Jun 23
25
“Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto Thee. Hide not Thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline Thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.” Ps. 102:1-2
“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house
of the LORD.” Ps. 122:1.
“Christ is all!” Without him we are nothing and have nothing, but sin and death (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).
All that God has for guilty sinners,
all that he does for guilty sinners,
all that he requires of guilty sinners is in Jesus Christ, our incarnate, crucified, risen, exalted Substitute.
Don Fortner
Needless Fears Isaiah 51:12-13
“I, even I, am he that comforteth you.” Our Comforter is the Triune God, the God of omnipotence, sovereignty, immutability, and grace! He comforts us by assuring us of his presence (Isaiah 41:10), his purpose (Hebrews 6:14), his providence (Romans 8:28), his provision (Psalm 34:10), his protection (Psalm 91:4-11), and his preservation (Jude 24-25). Repeatedly our God calls for us to look to him, to trust him, and to quit being afraid of anything or anyone. He says, “Fear not,” and assures us that we have nothing to fear.
“Who art thou, that shouldest be afraid of a man?” What a rebuke this question is to every child of God who walks in fear! Remember who you are – A child of God, chosen, redeemed, called, and adopted by grace! Remember also that your enemies are mere creatures, “Man that shall die…the son of man which shall be made as grass!” Why should the children of the eternal God fear the wrath of perishing men?
“And forgettest the LORD thy maker!” Fear is the forgetfulness of God. Whenever we are engaged in fear, we have forgotten the promises, power, providence, and past performances of our God for us.
“Where is the fury of the oppressor?” Even when the oppressor is real and furious, there is no cause for fear. His fury shall never be satisfied upon God’s elect, for he has absolutely no ability to hurt us. How much more this word applies to those many imaginary dangers we invent in our unbelieving minds! May God give us grace to trust him and not be afraid (Matthew 6:25-34).
Faith is like an empty, open hand stretched out towards God, with
nothing to offer and everything to receive.
John Calvin
“To The Glory Of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31
If you are serious about the glory of God, if you really want to do all things “to the glory of God,” you do not have to guess about how to do so. God tells us how to do so by the pen of Solomon in Proverbs 3:1-12.
- ïOur lives must be ruled by the Word of God. “My son, forget not my law (v. 1). The word that Solomon uses for law comes from a root word which means “to instruct,” or “to direct.” It refers not to the letter of the law, but to the teaching of the law, the teaching of the Word of God. As the ark of God was the keeping place of God’s law, so our hearts must keep the gospel of Christ. A godly life begins with the doctrine of Christ being laid up in the heart. Thus we obtain eternal life.
- ïWe must imitate the character of God in our lives. “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart” (v. 3). We do not obtain God’s mercy by being merciful, but any who have God’s mercy, any who have experienced his grace are transformed into the image of God and bear in their lives the stamp of his character. God’s people are merciful, gracious, and true (Ephesians 5:1-2).
- ïWe must trust the Lord our God in all the affairs of our lives. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (vv. 5-6). We must lean upon him entirely. There is no other way to please and honour him (Hebrews 11:5-6). Any limit to this confidence in God is a heinously evil thing. Unbelief is the most ignominious thing in the life of a believer (Psalm 78:18-23).
- ïWe must carefully avoid self-confidence and seek to live in the fear of God. “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil” (v. 7). The fear of God and the fear of sin always go hand in hand. Where God is honoured, sin is hated. Our souls are healthy and strong only when we “fear the LORD and depart from evil.”
- ïWe must use what we possess for the honour of God. “Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase” (v. 9). To the religious hypocrite, this is a demanding sacrifice and hard duty. To the believer it is a great privilege to lay aside a portion of his substance with this sacred stamp upon it – “This is for God.” “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him”(1 Corinthians 16:2).
- ïWe must submit to our Father’s chastening rod. “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (vv. 11-12). Divine chastisements are gracious in design and in execution. Therefore, we must never despise them or faint because of them. We must learn from the afflictions of providence and be content with our Father’s discipline.
“Salvation is of the Lord.” Jonah 2:9
All men and women, since the fall of our Father Adam, are born in a state of sin, total depravity, alienation from God, and spiritual death.
Man is not just poor. He is bankrupt.
Man is not just weak. He is helpless.
Man is not sick. He is dead.
We are all by nature totally depraved (Genesis 6:5), haters of God (Psalm 81:15; Romans 1:30; 8:7), and incapable of doing good, or even coming to Christ in faith (John 6:44; Romans 3:9-10).
