Nick Roark's Blog, page 17

“Dwell on this great truth, dear friends” by Charles Spurgeon

“The least mercy from God is a miracle.

That God does not crush our sinful race, is a surprising mercy. That you and I should have been spared to live,—even though it were only to exist in direst poverty, or in sorest sickness,—that we should have been spared at all, after what we have been, and after what we have done, is a very marvellous thing.

The explanation of the marvel is given in the Book of Malachi: “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” (Malachi 3:6)

If God had possessed such a short temper as men often have, he would have made short work with us all; but he is gracious and longsuffering, and therefore he is very patient with us.

The very least mercy that we ever receive from God is a very wonderful thing; but when we think of all that is meant by this blessed word “lovingkindness”—, which is a compound of all sorts of sweetnesses, a mixture of fragrances to make up one absolutely perfect perfume,—when we take that word “lovingkindness”, and think over its meaning, we shall see that it is a marvellous thing indeed that it describes.

For, first, it is marvellous for its antiquity.

To think that God should have had lovingkindness towards men or ever the earth was, that there should have been a covenant of election,—a plan of redemption,—a scheme of atonement,—that there should have been eternal thoughts of love in the mind of God towards such a strange being as man, is indeed marvellous.

“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:4-5)

Read these words now with the tears in your eyes: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee;” (Jeremiah 31:3) and when you know that this passage refers to you, tell me if it is not “marvellous lovingkindness.”

God’s mind is occupied with thoughts concerning things that are infinitely greater than the destiny of any one of us, or of all of us put together; yet he was pleased to think of us in love from all eternity, and to write our names upon his hands and upon his heart, and to keep the remembrance of us perpetually before him, for his “delights were with the sons of men.”

This antiquity makes it to be indeed “marvellous lovingkindness.”

After that, think also of the self-sacrificing nature of his lovingkindness,—that, when God had set his heart on man, and had chosen his people before the foundation of the world, then he should give—what? Himself.

Ay, nothing short of that;—that He should not only give us this world, and His providence, and all its blessings, and the world to come, and all its glories; but that, in order to our possession of these things, He should give His own Son to die for us.

Well might the apostle John write, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

It was not that Christ died for us when we were righteous, “for scarcely for a righteous man will one die:” “but God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

“When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”

Isaiah had long before explained the mystery: “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him: He hath put Him to grief.”

You who love your children, to lose one of whom would be worse than to die, can realize a little of what must have been the Father’s love to you in giving up His only-begotten Son that you might live through Him.

Dwell on this great truth, dear friends, meditate on it, and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into its heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths, for these lips cannot fully speak of its wonders.

As you think over the Lord’s ancient lovingkindnesses which were ever of old, His distinguishing love towards His redeemed, and His self-sacrificing love in giving up His Only-Begotten, you will be obliged to say, ‘It is marvellous lovingkindness; it is marvellous lovingkindness indeed.‘”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “Marvellous Lovingkindness,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 46 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1900), 46: 554-556.

“Be continually dwelling on the cross of Christ” by J.C. Ryle

“I believe it is an excellent thing for us all to be continually dwelling on the cross of Christ.

It is a good thing to be often reminded how Jesus was betrayed into the hands of wicked men,
—how they condemned Him with most unjust judgment,
—how they spit on Him, scourged Him, beat Him, and crowned Him with thorns,
—how they led Him forth as a lamb to the slaughter, without His murmuring or resisting,
—how they drove the nails through His hands and feet, and set Him up on Calvary between two thieves,
—how they pierced His side with a spear, mocked Him in His sufferings, and let Him hang there naked and bleeding till He died.

Of all these things, I say, it is good to be reminded. It is not for nothing that the crucifixion is described four times over in the New Testament. There are very few things that all four writers of the Gospel describe.

Generally speaking, if Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell a thing in our Lord’s history, John does not tell it. But there is one thing that all the four give us most fully, and that one thing is the story of the cross. This is a telling fact, and not to be overlooked.

People seem to me to forget that all Christ’s sufferings on the cross were fore-ordained. They did not come on Him by chance or accident: they were all planned, counseled, and determined from all eternity.

The cross was foreseen in all the provisions of the everlasting Trinity for the salvation of sinners. In the purposes of God the cross was set up from everlasting. Not one throb of pain did Jesus feel, not one precious drop of blood did Jesus shed, which had not been appointed long ago.

Infinite wisdom planned that redemption should be by the cross. Infinite wisdom brought Jesus to the cross in due time. He was crucified “by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God.” (Acts 2:23)

People seem to me to forget that all Christ’s sufferings on the cross were necessary for man’s salvation. He had to bear our sins, if ever they were to be borne at all. With His stripes alone could we be healed.

