The first link between my soul and Christ is,\nnot my goodness, but my badness; not my merit but my misery, not my standing,\nbut my falling; not my riches, but my need. He comes to visit His people, yet\nnot to admire their beauties, but to remove their deformities, not to reward\ntheir virtues, but to forgive their sins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
C.H. Spurgeon<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A naked sinner can be clothed, but a\nsinner covered with his own righteousness must be stripped. This is always\ntrue. We must be stripped of all that has to do with self or we cannot be\nclothed with that which pertains of God. We are called to live by faith; we can\nsee nothing with the eye of sense. The Lord Jesus has gone up on high, and we\nare told to wait patiently for His appearing. God\u2019s Word carried home to the\nheart in the power of the Holy Spirit is the basis of confidence in all things;\ntemporal and spiritual, present and future. He tells us of Christ\u2019s completed\nsacrifice. We by grace believe and commit our souls to the efficacy thereof,\nand we know we shall never be disappointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pastor Scott Richardson (1923 \u2013 2010)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why? How? When?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To one whom God has revealed\nHimself, here are the final answers to every question that begins with \u201cWhy?\nHow? When? WHY? \u201cEven so Father: it seemed good in thy sight.\u201d (Matthew 11:26,\nLuke 10:21) HOW? \u201cAccording to the purpose of him who worketh all things after\nthe counsel of his own will.\u201d (Ephesians 1:11) WHEN? \u201cBut when it pleased God.\u201d\n\u201cUntil the time appointed.\u201d (Galatians 1:15, Galatians 4:2) I am so thankful\nthat our God is in the heavens doing whatsoever He has pleased. Remember, God\ndoesn\u2019t do something because it is right, it is right because God does it.\n \n \n~David Eddmenson<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HOW DO YOU COME TO CHRIST?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I believe that all who come to our\nRedeemer in saving faith do so PERSONALLY. I wish that I could believe God for\nmy family; but unless a man in his own heart believes on Christ, he will\nperish. Those who come to Christ will come SINCERELY. A man is not only\npersuaded that Christ is the way, but in his heart, he lovingly and sincerely\nagrees with God’s terms of salvation. “My son, give me thine heart” (Prov.\n23:26). It is the heart or nothing in this heavenly marriage. Also, those who\ncome to Christ do so RATIONALLY, in knowledge and understanding. They know WHAT\nHe saved them from \u2013 sin’s curse and condemnation. They know WHO saved them\u2013our\nLord Jesus Christ, the God-man. They know HOW He saved them\u2013by His perfect\nobedience and precious blood. They know WHY He saved them\u2013 “according to\nthe good pleasure of His own will” (grace, grace, and more grace). And\nthose who come to Christ come PERMANENTLY, with no intention of ever leaving\nHim; and, by His grace, with no possibility of ever being forsaken by Him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pastor Henry Mahan<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cFurthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord\nJesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God,\nso ye would abound more and more<\/em>.\u201d I Thessalonians 4:1<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nI ought to love my God and Saviour with all my heart, soul and strength. \nI ought to love my neighbour as much as I love myself. I ought to prefer\nmy brothers and sisters so much over myself, that I would die for them. I\nought to pray more. I ought to study the Scriptures more. I ought\nto love my wife and children more. I ought to think of my Saviour more\nand share His Gospel with others more. I ought to complain less and\npraise more. I ought to bow to all things providential. I ought to\nwalk and to please God so I could abound more and more as a child of the Living\nGod. I ought to do all these things out of love, adoration and for the glory of\nGod in the Lord Jesus Christ who loved me and gave Himself for me. Lord,\ncause me to do as I\nought! \n~David Eddmenson<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE\nHEART OF THE GOSPEL<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Christ\nwas born Holy and sinless and remained so for the 33 years He walked on this\nplanet. Even when He was made sin on the cross, He never committed a sin.\nBut when He was on the cross as the One who, \u201cBore our sins in His own body on\nthe tree,\u201d it was not the innocent being punished. While He never\ncommitted sin personally, He became guilty of the commission of the sins I\ncommitted. They became His sins. That is why God forsook Him! The\njustice of God would never punish the innocent! And just as truly as my\nsin became His sin, His righteousness becomes my personal righteousness! \n\u201cFor He hath made Him to be sin for us Who knew no sin, that we might be made\nthe righteousness of God in Him.\u201d While we will never plumb the depths of all\nthat means, we believe it and bow down and worship! This is the heart of\nthe Gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Great Attraction!<\/strong> As a preacher I cannot be\nvery proud of my diseased prayers and sin-stained sermons. Neither can I boast\nmuch of my daily backslidings, hardness of heart, discontent, vileness, and\nabominable filthiness. I at times know not what will become of me, and fear I\nshall live and die a reprobate. I find sin has such power over me, and, though\nI call on the Lord again and again for deliverance, seem to be as weak as ever\nwhen temptation comes. “O you hideous monster, sin, what a curse have you\nbrought in!” I love it, I hate it; I want to be delivered from the power\nof it, and yet am not satisfied without drinking down its poisoned sweets. It\nis my hourly companion and my daily curse, the breath of my mouth and the cause\nof my groans, my incentive to prayer and my hinderer of it, that which made a\nSaviour suffer and makes a Saviour precious, that which spoils every pleasure\nand adds a sting to every pain, that which fits a soul for heaven and that\nwhich ripens a soul for hell\u2026I at times quite despair of salvation, and then\nagain am as careless as if hell had no wrath and heaven no love; as if sin had\nno wormwood and pardon no sweet; as if there were no God to mark evil, and no\ndevil to tempt to it. So my friend you must not expect to find your winter\nfireside companion much grown in progressive sanctification and creature\nholiness.