Where Does Grace Lead?
\nSome people would have us believe that if we preach pure grace it will lead people to licentious living. They say if we remove the law as a guide or motivation for Christian living, people will have nothing to keep them holy. They say to tell a person to just follow Christ doesn\u2019t provide enough structure and will lead people to careless living. Is that where the gospel of God\u2019s free and sovereign grace in Christ Jesus leads? Grace preachers have always been, and always will be, falsely accused of this devilish lie. The apostle Paul spent most of his time defending the gospel of grace against this lawmongers view of self- righteousness. \u201cWhat then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.\u201d Rom 6:15 No, grace does not lead to sin, grace leads to Christ. Truth is; \u201cThe strength of sin is the law.\u201d 1 Cor.15:56. Show me a man preaching the law, and I\u2019ll show you a people with no hope for their sin. ~Greg<\/p>\n
“THE GOSPEL OF FREE GRACE”
\nHenry Mahan<\/p>\n
It is not easy to preach the gospel of free grace because by nature we are prone to get bound by a system. It is very easy to get bound to a creed or a system or denominational guidelines, and then try to make God’s Word fit that system, fit that creed, or fit those guidelines. We begin to hunt what we already believe in the Bible, and that is dangerous. I’ve heard many Arminian preachers tremble lest they go an inch beyond John Wesley, or an inch beyond Arminius, or an inch beyond some other famous free-will preacher. Then I’ve heard some Calvinists, some sovereign grace preachers, who speak as if John Calvin were the final authority. Well, these men are not the final authority…. It is time that the Scripture becomes our final authority…. We are to seek to preach the Word of God — not what Baptists believe; the Word of God, not what Calvinists believe…. I really don’t know any difference in what they call high doctrine and low doctrine. I read these statements, “That’s high doctrine — that’s low doctrine.” Well, if God’s Word teaches it that’s enough; and if God’s Word doesn’t teach it, let’s do away with it.<\/p>\n
Henry Mahan, Pastor
\nThirteenth Street Baptist Church
\nAshland, Ky.<\/p>\n
HUMBLED OR ANGERED<\/p>\n
\u201cRebuke a wise man, and he will love thee\u201d (Proverbs 9:8).<\/p>\n
Someone has said, “Faithful reproofs, if they don’t profit you will provoke you.” God’s prophet, John the Baptist, faithfully rebuked Herod for taking his brother’s wife (Matt. 14:4). Herod’s response to the truth of God was anger and murder toward God’s prophet. On another occasion, the prophet of God, Nathan, rebuked King David for taking Bathsheba to be his wife and for the murder of Uriah the Hittite, her husband (2 Sam. 12:7-14). David, instead of being angry, was humbled and confessed before God that he was a sinner and begged for mercy. David expressed this in Psalm 51, \u201cHave mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.\u201d Now here is the question for us. How do we react to the rebuke of Holy Scripture? Are we humbled and broken hearted? Do we beg God for mercy and forgiveness or do we get angry and upset? Believers are humbled, those who don’t believe God are only angered and enraged.
\nPastor Tom Harding<\/p>\n
Job’s religion<\/p>\n
“Oh that I knew where I might find Him!” Job 23:3<\/p>\n
What a mere shallow pretense to vital godliness
\nsatisfies most ministers, most hearers, and most
\ncongregations!<\/p>\n
But there was a reality in Job’s religion. <\/p>\n
It was not of a flimsy, notional, superficial nature.
\nIt was not merely a sound Calvinistic creed, and
\nnothing more. It was not a religion of theory and
\nspeculation, nor a well-compacted system of
\ndoctrines and duties. There was something deeper,
\nsomething more divine in Job’s religion than any
\nsuch mere pretense, delusion, imitation, or hypocrisy.<\/p>\n
And if our religion be of the right kind, there will be
\nsomething deeper in it, something more powerful,
\nspiritual, and supernatural, than notions and doctrines,
\ntheories and speculations, merely passing to and fro
\nin our minds, however scriptural and correct.<\/p>\n
There will be a divine reality in it, if God the Spirit be
\nthe author of it. And there will be no trifling with the
\nsolemn things of God, and with our own immortal souls.
