2009 June « Salvation By Grace

Archive for June, 2009

Spurgeon Morning and Evening June 14th a.m.

Posted in Lifestyle with tags Happiness, Praise on June 14, 2009 by Harry

DELIGHT YOURSELF IN THE LORD. – PSALM 37:4

The teaching of these words must seem very surprising to those who are strangers to vital godliness, but to the sincere believer it is only the reminder of a recognized truth. The life of the believer is described as a delight in God, and we are reminded of the great fact that genuine faith overflows with happiness and joy. Ungodly persons and mere professors never look upon religion as a joyful thing; to them it is service, duty, or necessity, but never pleasure or delight. If they attend to religion at all, it is either because of what they might get or because they are afraid of the consequences of neglect. The thought of delight in religious exercise is so strange to most men that no two words in their language stand further apart than holiness and delight. But believers who know Christ understand that delight and faith are so wonderfully united that the gates of hell cannot manage to separate them. Those who love God with all their hearts find that His ways are ways of pleasantness, and all His paths are peace. The saints discover in Christ such joy, such overflowing delight, such blessedness that far from serving Him from custom, they would follow Him even though the whole world rejected Him. We do not fear God because of any compulsion; our faith is no shackle, our profession is no bondage, we are not dragged to holiness, nor driven to duty. No, our piety is our pleasure, our hope is our happiness, our duty is our delight.
Delight and true faith are as interwoven as root and flower, as indivisible as truth and certainty; they are, in fact, two precious stones glittering side by side in a setting of gold.

‘Tis when we taste Thy love,
Our joys divinely grow,
Unspeakable like those above,
And heaven begins below.

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Alistair Begg on Godliness

Posted in Preaching with tags Godliness on June 13, 2009 by Harry

11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

From “A Charge to A Man of God, Part 2, A” based on 1 Timothy 6:11-12
Godliness or spiritual fitness is expressive of an old word which has fallen into disrepute – piety
- Piety is usually taken as a negative or derogatory term even when it is used among believing people
- We are dismissing what Paul says to Timothy we are to pursue
- One of the reasons we have so little impact on our culture is we have distanced ourselves from the very things that would make us distinctive
  - Church doesn’t make us distinctive in of itself
  - Religious interest doesn’t make us distinctive
  - A concern for spiritual things only puts on par with millions of people across this nation
  - It is going to have to be something else and it is
- There is no question that there is a legalism and a self-deceit that is wrapped up in false kinds of piety – Jesus abhorred that stuff in the Pharisees
  - Don’t draw attention to yourself be pious, be Godly
Alistair reads from Lewis Bailey “The Practice of Piety”
Preaching
- We actually believe the mouth of God is heard through the mouth of a man

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R.C. Sproul on How to Study the Bible

Posted in * Favorites, Bible on June 13, 2009 by Harry

R.C. Sproul from 2005 Ligonier National Conference
Fundamentals of biblical interpretation, from his book “Knowing Scripture”
There is only one meaning in interpretation of scripture
10 practical rules for biblical interpretation

Spurgeon – Morning and Evening March 6th a.m.

Posted in Regeneration on June 13, 2009 by Harry

YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN. – John 3: 7

Regeneration is a subject that lies at the very basis of salvation, and we should be very diligent to make sure that we really are “born again,” for there are many who imagine they are, who are not. Be assured that to be called a Christian is not the same nature as being a Christian, and that being born in a Christian country and being recognized as professing the Christian religion is of no significance at all unless there be something more added to it. Being “born again” is a matter so mysterious that human words cannot describe it. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nevertheless, it is a change that is known and felt—known by works of holiness and felt by a gracious experience. This great work is supernatural. It is not an operation that a man performs for himself: A new principle is infused that works in the heart, renews the soul, and affects his whole life. It is not a change of my name, but a renewal of my nature, so that I am not the man I used to be, but a new man in Christ Jesus. To wash and dress a corpse is a far different thing from making it alive: Man can do the one—God alone can do the other. If you have, then, been “born again,” your declaration will be, “0 Lord Jesus, the everlasting Father, You are my spiritual Parent; if Your Spirit had not breathed into me the breath of a new, holy, and spiritual life, I would still be ‘dead in trespasses and sins.’ My heavenly life is wholly derived from You; to You I ascribe it. ‘My life is hidden with Christ in God.’ It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” May the Lord grant us assurance on this vital point, for to be unregenerate is to be unsaved, unpardoned, without God, and without hope.