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n JC Philpot <\/p>\n\n\n\n “But there is forgiveness\nwith thee, that thou mayest be feared.” <\/em>Ps. 130:4. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My soul, this is a golden psalm, and\nevery portion of it more ponderous in value than the choicest gold of Ophir;\nand this verse is as the tried gold, to ascertain the purity and value of all\nthe rest. The cries of a truly broken heart, from the depth of sin to the depth\nof divine mercy, with which the psalm opens, prove the work of the Holy Ghost,\nimparting the words with which the humbled soul comes before the Lord. And the\nblessed consolations which this verse contains, in the view of the mercy-seat,\nand the mercy there (which is all-precious Jesus, the first-born in the womb of\nmercy; yea, mercy itself) as plainly prove the leadings of the Holy Ghost to\nhim, who alone can say, “Oh Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me\nis thy help!” (Hosea 13:9) Ponder,\nmy soul, these precious words: “But there is forgiveness with thee.\u201d Is it not as if you were to say\nto thy God and Father, when under deep searchings of heart by reason of\nconscious sin, There is Jesus with thee; he is my propitiation; he is my\npropitiatory, the mercy- seat, between the cherubim of glory; in whom, and from\nwhom, thou hast promised to speak to thy people! <\/p>\n\n\n\n And shall I doubt thy pardoning love\nand favour, as long as I behold Jesus with thee? Shall I for a moment question\nmy acceptance in the beloved, while I behold “the man at thy right hand,\neven the Son of man, whom thou madest strong for thyself?” Shall I fear\ncoming to a God in Christ for pardon, so long as I am interested in the\nforgiveness that is with thee, in God the Son’s righteousness and atoning\nblood; and God the Father’s covenant engagements in him, for the display of the\nglory of his grace?’ Oh, how unanswerably strong, conclusive, and satisfactory,\nto a poor burdened conscience, is this view of Jesus, the propitiatory; Jesus\nthe propitiation! But what is the meaning of the expression in the latter part\nof the verse; “there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be\nfeared?” Would not the verse read better if it were said, that thou mayest\nbe loved? Oh no; “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And\nalthough “perfect love casteth out fear,” that is, the fear of hell,\nthe bondage fear of unpardoned sin; yet, the child-like fear, which a sense of\npardoning love begets in the soul, is among the sweetest exercises of the\nrenewed nature. Devils fear and tremble, and feel despair and horror; but the\naffectionate fear of a dutiful child is the reverse of this, and only manifests\nitself in the most earnest desire never to offend. And the sense of God’s\nforgiving love, and of Jesus always on the propitiatory, becomes the great\npreservative from sin. Hence the Lord himself saith, “I will put my fear\nin their hearts, that they shall not depart from me,” Jer. 32:40. My soul,\nfold up this sweet portion, and take it with thee to thy pillow, that it may\nlie down with thee, and rest in thine heart; that Jesus, thy Jesus, thy\npropitiation, is with Jehovah, that thou mayest fear him; and he may be thy\nexceeding joy and confidence, both now and for ever. Amen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Robert Hawker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first link between my soul and Christ is, not my goodness, but my badness; not my merit but my misery, not my standing, but my falling; not my riches, but my need. He comes to visit His people, yet not to admire their beauties, but to remove their deformities, not to reward their virtues, […]<\/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-6828","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\/6828","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=6828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6829,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6828\/revisions\/6829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe following is from Spurgeon’s sermon,
\n“The Great Attraction” No. 775. John 12:32.
\n
\nChrist dying for sinners is the
\ngreat attraction of Christianity!
\n
\nSince men will not come to him, the crucified
\nSaviour becomes himself the attraction to men.
\nHe casts out from himself bands of love and
\ncords of gracious constraint, and binding these
\naround human hearts, he draws them to himself
\nby an invincible constraint of grace.
\n
\nSinners by nature will not come to Jesus, though
\nhis charms might even attract the blind, and
\narouse the dead. They will not melt, though
\nsurely such beauties might dissolve the adamant,
\nand kindle affection in rock of ice.
\n
\nBut Jesus has a wondrous power about him
\nto woo and win the sons of men. Out of his
\nheart proceed chains of gold by which he binds
\nthousands of willing captives to himself.
\n
\nMany a heart has been so charmed with his
\nlove, that it has run to Christ, drawn by the
\nsilken bonds of love.
\n
\nJesus is the universal attraction, the attraction
\nto which all hearts must yield when he draws
\neffectually by his grace.
\n
\nThe attraction of the Crucified One
\nhas bound them to the cross forever!
\n
\nThe gracious Spirit has moved many tender
\nhearts first to pity, and afterwards to love
\nthe bleeding Lamb.
\n
\nWhat a melting power there is in Gethsemane!
\nCan you view the bloody sweat drops, as they
\nfall upon the frozen soil, and not feel that, in
\nsome degree, invisible but irresistible cords
\nare drawing you to Jesus?
\n
\nCan you see him flagellated in Pilate’s hall, every
\nthong of the scourge tearing the flesh from his
\nshoulders? Can you see him as they spit into his
\nlovely face, and mar his blessed visage, and not
\nfeel as if you could fain fall down and kiss his feet,
\nand make yourself forever his servant?
\n
\nAnd, lastly, can you behold him hanging upon the
\nhill of Golgotha to die- can you mark him as his
\nsoul is there overwhelmed with the wrath of God,
\nwith the bitterness of sin, and with a sense of
\nutter desertion- can you sit down and watch him
\nthere and not be attracted to him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n