Regeneration is not a change of the old nature, but the introduction of
a new nature. It is the implanting of the nature of life of the second
Adam by the operation of the Holy Ghost, founded upon the accomplished
redemption of the Lord Jesus, and in full keeping with the Sovereign
will of God. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Pastor Scott Richardson
Pharisees and Publicans both pour out their hearts before God, the one
bragging and the other begging. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0C.H. Spurgeon
Struggling against the power of sin?
How many poor souls are struggling against the\u00a0power of sin, and yet never get any victory over it!
How many are daily led captive by . . .
the lusts of the flesh,
the love of the world,
and the pride of life,
and never get any victory over them!
How many fight and grapple with tears, vows,and strong resolutions against their besetting\u00a0sins, who are still entangled and overcome by\u00a0them again and again! Now, why is this?
Because they do not know the secret of spiritual\u00a0strength against, and spiritual victory over them.
It is only by virtue of a living union with the\u00a0Lord Jesus Christ\u2014drinking into His sufferings
and death\u2014and receiving out of His fullness,\u00a0that we can gain any victory over . . .
the world,\u00a0sin,\u00a0death,\u00a0or hell.
Sin is never really or effectually subdued in any other way.
It is not by legalistic strivings and earnest resolutions,\u00a0vows, and tears\u2014the vain struggle of ‘religious flesh’\u00a0to subdue ‘sinful flesh’\u2014that can overcome sin.
But it is by a believing acquaintance with, and a\u00a0spiritual entrance into the sufferings and sorrows\u00a0of the Son of God\u2014having a living faith in Him,\u00a0and receiving out of His fullness supplies of grace\u00a0and strength. J.C.Philpot
Jesus Christ and Him crucified
“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except\u00a0Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, is the way in which God . . .
displays His perfections,\u00a0unfolds His purposes,\u00a0maintains His rights,\u00a0confounds His foes, and\u00a0secures His glory in the salvation of His people.
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, is the only way in which . . .\u00a0death is destroyed,\u00a0sin is conquered,\u00a0righteousness is established,\u00a0rebels are reconciled,\u00a0saints are sanctified,\u00a0and Heaven is opened!<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
The only way a person can be accepted by God is by having a perfect \u00a0sacrifice. That sacrifice is of God\u2019s own providing. The Lord Jesus Christ is the sacrifice that God has provided, and what He provides, He will accept.\u00a0Pastor Scott Richardson
He has rescued us!
(Charles Spurgeon)
“The human heart is most deceitful and desperately \u00a0wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” Jer. 17:9
“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)\u00a0dwells no good thing.” Romans 7:18
There is nothing in man by nature apart from\u00a0God, which is not vile and deceitful.
If there is anything good in me,\u00a0if I have been transformed by the renewing of my mind,\u00a0if I am regenerate,\u00a0if I have passed from death unto life,\u00a0if I have been taken out of the family of Satan,\u00a0if I am adopted into the family of God’s dear Son,\u00a0if I am now no longer an heir of wrath,\u00a0if I am a now a child of heaven,\u00a0then all these things are of God, and in no sense,
and in no degree whatever, are they of myself!\u00a0“For He has rescued us from the kingdom of\u00a0darkness and has brought us into the Kingdom\u00a0of His dear Son.” Colossians 1:13
The Gospel
(Octavius Winslow, “Morning Thoughts”)
The gospel is the ‘master work’ of Jehovah,\u00a0presenting the greatest display of His manifold\u00a0wisdom, and the most costly exhibition of the\u00a0riches of His grace. In constructing it He would
seem to have summoned to His aid all the\u00a0resources of His own infinity . . .
His fathomless wisdom,\u00a0His boundless love,\u00a0His illimitable grace,\u00a0His infinite power,\u00a0His spotless holiness,\u00a0all contributed their glory, and conspired\u00a0to present it to the universe as the most\u00a0consummate piece of Divine workmanship!
The revelations it makes,\u00a0the facts it records,\u00a0the doctrines it propounds,\u00a0the effects is produces,\u00a0proclaim it to be the “glorious\u00a0gospel of the blessed God.”
We live encircled by SHADOWS . . .\u00a0our friends are shadows,\u00a0our comforts are shadows,\u00a0our supports are shadows,\u00a0our pursuits are shadows, and\u00a0we ourselves are shadows passing away. \u00a0But in the precious gospel we have SUBSTANCE,\u00a0we have reality, we have that which remains\u00a0with us when all other things disappear, leaving\u00a0the soul desolate, the heart bleeding, and the\u00a0spirit bowed in sorrow to the dust.
