Jun 18
11
Ready To Hear
Acts 10
How blessed our time together would be if, when we come to the house of worship, we had prepared our hearts to hear from God. Cornelius said to Peter – “Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.” Their place of worship was simple – a man’s home. But God is not honored with brick and mortar. Peter had come with a message from heaven fresh on his heart. The congregation had come with a sense of their need, seeking a message from God, and praying for the preacher. Peter preached unto them Jesus Christ and those who heard believed. I ask you, is it any wonder that the Holy Spirit came down in their midst?
May it please the Lord to make us READY TO HEAR from God. Pray for your pastor, that he may come with a message from God concerning his Son, Jesus Christ. Come with a sense, of your need, expecting to hear from God. And receive the word by faith. It may be that the power of God will be manifest in our midst.
Don Fortner
Oh! The sweet thought to my soul: under all the condemnation of the law, and the curses due to the breaches of it; Jesus is the Mediator, and the Fulfiller of the law, and the complete righteousness of his people. Be thou, my honored Lord, the glorious Head, and Husband, of thy whole family. Thou art indeed the all in all, to the whole seed of Abraham; for in thee shall they people, in all nations, be blessed.–Robert Hawker
CHRIST’S WIFE DISTINGUISHED
You would surely think poorly of a wife who speaks little about her husband except perhaps to boast of his wealth and possessions, the things he gives to her, and what she has to do for him. You would perhaps assume she is ashamed of his person. I think the same of false churches, especially their ministers. They claim to be married to Jesus Christ. But what they speak of themselves and Him proves the marriage is a sham. He is as ashamed of them as they are of Him (Mk 8:38).They speak more about themselves than Christ: boasting of their supposed “freewill” rather than His sovereign will; boasting of how they “let” Him save them because He otherwise could not have done so; boasting of “deciding for Christ” and “finding Christ” and “accepting Christ” rather than Christ doing those things for them; boasting of “what I have done for Christ” rather than “what Christ has done for me”. They speak more about the blessings of Christ than Christ the Blesser: more about salvation than the Savior; more about redemption than the Redeemer; more about reconciliation than the Reconciler; more about justification than the Justifier; more about sanctification than the Sanctifier; more about glorification than the Glorifier. And they disdain the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ such as divine election in Christ to salvation, predestination with Christ, eternal acceptance in Christ, effectual redemption by Christ, and eternal security in Christ (Eph 1:3-14).They speak more about the things of Christ than the Christ of those things: more about the church of Christ than Christ its Head; more about the kingdom of Christ than Christ its King; more about the family of Christ than Christ its Father; more about the future coming of Christ than the coming Christ; more about the heaven Christ is preparing than Christ who alone is the glory of that place – and of going to heaven to “see my dear Mother”. The true wife of Christ is the church boasting of Him instead of herself, rejoicing more in the Blesser than in His blessings, and exalting Christ higher than His things. We are not ashamed of Him and His words (Mk 8:38) and His gospel (Romans 1:16) and His testimony (2 Tim 1:8). Christ’s church on earth glorifies God by and in and through Christ alone (Eph 3:21).
Daniel Parks
Wonderful Metaphors
O the wonder, the glory and beauty of God’s Word. It’s beyond our ability to fully understand and appreciate. But we marvel at what we do understand. God uses many things to describe His Word: everyday, ordinary, yet wonderful and necessary things. He likens His Word to things such as: Light, Bread, Milk, Honey, Meat, Fire, Water, Hammer, Sword, Plough, Seed, Rain, Dew, Treasure, Gold, Net, Mirror, a Kiss! All this and more is God’s Word for His people. -Paul Mahan
Total Depravity
The total depravity of man is so plainly taught in scripture that the only way the truth of it can be denied is by willful ignorance. Man by nature is willing to be ignorant of our total depravity because total depravity means that we are not good, but evil, so there is nothing good we can do to earn salvation. Total depravity means we cannot do anything to get God to save us. Total depravity means that we are completely dependent on God to save us by His sovereign grace. The first thing God teaches everyone He saves is that they are totally depraved and completely sinful. The only person who will beg God for mercy is someone who has been taught they are totally depraved so they cannot help themselves.
The job of God’s preacher is to preach Christ. Men will quit arguing about total depravity and their ability to make a decision for Jesus if the Lord ever gives them a glimpse of Christ by faith. This was Job’s experience. “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6) This was Isaiah’s experience.
“Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5) May the Lord be pleased by His grace to make this our experience! -Frank Tate
Assurance of Salvation
Do you believe, with one hundred percent certainty that you are saved? Now before we cause more unbelief and lack of assurance than already exist, let us considers the premise of that question. I hope you are saying; ‘Well I thought I was until you ask that question.’ The truth is, it is a bad question. The honest soul will have nothing but doubts trying to answer
it. Knowing their own capacity to deceive themselves, they will be caused to say with the disciples; ‘Lord is it I.’ This unscriptural question can only lead us to look within ourselves for assurance.
We know that any confidence that comes from the flesh is deceitful and evil. Only the religious find comfort in this question, because it takes them back to the very thing they are trusting in for their salvation. Those things are in truth, nothing more than a teetering wall, a broken cistern, and a false faith.
God’s means of comforting and assuring His children are found in a completely different question. Do you believe that Jesus (God does all the saving), is The Christ (sent of the Father to successfully accomplish
His purpose), The Son of The Living God (sovereign over the armies of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth)? Are you persuaded that He is able to keep that which you have committed unto Him against that day? Do you believe what the Scriptures clearly set forth about the glorious person and completed work of Christ? “These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through His name” True assurance of salvation is found only in the True Christ to whom sinners are always coming.
Greg Elmquist.
Who Can Bring What Is Clean From The Unclean?
Joe Terrell
“Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!” (Job 14:4)
“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalms 51:10)
The natural mind must consider it an impossibility that something clean could be brought forth from something unclean. Yet, what is impossible with man is possible with God. Yeah, God glorifies Himself in performing the impossible.
The Lord Jesus was clean in every sense of the word, yet he came from a long line of the unclean: The father of His clan, Judah, had a child by his dead son’s wife, Tamar, thinking she was a common prostitute. Perez, the second of twins born to that union, is the ancestor of Boaz, who married the Moabitess, Ruth, a Gentile woman whose ancestry comes from Lot and his incestuous relationship with his daughter. That is only part of the “unclean” line from which the Lord comes. The very best of the men in the Lord’s ancestry, David, was a violent and passionate man, guilty of adultery and murder. Yet from this unclean line, the Lord God brought forth the Clean One, even the Lord Jesus Christ, who did no sin, and knew no sin.
But much which passes for Christianity in our day is an attempt to bring the clean out of the unclean, for they believe and preach that an unclean man may produce something as clean as saving faith. Not even God tries to bring the clean and pure faith of the gospel out of an unclean heart. Instead, He regenerates the heart – creates within a natural, unclean man a clean and pure nature which, quite naturally and properly, believes God with a clean and sincere faith.
Do not ever expect that something clean will arise from your unclean flesh. It will be a constant source of pollution from now to the grave. Look to the Clean One, and trust that His cleanness will stand good for you. And rejoice that the God of all grace has created within you a clean heart, and from that heart you have been enabled to believe the gospel to the saving of your soul.
CHRIST IS SALVATION!
Henry Mahan
“All spiritual blessings that sovereign, gracious God has for sinners IN our Lord Jesus Christ, BY the merits and blood of our Lord, and FOR the glory of our Redeemer. Simply put, CHRIST IS SALVATION!
It is Christ, not the cross, who saves.
It is Christ, not the church, who justifies.
It is Christ, not my faith, nor my confession, nor my profession, who unites me to God.
It is the Master, not the mother, who is our Mediator.
It is His blood that cleanses, His obedience that sanctifies, His love that will not let me go, His faithfulness (not mine) constant and steadfast, and His promise, spoken to Peter but true of every believer, “I HAVE PRAYED FOR YOU.”
God only adds to his church those who should be saved. Who are these people of whom He speaks? These are all those that the Father determined to save for the glory of his name. “God hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” ( II Timothy 1: 9) I challenge you to find any reason for God to save any man apart from his purpose of grace. You cannot plead reform, willingness, or determination because “there is none righteous, none that understandeth, and none that seeketh after God.” (Romans 3: 9-19) You cannot plead Gods’ attributes. Our generation pleads Gods’ love attempting to make it universal. But you cannot find in the scriptures even a hint of universal love. In Psalms 5: 5 it says the “Lord hatest all workers of iniquity.” But in Romans 5: 8 he tells us that he commendeth his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. You can not plead Gods will as though it could be resisted. “He worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” (Ephesians 1:11). You cannot plead any change in God because in him there is no variableness neither shadow of turning. (James 1: 17) God is not attempting to save every man that will let him, but is effectually saving all that he purposed to save by his sovereign irresistible purpose and grace. — Darvin Pruitt