Disobedient Christians vs World Missions

“There are only three kinds of Christians when it comes to world missions: zealous goers, zealous senders, and disobedient. May God deliver us from disobedience!”  

John Piper – A Passion for the Supremacy of Christ—Where He Is Not Named – 3 Nov 96

When I Survey The Wondrous Cross

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Words: Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spir­it­u­al Songs, 1707

Bane of Modern Evangelism: Building a seeker sensitive church via another Gospel

” Neo-Christianity, which seems for the time to be the most popular(and is certainly the most aggressive), is very careful not to oppose sin. It wins its crowds by amusing them and its converts  by hiding from them the full implications of the Christian message. It carries on it projects after the ballyhoo methods of American business.” – A.W. Tozer from “The Next Chapter after the Last, p. 18.

” The feeling that we got to make converts at any cost has greatly wounded the Church of Christ. We must present the truth as we are told to present it and let the Holy Ghost(Spirit) work and the individual man decide whether he will accept it or not. This soft, pussy idea that in order to keep people coming and giving and filling the seats we don’t dare in any wise offend them, and we’ve got to make everything smooth and soft, is not New Testament.” -A.W. Tozer from sermon, “This I Believe,” 1969.

“The temptation to modify the teaching of Christ with the hope that larger numbers may ‘accept’ Him is cruelly strong in this day of speed, size,  noise, and crowds. But if we know what is good for us, we’ll resist it with every power at our command. To yield can only result in a weak and ineffective Christianity in this generation, and death and desolation in the next.”- A.W. Tozer from the “The Size of the Soul”, p. 119.

“The crowds-at-any-price mania has taken a firm grip on American Christianity and is the motivating power back of shockingly high percentage of all religious activity. Men and churches compete for the attention of the paying multitudes who are brought in by means of any currently popular gadget or gimmick ostensibly to have their souls saved, but , if the truth were told, often for reasons not so praiseworthy as this.” A. W. Tozer from “The Size of the Soul”, p. 117.

Galatians 1:6-12  “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.“

Related Posts:

What Does It Mean to Accept Christ ?

Breathe On Me, Breath of God

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Until my heart is pure,
Until with Thee I will Thy will,
To do and to endure.

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Till I am wholly Thine,
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with Thy fire divine.

Breathe on me, breath of God,
So shall I never die,
But live with Thee the perfect life
Of Thine eternity.

Being Right With God Must Precede Doing Right For God.

“Forgiveness for our sins through faith in Christ must precede and then empower our battle against sin in our lives. Or to put it another way, God’s declaration that we are forgiven and righteous in Christ must precede and enable our transformation into loving, sacrificial, Christ-exalting people. The divine declaration must precede the human transformation. Or to put it one more way: Justification must precede and uphold sanctification. Being right with God must precede doing right for God.“

“The Difference This Makes

It’s the difference between fighting fearfully to get justified and fighting confidently because we are justified.

It’s the difference between your heavenly court-trial being behind you with an irrevocable verdict of not guilty, and your trial being in front of you with the verdict up in the air depending on your performance.

It’s the difference between the freedom of confidence and the bondage of fear.

It’s the difference between giving Christ the double glory of both being our righteousness as well as working righteousness in us, and giving him only the single glory of helping us become our own righteousness.”

Set Free by the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus
October 07, 2001 by John Piper
Scripture: Romans 8:1-4
Topic: Sanctification & Growth

Gospel is a Call to Discipleship – Call to Faith and Obedience

Gospel is a Call to Discipleship – Call to Faith and Obedience

“The message Jesus proclaimed was a call to discipleship – not to faith alone but to faith and obedience. Jesus gave a solemn warning: “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mathews 7:21). Obedience is the evidence of the reality of our repentance and faith. Our obedience does not achieve salvation, but it is the evidence of it.
Present-day preaching finds little place for repentance, yet without repentance there can be no regeneration. Many have been encouraged to believe that because they have come forward to an appeal or signed a decision card, or prayed to receive Christ, they are saved-whether or not there is any subsequent change in their lives.

It needs to be reiterated that “saving faith is more than just understanding the facts (of the gospel) and mentally acquiescing. It is inseparable from repentance, submission, and a supernatural eagerness to obey. The biblical concept of saving faith includes all these elements.”
It is sad but true that whenever the way of the cross and its implications are preached, superficial believers, whose conversion experience have been shallow , fall away. “

J. Oswald Sanders “Spiritual Discipleship – Principles of following Christ for every believer” page 21-22

Similar Posts:

Jesus said, “Come Follow Me. It Will Cost You Everything, Count the Cost.”

The Gospel is an invitation to be a slave of Jesus Christ

The Good Shepherd: Looking at, Turning to, Resting in, Listening for, Following after

A “Christianity” without Jesus Christ and the Gospel

No Christ, No Heaven. Enter by the Narrow Gate

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 7:13-14

So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly John 10-7

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:5-6

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:27-30

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. John 3:36

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:40

God Chastises and Corrects His Children in Love and Affection

Chastisement by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
“And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him” (Hebrews 12:5).

God’s people can never by any possibility be punished for their sins. God has punished them already in the person of Christ. He, their substitute, has endured the full penalty for all their guilt, and neither the justice nor the love of God can ever exact again that which Christ has paid. Punishment can never happen to a child of God in the judicial sense, he can never be brought before God as his Judge, as charged with guilt, because that guilt was long ago transferred to the shoulders of Christ, and the punishment was exacted at the hands of his surety. But yet, while the sin cannot be punished, while the Christian cannot be condemned, he can be chastised, while he shall never be arraigned before God’s bar as a criminal, and punished for his guilt, yet he now stands in a new relationship—that of a child to his parent: and as a son he may be chastised on account of sin. Folly is bound up in the heart of all God’s children, and the rod of the Father must bring that folly out of them. It is essential to observe the distinction between punishment and chastisement.

