s business, if he would be saved, is not with trusting the Spirit nor with looking to the Spirit, but looking to Christ Jesus, and to Him alone…When thou hast thus believed, believe in Him as man. Believe the wondrous story of his incarnation; rely upon the testimony of the evangelists, who declare that the Infinite was robed in the infant, that the Eternal was concealed within the mortal; that He who was King of heaven became a servant of servants and the Son of man…Then, specially, if thou wouldst be saved, let thy faith behold Christ in His perfect righteousness. See Him keeping the law without blemish, obeying His Father without error; preserving His integrity without flaw. All this thou are to consider as being done on thy behalf. Thou couldst not keep the law; He kept it for thee. Thou couldst not obey God perfectly-lo! His obedience standeth in the stead of thy obedience-by it, thou art saved…Believe on Him, then, who on yonder tree with nailed hands and feet pours out His life for sinners. There is the object of thy faith for justification; not in thyself, nor in anything which the Holy Spirit has done in thee, or anything He has promised to do for thee; but thou art to look to Christ and to Christ alone. Then let thy faith behold Christ as rising from the dead. See Him-He has borne the curse, and now He receives the justification. He dies to pay the debt; He rises that He may nail the handwriting of that discharged debt to the cross. See Him ascending up on high, and behold Him this day pleading before the Father’s throne. He is there pleading for His people, offering up today His authoritative petition for all that come to God by Him. And He, as God, as man, as living, as dying, as rising, and as reigning above,-He, and He alone, is to be the object of thy faith for the pardon of sin.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

The Object of Faith

September 6, 2017August 23, 2017Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

“He that believeth on Him is not condemned” – John 3:18

I am told in the Word of God to believe-What am I to believe? I am bidden to look-to what am I to look? What is to be the object of my hope, belief, and confidence? The reply is simple. The object of Faith to a sinner is Christ Jesus. How many make a mistake about this and think that they are to believe on God the Father! Now belief in God is an after-result of faith in Jesus. We come to believe in the eternal love of the Father as the result of trusting the precious blood of the Son. Many men say, “I would believe in Christ if I knew that I were elect.” This is coming to the Father, and no man can come to the Father except by Christ. It is the Father’s work to elect; you cannot come directly to Him, therefore you cannot know your election until first you have believed on Christ the Redeemer, and then through redemption you can approach to the Father and know your election. Some, too, make the mistake of looking to the work of God the Holy Spirit. They look within to see if they have certain feelings, and if they find them their faith is strong, but if their feelings have departed from them, then their faith is weak, so that they look to the work of the Spirit which is not the object of a sinner’s faith. Both the Father and the Spirit must be trusted in order to complete redemption, but for the particular mercy of justification and pardon the blood of the Mediator is the only plea.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0361.cfm

Say, “This is my sin.”

September 5, 2017June 16, 2017Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation 3 Comments

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.” -Mark 9:24

With tears he said, “Lord, I believe,” and then acknowledged his unbelief. Learn then, dear hearer, always to look at unbelief in Christ in the light of a fault. Never say, “This is my infirmity,” but say, “This is my sin.” There has been too much in the Church of God of regarding unbelief as though it were a calamity commanding sympathy, rather than a fault demanding censure as well. I am not to say to myself, “I am unbelieving, and therefore I am to be pitied.” No, “I am unbelieving, and therefore I must blame myself for it.” Why should I disbelieve my God? How dare I doubt Him who cannot lie? How can I mistrust the faithful promiser who has added to His promise His oath, and over and above His promise and His oath has given His own blood as a seal, that by two immutable things, wherein it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation. Chide yourselves, ye doubters. Doubts are among the worst enemies of your souls. Do not entertain them. Do not treat them as though they were poor forlorn travelers to be hospitably entertained, but as rogues and vagabonds to be chased from thy door. Fight them, slay them, and pray God to help thee to kill them, and bury them, and not even to leave a bone or a piece of a bone of a doubt above ground. Doubting and unbelief are to be abhorred, and to be confessed with tears as sins before God. We need pardon for doubting as much as for blasphemy. We ought no more to excuse doubting than lying, for doubting slanders God and makes Him a liar.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1033.cfm

It Ought Not So to Be

September 4, 2017September 4, 2017Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father 1 Comment

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. -1 John 3:2

I have known unbelief arise in some souls through a most proper reverence for Christ, and a high esteem for all that belongs to Him...You remember…John, who when he saw his Master in all His glory fell at His feet as dead. Ah, when the soul gets near to Jesus it perceives His perfection, and becomes conscious of its own imperfection; it sees His glory, and becomes aware of its own nothingness; it sees His love, and blushes at its own unloveliness; and then it is very, very apt to be tortured with mistrust, though it ought not so to be.

And I have even known when children of God just converted have come into the church, they have had such a high esteem for their brethren and sisters, that they have feared to be numbered with them. When they have heard some earnest brother pray they have said, “Oh, what a prayer, I shall never be like that man;” and, perhaps, they have listened to the preachings of some servant of God and said, “Ah, I cannot come up to that standard; the very existence of such a man as that condemns me.” It is beautiful to see the little children loving the elder sons of the family, and admiring what they see of the Father in them; but even this holy modesty may be turned into unbelief, though it ought not so to be; for, O child of God, if Christ be so lovely, thou art on the way to be made like Him; and if there be anything beautiful in any of His people, that same shall be given unto thee, for they also are as thou art, men of like passions with thyself; and God who has done great things for them will do the like for thee, for He loves thee with the self-same love.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1033.cfm