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Spurgeon Morning and Evening June 12th a.m.

Posted in Bible on June 12, 2009 by Harry

YOU HAVE BEEN WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES AND FOUND WANTING. – DANIEL 5:27

It is good to regularly weigh ourselves in the scale of God’s Word. You will find it a holy exercise to read some Psalm of David and, as you meditate upon each verse, to ask yourself, “Can I say this? Have I felt as David felt? Has my heart ever been broken on account of sin, as his was when he penned his penitential psalms? Has my soul been full of true confidence in the hour of difficulty as his was when he sang of God’s mercies in the cave of Adullam or in the holds of Engedi? Do I take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord?” Then turn to the life of Christ, and as you read, ask yourself how far you are conformed to His likeness. Endeavor to discover whether you have the meekness, the humility, the lovely spirit that He constantly urged and displayed. Then take the epistles, and see whether you can go with the apostle in what he said of his experience. Have you ever cried out as he did, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death”? (Romans 7:24) Have you ever felt his self-abasement? Have you seemed to yourself the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all the saints? Have you known anything of his devotion? Could you join with him and say, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”? ((Philipians 1:21) If in this way we read God’s Word as a test of our spiritual condition, we will often have good reason to pause and say, “Lord, I feel I have never yet been here. 0 bring me here! Give me the true penitence about which I am reading. Give me real faith; give me warmer zeal; inflame me with more fervent love; grant me the grace of meekness; make me more like Jesus. Do not allow me to be ‘found wanting’ when weighed in the balances of the Bible, in case I be found wanting in the scales of judgment.” “Judge not, that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1)

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1 Thessalonians 5:23 Soul, Spirit, and Body

Posted in 1 Thessalonians with tags Soul on June 12, 2009 by Harry

New testament scroll

3 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

ESV Study Bible Notes:

Spirit, soul, and body represent the entirety of human nature.
- It seems unlikely that this is a tripartite division of human nature into body, soul, and spirit, where “spirit” and “soul” would refer to different parts; more likely Paul is simply using several terms for emphasis.
- For similar ways of expressing the totality of human nature see Matt. 10:28; Mark 12:30; 1 Cor. 7:34.
- There is no need for the Thessalonians to worry about whether they will be sufficiently holy and blameless at the coming of the Lord.
  - God is faithful, and he will surely make it happen.

Reformation Bible Study Notes:

Three aspects of the human person are enumerated to empahsize the wholeness of this perfection.
Most often in Scripture, “spirit” and “soul” are used as virtual synonyms for the spritual element in a person.
Infrequently (here and Heb 4:12), Scripture considers this spritual element from different points of view, though it is difficult to tell just what shade of meaning distinguishes them.
- Compare the fourfould representation of “heart,” “soul,” “mind,” and “strength” in Mark 12:30. See WCF 13.2′ WLC 93,195; HC 127

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John MacArthur on Evil

Posted in Evil, Sovereignty - God's on June 11, 2009 by Harry

From the 2008 Ligonier West Coast Conference
To design a God that would rather have us do our will than Him do His will is to design a God that is not in the bible
God did not create evil but willed that it exists
Why does evil exist? Westminster Confession of Faith 3.1:
- God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
- All that God decrees and all that God providentially brings to pass is all to the praise of His glory.
- Therefore the existence of evil in the end is to the praise of His glory
We wouldn’t know what wrath was and we would not know what mercy was if there were no sin

