SHOALHAVEN GOSPEL CHURCH
Nowra, New South Wales – Australia
Here We Stand
We seek to uphold, explain, promote and preach the message of God’s free grace in Christ and the absolute necessity of divine power to initiate, apply and secure the salvation of sinners. We do not look to man to save himself for we know he cannot. We do not appeal to men to save themselves for we know they cannot. We believe God’s grace alone can save a soul, and we try to say it clearly.
This means we have no time for the teaching that man has a freewill with which to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation. We do not believe God has saving love for everyone, nor a will to save everyone. We do not hold there is grace from God for everyone. The nature of our sovereign almighty God and the existence of hell and judgment preclude such ideas. We do not believe the Lord Jesus Christ died for everyone on the cross nor that His death was ever intended to redeem and atone for any but those called in scripture God’s elect from every nation, from before the foundation of the world.
We believe all men and women have sinned and are enemies of God by nature. We believe, nevertheless, God the Father in eternity chose a people to justify and recover from their lost state. We believe the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, came into the world to save those chosen individuals and effectually did so by His death on the cross. We believe God the Holy Spirit quickens and converts those for whom Christ shed His blood through the preaching of saving grace and divine mercy in the gospel. We believe, once saved, those blessed individuals never will be, never can be, lost and will most certainly spend eternity in heaven in the presence and company of their God and Saviour.
We believe God in His three persons has done everything necessary for the salvation of His chosen people and there remains nothing for them to do. Beyond Christ’s sacrifice there are no works of obedience required, either to make the elect eligible for salvation, or to enable them to keep their salvation. Grace is not of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. Everything necessary for salvation is a good gift, a perfect gift and it comes from the sovereign God.
These beliefs separate us from a large part of today’s Christian church who seem neither to understand the nature of God nor the nature of man. They preach of common grace flowing from universal love, and of a frustrated desire on God’s part to save everyone. They believe Christ’s blood redeemed everyone but fails actually to save anyone. They believe in a Holy Spirit who courts the wicked with offers of mercy, but ultimately bows to man’s will and withdraws defeated. We have no sympathy with this message and we can have no fellowship with its promoters.
The essence of the gospel is good news. Good because salvation is a sovereign work of grace. Good because the Lord Jesus Christ actually achieved and accomplished all our peace with God as our substitute on the cross. Good because no part of our deliverance is dependent upon our weak, wayward flesh. This is where we stand. This is what we believe. This is the heart of our message. This is the gospel of sovereign grace.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (James 1:17).
LORD JESUS CHRIST
LORD– God in all His fullness.
JESUS-“YOU SHALL CALL HIS NAME JESUS FOR HE SHALL SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM THEIR SINS”
CHRIST– The anointed King who reigns over His people, Satan and the world and reigns most victoriously on the cursed tree as He dies under the judgement of God satisfying God’s justice for His chosen ones. All OT prophesies are yes and amen. He is our righteousness, He is our sanctification, and He is our redemption. We must look to Him for everything. * The Gospel is an everlasting (eternal) gospel. Rev 14:7
* The Gospel had its origins before the foundation of the world. Eph 1:4
* It is the Gospel of God –it comes directly from Him. Mark 1:1,1:15
* It is the power of God. Rom 1:16
* It is a Gospel of Grace. Acts 20:24
* It is the Gospel proclaimed by all the apostles and they spoke as one man –it is not a mystery. Rom 16:25
* It is the Gospel chosen sinners receive. 1 Cor 15:1
* It is the Gospel that you are saved by. 1 Cor 15:2
* It is the Gospel chosen sinners believe. 1 Cor 15:2
* It is the Gospel chosen sinners stand in. 1 Cor 15:1
* It is the Gospel by which believers are established Rom 16:25
* It is the Gospel by which men are judged. Rm 2:16
* It is the Gospel which exposes all false gospels and professors of false religion. John 3:19-21
* The Gospel is not an offer.
* The Gospel is not an invitation.
* The Gospel does not ever convey a possibility.
* The Gospel does not create a potential. A King who tries to save but can’t because He loves but His love has no power and a Jesus who dies “in some way” for all people is not the God of the Bible. Any “Gospel” which at any point diminishes the deity of our LORD JESUS CHRIST and at any point conveys even a hint that He has not fulfilled all the OT promises both in the saving of His bride and the just condemning of those who reject Him is not the truth of the scriptures and is offensive to His Glory and entraps people in a delusion. There is nowhere that the Gospel requires anything of human involvement-all we touch is sin, all we do is sin. We are saved and live by Grace. 1 Cor 4:7 What do you say about my Saviour? What do you say about my Husband? What do you say about my Redeemer? Needless controversy is an abomination which we should all hate but the Lord God our Father has his heart affection set upon His darling Son and He challenges all humanity everywhere “What about My Son?” That is why the Gospel is an issue worth suffering for, worth contending for, worth dying for. May God heal our lukewarmness. One issue matters to God- the Glory of our LORD JESUS CHRIST. What do the scriptures say of His Gospel? May God the Holy Spirit teach us all here the truth of the Gospel. The LORD JESUS CHRIST is the Gospel. We proclaim Him. Salvation is looking and coming, if you don’t know Him then look and come, and we who believe live on His life looking and coming repenting and believing, His faithfulness and His life and His death and His resurrection and His exaltation are ours now and forever. Amen
Angus Fisher
Shoalhaven Gospel Church.