Monthly Archives: June 2009

“Strive to Enter in at the Strait Gate”

Posted by Dan C. on

From A Sermon by Charles Hodge
[at the College of New Jersey, May 14th, 1856]

There are two modes of representation which run through the Bible, apparently at variance with each other. According to the one, the plan of salvation is represented as simple. Believe and be saved, touch and be healed, look and be made whole.

According to the other, salvation is represented to be very difficult. We must strive to enter in at the straight gate. We must work out our salvation. We must run as in a race where the prize is our life. We must fight the good fight. Many who seek shall not enter in. Even the righteous are scarcely saved.

Both these modes of representation are of course correct. They refer to different things. The former relates to the meritorious and efficient cause of salvation. We have not to work out a righteousness of our own, nor are we to attempt the work of regeneration or sanctification in our own strength. The whole work of meriting salvation has been done for us. We have nothing to do but to accept the righteousness which is offered to us, to trust in what Christ has done.

So, too, with regard to sanctification. It is the work of God. We are renewed by the Spirit after His image. It is not a natural process carried on by natural laws, but by the power of God, attending the use of the appropriate and appointed means. In one sense we are the passive recipients of salvation. On the other hand, however, the difficulty of bringing our hearts to a simple, constant and entire reliance on Christ, and the difficulty of avoiding the grieving and resisting the Holy Ghost, is unspeakably great. So that it is hard to be saved.

The Bible says expressly that no drunkard, or unclean person, or covetous man, no one who loves the creature more than the Creator, no one that is carnally-minded, no one who is not converted and made as a little child, can enter the kingdom of God. To these and other forms of destructive evil we are impelled,

  1. By the corruption of our own nature.
  2. By the allurements of the world.
  3. By the influence of evil companions.
  4. By the temptations of Satan.

These are formidable enemies, not to be overcome without effort.

Therefore,

  1. Lay it to heart that salvation is a difficult work. You cannot float to heaven.
  2. That a constant use of the means of grace, of secret and social prayer, of public worship, the reading of the Scriptures, and the use of the sacraments is absolutely necessary.
  3. That constant watchfulness against sin, avoiding temptation, company, associating with the people of God, are all necessary.
  4. That constant effort to advance in piety is the only way to avoid declining, and declension leads to apostasy.
  5. That with all these means should be united a constant sense of danger and constant dependence.
  6. At the same time, the spirit of the gospel is not a fearful desponding spirit, but a spirit of filial confidence and joy. The great thing is to remember that safety is only to be found in a lively and growing state of piety in the heart.

Worship Seven Days a Week

Posted by Dan C. on

“But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.” –Habakkuk 2:20

 So I’ve got to tell you that if you do not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week. There is no such thing known in heaven as Sunday worship unless it is accompanied by Monday worship and Tuesday worship and so on….

 We come into God’s house and say, “The Lord is in His holy temple, let us all kneel before Him.” Very nice. I think it’s nice to start a service that way once in a while. But when any of you men enter your office Monday morning at 9 o’clock, if you can’t walk into that office and say, “The Lord is in my office, let all the world be silent before Him,” then you are not worshiping the Lord on Sunday. If you can’t worship Him on Monday you didn’t worship Him on Sunday. If you don’t worship Him on Saturday you are not in very good shape to worship Him on Sunday.  Tozer on Worship and Entertainment, 9,24.

 “Lord, permeate my whole life with a spirit of worship–all week long, every day. Amen.”

Your Sincerity Will Save You!

Posted by Dan C. on

The gospel of “inclusivism” would have us believe that, and it’s spreading. Whether it comes from cowardly “Christians” who appear on the Larry King show and won’t take a stand for salvation through Christ alone, or from those who term ‘sincere’ god-seekers ‘anonymous’ Christians, it’s the same song. “If you are ‘sincere’ in seeking God and your ‘good works’ give evidence to your sincerity, somehow you will end up in Heaven.

I’m not sure the one who bore His Father’s wrath for the sins of His people would agree with that warm and comfy sentiment:

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” John 3:18

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

Inclusivists might tell you that you don’t need to have been presented with Christ as Savior in order to believe in Him. Or, they might tell you that non-christian religions have in the end the same goal of finding God that Christian religions do, so we are all in the same family of God.

The Apostle Paul provides some clarity on the issue:

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” – Romans 10:14-15

Since no one is “good” or seeks God on his/her own (Romans 3:10-11), unless God begins a work of regeneration in a person, there is no “sincere” seeking after the God of the Bible. If there is sincere seeking after God present in a person’s heart, God will send the Gospel of Christ, somehow, someway. It might be someone preaching. It might be someone finding a Bible, or a even a piece of a page from a Bible. God has innumerable ways of ‘sending the Gospel’.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9

No matter how sincerely a person seeks after God, it is not that sincerity, or any amount of ‘good works’ that saves. It is God who saves! Ask Jonah.