Punishment and chastisement may agree as to the nature of the suffering: the one suffering may be as great as the other, the sinner who, while here is punished for his guilt, may suffer no more in this life than the Christian who is only chastised by his parent. They do not differ as to the nature of the punishment, but they differ in the mind of the punisher and in the relationship of the person who is punished. God punishes the sinner on his own account, because he is angry with the sinner, and his justice must be avenged, his law must be honored, and his commands must have their dignity maintained. But he does not punish the believer on his own account, it is on the Christian’s account, to do him good, He afflicts him for his profit, he lays on the rod for his child’s advantage; he has a good design towards the person who receives the chastisement. While in punishment the design is simply with God for God’s glory, in chastisement, it is with the person chastised for his good, for his spiritual profit and benefit. Besides, punishment is laid on a man in anger. God strikes him in wrath, but when he afflicts his child, chastisement is applied in love, his strokes are, all of them, put there by the hand of love. The rod has been baptized in deep affection before it is laid on the believer’s back. God doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve us for nought, but out of love and affection, because he perceives that if he leaves us unchastised, we shall bring upon ourselves misery ten thousand-fold greater than we shall suffer by his slight rebukes, and the gentle blows of his hand. Take this in the very starting, that whatever thy trouble, or thine affliction, there cannot be anything punitive in it, thou must never say—”Now God is punishing me for my sin.” Thou hast fallen from thy steadfastness when thou talkest so. God cannot do that. He has once for all done it. “The chastisement of our peace was upon HIM, and by HIS stripes we are healed.” He is chastising thee, not punishing thee; he is correcting thee in measure, he is not smiting thee in wrath. There is no hot displeasure in his heart. Even though his brow may be ruffled, there is no anger in his breast; even though his eye may have closed upon thee, he hates thee not, he loves thee still. He is not wroth with his heritage, for he seeth no sin in Jacob, neither iniquity—in Israel, considered in the person of Christ. It is simply because he loves you, because ye are sons, that he therefore chastises you. (Chastisement by Charles Haddon Spurgeon )

Heb 12:4-8  In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Related Posts:

God does not chastise you? Then you are bastards and not sons !

Divine Chastisement is a Revelation of God’s Filial Love.

If we confess our sins

Do Not be Bound Together or Unequally Yoked with Unbelievers.

Separating from Unbelievers, Part 2
2 Corinthians 6:14-16
by John MacArthur
(below is an extract from the sermon)

“Do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?  Or what harmony has Christ with Belial?  Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?  Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?  For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, `I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be My people.  Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,’ says the Lord, `and do not touch what is unclean and I will welcome you and I will be a Father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,’ says the Lord Almighty.  Therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

Now as I pointed out last time, this passage identifies two opposing worlds.  The terminology is clear.  One of those worlds is marked by righteousness, light, Christ, believers, and the presence of God. The other is marked by lawlessness, darkness, Satan, unbelievers, and the presence of false gods.  And these two worlds are utterly different and distinct, so much so that they are mutually exclusive.  They cannot work together in common partnership, they cannot fellowship together, they are not in harmony with one another.  One is old, the other is new.  One is earthly, the other is heavenly.  One is deadly, the other is life giving.  One is wicked, the other holy.  One is built on lies, the other is all truth.  One perishes and the other lives eternally.

Paul then is making it clear that believers can’t live in both worlds.  Certainly John said this in his first epistle, 1 John, when he clearly identified this disparity between the two worlds with these familiar words, “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  Mutually exclusive worlds.  You can’t be in both at the same time.

Then in James we read in chapter 4 and verse 4, “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God.  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”  And later in verse 8 he says, “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded.”  People trying to live in two different worlds.

In Romans chapter 12, of course that very, very familiar passage that begins the exhortation part of Romans, “I urge you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship, and do not be conformed to this world.”  Make a clean break.

When a person becomes a believer they are transported out of one world into another.  And shuttling back and forth is absolutely unacceptable.  And that is precisely what the Corinthians were trying to do.  Having named the name of Christ, identified with Him, come into the church, they were still hanging on to their own idolatry, their old pagan ways.  They had come to Christ out of idolatry, as it says in 1 Thessalonians, they had come to serve the living and the true God from idols.  But they didn’t make a clean break.  They had been wooed back into the old idolatry, back into the old pagan culture because it was so pervasive, and so dominant and it was so on display and so woven into the fabric of their life, family life, social life, community life.  Corinth was dominated above the city by an acropolis, a high mountain on top of which was the temple to the false deities which engaged itself in pagan ritual and worship and priest…priestess prostitution.  This temple not only was the center of that religion, but from it disseminated its religious viewpoints and ideologies through the entire culture of Corinth.  It was a part of everything in life…holidays, festivals, celebrations and so forth.  And it was a constant pull to the Corinthians to fall back into those old patterns.  And they did.

Additionally, the false teachers had come in and they had brought a quasi Christian syncretism and eclectic religion which took Christianity, a little bit of Jewish legalism, and some pagan religion and melted it all together and offered it as the truth.  And that compromise had found its way into the Corinthian church and found an audience and some of them were listening and believing and accepting it.

You see, the false teachers wanted to make Christianity more popular, less demanding, less distinct, less narrow, less offensive, less different, less exclusive so they’d get more people in on it, so they could get more money, which is always what false teachers want.  And so here is the Corinthian church new and fresh and being assaulted by pagan religion around it.  You couldn’t separate the social life from the religion, you couldn’t separate the historical life of that village in terms of its patterns from the religion.  That village that became a city bore all of the signs of the religion that moved in its growth.  It was a full-blown pagan system down to the very core.  And it was hard to sort it out.  To be involved at all in the life of the culture was to be involved in the paganism, unless you made a very clean break.  The Corinthians didn’t do it. And as I said, then add to that the confusion of the false teachers and you can understand why Paul says to them, “Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers.”

It’s very much like modern Christianity today, by the way, that seeks to blend Christianity with popular culture, wants to make Christianity more popular, less different, more palatable, less offensive, less narrow, less exclusive.  And the result of it is that true Christianity in the purity of God’s Word gets corrupted by compromise and the church can become useless and shameful and blasphemous in mocking the truth.  For believers there can be no compromise.  We cannot engage ourselves with unbelievers in any spiritual enterprise.  That’s the issue.  “Do not be bound together with unbelievers,” that is he command that sets this text in motion.  And it is an unmistakable call to believers to separate from unbelievers.  No one could miss that that’s what it’s saying. The question is, what does it mean?

