Sep 18
16
RECEIVING THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH
“Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (II Thess. 2:10).
It is possible to receive the Truth without receiving the love of the Truth. Merely receiving the Truth is an acknowledgment that the Bible does in fact teach some particular doctrine. This is believing with the intellect and nothing more. Such receiving of the Truth will not end in salvation, but certain destruction. Paul goes on to say of these people, “And for this cause (because they received not the love of the Truth) God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
It is one thing to believe the Bible is God’s Word. It is another thing to love that it is so. It is one thing to believe the Bible teaches the sovereignty of God. It is another thing to love the God who is sovereign. It is one thing to acknowledge the Bible teaches election. It is another thing to love the God who elected sinners in Christ. It is one thing to agree that Christ is the only way. It is another to love Him as the only way. Where the Truth is not received in the love of it, it is not really believed.
Pastor Gene Harmon
When I hear it said, “Such and such do not believe the doctrines of sovereign grace and substitution, but they love the Lord and are saved,” I wonder and ask, “What then was the Bible written for?”
Is it no infallible expression of the mind of GOD? Is it no standard of Truth? Are we to believe what appeals to us and deny the rest? God forbid! God’s Word declares the oneness of Truth and condemns every departure from the Truth as a direct attack on God Himself!
Do not tell me that a man’s heart is right with God when his head contains a creed of error and denies the Person and Work of the Redeemer.
Horatius Bonar
“ORDAINED TO ETERNAL LIFE”
Acts 13:48
Paul had preached the gospel clearly in power of the Holy Spirit. When
the Jews heard the message, they walked out in angry protest; but the
Gentiles desired that it be declared to them again (v. 42). When the
Jews heard the story of substitutionary redemption, “they were filled
with envy and spoke against those things…contradicting and
blaspheming”; but when the Gentiles heard it “they were glad” (w. 45,
48). When the Jews heard the gospel of the grace of God, they despised
it, rejected it, and put it away from themselves, judging themselves to
be unworthy of everlasting life; but the Gentiles “glorified the Word of
the Lord” (vv. 46, 48). What made the difference? Luke gives the answer
in plain, simple, unmistakable words: “As many as were ordained to
eternal life believed.” The doctrine of the text is undeniable – All who
believe the gospel were from eternity ordained by God to eternal life.
And all who were ordained by God to eternal life shall believe the
gospel. God will save his own elect.
Don Fortner.
The testimony to God’s Glory
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Isaiah 40.5
The heavens declare the glory of God, and even the earth in its fallen
state is a testimony to the greatness of the God Who made it. But
nothing has glorified God as did the Son of God when he was “born of a
woman, made under the law” and in that state performed the will of God
to perfection. “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work
you gave me to do.” (John 17:4) Man seems to think God is glorified by
the great works of men. The lofty cathedral, the massive choir, and the
successful “Christian” business are all supposed testimonies of God’s
glory. But God’s glory was revealed in a baby of obscure parentage, a
young boy of exceptional spiritual wisdom, a preacher outside the
mainstream of popular religion and a crucified substitute. All that man
calls wisdom was confounded. All that man calls power was overthrown,
and the glory – the true glory – of the Lord was revealed.
Joe Terrell
Christ in You, the Hope of Glory (Colossians 1:27).
When men are sick, they are glad to see the doctor and happy to follow
his advice, but when they have recovered from the illness they don’t
want him to stay. It is a fact we have come to know and see played out
in our own experience as well as in the religion of our day. Someone
becomes very ill, or meets with a calamity, or suffers a great loss and
they come to church looking for answers and comfort. And so, a quick
remedy is prescribed, and they do what they’re told, and when the pain
and sorrow go away, so does the “doctor” and “his remedy.”
It is not so with Christ. He is the Great Physician and He is himself
the remedy. He is not the expensive errand boy that religion describes
bringing this and that to us from God, but is Himself the Gift of God.
Radiating from His person is life, peace, comfort, joy, love, kindness,
fellowship, and mercy. Salvation is in Him, life is in Him, and
therefore Christ in you is the hope of Glory. Take away Christ and the
leprosy is still there. Take away Christ and we return to the beggar’s
blanket. Take away Christ and we return to our paralysis by the pool
waiting for a hand to lift us into the waters.
To have Christ is to have a well of water springing up, bread
continually coming down from God out of heaven, and wisdom that leaves
the foolish physicians scratching their heads. “Of Him (God) are ye in
Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption.” (1 Cor. 1:30) The gospel is the
glorious name of our God manifested in His Son who saves sinners by the
merits and means of Himself. “Neither is there salvation in any other;
for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we
must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Darvin Pruitt.
“Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye, My people saith the LORD” Isaiah40:1
Here in this passage God has commanded Isaiah to give comfort to the
people of Judah. In the verses before He tells them of the great ruin
that He will bring upon them for their sins (Isaiah 39:5-7). Even so has
God declared that all men are ruined by sin. All men are spiritually
dead in sins and because of this nature, men cannot come to God and they
will not come to God for mercy. God declares that all men are hopeless
to save themselves by either law, religion, or even by the will of man.
(Romans 3:10-20; 5:12: John 1:13; 6:65). Let us then ask two questions:
1. Who are to be comforted?
If all men are born in sins and cannot come to Christ, who then is to
receive comfort? These are the elect of God. Those that were chosen
before the foundation of the World according to God’s Sovereign Free
Grace. These are the ones God calls “My People”, which were chosen of
Him, not on their merit but only by grace. Who are the elect? If only
the elect are comforted then who are they? They are the ones in need of
comfort. They are the ones that see their need of mercy and forgiveness
of sins. They are given to see their condition as “heavy laden” with sin
and their need of rest. And they all will come to Christ Jesus alone for
their salvation. All the elect of God shall come to Jesus Christ, and
all that come to Him, He will not cast out but give Comfort to their souls.
What is the source of this comfort?
Our “warfare is accomplished…” That is to say that God in Christ has
given us the victory. We are at war with this world who hates our gospel
and our God, but let us be comforted in the fact that we who are “in
Christ are more than conquers” over all our foes.
Take comfort in that “all (our) sins are pardoned.” God has exacted at
the hand of Christ all payment for our sins. It is only in the offering
of Jesus Christ that “God can be both just and justify the ungodly.”
Take great comfort in that by the blood of Jesus, God can justly pardon
us who have sinned against Him; for God has “received double of the
Lord’s hand for all (our) sins.”
Don Fortner.
A GREAT LIGHT
“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great Light: they that
dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the Light
shined.” Isaiah 9:2
In this chapter and the previous one, God the Spirit reveals unto us a
beautiful picture of Christ’s deliverance of those whom God the Father
has given to Him. They are a wonder of God’s sovereign grace manifested
in the appearing and redemptive work of Christ Jesus our Lord. God’s
elect, who have all their life walked in Spiritual darkness, and dwell
in the land of the shadow of death have now, by the power and revelation
of God, by the preaching of the gospel of Christ, seen a great Light –
“For God, who commanded the Light to shine out of darkness, hath shined
in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ” 2Co 4:6.
The Lord Jesus Christ is that GREAT LIGHT and in Him is life, truth,
peace, and assurance. It is now said of those upon whom that Light has
shined, “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day:
we are not of the night, nor of darkness” 1Th 5:5. When God effectually
reveals Christ to a sheep who walks in darkness there is a radical
change. A change that is compared to the difference in darkness and light.
Our Lord gives us an example in Saul’s (Paul’s) conversion – “And it
came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto
Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light
round about me” Ac 22:6. Thereafter Paul’s life was never the same.
Others saw it, but not with discernment. Many see and hear the truth but
not with faith … only with natural understanding. That great Light is a
wonder and an amazement only to those upon whom the Son of Righteousness
has shined.
Tommy Robbins
Sovereign Grace Hated by the Modern Religionist
By C H Spurgeon
If anything is hated bitterly, it is the out-and-out gospel of the
grace of God, especially if that hateful word “sovereignty” is
mentioned with it. Dare to say “He will have mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he
will have compassion” (Romans 9:15), and furious critics will
revile you without stint.
The modern religionist not only hates the doctrine of sovereign
grace, but he raves and rages at the mention of it. He would
sooner hear you blaspheme than preach election by the Father,
atonement by the Son, or regeneration by the Spirit.
If you want to see a man worked up till the Satanic is clearly
uppermost, let some of the new divines hear you preach a
free grace sermon. A gospel which is after men will be
welcomed by men; but it needs divine operation upon the
heart and mind to make a man willing to receive into his in
most soul this distasteful gospel of the grace of God. My
dear brethren, do not try to make it tasteful to carnal minds.
Hide not the offense of the cross, lest you make it of none effect.
The angles and corners of the gospel are its strength to pare them
off is to deprive it of power. Toning down is not the increase of
strength, but the death of it.
Learn, then, that if you take Christ out of Christianity,
Christianity is dead. If you remove grace out of the gospel,
the gospel is gone. If the people do not like the doctrine
of grace, give them all the more of it.
I preach the doctrines of grace because I believe them to be true;
because I see them in the Scriptures; because my experience endears
them to me; and because I see the holy result of them in believers.
The doctrine which I preach to you is that of the Puritans:
it is the doctrine of Calvin, the doctrine of Augustine,
the doctrine of Paul, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
The Author and Finisher of our faith himself taught the
most blessed truth which well agreed with our text-
“For by grace are you saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” Eph 2:8