Apr 15
11
Oh! sweet grace, blessed grace!
“For it is by grace you have been saved.”
Ephesians 2:8
We are saved by grace . . .
free grace,
rich grace,
sovereign grace,
distinguishing grace—
without one atom of works,
without one grain of creature merit,
without anything of the flesh.
Oh! sweet grace, blessed grace!
Oh! what a help—what a strength—what
a rest for a poor toiling, striving, laboring
soul—to find that grace has done all the
work—to feel that grace has triumphed in
the cross of Christ—to find that . . .
nothing is required, nothing is needed,
nothing is to be done! J C Philpot
False religion
(Horatius Bonar, “False Religion and Its Doom”)
“I will lay your corpses in front of your idols and
scatter your bones around your altars.” Ezek. 6:5
There is such a thing as false religion. It may be earnest and zealous, yet false.
No amount of sincerity or zeal will make that true, which is in itself false.
False religion is the worship of a false god or the false worship of the true God.
We worship the true God untruly when we give him only half a heart, half a soul.
Do not think that the utterance of some true words, or the expression of a little sentimental devotion, is the true worship of the true God.
False religion is useless.
It profits nothing and nobody, either here or hereafter.
It is not acceptable to God.
It will not be counted a substitute for the true.
It does not satisfy the conscience.
It does not make the man happy.
It does not fill the heart.
It does not remove burdens.
It will not stand the fire.
It is but wood, and hay, and stubble.
The judgment will sweep it all away.
It is useless both for time nor eternity,
both for earth nor heaven.
It is irksome and unprofitable, only cheating
the poor worshiper into the belief that he has
felt or performed something good and worthy.
God abhors false religion.
It has not one feature that is pleasing to Him.
It is merely external.
It is untrue.
It is against His revelation.
It is dishonoring to Him.
It is self exalting.
It is pure mockery.
It is rottenness and death.
It is a mouthful of words, a handful of dust and ashes.
Therefore God abhors it.
“I will lay your corpses in front of your idols and
scatter your bones around your altars.” Ezek. 6:5
“Morality will keep you out of jail — but only the blood of Jesus will keep you out of Hell!” Charles Spurgeon
The greatest religious deception
this world has ever known!
(by Don Fortner)
We are living in perilous times! We are living in the midst of the greatest
religious apostasy ever known. Freewill, works religion is the greatest religious
deception this world has ever known. This man centered, man exalting, man
pleasing; God debasing, God hating religion seems to engulf the entire world
and all religious sects. The world, for the most part, has accepted the doctrines of
antichrist. Any religion that is man centered; any religion that has for its foundation man’s will, man’s works, or man’s rights; any religion that promotes the honor, dignity, and pride of man; any religion that pampers and cultivates self righteousness, self esteem, and self worth is antichrist. These are indeed perilous times!
“For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to right teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever they want to hear. They will reject the truth and follow strange myths.” 2 Tim. 4:3-4
“And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of
counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” 2 Thes. 2:8-12
“I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel; which is NOT another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal.1:6,7).
“If thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt NOT build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast POLLUTED it” (ex.20:25).
Any perversion of the absolute free sovereign grace of God in the gospel of Christ is an abomination unto our Great God. Whether it be molding the altar stones to our liking to suit our demands, or putting anything of self to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary, God is not honored in it nor will He be tolerant of it.
Some perversions are very obvious, while others are much more subtle, but the end result is the same. It is polluted by man and the stamp of ‘unacceptable’ is upon it. Oh, how I need your prayers as I stand here to proclaim the wonder and mystery of ‘Christ and Him crucified’. Oh, how I need your ears to ‘take heed how you hear as well as to what you hear’. I am thankful that by the grace of God and faith in His blood that you have not these many, many years tried to add one thing to that perfect altar, that sinless Redeemer! Oh, may He keep us here together, serving Him, worshipping at His footstool and rejoicing in that one and only Sacrifice for sinners: Jesus The Christ! Drew Dietz
Substitution Is The Gospel
Todd Nibert
Particular redemption. Limited Atonement. Definite Atonement. Effectual Atonement. These are all words used to describe the atoning work of Christ on the cross. He died for a particular people. His intention to save was limited to the elect. His atonement was with a definite purpose for a definite people. His atonement was effectual. All that He died for must be saved. These terms are all well and good in their place, but a better word is plain old substitution. All of these terms point to a real, substitutionary death on the cross. Substitution is the Gospel. To deny, water down, or omit in our preaching the particular, limited, definite, effectual death of Christ on the cross….ie….substitution….is to deny, water down, or omit the Gospel of Christ. The meaning of substitution is so simple that adjectives are not even needed to describe it.