And as I said last time, it is essential to understand what it means but first of all what it does not mean.  Paul is not saying, cut off all contact with non-Christians.  He’s not saying that because we have to reach them with the gospel.  That is not the issue.  He’s not saying don’t evangelize the unconverted, don’t confront people in false religions.  He’s not saying that.  We must do that.

Secondly, he is not calling for complete isolation on the part of the church.  We are not to become isolationists.  We are not to be monastics.  We are not to go hide somewhere and pull apart from the world.  Quite the contrary.  We are to find unbelievers and love them and be their friend and set a model of spiritual example for them.

Furthermore, he is not saying you are to divorce your unsaved partner, or to sever all unsaved contacts…all contacts, I should say, with unsaved people in your family.  He is also not saying that you can’t work or play or do business or be engaged in common earthly enterprise with unbelievers.  He’s not saying that, of course you can.  What he is saying is you cannot link up with unbelievers in religious causes…or religious enterprises.  You cannot go to their worship and become a part of it, you can’t make them a part of the Kingdom of God.  You can’t engage them in anything that involves ministry, teaching, or worship.  Where there is ministry, teaching and worship there has to be absolute separation.

So he’s referring in actuality to harnessing up believers and unbelievers in any common religious, spiritual enterprise.  The two cannot be yoked together anymore than an ox and an ass can pull a straight furrow when under the same yoke, as Deuteronomy 22:10 forbids. But that is precisely what the Corinthians were doing.  They were going to the feasts that were involved with the idols and they were trying to still befriend the people in the world and in their families and in their society by attending and being involved in idol festivals and such compromise is intolerable.

At the same time they had invited into the church forms of pagan religion and that was equally intolerable.  There can be no harmony, no fellowship, no partnership, no participation between believers and unbelievers in any religious enterprise.  That is the issue.  Pagan religion, false teaching ruins those who listen to it.  It leads to ungodliness.  It spreads like gangrene and it upsets the faith of people.  Paul directed all of that to Timothy and warned him to warn the church.

The issue then is religious cooperation, religious compromise with false teachers and with heresy and error.  We can have nothing to do with the people involved in that when they are so involved.  And we can allow them to have nothing to do with enterprises that involve the advancement of the Kingdom of God. And yet through the years the church has continued to do this.  Sometimes it’s called cooperative evangelism where an evangelist will come into a city and bring together Christians and non-Christians, those who believe the Word of God and those liberals who would openly deny the Word of God in a common evangelistic enterprise.  That is in direct violation of what this text is teaching.

It happens all the time in common efforts at evangelism.  It happens in educational institutions where those institutions that would claim to be Christians would have on their faculty those who believe the Word of God, those who were born again, and those who are not.  And they are illegitimate linked together in a common spiritual enterprise to the detriment of the church, to the debilitation of the believers and the false assurance of the unbelievers.  True Christians have to separate from unbelievers in matters related to ministry, teaching and worship.  And when I say teaching I’m talking about teaching that relates to God and His truth.

So Paul fixes that principle. And that, by the way, was a brief review of the first message.  But in response to that initial principle he gives us five reasons, or five motives for following this mandate. And I want to approach those motives from a negative perspective…if I might.  To be bound together with unbelievers in any spiritual effort is…number one…irrational, irrational.  The point that Paul is making here is one of congruity.  It is one of simple reason.  And to make this point of the irrationality of such a common enterprise, he asks for rhetorical questions, each of which demands a negative answer.

Here they come, verse 14, “For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness?  Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or Satan?  Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?”  And the answer to those is negative.  Righteousness and lawlessness have no partnership.  Light and darkness have no fellowship.  Christ and Satan have no harmony.  And a believer and an unbeliever have nothing in the spiritual realm in common.  That is axiomatic.  An axiom is a self-evident truth that doesn’t need proof.  And that is obvious.  It is obvious that you can’t make opposites the same.  And those are all opposites.

Separating from Unbelievers, Part 2
2 Corinthians 6:14-16
by John MacArthur

Copyright 2007, Grace to You.

Did God Write His Law Within Our Hearts ?

Christians, there is an important question we must ask ourselves:

Did God Write His Law Within Our Hearts ? If He did, which Law did He Write ?

There are many today who think and speak smugly as if that they have just discovered a “Grace Revolution”, something long hidden from other believers for the past 2000 years and freshly minted in the 21st century. They decry anything concerning confessing your sins to God and repentance towards God, their stance is that one only has to embrace the “Gospel of Grace”, to be “Christ Conscious” and against any need for a believer’s pursuit of personal holiness and self denial. They teach against any need for searching one’s heart before God, confessing and repenting . People of this Grace Revolution mindset “appear to delight in the imputed obedience of Christ who make little or no concern about personal holiness”. Claiming in error and with arrogance and that any pursuit of holiness and any self denial is deemed to be “legalistic”, “law based”, “old covenant” and “work based” salvation.

Let hear the late Pastor Arthur Pink’s words warning against this “Grace Revolution” error mindset:
“True, there is perfect holiness in Christ for the believer, but there must also be a holy nature received from Him.”

“There are some who appear to delight in the imputed obedience of Christ who make little or no concern about personal holiness. They have much to say about being arrayed in “the garments of salvation and covered with the robe of righteousness” (Isa 61:10 , who give no evidence that they are “clothed with humility….How many there are today who suppose that if they have trusted in Christ, all is sure to be well with them at the last even though they are not personally holy.

Under the pretense of honoring faith, Satan as an angel of light, has deceived and is now deceiving multitudes of souls.When their “faith” is examined and tested, what is it worth? Nothing at all so far as insuring an entrance into heaven is concerned: it is a powerless, lifeless, fruitless thing.”

Arthur Pink did not mince his words, though dead yet he speaks with clarity, pointedly and faithfully from the Word of God against the maladies and errors of our day. In our walk as professing believers and born of His Spirit, UNLESS WE ARE denying self and dying to self, the question needs to be asked “Are we really putting on Christ and following Him?

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Jer 31:31-33

Related Posts:

Misunderstanding Grace : Misconstrue Law and Grace as Opposing, Contrary and Irreconcilable Systems

The Perfect Law of God Must Stand Forever

The Law of God Must Be Perpetual: No Abrogation, No Amendment.

