Oct 18
14
My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass. But Thou, O LORD, shalt endure forever; and Thy remembrance unto all generations. Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come.” Ps. 102:11-13
What a privilege we have to be able and entitled through sheer, undeserved grace to call God our Father, Christ our elder brother, and the elect body of scattered strangers worldwide our brothers and sisters in the family of God and in the church of the firstborn.
Dear friends here in Nowra, I know there are brothers and sisters around the world interceding for you today. Some of these saints you know and some you don’t know, but they have offered up prayers for you, and for this service today. I know also that the Lord hears these prayers and delights to honour them. But these are prayers for blessings we can obtain only when we gather under the sound of the gospel.
We are one body, though many parts. One family in our Lord Jesus Christ, though thinly spread on the face of this globe. United, joined and one together with Him through His death and resurrection.
This union and these relationships are exclusive to us and precious. They have been won for us at great cost by our wonderful Saviour. Let us cherish them and, dare I say, venture on them actively and confidently. For we have the right, as children, to go boldly into His presence with our hopes, fears, requests and petitions. Remember, our big brother has said, And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it (John 14:13, 14).
Peter Meney
New Focus Magazine is purposefully and plainly a sovereign grace publication. We seek with every edition 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).
Peter Meney
Only those who have experienced the miracle of the new birth know the difference between professing Christ and possessing Christ. Pastor Gene Harmon
While in this world, the lost sinner is weary of dying, while the child of God is weary of living. Pastor David Eddmenson
Isa 30:18 And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
Isa 30:19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.
Isa 30:20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:
Isa 30:21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
THE prophet in this chapter describes a people upon whom the Lord waits to be gracious, that is, he observes their conduct, considers their straits and troubles, and suffers their cases to get desperate, with respect to human aid, that he may display the riches of his grace when there is no eye to pity nor hand to help, and that his strength may be perfected in their weakness; by which means he convinces them of their sins and of their insufficiency, and so stops the mouth of boasting, and secures the glory of their salvation to himself, verse 18.
He further intimates that God’s gracious deliverance of them shall be obtained in answer to weeping, crying, and praying, ver. 19. And that for a while adversity and oppression shall be their sorrowful meat and drink; yet that it shall terminate in such an unctuous and experimental knowledge of the truth, as shall greatly fortify them against the seduction of blind watchmen and dumb dogs. “Thy teachers shall not be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers,” verse 20.
William Huntington
Our Wonderful Brother and Friend
Our glorious Lord and precious Saviour Jesus Christ accomplished extraordinary things by His life and death. His is the story without equal in the history of this world. No priest, no prophet, no religious teacher, no imam, preacher, or pope ever accomplished for us what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished.
The eternal Word became a man. He joined Himself to our flesh as One with His people. In so doing He revealed Himself to be our suitable Representative. Willingly and voluntarily He offered Himself for our lives and died as our Substitute, thereby atoning for our iniquity and every sin of His people.
By His obedience unto death He satisfied on our behalf every demand of righteousness, and fulfilled every requirement, of the holy Lord God.
Giving up His ghost He tasted death for us, entered the strong man’s house, bound him fast and spoiled His goods.
Rising again He broke the fearful power of death, established His kingdom of life and light and bound us eternally to God as our Father. He did for us what no other could do, and did it in love for mercy’s sake.
At His resurrection our Redeemer said to Mary Magdalene,
“… go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17).
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 2:11).
Peter Meney
Isa 30:18 And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
Isa 30:19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.
Isa 30:20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:
Isa 30:21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
THE prophet in this chapter describes a people upon whom the Lord waits to be gracious, that is, he observes their conduct, considers their straits and troubles, and suffers their cases to get desperate, with respect to human aid, that he may display the riches of his grace when there is no eye to pity nor hand to help, and that his strength may be perfected in their weakness; by which means he convinces them of their sins and of their insufficiency, and so stops the mouth of boasting, and secures the glory of their salvation to himself, verse 18.
He further intimates that God’s gracious deliverance of them shall be obtained in answer to weeping, crying, and praying, ver. 19. And that for a while adversity and oppression shall be their sorrowful meat and drink; yet that it shall terminate in such an unctuous and experimental knowledge of the truth, as shall greatly fortify them against the seduction of blind watchmen and dumb dogs. “Thy teachers shall not be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers,” verse 20.
William Huntington
Our Wonderful Brother and Friend
Our glorious Lord and precious Saviour Jesus Christ accomplished extraordinary things by His life and death. His is the story without equal in the history of this world. No priest, no prophet, no religious teacher, no imam, preacher, or pope ever accomplished for us what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished.
The eternal Word became a man. He joined Himself to our flesh as One with His people. In so doing He revealed Himself to be our suitable Representative. Willingly and voluntarily He offered Himself for our lives and died as our Substitute, thereby atoning for our iniquity and every sin of His people.
By His obedience unto death He satisfied on our behalf every demand of righteousness, and fulfilled every requirement, of the holy Lord God.
Giving up His ghost He tasted death for us, entered the strong man’s house, bound him fast and spoiled His goods.
Rising again He broke the fearful power of death, established His kingdom of life and light and bound us eternally to God as our Father. He did for us what no other could do, and did it in love for mercy’s sake.
At His resurrection our Redeemer said to Mary Magdalene,
“… go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17).
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 2:11).
Peter Meney