REVERENCE FOR GOD’S WORD Octavius Winslow
“And Micaiah said, As the Lord lives, even what my God says, that will I speak.” –2 Chron. 18:13
Micaiah was a God-fearing prophet. His fidelity to the Lord stands in striking and instructive contrast with the worldly policy of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, who joined affinity with Ahab, King of Israel–an alliance which proved, as all alliances of the holy with the unholy ever will, a source of discomfort and sorrow to the king. The good prophet Micaiah was charged by the Lord with an especial and solemn message to Ahab. It contained a prohibition, and forewarned a danger. The message was distasteful and annoying to the ungodly, self-willed monarch. Other prophets, anxious to conciliate Ahab, had prophesied good, urging the adoption of a course at once contradictory to the divine injunction, and ruinous to the monarch. The moment was a critical one. Micaiah, the true prophet of the Lord, urged to join the false prophets in speaking what the Lord had not spoken to Ahab, refused to disobey God, replying in the noble language which suggests our present reflection–“As the Lord lives, even what my God says, that will I speak.” What to him was the favor of Ahab? What the earthly and temporary reward of a time-serving, man-pleasing policy, weighed with reverence for, and obedience to, the word and command of the living God? How replete with spiritual and solemn instruction are the words of the prophet? May the Holy Spirit open and apply them to our minds!
Am I a minister of Christ? Then, as the Lord lives, what my God says, that must I speak, nothing more and nothing less. In this point of light how tremendous the responsibility of my ministerial office! I am under the most solemn obligation to preach the Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel, as God has spoken it in His Word. I must not dilute, nor pervert, nor withhold it. I must not preach it with reservation, either to exalt myself or to please man. I must preach Christ’s obedience as the sinner’s free justification; Christ’s death as the sinner’s full pardon; Christ’s example as the believer’s rule of life–in a word, Christ must be the all and in all of my ministry–even what my God says, that will I speak. Woe is unto me, if I preach not the pure, simple, unadulterated Gospel of Christ! The blood of souls will God require at my hands!
Am I a disciple of Christ? Then I must believe and accept nothing but what the Lord my God has spoken. Guarded against human additions, man’s teaching, and those who would seduce me from the simplicity of the truth as it is in Jesus, I must have a “Thus says the Lord” for what I believe and accept. To the law and to the testimony. By this divine rule I must weigh and examine, taking heed, not only how I hear, but also, what I hear. An inspired Apostle has told me that, “The anointing which I have received abides in me, and that I need not that any man should teach me;” let me therefore believe and speak only that which my God has spoken.
O Lord! deepen my reverence for Your word! Confirm my faith in its divinity, increase my experience of its power, and deepen my sense of its preciousness. May I stand in awe of its solemn revelations, walk in the holiness of its precepts, live more simply upon its promises, and increasingly find it sweeter than honey, yes, than the honeycomb, to my taste. As the Lord lives, even what my Lord says, that will I believe, that will I accept, and that will I speak. In all my trials, sorrows, and needs, may Your Word be my comfort and support. May it sweeten the bitter waters of affliction, pencil the rainbow of hope upon the dark clouds of my pilgrimage; and, when I die, may its gracious invitations and precious promises bring Jesus near to my soul.
“How well Your blessed truths agree!
How wise and holy Your commands!
Your promises, how sweet they be!
How firm our hope and comfort stands!
“Should all the forms that men devise
Assault my faith with treacherous art,
I’d call them vanity and lies,
And bind the Gospel to my heart.”