The Heart of Every Real Christian is Most Reverent Towards the Law of the Lord

Misunderstanding Grace : “outside the law” is not the same as having no law

Misunderstanding Grace: Easy to miss the path and go far astray from the truth

Misunderstanding Grace – Antinomianism’s primary error is confusing Justification with Sanctification

Misunderstanding on the teaching of Grace

The Blessed Completeness of Divine Forgiveness Covers All Sins – Past, Present and Future

‘It only remains for us to add a word on the blessed completeness of divine forgiveness. Many of God’s people are unsettled and troubled upon this point. They understand how that all the sins they had committed before they received Christ as their Saviour have been forgiven, but oftentimes they are not clear concerning the sins which they commit after they have been born again. Many suppose it is possible for them to sin away the pardon which God had bestowed upon them. They suppose that the blood of Christ dealt with their past only, and that so far as the present and the future are concerned, they have to take care of that themselves. But of what value would be a pardon which might be taken away from me at any time? Surely there can be no settled peace when my acceptance with God and my going to heaven is made to depend upon my holding on to Christ, or my obedience and faithfulness.

Blessed be God, the forgiveness which he bestows covers all sins – past, present and future. Fellow-believer, did not Christ bear your “sins” in his own body on the tree? And were not all your sins future sins when he died? Surely, for at that time you had not been born, and so had not committed a single sin. Very well then: Christ bore your “future” sins as truly as your past ones. What the word of God teaches is that the unbelieving soul is brought out of the place of unforgiveness into the place to which forgiveness attaches. Christians are a forgiven people. Says the Holy Spirit: “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:8). The believer is in Christ, and there sin will never again be imputed to us. This is our place or position before God. In Christ is where he beholds us. And because I am in Christ I am completely and eternally forgiven, so much so that never again will sin be laid to my charge as touching my salvation, even though I were to remain on earth a hundred years. I am out of that place for evermore. Listen to the testimony of scripture: “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he (God) quickened together with him (Christ), having forgiven you all trespasses” (Col. 2:13). Mark the two things which are here united (and what God hath joined together let no man put asunder) – my union with a risen Christ is connected with my forgiveness! If then my life is “hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), then I am forever out of the place where imputation of sin applies. Hence it is written, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) – how could there be if “all trespasses” have been forgiven? None can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect (Romans 8:33). Christian reader, join the writer in praising God because we are eternally forgiven everything.*

*It should be added by way of explanation, that it is the judicial aspect we have dealt with. Restorative forgiveness – which is the bringing back again into communion of a sinning believer -dealt with in 1 John 1:9 – is another matter altogether.***

The Word of Forgiveness , The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross by Arthur W Pink

***Restorative Forgiveness Posts:

Lord’s Prayer: Confession should be a daily activity for the Christian – by R. C. Sproul

If we confess our sins

Churches’ Quest For the World’s Approval is Nothing Less than Spiritual Harlotry

The above video is a summary of the highlights of an Asian regional church conference organized in 2008 by a mega-church, based in Singapore, with churches network across many countries in Asia. The conference’s well known speakers came from US, Europe and Asia.

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” John 15:18 -19

‘You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.‘ James 4:4

‘Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world–the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions–is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.’ 1John 2:15-17

Below is an article (by Pastor John Macarthur) from Grace to You (Gty.com)  which aptly summed up my thoughts on the sad state of on how evangelicals are playing  “church” today  and how they are marketing and positioning  their image to sell to and  draw the “consumers” within the world.  The perverted and twisted  philosophy can be summed up like this: to win the world to the church, the church becomes like the world.

The world is in “Church” today because the “Church” today  did not leave it behind.

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The Church Versus the World
by John MacArthur

Why do evangelicals try so desperately to court the world’s favor? Churches plan their worship services to cater to the “unchurched.” Christian performers ape every worldly fad in music and entertainment. Preachers are terrified that the offense of the gospel might turn someone against them, so they deliberately omit the parts of the message the world might not approve of.

Evangelicalism seems to have been hijacked by legions of carnal spin-doctors, who are trying their best to convince the world that the church can be just as inclusive, pluralistic, and broad-minded as the most politically-correct worldling.

The quest for the world’s approval is nothing less than spiritual harlotry. In fact, that is precisely the imagery the apostle James used to describe it. He wrote: “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

There is and always has been a fundamental, irreconcilable incompatibility between the church and the world. Christian thought is out of harmony with all the world’s philosophies. Genuine faith in Christ entails a denial of every worldly value. Biblical truth contradicts all the world’s religions. Christianity itself is therefore antithetical to virtually everything this world admires.

Jesus told His disciples, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

Notice that our Lord considered it a given that the world would despise the church. Far from teaching His disciples to try to win the world’s favor by reinventing the gospel to suit worldly preferences, Jesus expressly warned that the quest for worldly accolades is a characteristic of false prophets: “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26).

He further explained: “The world . . . hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil” (John 7:7). In other words, the world’s contempt for Christianity stems from moral, not intellectual, motives: “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19-20). That is why no matter how dramatically worldly opinion might vary, Christian truth will never be popular with the world.

Yet in virtually every era of church history there have been people in the church who are convinced that the best way to win the world is by catering to worldly tastes. Such an approach has always been to the detriment of the gospel message. The only times the church has made any significant impact on the world are when the people of God have stood firm, refused to compromise, and boldly proclaimed the truth despite the world’s hostility. When Christians have shrunk away from the task of confronting popular worldly delusions with unpopular biblical truths, the church has invariably lost influence and impotently blended into the world. Both Scripture and history attest to that fact.

And the Christian message simply cannot be twisted to conform to the vicissitudes of worldly opinion. Biblical truth is fixed and constant, not subject to change or adaptation. Worldly opinion, on the other hand, is in constant flux. The various fads and philosophies that dominate the world change radically and regularly from generation to generation. The only thing that remains constant is the world’s hatred of Christ and His gospel.

Adapted from John MacArthur’s book, Why One Way?

“The Church Versus the World”  James 4:4, Luke 6:26, John 7:7, John 15:18-19 by John MacArthur

Jesus said, “Come Follow Me. It Will Cost You Everything, Count the Cost.”