This was the one payment of our debt that God would accept: this was the great sacrifice on which our eternal life depended. If Christ had not gone to the cross and suffered in our stead, the just for the unjust, there would not have been a spark of hope for us. There would have been a mighty gulf between ourselves and God, which no man ever could have passed.

People seem to me to forget that all Christ’s sufferings were endured voluntarily, and of His own free will. He was under no compulsion. Of His own choice He laid down His life: of His own choice He went to the cross in order to finish the work He came to do.

He might easily have summoned legions of angels with a word, and scattered Pilate and Herod, and all their armies, like chaff before the wind. But He was a willing sufferer. His heart was set on the salvation of sinners. He was resolved to open “a fountain for all sin and uncleanness,” by shedding His own blood. (Zech. 13:1)

When I think of all this, I see nothing painful or disagreeable in the subject of Christ’s cross. On the contrary, I see in it wisdom and power, peace and hope, joy and gladness, comfort and consolation.

The more I keep the cross in my mind’s eye, the more fulness I seem to discern in it. The longer I dwell on the cross in my thoughts, the more I am satisfied that there is more to be learned at the foot of the cross than anywhere else in the world.”

–J.C. Ryle, Old Paths: Being Plain Statements of Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1898/1999), 235-237.

“There are no hearts which it is impossible for Christ to cure” by J.C. Ryle

“Is your heart right? Then be thankful.

Praise the Lord for His distinguishing mercy, in “calling you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Pet. 2:9)

Think what you were by nature. Think what has been done for you by free undeserved grace.

Your heart may not be all that it ought to be, nor yet all that you hope it will be.

But at any rate your heart is not the old hard heart with which you were born. Surely the man whose heart is changed ought to be full of praise.

Is your heart right? Then be humble and watchful.

You are not yet in heaven, but in the world. You are in the body. The devil is near you, and never sleeps.

Oh, keep your heart with all diligence! Watch and pray lest you fall into temptation.

Ask Christ Himself to keep your heart for you. Ask Him to dwell in it, and reign in it, and garrison it, and to put down every enemy under His feet.

Give the keys of the citadel into the King’s own hands, and leave them there. It is a weighty saying of Solomon: “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool.” (Prov. 28:26)

Is your heart right? Then be hopeful about the hearts of other people.

Who has made you to differ? Why should not any one in the world be changed, when such an one as you has been made a new creature?

Work on. Pray on. Speak on. Write on. Labour to do all the good you can to souls. Never despair of any one being saved so long as he is alive.

Surely the man who has been changed by grace ought to feel that there are no desperate cases. There are no hearts which it is impossible for Christ to cure.

Is your heart right? Then do not expect too much from it.

Do not be surprised to find it weak and wayward, faint and unstable, often ready to doubt and fear. Your redemption is not complete until your Lord and Saviour comes again. Your full salvation remains yet to be revealed. (Luke 21:28; 1 Pet. 1:5)

You cannot have two heavens,—a heaven here and a heaven hereafter. Changed, renewed, converted, sanctified, as your heart is, you must never forget that it is a man’s heart after all, and the heart of a man living in the midst of a wicked world.

Finally, let me entreat all right-hearted readers to look onward and forward to the day of Christ’s second coming.

A time draws near when Satan shall be bound, and Christ’s saints shall be changed,—when sin shall no more vex us, and the sight of sinners shall no more sadden our minds,—when believers shall at length attend on God without distraction, and love Him with a perfect heart.

For that day let us wait, and watch, and pray. It cannot be very far off. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Surely if our hearts are right, we ought often to cry, “Come quickly: come Lord Jesus!”

–J.C. Ryle, Old Paths: Being Plain Statements of Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1898/1999), 334-335.

“Christ is no half Savior” by J.C. Ryle

“If any reader of this paper really wants a right heart, I thank God that I can give him good encouragement.

I thank God that I can lift up Christ before you, and say boldly:

Look at Christ,—Seek Christ,—Go to Christ!

For what did that blessed Lord Jesus come into the world?

For what did He give His precious body to be crucified?

For what did He die and rise again?

For what did He ascend up into heaven, and sit down at the right hand of God?

For what did Christ do all this, but to provide complete salvation for poor sinners like you and me,—salvation from the guilt of sin, and salvation from the power of sin, for all who believe?

Oh, yes! Christ is no half Savior. He has ‘received gifts for men, even for the rebellious.’ (Psalm 68:18)

He waits to pour out the Spirit on all who will come to Him.

Mercy and grace,—pardon and a new heart,—all this Jesus is ready to apply to you by His Spirit, if you will only come to Him.

