Oct 18
14
The same man who said: “I be nothing” (2 Cor. 12:11) said: “Christ is
all!” (Col. 3:11) Every true child of God enters in to what the apostle
said, and totally agrees! I am the chief sinner; He is the Chief
Shepherd and Saviour of sinners! I am vile and wicked; He is Holy and
Just! I am absolute weakness; He is infinite strength! I must decrease;
He must increase! I am worthless vanity; He is unsearchable riches! I
deserve wrath; He deserves Honour! I deserve DEATH; He deserves GLORY! I
AM NOTHING; and CHRIST IS ALL!
But do you know what the glory of the gospel is?… He traded places
with me.
Pastor Gabe Stalnaker
Only those who have experienced the miracle of the new birth know the
difference between professing Christ and possessing Christ. Pastor Gene
Harmon
EVERYONE CAN’T BE RIGHT
Some think that it does not matter what a man believes so long as he is
sincere. The average person thinks that all religions are right. “You go
to your church and I’ll go to mine, you believe what you think is right
and I’ll believe what I think is right, and we’ll meet in heaven someday
and rejoice in our respective saviors.”
No! My friends, we cannot all be right when we contradict one another
so. It is imperative that we search the Scriptures and see what God
says. A doctrine is not true because I believe it or because you believe
it, but it is true only if God says it!
I do not ask whether you believe what I preach; perhaps you do not. But
I ask you to search the Scriptures and determine whether these things be
so. I am not afraid to submit my belief in God’s immutable sovereignty,
man’s total fall and ruin, God’s elective grace, Christ’s effectual
atonement, the Spirit’s invincible call, and the perseverance of the
sheep to THE WORD OF GOD!
Pastor Henry Mahan
No Prerequisites
Acts 16:31
There are no prerequisites to faith in Christ. God does not tell sinners
they must know this or that doctrine before they can believe. God does
not tell us that we must experience certain feelings before we can
believe. God does not tell us that we must pass through great times of
darkness before we can believe. God does say in his Word to poor, lost,
ruined, doomed, damned sinners, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thou shalt be saved!”
Self-righteousness is like the pesky mole. Drive it out of one hole and
it will quickly find another in which to make its den. We have fairly
well beaten it out of the den of good works as a ground of hope before
God. But it has found another hiding place. The dark den where
self-righteousness hides with little possibility of detection is called
by many names: “Fitness for Faith,” “Conditions of Conversion,”
“Suitability for Salvation,” and “Qualifications for Grace.”
No matter what name you hang over the hole, it is a den of iniquity. It
teaches sinners that in order to have true faith in Christ there are
certain conditions that must be met. The doctrine goes like this:
“Salvation is by grace alone. It is not what you do, but what Christ has
done that saves you. But before you can truly trust Christ and be saved,
you must be terrified with conviction, you must weep and mourn over your
sin, you must desire holiness, you must repent, you must long for
Christ, you must come to see yourself as a lost sinner, and then
earnestly seek the Lord.
That is a round-about way of preaching salvation by works. There are no
prerequisites, no conditions, no qualifications to be met by sinners
before they trust Christ. The gospel of Christ is addressed to sinners
as sinners, not awakened sinners, not sensible sinners, not convicted
sinners, not lost sinners, not repentant sinners, just sinners! God does
not command sinners to feel a certain way, experience something, or come
to realize something about themselves. God commands sinners to “believe
on his Son, Jesus Christ.” The moment a preacher places any condition or
qualification of any kind upon the sinner before he can trust Christ and
be saved, he ceases to preach a gospel of pure grace. Repentance,
conviction of sin, lamentation and sorrow over sin are not prerequisites
for coming to Christ and trusting him. These things do not precede
faith. They are the results of faith (Zechariah 12:10; John 16:7-14).
“Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of
these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present
truth.” 2 Peter 1:12
As the Holy God: He is angry with the wicked every day.
As the God of justice: He requires full satisfaction for our sin.
As the God of judgment: He will by no means clear the guilty.
As the God of truth: He must carry out His threatening of judgment.
As the God of love: He sent His beloved Son into the world.
As the God of grace: He made His beloved Son sin for us.
As the God of mercy: He gave us Christ’s perfect righteousness.
As the Sovereign God: He does all these things on purpose.
~David Eddmenson
The only way a person can be accepted by God is by having a perfect
sacrifice. The sacrifice is of God’s own providing. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the sacrifice that God has provided, and what He provides, He
will accept. If you persist in working with the hope of being saved by
your doing, let me warn you one more time that you are running after a
scheme which God has solemnly declared He will never accept. “By the
deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight.” ~Scott
Richardson
Here I Stand
Here I stand, I can do no other! Let others waver, compromise, or cover;
but I preach what Spurgeon, Luther, Calvin, Augustine, Paul, the
apostles, and the prophets preached; “Salvation is of the Lord.” Christ
died in the stead of His people; and, as God is just, He will not and
cannot punish one soul of Adam’s race for whom Christ died. There is not
one sin in the book of God against any believer. Our sins were laid on
Him, the law is honored, the justice of God satisfied; and, inasmuch as
sin condemned Him, sin cannot condemn us! This is my hope, comfort, and
my security; that all my sins, transgressions, and iniquities were
atoned for before they were even committed! This, indeed, is good news
for the guilty! ~Henry T. Mahan
EVERYTHING that God requires, God MUST provide; and God ONLY accepts
that which He provides. ~Greg Elmquist
OUR STRENGTH IS THE LORD
Ephesians 6: 10: Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the
power of his might.