Summary of the Sovereignty of God in Salvation

Posted by Dan C. on

Salvation is not finally in the hands of man to determine. His choices are crucial, but they are not the final, decisive power in bringing him to glory, God’s sovereign grace is.

1. God elects, chooses, before the foundation of the world whom he will save and whom he will pass by and leave to unbelief and sin and rebellion. He does this unconditionally, not on the basis of foreseen faith that humans produce by a supposed power of ultimate self-determination (= “free will”).

Acts 13:48, “When the gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of God. And as many as were for ordained to eternal life believed.”

Romans 11:7, “Israel failed to obtain what is sought. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.”

John 6:37, “All that the Father gives to me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out.” John 17:6, “I have manifested my name to them whom thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them to me.” (John 6:44, 65).

2. The Atonement applies to the elect in a unique, particular way, although the death of Christ is sufficient to propitiate the sins of the whole world. The death of Christ effectually accomplished the salvation for all God’s people.

Eph. 5:25, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

Heb. 10:14, “By a single offering he perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

John 10:15, “I lay down my life for the sheep.”

Rom. 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?”

3. Because of the Fall, humans are incapable of any saving good apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. We are helpless and dead in sin. We have a mindset that “cannot submit to God without divine enabling.

Rom. 8:7-8, “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.”

Eph. 2:1,5, “You were dead through your trespasses and sins.”

4. God’s call to salvation is effectual, and, hence His grace cannot be ultimately thwarted by human resistance. God’s regenerating call can overcome all human resistance.

Acts 16:14, “The Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul.”

John 6:65, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by my Father.” (Matt. 16:17; Luke 10:21)

1 Cor. 1:23-24, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

5. Those whom God calls and regenerates He also keeps, so that they do not totally and finally fall away from faith and grace.

Rom. 8:30, “Those whom he predestined, he also called and those whom he called he also justified and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

John 10:27-29, “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me; and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”

Phil. 1:6, “I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.” (1 Cor. 1:8).

1 Thess. 5:23, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”

Conclusion

Romans 11:36, “From him, through him, and to him are all things, to him be glory forever amen!”

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Martin Luther and Scripture

Posted by Dan C. on

Apr 1521 – Martin Luther before the Diet of Worms.

File:Diet of Worms.jpg

“Are these your writings?” “Will you repent?” – The questions.

“Your Imperial Majesty and Your Lordships demand a simple answer. Here it is, plain and unvarnished. Unless I am convicted [convinced] of error by the testimony of Scripture or (since I put no trust in the unsupported authority of Pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves) by manifest reasoning, I stand convicted [convinced] by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God’s word, I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us.”

“Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht Anders tun. Gott hilfe mir. Amen.”

“Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen”

If God has already chosen. . .why witness?

Posted by Dan C. on

An excerpt from a previous  post. . .

God doesn’t need people to save anyone – you, me or anyone else.  It’s our Great Privilege to take the good news to the world around us.  If He prompts me to share that news and I refuse, He’ll send another.  If that one refuses, He’ll send another.  The mission WILL be accomplished, with or without me.  God WILL send a man or woman obedient to the call and souls WILL be saved according to HIS plan!   As one pair of evangelical writers said so well:

“The Spirit of God uses the Word of God through men and women of God to make the message about the Son of God available to all who want to know the truth.  There is no limit to the creative ways God can use to bring about this process.” – from “I’m Glad You Asked” – Ken Boa and Larry Moody

Reader, listen closely.  Do you remember when you first embraced your Savior?  Did not something happen inside you to cause you to desire God?  Did you not somehow ‘hear’ the good news of salvation in Christ and then call out to Him for that precious gift?  Are you saved, to your eternal benefit and His everlasting glory?

If so, the one who saved you now ‘sends’ you into the world to share the greatest news mankind can will ever know!  That’s not my opinion.  Hear some of the last words of Jesus as He prayed earnestly to the Father on behalf of his closest disciples, those 12 ordinary men, shortly before He went to the cross of Calvary.

“But now I am coming to you, and I am saying these things in the world, so they may experience my joy completed in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” John 17:13-18 (NET)

How are YOU answering the call to share the Good News?

Sola Scriptura – it’s Origin

Posted by Dan C. on

The principle of ‘Sola Scriptura” wasn’t invented during the Protestant Reformation. That Reformation merely restored what had been birthed on Mt. Sanai.

“When He had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.” – Ex 31:18

The Original Version is Always the Best

Posted by Dan C. on

Have you ever noticed that about movies and television series spin-offs – the original is usually the best version? I think the same thing applies to the Bible.

I saw another article about another book about Jesus this morning, by an author who has written other books about the Bible and even contributed to a popular ‘theme’ styled Study Bible.

It’s probably a good read, but it’s not The Book. It’s doesn’t sound like spiritual ‘junk food’ – Christian book stores are full of those too, and they’re usually the best sellers. Si it will probably do well, but not make the author a bazillion bucks.

I have a modest library of books that aren’t The Book, even some of the ‘junk food’. A lot of years have taught me that the Original is still the best.

I think that’s because God wrote it