Jan 16
24
Four lies
These are four false statements made from the average pulpit and parroted by those who hear them.
“God loves YOU.”
“Jesus died for YOU.”
“Will you ACCEPT Jesus?”
“Give YOUR HEART to Jesus.”
Why are these statements false? Because they are unscriptural, and should never be preached nor told to men indiscriminately. Not one of these statements is found in the Bible. Where then did they come from? From men! Not once did any preacher in the Word of God, not even The Lord Jesus EVER say to people “God loves you, Jesus died for you”.
Let me put it this way. If anyone had told Esau, or Judas Iscariot that God loved them and Christ died for them they would have lied to them! God hated Esau, Judas was a devil. In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the word love is not mentioned once, nor do you find any one of the apostles at any time preaching “God loves you, Jesus died for you”. Instead of honoring the Love of God and the Death of Christ these statements belittle it and make it of NO VALUE. It is this pitiful concept of Gods Love and the Death of Christ that has brought us to such a miserable state as a people. There is no fear of death or judgment, no fear of sin and it’s consequences, because God loves everybody and Christ died for them, so what is there to fear?
Gods love and the death of Christ in the Holy Scriptures is always addressed to a particular class of person. It is addressed to sinners, the elect, to beggars, to weak and heavy laden, to the sheep, even “to many”, but never to all indiscriminately. Our Lord told the Pharisees; “ how shall you escape the damnation of hell?” (Matt. 23:33). Does that sound like He loved them and died for them? If the average religionist was preaching to those same people today, they would have said; Smile God loves you and Jesus gave his life for you. But they would also have been lying to them!
It is only when men are taught by the Holy Spirit that they are sinners by birth and practice, that they deserve hell for their sins, that they are under the just condemnation of the Holy and Just God of the Bible, “No man can come unto me except the Father which sent me draw them, and they shall all be taught of God”(Jn. 6:44-45). It is only a soul that is drawn and taught by the Holy Spirit that can find any assurance in the Love Of God and the death of Christ for them. God’s love is manifested only in Christ . Do you believe and trust Him ? Don Bell
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
I can imagine the day of judgment. All are gathered before the throne of God. Those who are robed in the perfect robe of Christ’s righteousness are gathered to His right hand. The rest wait to hear His voice of condemnation, “Depart from Me!” Does anyone have anything to say? If there be one who has no sin, let him step forth and say so. Come forth, my friend, and state your case! What about the righteousness and holiness in which you boasted while on earth? Come forward and tell about your works, your gifts, your denomination; you found much comfort in those things once. You who scoffed at substitution, who laughed at free grace, imputed righteousness and covenant mercies —you are not laughing now! Why is your face so pale? Why do you tremble so? You never trembled before but always had so much confidence in your decision and boasted of being as sure for heaven as if you were already there! Why do you not tell God what you did for Him on earth? It is quite evident that He did nothing for you. But I remember that you said, “God has done all that he could do and salvation is up to you.” What a terrible time to discover what you should have known, “SALVATION IS OF THE LORD!” “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” Why do you not speak? Is it because of the awesome, infinite “HOLINESS, OF HIS PRESENCE”? You clutch your righteous garments about you and they are nothing but filthy rags now, and you know it! You think of your prayers, your religious activities, your debates over doctrine; and they are all so much rubbish in the light of His presence. And now you are praying? What is it that you cry? “O rocks and mountains, fall on me, and hide me from the face of Him that sits upon the throne.” I wish that you had cried as fervently for Christ to hide you, cleanse you, and cover you —HE WOULD HAVE!
Thomas Brooks said, “The preaching of this and that opinion may please a man’s fancy, but it is only the preaching of Christ that changes a man’s heart.”
Henry Mahan
“WHO CONCERNING THE TRUTH HAVE ERRED”
II Timothy 2:17-20
Paul, writing about two men, Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth had erred, declared, “nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure … the Lord knoweth them that are his.”
It grieves all believers to see those who have made a profession of faith in Christ, who have indicated that they believed His word and loved the Lord Jesus, who have even preached, taught the word, and been faithful for a time, to fall away from grace, the gospel, and church fellowship. However, while we grieve for them and others whom they influence, we ought not to be amazed or unduly shaken; for our Lord warned of tares among the wheat, of branches that bear no fruit, and of false teachers among the true.
“In a great house,” Paul continues, “there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also vessels of wood and earth; some to honor and some to dishonor (or some to other uses).” So, in the church there are men and women who faithfully reflect the grace and honor of Christ all their lives, chosen vessels of pure gold. There are others who will be used of God to accomplish His purpose even in their unfaithfulness. Both MOSES and PHARAOH were raised up to accomplish His purpose. O, by his grace, to be a vessel of honor!