Every elect child, born of God, is in a warfare. But our strength for
this war is not of us but of God. Believers have no strength in us. None
of the gospel exhortations given us by Christ are performed in our own
strength.
Our strength is the Lord Jesus Christ, “be strong in the Lord, and in
the power of his might.” The Lord told the apostle Paul, “My grace is
sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” We
are strong by the power of Christ resting upon us. When we are weak so
as to look only to Christ then are we strong. (2 Cor 12: 9-10) “In all
these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
(Rom 8: 37)
A branch gets all its strength from the vine. Separate the branch from
the vine and it withers away because it is cutoff from its life and
strength. Likewise, the believer’s life and strength is from Christ who
lives in us. Our Lord said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch
cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can
ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that
abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for
without me ye can do nothing.” (Jn 15: 4-5)
So the Holy Spirit turns us to our strength, “Put on the whole armor of
God.” (Eph 6: 11) Our armor for this fight is of God: God provides it,
God gives it, God is the sum of it and God is the efficacy of it. “The
weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strong holds.” (2 Cor 10: 4)
Clay Curtis.
JOSEPH HART wrote,
Gird thy loins up, Christian soldier;
Lo! thy Captain calls thee out;
Let the danger make thee bolder;
War in weakness, dare in doubt.
Buckle on thy heavenly armour;
Patch up no inglorious peace;
Let thy courage wax the warmer,
As thy foes and fears increase.
Now I saw in my dream, that by this time the pilgrims were got over the
Enchanted Ground, and entering into the country of Beulah, whose air was
very sweet and pleasant, Isaiah 62:4-12; Song 2:10-12; the way lying
directly through it, they solaced themselves there for a season. Yea,
here they heard continually the singing of birds, and saw every day the
flowers appear in the earth, and heard the voice of the turtle in the
land. In this country the sun shineth night and day: wherefore this was
beyond the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and also out of the reach of
Giant Despair; neither could they from this place so much as see
Doubting Castle. Here they were within sight of the city they were going
to; also here met them some of the inhabitants thereof; for in this land
the shining ones commonly walked, because it was upon the borders of
heaven. In this land also the contract between the Bride and the
Bridegroom was renewed; yea, here, “as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
bride, so doth God rejoice over them.” Here they had no want of corn and
wine; for in this place they met with abundance of what they had sought
for in all their pilgrimage. Here they heard voices from out of the
city, loud voices, saying, “Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy
salvation cometh! Behold, his reward is with him!” Here all the
inhabitants of the country called them “the holy People, the redeemed of
the Lord, sought out,” &c.
(extract from) The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan.
In The Beginning
All things begin with God – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with
God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made
that was made” (John 1:1). All things that follow stream from his
eternal purpose which will ultimately be accomplished.
Our Lord Jesus Christ did not just enter into the scheme of things in
time, he is the eternal Son of God from everlasting which was manifest
in the flesh, in time. Neither God nor his Son has a beginning, yet all
things have their beginning in the Godhead. This Biblical truth is the
quintessence of all truth. If this be not so then Divinity has no real
meaning, value or merit. I believe that is why, by Divine inspiration,
Holy Writ begins thusly – “In the beginning God.” In respect to this
revelation of God in Christ the child of God has great interest,
primarily because in him who is the beginning of all things our
salvation originates or has it’s beginning – “But of him (God) are ye in
Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).
If it be so that the beginning of our salvation is Christ and is in
Christ, who is the Alpha, then all our salvation to the end is in him
who is the Omega as well. Not only was he in the beginning, he is the
beginning! And He never changes! – “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and
today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). The word “beginning” is strictly to
accommodate us mere mortals because with God all things are in the
eternal present.
The way we, by faith, see this great and wonderful mystery revealed is
that in the beginning, before the foundation of the world, God the
Father chose his people in Christ unto salvation. In time the Son of God
was manifest in the flesh to begin and accomplish eternal redemption for
us. In time the Lord Jesus Christ in the Person of His blessed Spirit
begun a good work in us and will perform it unto perfection. Dear
reader, what we experience now and will experience in the future, as the
children of God, is a work finished from the beginning – “For we which
have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my
wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were
finished from the foundation of the world” (Heb. 4:3).
In this context our great comfort is twofold. 1.) God never begins
anything that he doesn’t finish. 2.) All that he does for his people is
in Christ, who is the beginning.
You agnostics perish with your vain thoughts. . . You who know Christ
rejoice with great joy that all things are in him.
Tommy Robbins