During RESOLVED 07, Pastor Steve Lawson of Christ Fellowship Baptist Church spoke from Luke 14:25-33 dealing with topic: “The Cost of Discipleship (It Will Cost You Everything).“

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”Luke 14:25-33

In the Book of Haggai, the LORD of hosts spoke out through the Prophet Haggai  against His people, who has lost their first love, to “consider your ways”. For the start of a new year 2010, this is a good reminder from Pastor Steve Lawson  for all professed believers of Jesus Christ to carefully examine ourselves and consider Jesus Christ, Who is the greatest treasure and the inheritance of all true disciples who are washed in His blood.

Bow the Knee: God is King of all the Ages.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11

Bow the Knee

What a privilege to come into God’s presence,
just to linger with the one who set me free.
As I lift my eyes and see His awesome glory,
I remember who He is and bow the knee.
Bow the knee, bow the knee,
He is king of all the ages, bow the knee!
God alone on His throne,
see Him high and lifted up and bow the knee!
Kneel before Him, all adore Him.
As you live to love Him more, bow the knee.

In His hand He holds the power of creation.
With His voice He spoke and all things came to be.
Yet He hears each simple prayer I bring before Him
when I humbly seek His face and bow the knee.
Bow the knee, bow the knee,
He is king of all the ages, bow the knee!
God alone on His throne, see Him high and lifted up and bow the knee!
Kneel before Him, all adore Him.
As you live to love Him more, bow the knee.

Bow the knee, bow the knee,
He is king of all the ages, bow the knee!
God alone on His throne, see Him high and lifted up and bow the knee!
Kneel before Him, all adore Him.
As you live to love Him more, bow the knee.
Bow the knee. Bow the knee.

The Perfect Law of God Must Stand Forever

Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Psalms 119:33-35

Charles H. Spurgeon, in a sermon preached on May 21,1882 , said:

But, secondly, the law of God must be perpetual from its very nature, for does it not strike you the moment you think of it that right must always be right, truth must always be true, and purity must always be purity? Before the ten commandments were published at Sinai there was still that same law of right and wrong laid upon men by the necessity of their being God’s creatures. Right was always right before a single

Charles Spurgeon

command had been committed to words. When Adam was in the garden it was always right that he should love his Maker, and it would always have been wrong that he should have been at cross-purposes with his God; and it does not matter what happens in this world, or what changes take place in the universe, it never can be right to lie, or to commit adultery, or murder, or theft, or to worship an idol God. I will not say that the principles of right and wrong are as absolutely self-existent as God, but I do say that I cannot grasp the idea of God himself as existing apart from his being always holy and always true; so that the very idea of right and wrong seems to me to be necessarily permanent, and cannot possibly be shifted. You cannot bring right down to a lower level; it must be where it always is: right is right eternally, and cannot be wrong. You cannot lift up wrong and make it somewhat right; it must be wrong while the world standeth. Heaven and earth may pass away, but not the smallest letter or accent of the moral law can possibly change. In spirit the law is eternal.

Suppose for a moment that it were possible to temper and tone down the law, wherein would it be? I confess I do not know and cannot imagine. If it be perfectly holy, how can it be altered except by being made imperfect. Would you wish for that? Could you worship the God of an imperfect law? Can it ever be true that God, by way of favoring us, has put us under an imperfect law? Would that be a blessing or a curse? It is said by some that man cannot keep a perfect law, and God does not demand that he should. Certain modern theologians have taught this, 1 hope, by inadvertence. Has God issued an imperfect law? It is the first imperfect thing I ever heard of his making. Does it come to this that, after all, the gospel is a proclamation that God is going to be satisfied with obedience to a mutilated law? God forbid. I say, better that we perish than that his perfect law perish. Terrible as it is, it lies at the foundation of the peace of the universe. and must be honored at all hazards. That gone, all goes. When the power of the Holy Ghost convinced me of sin I felt such a solemn awe of the law of God, that I remember well, when I lay crashed beneath it as a condemned sinner, I yet admired and glorified the law. I could not have wished that perfect law to be altered for me. Rather did I feel that, if my soul were sent to the lowest hell, yet God was to be extolled for his justice and his law held in honor for its perfectness. I would not have had it altered even to save my soul. Brethren, the law of the Lord must stand, for it is perfect, and therefore has in it no element of decay or change.

The law of God is no more than God might most righteously ask of us. If God were about to give us a more tolerant law, it would be an admission on his part that he asked too much at first. Can that be supposed? Was there, after all, some justification for the statement of the wicked and slothful servant when he said, “I feared thee, because thou art an austere man”? It cannot be. For God to alter his law would be an admission that he made a mistake at first, that he put poor imperfect man (we are often hearing that said) under too rigorous a regime, and therefore he is now prepared to abate his claims, and make them more reasonable. It has been said that man’s moral inability to keep the perfect law exempts him from the duty of doing so. This is very specious, but it is utterly false. Man’s inability is not of the kind which removes responsibility: it is moral, not physical. Never fall into the error that moral inability will be an excuse for sin. What, when a man becomes such a liar that he cannot speak the truth, is he thereby exempted from the duty of truthfulness? If your servant owes you a day’s labor, is he free from the duty because he has made himself so drunk that he cannot serve you? Is a man freed from a debt by the fact that he has squandered the money, and therefore cannot pay it? Is a lustful man free to indulge his passions because he cannot understand the beauty of chastity? This is dangerous doctrine. The law is a just one, and man is bound by it though his sin has rendered him incapable of doing so.

The law moreover demands no more than is good for us. There is not a single commandment of God’s law but what is meant to be a kind of danger signal such as we put up upon the ice when it is too thin to bear. Each commandment does as it were say to us, “Dangerous” It is never for a man’s good to do what God forbids him; it is never for man’s real and ultimate happiness to leave undone anything that God commands him. The wisest directions for spiritual health, and for the avoidance of evil, are those directions which are given us concerning right and wrong in the law of God. Therefore it is not possible that there should be any alteration thereof, for it would not be for our good.