“Salvation is of the Lord.” Salvation is God’s work alone. It is a work of eternal, covenant grace (2 Timothy 1:9), beginning with sovereign, electing love (2 Thessalonians 2:13), secured for God’s elect by Divine predestination (Ephesians 1:4, 5, 11), purchased for the chosen by the effectual atonement of Christ’s death as our Substitute (Hebrews 9:12), effectually applied to the redeemed at the appointed time of love by God the Holy Spirit (Psalm 65:4; Romans 9:16), and infallibly secures the perseverance of every true believer (Ecclesiastes 3:14). Every sinner who trusts the Lord Jesus Christ is saved, has passed from death to life, and must possess all the blessedness and glory of heaven forever. “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).
The strongest inducement for a Christian to obey God is the fact
that he has already been graciously pardoned in Christ for having
disobeyed. ~Author unknown
Whatever we have of this world in our hands, our care must be to
keep it out of our hearts, lest it come between us and Christ.
~Matthew Henry
In respect to GOD, the death of Christ was justice and mercy. In
respect to THIS WORLD, the death of Christ was murder and
cruelty. In respect to HIMSELF, the death of Christ was
obedience and humility. In respect to HIS ELECT, the death of
Christ was wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and
redemption.
John Flavel
He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. Prov. 28:26b.
We hear men say, “Follow your heart”. When God makes you to
be a sinner, you know your heart is deceitful and desperately
wicked. As we grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, we
become more painfully experienced with deceitfulness of our
sinful hearts. The rest of the verse quoted above says, “but
whosoever walketh wisely, he shall be delivered”. To walk
wisely is to look to and trust in Christ. To be delivered is to have
our hearts exposed and to have Christ revealed. Don’t follow
your heart, follow Christ.
Greg Elmquist
Faith, not a Feeling
Salvation is not a question of feeling, as so many would make it.
It is entirely a matter of faith in a person, in an accomplished fact
faith wrought in the soul of a sinner by the power of the Holy
Ghost. This faith is something quite different from a mere feeling
of the person or an assent of the intellect. Mere feeling and
sentimentality (or emotion) can never rise above the source from
whence they come, and that source is self; but faith has to do with
God and His eternal Word, and is a living link, connecting the
heart that possesses it with God who gives it. Feelings and
sentiments can never connect with the soul of God. No doubt,
faith will produce feeling and sentiments (spiritual feelings and
truthful sentiments)—but the fruits of faith must never be
confounded with faith itself. He can only be known by His own
revelation and by the faith which He Himself imparts.
Scott Richardson
WEAK faith is TRUE faith; for the Author and Finisher is the
same as the Object – Our Lord Jesus Christ. A weak and frail
hand can put food in the mouth as well as if it were a strong hand,
seeing the body is not nourished by the hand at all but by the
meat. It is not faith that justifies, sanctifies, and redeems – IT IS
CHRIST!
John Rogers
If there be anything plainly taught in Scripture, it is that the
sacrifice of Christ was made for those only who shall eventually
be saved by it. If the wisdom of men cannot reconcile this with
their views of what is right, let them be prepared to dispute the
matter with the Almighty in the Day of Judgment.
Alexander Carson
Faith, not a Feeling
Salvation is not a question of feeling, as so many would make it. It is entirely a matter of faith in a person, in an accomplished fact faith wrought in the soul of a sinner by the power of the Holy Ghost. This faith is something quite different from a mere feeling of the person or an assent of the intellect. Mere feeling and sentimentality (or emotion) can never rise above the source from whence they come and that source is self; but faith has to do with God and His eternal Word, and is a living link, connecting the heart that possesses it with God who gives it. Feelings and sentiments can never connect with the soul of God. No doubt, faith will produce feeling and sentiments (spiritual feelings and truthful sentiments)—but the fruits of faith must never be confounded with faith itself. He can only be known by His own revelation and by the faith which He Himself imparts. Pastor Scott Richardson
“The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD” Prov. 16:33.
Is it not wonderfully settling to the heart of a redeemed and regenerated sinner to know that our God does all things well? We plan according to the way we think things should go, but He Who rules in heaven and earth is the Determiner and Director of all things. As we consider the way that our precious Lord has been pleased to move in our midst, may we be reminded that He, “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will,” and that as we behold His gracious hand of providence, may we remember too that, “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” If we could see the end, as He sees, we would never doubt, question, or complain.
Marvin Stalnaker