Mar 25
24
The first link between my soul and Christ is, not my goodness, but my badness; not my merit but my misery, not my standing, but my falling; not my riches, but my need. He comes to visit His people, yet not to admire their beauties, but to remove their deformities, not to reward their virtues, but to forgive their sins.
C.H. Spurgeon
A naked sinner can be clothed, but a sinner covered with his own righteousness must be stripped. This is always true. We must be stripped of all that has to do with self or we cannot be clothed with that which pertains of God. We are called to live by faith; we can see nothing with the eye of sense. The Lord Jesus has gone up on high, and we are told to wait patiently for His appearing. God’s Word carried home to the heart in the power of the Holy Spirit is the basis of confidence in all things; temporal and spiritual, present and future. He tells us of Christ’s completed sacrifice. We by grace believe and commit our souls to the efficacy thereof, and we know we shall never be disappointed.
Pastor Scott Richardson (1923 – 2010)
Why? How? When?
To one whom God has revealed Himself, here are the final answers to every question that begins with “Why? How? When? WHY? “Even so Father: it seemed good in thy sight.” (Matthew 11:26, Luke 10:21) HOW? “According to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” (Ephesians 1:11) WHEN? “But when it pleased God.” “Until the time appointed.” (Galatians 1:15, Galatians 4:2) I am so thankful that our God is in the heavens doing whatsoever He has pleased. Remember, God doesn’t do something because it is right, it is right because God does it. ~David Eddmenson
HOW DO YOU COME TO CHRIST?
I believe that all who come to our Redeemer in saving faith do so PERSONALLY. I wish that I could believe God for my family; but unless a man in his own heart believes on Christ, he will perish. Those who come to Christ will come SINCERELY. A man is not only persuaded that Christ is the way, but in his heart, he lovingly and sincerely agrees with God’s terms of salvation. “My son, give me thine heart” (Prov. 23:26). It is the heart or nothing in this heavenly marriage. Also, those who come to Christ do so RATIONALLY, in knowledge and understanding. They know WHAT He saved them from – sin’s curse and condemnation. They know WHO saved them–our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man. They know HOW He saved them–by His perfect obedience and precious blood. They know WHY He saved them– “according to the good pleasure of His own will” (grace, grace, and more grace). And those who come to Christ come PERMANENTLY, with no intention of ever leaving Him; and, by His grace, with no possibility of ever being forsaken by Him.
Pastor Henry Mahan
“Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.” I Thessalonians 4:1
I ought to love my God and Saviour with all my heart, soul and strength. I ought to love my neighbour as much as I love myself. I ought to prefer my brothers and sisters so much over myself, that I would die for them. I ought to pray more. I ought to study the Scriptures more. I ought to love my wife and children more. I ought to think of my Saviour more and share His Gospel with others more. I ought to complain less and praise more. I ought to bow to all things providential. I ought to walk and to please God so I could abound more and more as a child of the Living God. I ought to do all these things out of love, adoration and for the glory of God in the Lord Jesus Christ who loved me and gave Himself for me. Lord, cause me to do as I ought! ~David Eddmenson
THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL
Christ was born Holy and sinless and remained so for the 33 years He walked on this planet. Even when He was made sin on the cross, He never committed a sin. But when He was on the cross as the One who, “Bore our sins in His own body on the tree,” it was not the innocent being punished. While He never committed sin personally, He became guilty of the commission of the sins I committed. They became His sins. That is why God forsook Him! The justice of God would never punish the innocent! And just as truly as my sin became His sin, His righteousness becomes my personal righteousness! “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.” While we will never plumb the depths of all that means, we believe it and bow down and worship! This is the heart of the Gospel.
The Great Attraction!
The following is from Spurgeon’s sermon,
“The Great Attraction” No. 775. John 12:32.
Christ dying for sinners is the
great attraction of Christianity!
Since men will not come to him, the crucified
Saviour becomes himself the attraction to men.
He casts out from himself bands of love and
cords of gracious constraint, and binding these
around human hearts, he draws them to himself
by an invincible constraint of grace.
Sinners by nature will not come to Jesus, though
his charms might even attract the blind, and
arouse the dead. They will not melt, though
surely such beauties might dissolve the adamant,
and kindle affection in rock of ice.
But Jesus has a wondrous power about him
to woo and win the sons of men. Out of his
heart proceed chains of gold by which he binds
thousands of willing captives to himself.
Many a heart has been so charmed with his
love, that it has run to Christ, drawn by the
silken bonds of love.
Jesus is the universal attraction, the attraction
to which all hearts must yield when he draws
effectually by his grace.