I should like to say to any brother who thinks that God has put us under an altered rule: “Which particular part of the law is it that God has relaxed?” Which precept do you feel free to break? Are you delivered from the command which forbids stealing? My dear sir, you may be a capital theologian, but I should lock up my spoons when you call at my house. Is it the command about adultery which you think is removed? Then I could not recommend your being admitted into any decent society. Is the law as to killing softened down? Then I had rather have your room than your company. Which law is it that God has exempted you from? That law of worshipping him only? Do you propose to have another God? Do you intend to make graven images? The fact is that when we come to detail we cannot afford to lose a single link of this wonderful golden chain, which is perfect in every part as well as perfect as a whole. The law is absolutely complete, and you can neither add to it nor take from it. “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.” If, then, no part of it can be taken down, it must stand, and stand for ever.

“The Perpetuity of the Law of God”

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A Message Delivered on May 21, 1882 by C. H. Spurgeon

Related Posts:

The Law of God Must Be Perpetual: No Abrogation, No Amendment.

The Heart of Every Real Christian is Most Reverent Towards the Law of the Lord

Misunderstanding Grace : “outside the law” is not the same as having no law

Misunderstanding Grace: Easy to miss the path and go far astray from the truth

Misunderstanding Grace – Antinomianism’s primary error is confusing Justification with Sanctification

Misunderstanding on the teaching of Grace

The Law of God Must Be Perpetual: No Abrogation, No Amendment.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:30-31

Charles H. Spurgeon, in a sermon preached on May 21,1882 , said:

I. First: THE LAW OF GOD MUST BE PERPETUAL. There is no abrogation of it, nor amendment of it. It is not to be toned down or adjusted to our fallen condition; but every one of the Lord’s righteous judgments abideth forever. I would urge three reasons which will establish this teaching.

Charles Spurgeon

In the first place our Lord Jesus declares that he did not come to abolish it. His words are most express: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” And Paul tells us with regard to the gospel, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31). The gospel is the means of the firm establishment and vindication of the law of God.

Jesus did not come to change the law, but he came to explain it, and that very fact shows that it remains, for there is no need to explain that which is abrogated. Upon one particular point in which there happened to be a little ceremonialism involved, namely, the keeping of the Sabbath, our Lord enlarged, and showed that the Jewish idea was not the true one. The Pharisees forbade even the doing of works of necessity and mercy, such as rubbing ears of corn to satisfy hunger, and healing the sick. Our Lord Jesus showed that it was not at all according to the mind of God to forbid these things. In straining over the letter, and carrying an outward observance to excess, they had missed the spirit of the Sabbath law, which suggested works of piety such as truly hallow the day. He showed that Sabbatic rest was not mere inaction, and he said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” He pointed to the priests who labored hard at offering sacrifices, and said of them, “the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless.” They were doing divine service, and were within the law. To meet the popular error he took care to do some of his grandest miracles upon the Sabbath-day; and though this excited great wrath against him, as though he were a law-breaker, yet he did it on purpose that they might see that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, and that it is meant to be a day for doing that which honors God and blesses men. O that men knew how to keep the spiritual Sabbath by a easing from all servile work, and from all work done for self, The rest of faith is the true Sabbath, and the service of God is the most acceptable hallowing of the day. Oh that the day were wholly spent in serving God and doing good! The sum of our Lord’s teaching was that works of necessity, works of mercy, and works of piety are lawful on the Sabbath. He did explain the law in that point and in others, yet that explanation did not alter the command, but only removed the rust of tradition which had settled upon it. By thus explaining the law he confirmed it; he could not have meant to abolish it or he would not have needed to expound it.

In addition to explaining it the Master went further: he pointed out its spiritual character. This the Jews had not observed. They thought, for instance, that the command “Thou shalt not kill” simply forbade murder and manslaughter: but the Savior showed that anger without cause violates the law, and that hard words and cursing, and all other displays of enmity and malice, are forbidden by the commandment. They knew that they might not commit adultery, but it did not enter into their minds that a lascivious desire would be an offense against the precept till the Savior said, “He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her committeth adultery with her already in his heart.” He showed that the thought of evil is sin, that an unclean imagination pollutes the heart, that a wanton wish is guilt in the eyes of the Most High. Assuredly this was no abrogation of law: it was a wonderful exhibition of its far-reaching sovereignty and of its searching character. The Pharisees fancied that if they kept their hands, and their feet, and their tongues, all was done, but Jesus showed that thought, imagination, desire, memory, everything, must be brought into subjection to the will of God, or else the law was not fulfilled. What a searching and humbling doctrine is this! If the law of the Lord reaches to the inward parts who among us can by nature abide its judgment? Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. The ten commands are full of meaning–meaning which many seem to ignore. For instance, many a man will allow in and around his house inattention to the rules of health and sanitary precaution, but it does not occur to him that he is trampling on the command– “Thou shalt not kill,” yet this rule forbids our doing anything which may cause injury to our neighbor’s health, and so deprive him of life. Many a deadly manufactured article, many an ill-ventilated shop, many a business with hours of excessive length, is a standing breach of this command. Shall I say less of drinks, which lead so speedily to disease and death, and crowd our cemeteries with untimely graves? So, too, in reference to another precept: some persons will repeat songs and stories which are suggestive of uncleanness–I wish that this were not so common as it is. Do they not know that an unchaste word, a double meaning, a sly hint of lust all come under the command, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”? It is so according to the teaching of our Lord Jesus. Oh, talk not to me about our Lord’s having brought in a milder law because man could not keep the Decalogue, for he has done nothing of the kind. “His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor.” “Who may abide the day of his coining? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap.” Let us not dare to dream that God had given us a perfect law which we poor creatures could not keep, and that therefore he has corrected his legislature, and sent his Son to put us under a relaxed discipline. Nothing of the sort. The Lord Jesus Christ has, on the contrary, shown how intimately the law surrounds and enters into our inward parts, so as to convict us of sin within even if we seem clear without. Ah me, this law is high; I cannot attain to it. It everywhere surrounds me; it tracks me to my bed and my board; it follows my steps and marks my ways wherever I may be. No moment does it cease to govern and demand obedience. O God, I am everywhere condemned, for everywhere thy law reveals to me my serious deviations from the way of righteousness and shows me how far short I come of thy glory. Have thou pity on thy servant, for I fly to the gospel which has done for me what the law could never do.

“To see the law by Christ fulfill’d,
And hear his pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.”