\nJ.C.philpot<\/p>\n
“God made Him who had no sin\u2014to be sin for us” 2 Corinthians 5:21
\nBehold the beloved Jesus, perfectly spotless and holy\u2014yet made an example of the severest justice.
\nBehold Him . . .
\nprostrate and agonizing in the garden;
\nenduring the vilest insults from wicked men;
\ntorn with whips, and nails, and thorns;
\nsuspended, naked, wounded, and bleeding upon the cross\u2014forsaken by God.
\nSin was the cause of all His anguish. He stood in the place of sinners, and therefore was not spared.
\nNot any, or all, the evils which the world has known\u2014afford such proof of the dreadful effects and detestable nature of sin, as the knowledge of Christ crucified!
\nJohn Newton<\/p>\n
The cause of all crime, and the seed of every evil!<\/p>\n
Could we roll all sins into one mass\u2014could we take murder, blasphemy, lust, theft, immorality, and everything that is vile, and unite them all into one vast ball of horrid corruption\u2014they would not even then equal the sin of unbelief!<\/p>\n
Unbelief is . . .
\nthe king sin,
\nthe quintessence of guilt,
\nthe mixture of the venom of all crimes,
\nthe dregs of the wine of Gomorrah,
\nthe root sin,
\nthe masterpiece of Satan,
\nthe chief work of the devil. <\/p>\n
Unbelief developed into deicide\u2014and murdered the Lord Jesus Christ! <\/p>\n
Unbelief! it has mixed many a cup of poison. It has brought thousands to the gallows, and many to a shameful grave. Many have murdered themselves, and rushed with bloody hands before their Creator’s tribunal, because of unbelief.<\/p>\n
Give me an unbeliever\u2014let me know that he doubts God’s Word\u2014let me know that he distrusts His promises and His threatenings; and with that for a premise, I will conclude that the man shall, by-and-by, unless there is amazing restraining power exerted upon him\u2014be guilty of the foulest and vilest crimes!<\/p>\n
Unbelief is a Beelzebub sin; like Beelzebub, it is the leader of all evil spirits. It is said of Jeroboam that he sinned, and made Israel to sin; and it may be said of unbelief, that it not only itself sins, but it makes others sin.<\/p>\n
Unbelief is the cause of all crime, and the seed of every evil! In fact, everything that is evil and vile lies couched in that one word\u2014unbelief!
\nC.H.Spurgeon<\/p>\n
THE MANIFEST DIFFERENCE
\n1 John 3: 8: He that [apostatizes] is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 9: Whosoever is born of God doth not [apostatize]; for [Christ\u2019s] seed remaineth in him: and he cannot [apostatize], because he is born of God. 10: In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
\nJohn showed us that the believer who abides in Christ does so because we are born of our everlasting Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, John contrasts us with the apostate, declaring he that apostatizes is of his father, the devil.
\n\u201cDoing righteousness\u201d means \u201cabiding in Christ\u201d because John contrasts \u201cabiding in Christ\u201d with the child of the devil who commits the same sin as his father the devil, \u201cHe that sinneth is of the devil; for the devil SINNETH from the beginning.\u201d What sin did the devil do from the beginning?
\nJohn 8:44: Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and ABODE NOT IN THE TRUTH, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it\u2026.47: He that is OF GOD HEARETH GOD\u2019S WORDS: ye therefore HEAR THEM NOT, BECAUSE YE ARE NOT OF GOD.
\nWe will look at the following in more detail next time. But, briefly, notice that John gives glory to Christ, declaring the reason the child of God cannot apostatize is because of Christ\u2019s works for us and in us. \u201cFor this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.\u201d Christ did so on the cross when he Christ crushed the devil\u2019s head and Christ does so in us when he binds the strongman and takes dominion in our hearts in the new birth. Therefore, \u201cWhosoever is born of God doth not [apostatize]; for [Christ\u2019s] seed remaineth in him: and he cannot [apostatize], because he is born of God.\u201d
\nThis is the only manifest unmistakable difference between the children of God and the children of the devil\u20141 John 3: 10: In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness [believeth not and abideth not in Christ] is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother\u2026
\nBut the child of God keeps the commandments of our Father\u20141 John 3: 23: And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, [which is doing righteousness, abiding in Christ] and love one another, as he gave us commandment. 24: And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.
\nAmen!
\nClay Curtis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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