Nov 17
5
Numerous churches would describe themselves as “Christ centered”, and many preachers would describe their preaching as “Christ centered preaching”. While on the surface this may seem like a good thing, in reality it is not. The statement implies that Christ is the focus, and everything else takes a backseat to Christ. But that is not right! Christ is not the main attraction. He is the only attraction! He is not what is most important. He is all! All else is nothing! Christ is not a centerpiece. He is all! Pastor Todd Nibert
“from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” Jer.6:14
Nothing has changed. The false prophets are still declaring peace when there is no peace. Notice they heal the hurt of the people `slightly’. Can you think of one time the Lord Jesus performed a miracle of healing that was anything less than total? No. When Christ speaks peace there is reason for rejoicing. `My peace I leave you’. Why do people so gladly listen to a message of false peace? For the same reason people take pain medicine rather than undergo radical surgery. They want to just feel better rather than be put under the care of the Physician. Doctors who freely pass out anesthetics and placebos become popular and wealthy… but their patients die.
Pastor Greg Elmquist
Grace Gospel Church of Orlando
Florida
Proverb 21:24: A proud and haughty man – “Scoffer” is his name; He acts with arrogant pride.
1. “A proud and haughty man” is one whose opinion of himself is too high, and whose opinion of God and His Christ is too low.
2. “He acts with arrogant pride.” It is bad enough that he is proud and haughty in his heart. But he must be so also in his actions. He is, before God and in the presence of others, arrogant, self-willed, presumptuous, argumentative, blasphemous, wrathful.
3. “‘Scoffer’ is his name” – for so God has named him. He who scorns and scoffs against God will be scorned and scoffed by God. Repeatedly we find this truth declared. Indeed, it is probably only against such persons that we read of God laughing: “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the LORD shall hold them in derision” (Psalm 2:4);
— “The Lord laughs at him, for He sees that his day is coming” (Psalm 37:13);
— “I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, when your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you” (Proverbs 1:26f).
–Now is the time for such a person to cease raging against Jehovah and His Christ, and plotting vain things against them, and to obey the gospel call to “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him” (Psalm 2). Missionary Daniel Parks
HEART CRIME
Acts 5: 3, 4
The one thing Ananias and Sapphira coveted more than money was the praise of men. They were even willing to give up a little money and take on a form of religion to get it. Barnabas sold a piece of land, they imitated; Barnabas brought the price of the land, they imitated; Barnabas laid the price of his land down at the apostles feet, they imitated; Barnabas desired his money be distributed among the poor saints, they imitated. The deceit of Ananias and Sapphira outwardly toward the brethren was evil. But their crime was in their heart against God. The lesson is simple. God will receive nothing less than complete surrender to him. Submit wholly to Christ through faith and cease deceiving your own heart. God will not be mocked
Clay Curtis.
People do what they want to. They do what they do freely and uncoerced. People were not forced to crucify Christ. Pilate was said to have, “Delivered Jesus to their will.” While they were acting freely and uncoerced, they were doing neither more nor less than “Whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done.” Men do precisely what they want, and God exercises absolute sovereignty over men’s will – a paradox; but certainly not a contradiction. They are both true. Pastor Todd Nibert
True or False Professor?
There is a distinguishing difference between a true child of God and a false professor. The Bible is filled with illustrations of this truth – Mt 7:22-23; Mt 23:27; Mt 25:32; John 14:21; 1John 3:14. This discernible difference is characterized from an inward presence of the indwelling Spirit of God which is produced and manifested by the love of God in the true believer, and is absent in the false professor. The child of God, by his grace, loves God, loves his Son, loves his Gospel, loves the brethren, and loves his work.
Although this inward nature can be imitated outwardly by the false professor for awhile, to some degree, it can never be counterfeited in the heart. What a person loves and gives himself to is, at some point, revealed in his life – For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also Luke 12:34. There are those who profess their allegiance and love to Christ and His Church, yet can never bring themselves to a commitment to the same. They remain their own person, not Christ’s.
The true children of God have a new nature, the Divine nature, which continually causes them to give themselves to the things of God. The truth is that the distinguishing difference is LIFE and DEATH. To those who know him, he is their life. Those who only profess to know him, their life consists of themselves, which is death.