The attraction of the Crucified One
has bound them to the cross forever!
The gracious Spirit has moved many tender
hearts first to pity, and afterwards to love
the bleeding Lamb.
What a melting power there is in Gethsemane!
Can you view the bloody sweat drops, as they
fall upon the frozen soil, and not feel that, in
some degree, invisible but irresistible cords
are drawing you to Jesus?
Can you see him flagellated in Pilate’s hall, every
thong of the scourge tearing the flesh from his
shoulders? Can you see him as they spit into his
lovely face, and mar his blessed visage, and not
feel as if you could fain fall down and kiss his feet,
and make yourself forever his servant?
And, lastly, can you behold him hanging upon the
hill of Golgotha to die- can you mark him as his
soul is there overwhelmed with the wrath of God,
with the bitterness of sin, and with a sense of
utter desertion- can you sit down and watch him
there and not be attracted to him?
As a preacher I cannot be very proud of my diseased prayers and sin-stained sermons. Neither can I boast much of my daily backslidings, hardness of heart, discontent, vileness, and abominable filthiness. I at times know not what will become of me, and fear I shall live and die a reprobate. I find sin has such power over me, and, though I call on the Lord again and again for deliverance, seem to be as weak as ever when temptation comes. “O you hideous monster, sin, what a curse have you brought in!” I love it, I hate it; I want to be delivered from the power of it, and yet am not satisfied without drinking down its poisoned sweets. It is my hourly companion and my daily curse, the breath of my mouth and the cause of my groans, my incentive to prayer and my hinderer of it, that which made a Saviour suffer and makes a Saviour precious, that which spoils every pleasure and adds a sting to every pain, that which fits a soul for heaven and that which ripens a soul for hell…I at times quite despair of salvation, and then again am as careless as if hell had no wrath and heaven no love; as if sin had no wormwood and pardon no sweet; as if there were no God to mark evil, and no devil to tempt to it. So my friend you must not expect to find your winter fireside companion much grown in progressive sanctification and creature holiness.”
JC Philpot
“But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.” Ps. 130:4.
My soul, this is a golden psalm, and every portion of it more ponderous in value than the choicest gold of Ophir; and this verse is as the tried gold, to ascertain the purity and value of all the rest. The cries of a truly broken heart, from the depth of sin to the depth of divine mercy, with which the psalm opens, prove the work of the Holy Ghost, imparting the words with which the humbled soul comes before the Lord. And the blessed consolations which this verse contains, in the view of the mercy-seat, and the mercy there (which is all-precious Jesus, the first-born in the womb of mercy; yea, mercy itself) as plainly prove the leadings of the Holy Ghost to him, who alone can say, “Oh Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help!” (Hosea 13:9) Ponder, my soul, these precious words: “But there is forgiveness with thee.” Is it not as if you were to say to thy God and Father, when under deep searchings of heart by reason of conscious sin, There is Jesus with thee; he is my propitiation; he is my propitiatory, the mercy- seat, between the cherubim of glory; in whom, and from whom, thou hast promised to speak to thy people!
And shall I doubt thy pardoning love and favour, as long as I behold Jesus with thee? Shall I for a moment question my acceptance in the beloved, while I behold “the man at thy right hand, even the Son of man, whom thou madest strong for thyself?” Shall I fear coming to a God in Christ for pardon, so long as I am interested in the forgiveness that is with thee, in God the Son’s righteousness and atoning blood; and God the Father’s covenant engagements in him, for the display of the glory of his grace?’ Oh, how unanswerably strong, conclusive, and satisfactory, to a poor burdened conscience, is this view of Jesus, the propitiatory; Jesus the propitiation! But what is the meaning of the expression in the latter part of the verse; “there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared?” Would not the verse read better if it were said, that thou mayest be loved? Oh no; “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And although “perfect love casteth out fear,” that is, the fear of hell, the bondage fear of unpardoned sin; yet, the child-like fear, which a sense of pardoning love begets in the soul, is among the sweetest exercises of the renewed nature. Devils fear and tremble, and feel despair and horror; but the affectionate fear of a dutiful child is the reverse of this, and only manifests itself in the most earnest desire never to offend. And the sense of God’s forgiving love, and of Jesus always on the propitiatory, becomes the great preservative from sin. Hence the Lord himself saith, “I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me,” Jer. 32:40. My soul, fold up this sweet portion, and take it with thee to thy pillow, that it may lie down with thee, and rest in thine heart; that Jesus, thy Jesus, thy propitiation, is with Jehovah, that thou mayest fear him; and he may be thy exceeding joy and confidence, both now and for ever. Amen.
Robert Hawker