Then come: come without delay to Christ. What is there that Christ cannot do?

He can create. By Him were all things made at the beginning. He called the whole world into being by His command.

He can quicken. He raised the dead when He was on earth, and gave back life by a word.

He can change. He has turned sickness into health, and weakness into strength, famine into plenty, storm into calm, and sorrow into joy.

He has wrought thousands of miracles on hearts already.

He turned Peter the unlearned fisherman into Peter the Apostle, Matthew the covetous publican into Matthew the Gospel writer, Saul the self-righteous Pharisee into Paul the Evangelist of the world.

What Christ has done once Christ can do again. Christ and the Holy Ghost are always the same.

There is nothing in your heart that the Lord Jesus cannot make right. Only come to Christ.

If you had lived in Palestine, in the days when Jesus was upon earth, you would have sought Christ’s help if you had been sick.

If you had been crushed down by heart-disease in some back lane of Capernaum, or in some cottage by the blue waters of the sea of Galilee, you would surely have gone to Jesus for a cure.

You would have sat by the way-side day after day, waiting for His appearing.

You would have sought Him, if He did not happen to come near your dwelling, and never rested till you found Him.

Oh, why not do the same this very day for the sickness of your soul?

Why not apply at once to the Great Physician in heaven, and ask Him to ‘take away the stony heart and give you a heart of flesh‘? (Ezek. 11:19)

Once more I invite you. If you want a ‘right heart,’ do not waste time in trying to make it right by your own strength. It is far beyond your power to do it.

Come to the great Physician of souls. Come at once to Jesus Christ.”

–J.C. Ryle, Old Paths: Being Plain Statements of Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1898/1999), 332-333.

“The whole Christ” by John Bunyan

“But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and methought withal, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, as my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was adoing, God could not say of me, He wants my righteousness, for that was just before Him.

I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever (Heb 13:8).

Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed, I was loosed from my affliction and irons, my temptations also fled away; so that, from that time, those dreadful Scriptures of God left off to trouble me.

Now went I also home rejoicing, for the grace and love of God.

So when I came home, I looked to see if I could find that sentence, Thy righteousness is in heaven; but could not find such a saying, wherefore my heart began to sink again, only that was brought to my remembrance, He “of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption”; by this word I saw the other sentence true (1 Cor 1:30).

For by this scripture, I saw that the man Christ Jesus, as He is distinct from us, as touching His bodily presence, so He is our righteousness and sanctification before God.

Here, therefore, I lived for some time, very sweetly at peace with God through Christ.

Oh methought, Christ! Christ! There was nothing but Christ that was before my eyes, I was not now only for looking upon this and the other benefits of Christ apart, as of His blood, burial, or resurrection, but considered Him as a whole Christ!

As He in whom all these, and all other His virtues, relations, offices, and operations met together, and that ‘as He sat’ on the right hand of God in heaven.

It was glorious to me to see His exaltation, and the worth and prevalency of all His benefits, and that because of this: now I could look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all those graces of God that now were green in me, were yet but like those cracked groats and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in their purses, when their gold is in their trunks at home!

Oh, I saw my gold was in my trunk at home! In Christ, my Lord and Saviour! Now Christ was all; all my wisdom, all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption.

Further, the Lord did also lead me into the mystery of union with the Son of God, that I was joined to Him, that I was flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bone, and now was that a sweet word to me in Ephesians 5:30.

By this also was my faith in Him, as my righteousness, the more confirmed to me; for if He and I were one, then His righteousness was mine, His merits mine, His victory also mine.

Now could I see myself in heaven and earth at once; in heaven by my Christ, by my head, by my righteousness and life, though on earth by my body or person.

Now I saw Christ Jesus was looked on of God, and should also be looked upon by us, as that common or public person, in whom all the whole body of His elect are always to be considered and reckoned; that we fulfilled the law by Him, died by Him, rose from the dead by Him, got the victory over sin, death, the devil, and hell, by Him; when He died, we died; and so of His resurrection.”

–John Bunyan, “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,in The Works of John Bunyan, Volume 1 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1692/1991), 1: 35-36.

“The story of grace” by Horatius Bonar

“The story of grace is the story of God’s doings in grace with this world of ours.

If we speak of it in reference to the Father, it is the story of His thoughts and purposes from eternity. And what grace there is in these!

If in reference to the Son, it is the story of His doings and sufferings upon earth. And what grace there is in these!

If in reference to the Spirit, it is the story of His witness-bearing to this manifested grace of the Godhead. For He is the narrator of the wondrous tale!