Pastor Henry Mahan
LIES, THE FOOD OF MAN
“But you have cultivated wickedness and raised a thriving crop of sins. You have eaten the fruit of lies; trusting in your military might, believing that great armies could make your nation safe!” Hosea 10:13
The subject suggested by these words is, “lies, their fruit, and man’s eating it;” or simply, “lies and their fruit.” The word ‘lie’ is used in a twofold sense– a lie as to fact, and a lie as to doctrine; untrue reports and unsound teaching, false testimony and false knowledge (or theology). This falsity may be negative or positive, as “You shall not surely die,” and “You shall be as gods.”
The lie comes sometimes from man, sometimes from Satan, but never from God, for God is not a man that he should lie; never from the works of God when rightly interpreted and understood. By two great lies man was led away from God. By the same two lies has the estrangement been kept up. On these two lies the world has been feeding ever since the fall. Their fruit has been woe and death. These lies are those referred to above– the one a denial of Godhead perfection; the other, an assertion of creature-perfection; the one saying, there is no such thing as sin and punishment, the other, that there is no such thing as creature-hood limitation and dependency. “You shall not die,” “You shall be as gods.”
For these two lies, God has written his Bible to contradict, for the whole divine word is a confutation of them. But the special confutation is to be seen in the life and death of the Christ of God. His death, as the sinbearer, said, ‘You shall surely die’; and His life, as the dependent Son of Man, showed, that no circumstances, no progress, no knowledge could ever make man God, the creature the Creator. But the human, however blessed, and holy, and wise, must ever be the human, and the divine the divine.
Israel’s history, to which our passage refers, is the history of the fruit of lies. “They believed not God,” is the accusation brought against them. They rejected the truth, they received the lie, and the fruit of this was judgment. Every sorrow that came on them was the fruit of a lie. Their last great sorrow, the ruin of Jerusalem, and the slaughter of its citizens, was the fruit of a lie. And are they not now, in their dispersion, eating the fruit of lies?
The world’s history is the same. Our race has been eating the fruit of lies; not simply of sin, but of lies. The sorrows, sighs, tears, pains of our race are the fruit of lies– the original lie of Paradise, and a thousand such since then. The sweating-toils of man, the travail-pangs of woman, the cries of suffering infancy– what are they but the fruit of a lie? Yon tossing sick-bed, yon weary death-bed, yon swelling churchyard, yon shroud, yon coffin, yon funeral, yon open grave, what are they? The fruit of a lie. It is bitter, poisonous, long-lasting fruit.
And the world’s last days are no improvement upon its first, for in them comes “the strong delusion that they should believe a lie.” What is every false religion but the belief of a lie, and the judgments with which God has visited its professors, the eating the fruit of a lie. Anti-Christianity is the special and pre-eminent exhibition of the belief of a lie, and the doom of Antichrist will be the especial and awful exhibition of “eating the fruit of lies.”
Each soul’s history resembles the above. It is the history of the belief of lies– of a thousand lies. We begin to believe lies as soon as we can believe anything at all, and we act daily upon believed lies. The two original Satanic lies are continually coming up, and along with them myriads of others, all leading us astray. Each day brings forth the lie, the fruit, the eating thereof. Satan, or the world, or the flesh, or a friend, or a book, or a scene whispers the lie; it is fair and specious, we believe it; it brings forth fruit, we eat of it, and the end is bitterness and disappointment. We “feed on lies.”
What is pleasure, or lust, or revelry? It is the belief of a lie, the feeding on a lie. What is worldliness, the love of gaiety, the absorption of the heart in business? The belief of a lie, and the feeding on a lie. We persuade ourselves that this world is good, and pleasant, and excellent, and so we pursue it in preference to the world to come. But the belief of the lie is quickly followed up by disappointment, the sense of hollowness and dissatisfaction. God makes us thus eat of the fruit of lies, that we may be torn from them and betake ourselves to the truth.
What keeps us from Christ? A lie, or lies! What makes us choose the broad way? A lie, or lies! What is unbelief but the belief of a lie? Where do our doubts and fears but from come? The belief of lies in preference to the truth; no, from our making God a liar, in not believing the record which he has given of his Son? Where comes backsliding, or the loss of first love, but from our returning to the lie which we had rejected?
God, in his gospel, meets the lie, and all the lies which have sprung up on earth. He sends us the truth; He sends us the true One. And while He meets the lie, He does it in His own divine way. He says, Yes, you shall not surely die– but that deliverance shall not be in the way you think. Death is the wages of sin, yet I bring life to the sinner, everlasting life, life through the belief of the truth, even as death came through the belief of a lie. He says, “Yes, you shall be as gods, but not in your way. I will make you partakers of the divine nature, not by eating the forbidden tree, but by eating of Him whose flesh is food indeed and whose blood is drink indeed.”
What stress God lays on truth, and on our believing it! What sin He declares to be in a lie and in our believing it! All untruth, all error, all false doctrine, as well as false statement, has in it the nature of a lie. Men in our day think man is not responsible for the truth, and that there is no sin in the reception of error. God protests against this, and calls on men to receive truth, his truth, as expounded in his one revelation! Gloriously yet awfully shall all this be manifested, when He who is the Truth shall come the second time to vindicate both truth and righteousness! Horatius Bonar