Our Lord Jesus Christ, in addition to explaining the law and pointing out its spiritual character, also unveiled its living essence, for when one asked him “Which is the great commandment in the law?” he said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, he has told us, “All the law is fulfilled in this: thou shalt love.” There is the pith and marrow of it. Does any man say to me, “You see, then, instead of the ten commandments we have received the two commandments, and these are much easier.” I answer that this reading of the law is not in the least easier. Such a remark implies a want of thought and experience. Those two precepts comprehend the ten at their fullest extent, and cannot be regarded as the erasure of a jot or tittle of them. Whatever difficulties surround the ten commands are equally found in the two, which are their sum and substance. If you love God with all your heart you must keep the first table; and if you love your neighbor as yourself you must keep the second table. If any suppose that the law of love is an adaptation of the moral law to man’s fallen condition they greatly err. I can only say that the supposed adaptation is no more adapted to us than the original law. If there could be conceived to be any difference in difficulty it might be easier to keep the ten than the two; for if we go no deeper than tile letter, the two are the more exacting, since they deal with the heart, and soul, and mind. The ten commands mean all that the two express; but if we forget this, and only look at the wording of them, I say, it is harder for a man to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength, and his neighbor as himself than it would be merely to abstain from killing, stealing, and false witness. Christ has not, therefore, abrogated or at all moderated the law to meet our helplessness; he has left it in all its sublime perfection, as it always must be left, and he has pointed out how deep are its foundations, how elevated are its heights, how measureless are its length and breadth. Like the laws of the Medes and Persians, God’s commands cannot be altered; we are saved by another method.

To show that he never meant to abrogate the law, our Lord Jesus has embodied all its commands in his own life. In his own person there was a nature which was perfectly conformed to the law of God; and as was his nature such was his life. He could say, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” and again “I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” I may not say that he was scrupulously careful to keep the law: I will not put it so, for there was no tendency in him to do otherwise: he was so perfect and pure, so infinitely good, and so complete in his agreement and communion with the Father, that he in all things carried out the Father’s will. The Father said of him, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” Point out, if you possibly can, any way in which Christ has violated the law or left it unfulfilled. There was never an unclean thought or rebellious desire in his soul; he had nothing to regret or to retract: it could not be that he should err. He was thrice tempted in the wilderness, and the enemy had the impertinence even to suggest idolatry, but he instantly overthrew the adversary. The prince of this world came to him, but he found nothing in him.

“My dear Redeemer and my Lord,
I read my duty in thy Word;
But in thy life the law appears
Drawn out in living characters.”

Now, if that law had been too high and too hard, Christ would not have exhibited it in his life, but as our exemplar he would have set forth that milder form of law which it is supposed by some theologians he came to introduce. Inasmuch as our Leader and Exemplar has exhibited to us in his life a perfect obedience to the sacred commands in their undiminished grandeur, I gather that he means it to be the model of our conversation. Our Lord has not taken off a single point or pinnacle from that up-towering alp of perfection. He said at the first, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart,” and well has he justified the writing of the volume of the book. “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law”; and being for our sakes under the law he obeyed it to the full, so that now “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.”

Once more, that the Master did not come to alter the law is clear, because after having embodied it in his life he willingly gave himself up to bear its penalty, though he had never broken it, bearing the penalty for us, even as it is written, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” If the law had demanded more of us than it ought to have done, would the Lord Jesus have rendered to it the penalty which resulted from its too severe demands? I am sure he would not. But because the law asked only what it ought to ask–namely perfect obedience; and exacted of the transgressor only what it ought to exact, namely, death, as the penalty for sin–death under divine wrath, therefore the Savior went to the tree, and there bore our sins and purged them once for all. He was crushed beneath the load of our guilt, and cried, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,” and at last when he had borne–

“All that incarnate God could bear,
With strength enough, but none to spare,”

he bowed his head and said, “It is finished.” Our Lord Jesus Christ gave a greater vindication to the law by dying, because it had been broken, than all the lost in hell can ever give by their miseries, for their suffering is never complete, their debt is never paid; but he has borne all that was due from his people, and the law is defrauded of nothing. By his death he has vindicated the honor of God’s moral government, and made it just for him to be merciful. When the lawgiver himself submits to the law, when the sovereign himself bears the extreme penalty of that law, then is the justice of God set upon such a glorious high throne that all admiring worlds must wonder at it. If therefore it is clearly proven that Jesus was obedient to the law, even to the extent of death, he certainly did not come to abolish or abrogate it; and if he did not remove it, who can do so? If he declares that he came to establish it, who shall overthrow it?

“The Perpetuity of the Law of God”

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A Message Delivered on May 21, 1882 by C. H. Spurgeon

Related Posts:

The Perfect Law of God Must Stand Forever

The Heart of Every Real Christian is Most Reverent Towards the Law of the Lord

Misunderstanding Grace : “outside the law” is not the same as having no law

Misunderstanding Grace: Easy to miss the path and go far astray from the truth

Misunderstanding Grace – Antinomianism’s primary error is confusing Justification with Sanctification

Misunderstanding on the teaching of Grace

The Heart of Every Real Christian is Most Reverent Towards the Law of the Lord

I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart. Psalms 40:8

“For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:18)

Charles H. Spurgeon, in a sermon preached on May 21,1882 , said:

It has been said that he who understands the two covenants is a theologian, and this is, no doubt, true. I may also say that the man who knows the relative positions of the Law and the Gospel has the keys of the situation in the matter of doctrine. The relationship of the Law to myself, and how it condemns me; the relationship of the Gospel to myself, and how if I be a believer it justifies me–these are two points which every Christian man should clearly understand. He should not “see men as trees walking” in this department, or else he may cause himself great sorrow, and fall into errors which will be grievous to his heart and injurious to his life. To form a mingle-mangle of law and gospel is to teach that which is neither law or gospel, but the opposite of both. May the Spirit of God be our teacher, and the Word of God be our lesson-book, and then we shall not err.