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Alistair Begg on God’s Purpose and Our Status

Posted in * Favorites, God's Plan, Trials and Suffering with tags Contentment, Glory, Praise on June 9, 2009 by Harry

From “True Servants, part B” a study from 1 Timothy
What is the whole purpose of God?
- To give glory to His name
How does He get glory to His name?
- As a result of the worshipper that He seeks giving Him glory – doing that to which they have been created
It is the utmost concern of the Bible that those who are redeemed glorify God – regardless of their circumstances
- Even if their lives stink, even if their lives are less than they hoped for, even if they are at the bottom rung of the social ladder, or at the top

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Ravi Zacharias on the Danger of Pluralization

Posted in Uncategorized with tags Absolute, Absolute Moral Law, Pluralism, Pluralization on June 9, 2009 by Harry

From Let My People Think: “Secularization: Its Control and Power”
Pluralization: A competing number of worldviews available to our members and no one worldview is dominant
Pluralization does have some strengths
- It compels the individual to take serious note of what he or she actually believes of eternal value and why he or she believes it
- Pluralization in the world of cuisine is fantastic
- It is wonderful to hear counter perspectives and be compelled to measure and evaluate your own – sometimes to the point of discomfort
The big qualifier is if plularization is extrapolated into meaning moral relativism – that’s when the danger signs begin

Read more »

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Ravi Zacharias – The Danger of Secularism

Posted in Secularism on June 9, 2009 by Harry

From Let My People Think: “Secularization: Its Control and Power”
Secularism (Webster definition): indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations
When shame has jettisoned from our society you will find how incredible the mind becomes
When secularism has done its doing we may actually end up producing a generation of men and women who have lost their sense of shame – when a man or woman has lost their sense of shame, I will show you potentially dangerous man or woman you are looking at
- Adolf Hitler: “I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience, imperious, relentless and cruel.”

June 7th Bible Study – Dr. Charlie Shields

Posted in Worldly Pursuits on June 9, 2009 by Harry

WORLDLINESS

Continues our ongoing study of “Respectable Sins” by Jerry Bridges
Hymn: “Come thou Fount of Every Blessing.” The third stanza accurately describes our struggle with worldliness:

O to grace how great a debtor

daily I’m constrained to be!

Let thy goodness, like a fetter,

bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

prone to leave the God I love;

here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

seal it for thy courts above.

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Spurgeon Morning and Evening June 9th a.m.

Posted in Uncategorized with tags Contentment, Happiness, Praise on June 9, 2009 by Harry

THE LORD HAS DONE GREAT THINGS FOR US; WE ARE GLAD. – PSALM 126:3
Some Christians are sadly prone to look on the dark side of everything, and to dwell more upon what they have gone through than upon what God has done for them. Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe their continual conflicts, their deep afflictions, their sad adversities, and the sinfulness of their hearts, but with scarcely any reference to the mercy and help that God has provided them. But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy state will come forward joyously and say, “I will not speak about myself, but to the honor of my God. He has brought me up out of a horrible pit and out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings; and He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. The Lord has done great things for me—I am glad.” This summary of experience is the very best that any child of God can present. It is true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them. It is true that we have our corruptions, and sadly we acknowledge this, but it is just as true that we have an all-sufficient Savior who overcomes these corruptions and delivers us from their dominion. In looking back, it would be wrong to deny that we have been in the Slough of Despond and have crept along the Valley of Humiliation, but it would be equally wicked to forget that we have been through them safely and profitably; we have not remained in them, thanks to our Almighty Helper and Leader, who has “brought us out to a place of abundance.”‘ The deeper our troubles, the louder our thanks to God, who has led us through them all and preserved us until today. Our griefs cannot spoil the melody of our praise; we consider them to be the “bass line” of our life’s song, “The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.”