Thus, the loving purposes are the purposes of the Father, the loving deeds are the deeds of God the Son, and the loving testimony is the testimony of God the Holy Ghost.

The story of grace is the truest that has ever been told on earth.

He who tells it is true, and He of whom it is told is the same. In it there is no intermixture of true and the false; it is absolutely and altogether true, in every jot and tittle.

Only this may be said of it, that whilst it is ‘a true report which we have heard’ (1 Kings 10:6), yet the half has not been told us.

It contains God’s own proposals of friendship to us. It speaks of peace—a purchased, finished peace, through a divine peace-maker-peace between the sinner and God, between earth and heaven.

It points to rest, rest for weary man. Its object is to fill us with God’s own joy, to make us sharers of God’s own blessedness.

In listening to it we find the burden of our guilt unfastening itself from our shoulders, and the bondage of a troubled conscience giving place to the liberty of reconciliation and love.

It is a story of the heart. And the heart whose feelings it transcribes, whose treasures it unlocks, is the heart of God.

It is this story of grace that has brought back something like sunshine into this world of ours. For though light has not yet displaced the darkness, still it is no longer midnight.

“Through the tender mercy of our God, the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:7-8).”

Morning still lingers, as if struggling with prolonged twilight, or as if the sun were rising under an eclipse: but the promise of day is sure: the noon is near.

It is this story of love that has shed peace into so many souls, and unburdened so many consciences of their loads of guilt.

Many a wound has it healed; many a broken heart has it upbound; many a feeble limb has it strengthened; many a care-worn brow has it unwrinkled; many a dim eye has it rekindled.

It has gladdened earth’s melancholy wastes with fresh fragrance and verdure, sadly reminding us of the paradise we have lost, yet brightly pledging to us the hope of the better paradise hereafter, when, under the dominion of the second Adam, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.

It is this story of love that God has been telling for these six thousand years. He calls it ‘the gospel, or the good news, or the glad tidings of great joy.

And so it is. Yet how few receive it as such, or give God the credit for speaking the truth when He makes that gospel known to us! ‘Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”

–Horatius Bonar, The Story of Grace: An Exhibition of God’s Love (Geanies House, Scotland: Christian Focus, 1848/2025), 13-15.

“The brightness of Christ” by John Calvin

“The brightness of Christ is so great that it easily extinguishes all the glories of the world, if indeed it irradiates our eyes.

It hence follows, that Christ is little esteemed by us, when the admiration of worldly glory lays hold on us.”

–John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 301. Calvin is commenting on James 2:1.

“Every word of divine love and tenderness” by Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“This promise belongs to all believers because God is the same yesterday, today and forever. ‘I am the LORD; I change not‘ (Malachi 3:6).

Ah! the unchangeableness of God! Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

And there is another reason why this promise of Scripture belongs to believers now; it is that all believers are one body, and therefore whatever belongs to one, belongs to all.

All believers are branches of one vine; and therefore if God say to one branch, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee‘, he says so to all.

And therefore, for these two reasons, this makes the Bible not a book written for one, but a book written to me: a letter by the Lord, and directed to me.

And therefore every word of divine love and tenderness that He has written in this Book belongs to me.”

–Robert M. M’Cheyne, A Basket of Fragments: Notes for Revival (Geanies House, Scotland: Christian Focus, 1848/2001), 179.

“An ordinary banqueter in His house-of-wine” by Samuel Rutherford

“I dare not but speak to others what God hath done to the soul of His poor, afflicted exile-prisoner.

His comfort is more than I ever knew before.

He hath sealed the honourable cause which I now suffer for, and I shall not believe that Christ will put His amen and ring upon an imagination.

He hath made all His promises good to me, and hath filled up all the blanks with His own hand.

I would not exchange my bonds with the plastered joy of this whole world.

It hath pleased Him to make a sinner the like of me an ordinary banqueter in His house-of-wine, with that royal, princely One, Christ Jesus.

Oh, what weighing, oh, what telling is in His love!

How sweet must He be, when that black and burdensome tree, His own cross, is so perfumed with joy and gladness!

O for help to lift Him up by praises on His royal throne!

I seek no more than that His name may be spread abroad in me, that much good may be spoken of Christ on my behalf.

And this being done, my losses, place, stipend, credit, ease, and liberty, shall all be made up to my full contentment and joy of heart.”

–Samuel Rutherford, “Letter CXVI,” Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Ed. Andrew A. Bonar (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1664/2012), 236.

“The enjoyments of God” by Thomas Brooks

“A saint, so far as he is renewed, is always best when he sees most of God, when he tastes most of God, when he is highest in his enjoyments of God, and most warm and lively in the service of God.”

–Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, in The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1866/1980), 1: 76.