Very great mistakes have been made about the law. Not long ago there were those about us who affirmed that the law is utterly abrogated and abolished, and they openly taught that believers were not bound to make the moral law the rule of their lives. What would have been sin in other men they counted to be no sin in themselves. From such Antinomianism as that may God deliver us. We are not under the law as the method of salvation, but we delight to see the law in the hand of Christ, and desire to obey the Lord in all things. Others have been met with who have taught that Jesus mitigated and softened down the law, and they have in effect said that the perfect law of God was too hard for imperfect beings, and therefore God has given us a milder and easier rule. These tread dangerously

Charles Spurgeon

upon the verge of terrible error, although we believe that they are little aware of it. Alas, we have met with authors who have gone much further than this, and have railed at the law. Oh, the hard words that I have sometimes read against the holy law of God! How very unlike to those which the apostle used when he said, “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” How different from the reverent spirit which made him say, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” You know how David loved the law of God, and sang its praises all through the longest of the Psalms. The heart of every real Christian is most reverent towards the law of the Lord. It is perfect, nay, it is perfection itself. We believe that we shall never have reached perfection till we are perfectly conformed to it. A sanctification which stops short of perfect conformity to the law cannot truthfully be called perfect sanctification, for every want of exact conformity to the perfect law is sin. May the Spirit of God help us while, in imitation of our Lord Jesus, we endeavor to magnify the law.

“The Perpetuity of the Law of God”

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A Message Delivered on May 21, 1882 by C. H. Spurgeon

Related Posts:

Misunderstanding Grace : “outside the law” is not the same as having no law

Misunderstanding Grace: Easy to miss the path and go far astray from the truth

Misunderstanding Grace – Antinomianism’s primary error is confusing Justification with Sanctification

Misunderstanding on the teaching of Grace

Bow the Knee: Lift your eyes toward heaven and believe the One who holds eternity.

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Isaiah 48:17

Bow the Knee

There are moments on our journey following the Lord
Where God illumines ev’ry step we take.
There are times when circumstances make perfect sense to us,
As we try to understand each move He makes.
When the path grows dim and our questions have no answers, turn to Him.

Bow the knee;
Trust the heart of your Father when the answer goes beyond what you can see.
Bow the knee;
Lift your eyes toward heaven and believe the One who holds eternity.
And when you don’t understand the purpose of His plan,
In the presence of the King, bow the knee.

There are days when clouds surround us, and the rain begins to fall,
The cold and lonely winds won’t cease to blow.
And there seems to be no reason for the suffering we feel;
We are tempted to believe God does not know.
When the storms arise, don’t forget we live by faith and not by sight.

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-11

Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.” And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit. Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.” Isaiah 48:16-19

God Centered Worship: A Matter of Infinite Importance

True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth John 4:23

“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, …. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:22-24

Worship matters and it must be anchored  entirely on God’s truth. The entire truth about God, which He has revealed about himself  within His word, is the key for any worshiper in truly  knowing God and worshiping  God acceptably in spirit and in truth. It is a matter of infinite importance. Without getting or accepting the complete truth about God as revealed by the scriptures only mean a professed worshiper  is not truly worshiping the God of the bible  but a “god” of his or her own imagination. It is a matter of eternal consequence when people get worship wrong, as a result they do not worship God acceptably however well meaning they may be. Worship matters,  it really does.

‘Worship is not an addendum to life, it is at life’s core. You see, the people who worship God acceptably enter into eternal life, but the people who do not worship God acceptably enter into eternal death. Worship, then, becomes the core. Time and eternity are determined by the nature of a person’s worship.’ True Worship by John MacArthur, Jr.

Quotes from Bob Kauflin’s book “Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God“:

Worship matters. It matters to God because he is the one ultimately worthy of all worship. It matters to us because worshiping God is the reason for which we were created. And it matters to every worship leader, because we have no greater privilege than leading others to encounter the greatness of God. That’s why it’s so important to think carefully about what we do and why we do it. (Pg 19)

Because I want to make it clear from the start that worship isn’t primarily about music, techniques, liturgies, songs, or methodologies. It’s about our hearts. It’s about what and who we love more than anything. Here’s my sobering discovery. I learned that I could lead others in worshiping God and be worshiping something else in my own heart. But by the grace of God, I was beginning to understand what worship is all about. (Pg 25)

That’s why as worship leaders our primary concern can’t be song preparation, creative arrangements, or the latest cool gear. Our primary concern has to be the state of our hearts. The great hymn-writer Isaac Watts once wrote: The Great God values not the service of men, if the heart be not in it: The Lord sees and judges the heart; he has no regard to outward forms of worship, if there be no inward adoration, if no devout affection be employed therein. It is therefore a matter of infinite importance, to have the whole heart engaged steadfastly for God. (Pg 26)

Related Posts:

God Centered Worship: The Importance of Singing Truth

Genuine worship is a response to divine truth as God has revealed Himself in His Word

What Kind of Worship God Desires From His People ?

Finding Joy in Worship – Psalm 100 by Dr. Arturo G. Azurdia

Sovereignty of God: My Grace is All Sufficient Through Deep Waters I Asked You To Go

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

We often do not understand why God allows trials and testings to come into our lives. We have to trust God and look beyond to a time when we shall  meet Him face to face  and then we will  have all the answers to our perplexing questions we now face while undergoing trials and testings. In the book of James, it clearly says that God allows  trials to come into our lives, to test our faith in order to produce steadfastness in us. In going through trials, we learn to trust less in ourselves  and we learn to turn  to, trust in and rely upon God. Our faith in God then becomes steadfast, it becomes enduring and constant. God wants every child He receives to grow and  to be mature in our walk with Him and our worship. When we trust God and we remained steadfast in our faith, we are blessed. Our love for Him is proved, when we look beyond our present sufferings and pains by  trusting that God’s ways are the best because He is  always compassionate and merciful to His children.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. James 1:2-4, 12

As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.  Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. James 5:10-11

Josiah Grauman, a believer who experienced tremendous trials and sufferings in his life starting at an early age. Even when he is actively  pursuing God’s will for his life and serving God in obedience, the God of the bible still has a purpose to work out through him, by allowing the many challenges to confront and test and strengthen his faith.  Through all the  many trials and testing, Josiah Grauman has learned to trust firmly in the sovereignty of God to do and purpose as He pleases. The embedded clip is  a video testimony of Josiah Grauman.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

(Hymn: How Firm a Foundation)