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Alistair Begg – God demands perfection

Posted in Atonement, Holiness of God, Salvation on June 8, 2009 by Harry

From “On the basis of love, part A” – a study from Philemon
There are two reasons people stay away from Jesus on the cross
- they are too good to need him
  - a Christ who bears sin is an obsolete idea
- they think they are so bad that he can never cope with him
Unlike any other religion of the world which either creates in our minds pride – whereby we are doing everything we should or despair whereby we cannot do what we ought to do, Christianity deals with both our pride and our despair
- those of us who think we are doing marvelously well run right up against the requirement of absolute perfection
The standard for entry into heaven is absolute perfection
Only one has kept God’s law in its totality – Jesus and unless we are placed into Jesus and credited with all he has done in keeping God’s law then we have no place before God
“bearing shame and scoffing rude in the sinner’s place condemned he stood” taking all the punishment my sin deserves so that I may be accepted before the father

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Alistair Begg on Salvation and the Gospel

Posted in Salvation, Total Depravity on June 8, 2009 by Harry

From “On the basis of love, part A” – a study from Philemon
By nature we are not anywhere close to Jesus despite our superficial interest in Him, our knowledge of Him, or awareness of truth in the bible – by our nature we are blind to the truth that is conveyed in Jesus – we are dead in our trespasses and our sins, we are unable to do anything to rectify those circumstances
Unless the gospel is the good news of Jesus doing something for us that we are unable to do for ourselves – but that is what it is
- The righteousness of Jesus is credited to the account of the sinner, on the basis of the fact that the penalty due to the sinner has been born by Jesus on the cross

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Luke 24:16 “But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

Posted in Luke, Regeneration on June 7, 2009 by Harry

“13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.“

Alistair Begg on Luke 24:16 from “Getting the Big Picture, Part A”
Luke is pointing out to us that we cannot see Christ unless He wills to disclose Himself

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Alistair Begg on the focus of revelation in the bible

Posted in Cross with tags Crucifixion on June 7, 2009 by Harry

From the “The Death of Christ, Part B”
The focus of revelation in the bible is not Bethlehem, but Calvary and any attempt to articulate Christianity that begins and ends with the incarnation, that diminishes or denies the centrality of the cross, can never accurately refer to itself as a biblical Christianity
The emphasis is on Jesus is being here as the atoning sacrifice for sin
Christmas is dangerous because it is surrounded by sentimentality, it is surrounded by so much that smacks of well wishing and hopefulness – man will may live forever more because of the day He bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we may die to sin and live to righteousness

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Alistair Begg on Luke 23:43

Posted in Death, Luke with tags Heaven on June 7, 2009 by Harry

39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

From “A Prayer and A Promise, Part B”
Today . . . not is some remote future
It implies the immediate consciousness of the dead following passing from this life

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Alistair Begg on Luke 23:32-43

Posted in Luke, Regeneration, Salvation with tags Religion on June 7, 2009 by Harry

32 Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. 35 And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

There are two main themes of the first part of his sermon “A Prayer and A Promise, Part B” : Salvation and Religion
Salvation
- Both thieves hear the same thing, but each respond differently
- The regeneration of the thief is a mystery of God
Religion
- Religion makes people confident in themselves
- Religion makes people stand up on chairs and makes them look down on everyone else
- Religion thinks God responds positively to people when they do good stuff
- Religion thinks God owes us something for the good we have done

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Alistair Begg on Human Nature

Posted in Salvation, Total Depravity with tags Human Nature on June 7, 2009 by Harry

From “The Sound of Silence”
Every aspect of human nature is inadequate
Nothing but divine revelation can make us wise for salvation, can make Jesus known to us, and can draw us near to Christ.

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Alistair Begg on Sin

Posted in Bible, Sin on June 7, 2009 by Harry

From “The Sound of Silence”
Alistair quotes Sinclair Ferguson, “Unless we silent sin, sin will silence conscious. Unless we pay attention to God’s word, the day may come when we despise God’s son and reject Him and then God will have nothing more to say to us.”

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