It is of a truth that the true believer’s life revolves around Christ, and that to the false professor Christ revolves around his life. It is comforting to know that God has a people, in this world of falseness and deception, and that they, having the divine nature, live for his glory.
No, they are not perfect in themselves! But they are perfect in him and seek to honor him and his cause by his distinguishing grace. WHICH ONE OF THESE PROFESSORS ARE WE?
Tommy Robbins
THE KING HATH BROUGHT ME
Song 1:4
“The king hath brought me into his chambers.”–Song i. 4.
Yes, he who is King of nations, King of saints, is my God and King also; for he hath an universal empire, being one with the Father over all, blessed for ever. Amen. To him I bow the knee, and humbly and gratefully desire to put the crown of my salvation on his adorable head. And what hath this Sovereign done for thee, my soul? Oh record his praise; tell it to saints and sinners all around. This great, and glorious, and condescending King, hath not only brought thee out of darkness and the shadow of death, but hath brought thee into his chambers. What chambers? Chambers of sweet communion and fellowship; chambers of love, of grace, of mercy, of redemption, of ordinances, and of all covenant blessings. He hath taught me of his love, and my privileges in him, and so assured me of my everlasting safety in him and his finished salvation, that by and by, when from those outward chambers of grace, he hath accomplished all his blessed purposes concerning me, he will bring me home into his inner chambers of light and glory, from whence I shall go out no more, but dwell in them, and in the presence of God and the Lamb, for ever and ever. Hallelujah.
Robert Hawker
(1753-1827)
>From THE POOR MAN’S MORNING AND EVENING PORTIONS.
Grace or Works?
Rom 11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
Is the whole of our salvation accomplished by the finished work of our Holy Substitute? Or, is there something else that man can do to make himself more fit, qualified, holy, or otherwise more acceptable in the sight of God? Can man establish his righteousness more securely by his supposed performance of the law? Or, is the righteousness of Christ our all and only means of acceptance before a Holy God? The message of free and sovereign grace is an offense to men’s pride because they refuse to admit that they are totally incapable of doing anything good (Rom. 3:10-12). Men, refusing to find their satisfaction in the righteousness of Christ, go about to establish their own righteousness (Rom. 10:3). Though they often succeed in impressing other men, most especially themselves, God is worse than not impressed. He is infinitely offended by their attempt to rob Christ of His glory.
God says works and grace are mutually exclusive. Grace by definition means the total absence of works. Once you introduce works into grace you no longer have grace but only works. A little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump. You can not mix works and grace any more than you can mix oil and water. Regardless of how hard you shake the bottle the heavier water gravitates to the bottom and the lighter oil to the top. So it is with works and grace. The living water of God’s grace will be completely covered by the oil of man’s works, so that if one attempts to find refreshment from that glass they will ingest nothing but sickening oil. Not only will it not satisfy, it will cause them to loose even what they have.
Greg Elmquist
THEY PREACHED WHAT?
God’s messengers do not depend upon the people to whom they preach to convince them or to give credibility to what they preach. They simply declare, proclaim, set forth what they know by the revelation of God, and they do so, convinced by God and taught by God. The Spirit of Christ is in his preachers and this is what they said of Christ: The officers answered, Never man spake like this man (John 7: 45.)
· His first word was that God saves by sovereign election. Likewise, those in whom his Spirit dwells declare God saves certain lepers, certain widows and passes by whom he will.
· He declared that no man can come to me except my father which is in heaven draw him. He told Nicodemus that a man must be born again or he can not see the Christ the King and the kingdom of heaven, so do his pastors.
· He declared that he came to do his father’s will—to magnify the measure of holiness the law demands by his faithful obedience and he pleased God the Father. His pastors declare that there is none good, but Christ our Righteousness.
· By his death he spoke as never a man spoke because he died, the just in the place of the unjust, that he might declare God just and justifier of all who are brought to trust in Jesus. By the Spirit of Christ, his pastors declare that none are accepted of God but those who put their trust in Christ alone.
Paul and Barnabas spoke by the Spirit of Christ even as they were sent forth by the Holy Spirit, and they left man no room to glory save in the cross of Christ Jesus the Lord. Christ is the Word of God and the written word of God is concerning his Son, Jesus Christ.
Clay Curtis