But the gospel . . .\u00a0guides our perplexities,\u00a0mitigates our griefs,\u00a0sanctifies our sorrows,\u00a0heals our wounds,\u00a0dries our tears,\u00a0because it leads us to . . .the love,\u00a0the tenderness,\u00a0the sympathy,\u00a0the grace of JESUS.
The gospel . . .
reveals Jesus,\u00a0speaks mainly of Jesus,\u00a0leads simply to Jesus,\u00a0and this makes it “glad tidings of great joy,” to\u00a0a poor, lost, ruined, tried, and tempted sinner!
<\/p>\n
“But God……”
by Jonathan Edwards-
“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the\u00a0kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually
immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes\u00a0nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor\u00a0drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the
kingdom of God. And that is what some of you WERE.\u00a0BUT you were washed, you were sanctified, you were\u00a0justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and\u00a0by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Col. 6:9-11)
For such WERE the some of you.
The case was just so with you as you have heard- you had such\u00a0a wicked heart, you lived such a wicked life, and it would have\u00a0been most just with God for ever to have cast you off.
BUT He has had mercy upon; he has made his glorious\u00a0grace appear in your everlasting salvation.
You had no love to God;\u00a0But yet He exercised unspeakable love to you.\u00a0You have scorned God, and set light by Him; but so great a\u00a0value has God’s grace set on you and your happiness, that you\u00a0have been redeemed at the price of the blood of His own Son.\u00a0You chose to be with Satan in his service;\u00a0but yet God has made you a joint heir with Christ of His glory.\u00a0You were ungrateful for past mercies;\u00a0yet God not only continued those mercies,\u00a0but bestowed unspeakably greater mercies upon you.\u00a0You refused to hear when God called; yet God has manifested the infiniteness of\u00a0that mercy in the exercises of it towards you.<\/p>\n
You have rejected Christ, and set Him at nought;\u00a0and yet He has become your Savior.
You have neglected your own salvation;\u00a0but God has not neglected it.
You would have destroyed yourself but yet in God has been\u00a0your help. But God has magnified His free grace towards you,\u00a0and not to others.
Because He has chosen you, and it has pleased Him\u00a0to set His love upon you.
PAID IN FULL!
from Spurgeon, “IT IS FINISHED!” (No. 421)
The satisfaction which Jesus rendered\u00a0to the JUSTICE OF GOD was finished!\u00a0
The debt was now, to the last farthing, all discharged.
The atonement and propitiation were made once for all, and\u00a0forever, by the one offering made in Jesus’ body on the tree.
There was the cup, hell was in it, the Savior drank it — not a\u00a0sip and then a pause; not a draught and then a ceasing, but he\u00a0drained it till there is not a dreg left for any of his people.
The great ten-thonged whip of the law was worn\u00a0out upon his back, there is no lash left with\u00a0which to smite one for whom Jesus died.
The great cannonade of God’s justice has exhausted\u00a0all its ammunition, there is nothing left to be\u00a0hurled against a child of God.\u00a0
Sheathed is your sword, O Justice!\u00a0Silenced is your thunder, O Law!\u00a0
There remains nothing now of all the griefs, and\u00a0pains, and agonies which chosen sinners ought to have\u00a0suffered for their sins, for Christ has endured all\u00a0for his own beloved, and “it is finished.”
Christ has done what all the flames of the pit could\u00a0not do in all eternity– Christ has paid the debt which\u00a0all the torments of eternity could not have paid!
A lost and undone sinner? \u00a0Winslow, “The Impenitent Sinner Warned”
No man shall value Christ, or His precious\u00a0atonement, until he has been made to see and\u00a0feel himself to be a lost and undone sinner.
Christ is precious only to the soul that feels….\u00a0its spiritual poverty,\u00a0its vileness,\u00a0its emptiness,\u00a0its nothingness.
To such an individual, Jesus is everything. \u00a0The deeper the Eternal Spirit leads him to an\u00a0acquaintance with himself, the more precious is\u00a0that Savior, whom he now finds to be the very\u00a0Savior that he needs.
The daily discovery of….\u00a0indwelling corruption,\u00a0inordinate affection, pride,\u00a0self esteem,\u00a0instability,\u00a0love of the world,\u00a0and the innumerable other forms which indwelling\u00a0depravity assumes, endears to him the fountain\u00a0that cleanses from all sin; he repairs afresh to it,\u00a0washes again and again in it; and these daily\u00a0applications to the atoning blood make sin\u00a0increasingly sinful, and strengthen the panting\u00a0of his soul for divine conformity.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Regeneration is not a change of the old nature, but the introduction of a new nature. It is the implanting of the nature of life of the second Adam by the operation of the Holy Ghost, founded upon the accomplished redemption of the Lord Jesus, and in full keeping with the Sovereign will of God. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bulletin-editions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3573,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions\/3573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}