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The Savior's Abiding Presence with His Redeemed People!

12/13/2018

by J.R. Miller in his "The Practical Value of a Promise"

"O LORD, You have searched me and You know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
You are familiar with all my ways!
Before a word is on my tongue, You know it completely, O LORD!"
Psalm 139:1-4

   Doctrines are not such cold, lifeless things as some would have us to believe. There is no doctrine of Scripture which is not fitted to affect the life of him who believes it. Consider the proper influence upon us, of the doctrine and promise of the Savior's abiding presence with His redeemed people. If we believe and always recollect that Christ is truly with us always--how will it affect us?
   For one thing it will make us very thoughtful and careful in all our words and acts. Christ is present in His holiness as well as in His love and tenderness. His pure eyes see all our life, and see into our hearts. He is ever beholding us--our real inner life.
  The thought of the Master's eye upon us should . . .

make us holy,
rebuke our sins, and
hold us back from evil.

We cannot do wicked things in the presence of even a pure and holy human friend. But could we be continually conscious of Christ's perpetual presence with us, of His eye ever resting upon us, then . . .

Could we run into sin?
Could we live carelessly?
Could we trifle?
Could we speak sharp, bitter, or unkind words?
Could we do unholy, unlovely things?

Surely the realizing of His perpetual abiding presence would make us live reverently, purely, lovingly--so as always to please and never to grieve Him.

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Parable of the Sower: Worldly Hearers

12/12/2018

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Pastor Bill Farrow

And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.—Matt. 13:22

Few things obstruct the gospel’s reception in someone’s heart more than the general love of the world and wealth. Note these warnings:

For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Tim. 6:10)

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.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh
and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life,
is not from the Father, but is from the world. (1 John 2:15–16)

The worldly hearer in this parable is oblivious to the deception of money and its inability to give lasting satisfaction. He or she doesn’t notice how worldliness—the worshipful priority of money, possessions, career, and other temporary affairs—can smother the Word. Such a reality shows that the individual has a heart full of sinful weeds that cannot coexist for long with the Word of God. If faith is genuine, it will forsake the world; otherwise, sin will choke out the Word.
Christ’s cleansing is thorough in true conversion. Salvation removes sin’s weeds from the heart and prepares it to receive the seed of the Word. Genuine believers will continually confess sin and allow the Lord to be “faithful and righteous to forgive” (1 John 1:9), freeing them from sin’s domination.

Consider This:

Does this mean money is a bad thing? Should it be avoided by people who bear the name of Christ? How would you define a proper, biblical perspective on wealth and possessions?

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It Is Time

12/11/2018

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by CH Spurgeon

Psalm 119:126
"It is time for Thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law."

   We might urge, as reasons for the Lord's working, the sorrows of mankind, the terrors of the world to come, the glory of God, and the merits of the Savior.
     We might plead the promises, the covenant, the prophecies, and the long weary time of waiting before they are fulfilled; but it is a bright use of a gloomy fact when we can turn even the infidelity, the superstition, and the rebellion of man into an argument for the Lord's interference.
     "It is time for Thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void Thy law." Thus we set our sail so as to use an adverse wind. We extract a reason for grace out of the reeking of iniquity.
     We observe that many men now deny the inspiration of the Scriptures, and that is making void the law of the Lord. Of what use is the Bible to us if it be not infallibly inspired of the Holy Spirit? An erring guide is as bad as none at all when a step may lead to ruin.
     If we have not the very mind of God in these pages, their essence, their authority, their life, and their power are gone. Yet certain ministers, ay, ministers of Nonconformist churches, speak of the Bible as though it were in considerable portions of it blurred with mistakes, and by no means to be relied upon.
   They talk of "essential parts of the Old Testament," as if other parts might be laid aside; and some of them set up the Gospels above the Epistles, as if the one Spirit had not dictated all the Word. It is grievous to hear divines undermining the foundations of the faith which they are supposed to preach.

"O Lord, we turn from these Thine unfaithful servants to Thyself, and cry, 'Do Thou prove the truth of the Scriptures, fulfill the promises, and put power into the teaching of the cross, so that men may be compelled to own that Thy law is not void, but that the Scripture cannot be broken.'"

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Christ's Outward Appearance

12/10/2018

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   “. . . Being found in appearance as a man” (Philippians 2:8).

Many people view Christ only as a man, but He is God.
   After winning a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, Scottish runner Eric Liddell served as a missionary in China; he died in a prison camp during World War II. The camp’s prisoners loved Eric, for he served them so unselfishly. It was only at his funeral that they first learned he was an Olympic hero. They had had no idea of his full identity.
     Most people didn’t realize Christ’s full identity either, for He was “found in appearance as a man” (Phil. 2:8). At first glance that phrase seems like a repetition of the end of verse 7, “being made in the likeness of men.” We could paraphrase verse 8 to read, “He was discovered to appear as a man.” The difference between that and verse 7 is a shift in focus. In verse 8 we view the humiliation of Christ from the viewpoint of those who saw Him. Christ was the God-man, but as people looked at Him, they saw the “appearance” (Greek, schema, “outward form”) of a man. Paul was implying that though Christ appeared to be a man, there was much more to Him that could not naturally be seen.
     For Christ to become man was humbling enough. For Him not to have been recognized must have been humiliating. He performed miracles and taught authoritatively, yet the typical responses were: “You are a Samaritan and have a demon” (John 8:48) and, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” (John 6:42). Because their minds were darkened by sin, people recognized His humanity but could not see His deity. They could not recognize who He really was. They not only treated the King of kings as a man but as the worst of men—a criminal.
     Unlike people who don’t recognize Christ’s true identity, let’s honor Him through a life of worship and obedience.

