Dec 24
8
Believing is the most wonderful thing in the world! Put anything of your own to it, and you spoil it. Christ will not look on that as believing. When you believe and come to Christ, you must leave behind your own righteousness and bring nothing but your sin (Oh! That is hard!), leaving behind all your holiness, sanctification, and duties or Christ is not fit for you, nor you for Christ. Christ will be a pure Redeemer and Mediator, and you must be an undone sinner, or Christ and you will never agree. ~Thomas Wilcox
Forgiveness And Fear
“But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared” (Psalm 130:4). The only people who fear God are people who have been forgiven. This is not the fear of punishment, but the fear of awe at the forgiveness of sins. Fear sees that the sins that are forgiven were punished when Christ bare them in His own body on the tree, and put away by what He accomplished on Calvary. Because that sin is put away and Christ’s righteousness is given to us, we stand before God as having never sinned and as having perfectly obeyed Him. He remembers our sins no more because there are no sins to remember. When we see the manner of His forgiveness, all there can be on our part is fear, awe, reverence, respect, faith, and love! ~Todd Nibert
“He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him. There was nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces–He was despised and we esteemed Him not.”
(Isaiah 53:2-3)
It is astonishing that with such plain prophecies concerning the Messiah, the Jews should have made such a fatal mistake in reference to Him. They looked for a temporal conqueror who would come in splendor, notwithstanding that this and many other Scriptures speak of His coming in humiliation in express terms. Every unprejudiced person might have seen from this passage, that the Messiah when He came, was not to be surrounded with pomp–but would come as “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” and be “despised and rejected by men.”
Though this truth was written as with a sunbeam, and the Jewish people were acquainted with their own Scriptures–yet when the Messiah came unto them, they did not receive Him. Though favored with the clearest prophecies concerning Him, they rejected His claims and cried, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
*This teaches us that the plainest instruction, however earnestly and forcibly delivered–cannot be rightly understood by the unregenerate mind. The carnal mind cannot discern spiritual things–its eye is darkened, and its ear is heavy. The inspired Word itself, cannot put a spiritual truth so clearly that lost men will understand it–unless their eyes are opened by the Holy Spirit. Vain is the best light to blind men.
How ardently we should adore the Holy Spirit, that He stoops to our spiritual blindness–and is pleased to remove the scales, and pour light into our souls. Whatever we have rightly discerned, has been revealed to us by His teaching, for apart from His illumination, we would have been as obstinately unbelieving as the Jews who crucified their King.
“For the carnal mind is enmity against God;
for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be.
So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:7-8).
“No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44).
“No one can come to Me, unless the Father has enabled him” (John 6:65).
Charles H. Spurgeon
“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.”
Deuteronomy 32:2
We have in our text four degrees of precipitation – the rain, the dew, the small rain, and the showers, and this graduated scale of heavenly moisture shows that there are degrees of spiritual blessing. We must not expect all to be blessed to the same extent, nor all to receive the same measure. Yet these blessings are all of the same nature.
Examine the dew; it is water. The small rain is water also, as is the rain, and the showers. They are all water. You cannot find any difference between the water of the dew, the water of the small rain, of the heavy rain, or of the showers — it is all alike pure water, distilled from the sky.
So it is with the blessing upon the soul. It may fall upon one almost unnoticed as the dew, or upon another as the small rain, upon a third as the showers, or on a fourth as an outpouring of heavy rain; yet all are equally and alike spiritual and Devine. It is given by the same God; comes through the same Jesus; and is communicated by the same Spirit. In every soul it produces more or less the same effects to soften, to moisten, to fertilise, and to revive. It all descends from the heaven of Christ’s gospel and falls from the same skies of grace and mercy, truth and love, and redeeming blood and salvation.
Therefore, only the teaching that testifies of Christ and only the speech that proclaims Him to be a Rock and declares His work to be perfect, ‘drops as the rain and distils as the dew’. There is a power in truth when God is pleased to apply it to the heart; and whether it come in large or in small measure, whether it be dew or shower, it is equally a proof of His mercy and love, and equally a proof that His power attends His own divine truth to our soul.
J.C. Philpot
“But our God is in the heavens: He has done whatsoever He has pleased”
(Psalms 115:2)
When you tell men today that God is Holy and just, righteous and
true, patient, gracious, and good, they agree. But here David sets forth that one
attribute of God which this rebellious generation hates, and since this is man’s
point of rebellion, we must insist upon it. The attribute which David describes
is God’s absolute and indisputable sovereignty. “Our God is in the heavens;
and He hath done whatsoever he has pleased.” As His people, we rejoice in
God’s sovereign mercy. ~ Pastor Scott Richardson
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if
so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”
(Romans 8:16-17)
Here we learn from the Holy Scriptures that God’s Spirit testifies and
gives evidence unto our spirit, that new spirit imparted in regenerating grace
through the preaching of the Gospel, that we are God’s children, adopted in
Christ Jesus. This blessed witness, the witness from God’s Spirit that the
sheep are heirs of God’s grace and blessings and are joint-heirs with Christ, is
a testimony of indescribable comfort and joy. The natural unregenerate man,
the old man born in Adam, will not receive or believe the witness of the
Gospel, it’s foolishness unto him, but to every one born from above, it is a
witness willingly received by faith in the day of God’s power.
Marvin Stalnaker
ADAM AND CHRIST
Two men represent the whole race before God. The first man, Adam,
represented all men in a covenant of works. What Adam did, we all did in
Adam. While he stood, we stood. When he fell, we fell. “IN ADAM ALL
DIED.” All who were in Adam died in Adam. The second Man, Christ, the
God-man, represented all of God’s elect in a covenant of grace. What he did,
all of God’s elect did in him. When he lived in righteousness, we lived. When
he died under penalty of the law, we died. When he arose, we arose. “IN
CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE.” All who are in Christ must
forever live. ~ Pastor Don Fortner
SANCTIFICAITON
Here is every text in the New Testament where the words “sanctify”, “sanctifieth”, “sanctified”, and “sanctification” are used. Study each reference in its context. Believers are said to be sanctified by the Word of God, by God the Father, by the blood of Christ, by the Holy Spirit, and by faith. Never once are we said to sanctify ourselves by something we do. The only exception is 2 Timothy 2:21, where a pastor is said to be sanctified by purging himself from that which is dishonorable. But the context makes that work of sanctification to be a matter of separation, not a matter of being righteous or holy. And not one reference speaks of the believer’s sanctification as a progressive work. Sanctification, as taught in the Bible, is altogether a work of grace.
John 17:17 “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”
John 17:19 “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”
Ephesians 5:26 “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,”
1 Thessalonians 5:23 “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Hebrews 13:12 “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.”
1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”
Matthew 23:17 “Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?”
Matthew 23:19 “Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?”
Hebrews 2:11 “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,”
Hebrews 9:13 “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:”
John 10:36 “Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?”
John 17:19 “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”
Acts 20:32 “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.”
Acts 26:18 “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.”
Romans 15:16 “That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.”
1 Corinthians 1:2 “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:”
1 Corinthians 6:11 “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
1 Corinthians 7:14 “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.”
1 Timothy 4:5 “For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”
2 Timothy 2:21 “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”
Hebrews 2:11 “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,”
Hebrews 10:10 “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Hebrews 10:14 “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”
Hebrews 10:29 “Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?”
Jude 1:1 “Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:”
1 Corinthians 1:30 “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:”
1 Thessalonians 4:4 “That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;”
2 Thessalonians 2:13 “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:”
1 Peter 1:2 “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.”