Suggestions for Prayer
     Worship Christ for who He really is—the King of kings and Lord of lords. Praise Him for this truth in your prayer time.

For Further Study
     Christ was not only fully man but also fully God. Read the following verses in which Christ Himself bears testimony that He is God: Luke 22:69-70; John 10:30, 37-38; 12:45; 14:7-10. What else should one find in these verses?

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Virgins Don't Conceive, Unless...!

12/9/2018

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From the Reformation21 Blog

I love he ease with which C.S. Lewis answered objections to the Scriptural record of the the miraculous conception of the virgin Mary. In Miracles: A Preliminary Study, he wrote:"You will hear people say, 'The early Christians believed that Christ was the son of a virgin, but we know that this is a scientific impossibility'. Such people seem to have an idea that belief in miracles arose at a period when men were so ignorant of the course of nature that they did not perceive a miracle to be contrary to it. A moment's thought shows this to be nonsense: and the story of the Virgin Birth is a particularly striking example. When St Joseph discovered that his fiancée was going to have a baby, he not unnaturally decided to repudiate her. Why? Because he knew just as well as any modern gynaecologist that in the ordinary course of nature women do not have babies unless they have lain with men. No doubt the modern gynaecologist knows several things about birth and begetting which St Joseph did not know. But those things do not concern the main point--that a virgin birth is contrary to the course of nature. And St Joseph obviously knew that. In any sense in which it is true to say now, 'The thing is scientifically impossible', he would have said the same: the thing always was, and was always known to be, impossible unless the regular processes of nature were, in this particular case, being over-ruled or supplemented by something from beyond nature. When St Joseph finally accepted the view that his fiancée's pregnancy was due not to unchastity but to a miracle, he accepted the miracle as something contrary to the known order of nature. All records of miracles teach the same thing. C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 73-74....

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Who Regulates Things Here?

12/8/2018

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By Dr. Arthur Pink
In The Sovereignty of God

Who is regulating affairs on this earth today--God, or the Devil?

   That God reigns supreme in Heaven, is generally conceded; but that He reigns supreme over this earth, is almost universally denied--if not directly, then indirectly. More and more men are relegating God to the background in their philosophizing and theorizing.
   Take the material realm. Not only is it denied that God created everything, by personal and direct action--but few believe that He has any immediate concern in regulating the works of His own hands. Everything is supposed to be ordered according to the (impersonal and abstract) "laws of Nature". Thus is the Creator banished from His own creation! Therefore we need not be surprised that men, in their degrading conceptions, exclude Him from the realm of human affairs.
   Throughout Christendom, with an almost negligible exception, the theory is held that man is "a free agent", and therefore, man is the master of his fortunes and the determiner of his destiny.
   Who is regulating affairs on this earth today--God, or the Devil?
   What do the Scriptures say? If we believe their plain and positive declarations, no room is left for uncertainty. They affirm, again and again . . .

that God is on the throne of His universe;
that the scepter is in His hands;
that He is directing all things "after the counsel of His own will".
Ephesians 1:11

The Scriptures affirm, not only that God created all things, but also that God is ruling and reigning over all the works of His hands. They affirm . . .

that God is the Almighty,
that His will is irreversible,
that He is absolute sovereign in every realm of all His vast dominions.

And surely it must be so. Only two alternatives are possible:

God must either rule--or be ruled;
God must either sway--or be swayed;
God must either accomplish His own will--or be thwarted by His creatures.

Accepting the fact that He is the "Most High God", the only Potentate and King of kings, vested with perfect wisdom and illimitable power--the conclusion is irresistible, that He must be God in fact--as well as in name!
It is in view of what we have briefly referred to above, that we say, present-day conditions call loudly for a new examination and new presentation of God's omnipotence, God's sufficiency, and God's sovereignty. From every pulpit in the land it needs to be thundered forth--that God still reigns! What is needed now, as never before, is a full, positive, constructive setting forth of the Godhood of God. Drastic diseases call for drastic remedies. We know of nothing which is more calculated to infuse spiritual vigor into our souls, than a scriptural apprehension of the full character of God!

"Our God is in Heaven! He does whatever He pleases!" Psalm 115:3
"The LORD does whatever pleases Him throughout all Heaven and earth, and on the seas and in their depths!" Psalm 135:6
"All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of Heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him: What have you done?" Daniel 4:35
"Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns!" Revelation 19:6

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Forward>>

The Savior's Abiding Presence with His Redeemed People!

Parable of the Sower: Worldly Hearers

It Is Time

Christ's Outward Appearance

Virgins Don't Conceive, Unless...!

Who Regulates Things Here?

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