“Every converted sinner is a saved sinner. Such are delivered from sin and wrath; they are brought into a state of salvation, and have a right given them by grace to eternal happiness. The grace that saves them is the free undeserved goodness and favour of God; and he saves them, not by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus…” – Matthew Henry
And Sometimes different does not always mean wrong… Some things in other countries are different. We arrived in the USA on Wednesday evening at about 5:30pm and got back to mom’s about 11pm. All in all it took us 22 hours to get here. Yesterday I hired a vehicle and drove it 180 miles north … Read more
This is one of many excerpts I have enjoyed from a book I am currently reading. I’ll share a link to the book in another post. Confusing what the gospel produces with what the gospel requires will lead either to a sterile works-righteousness on the one hand or to lawlessness in the other.” – Voddie … Read more
This morning I am preaching from Zechariah. After Zechariah God would send only one more prophet, and then 400 silent years would descend on Israel. A 400 year silence that God would break explosively with the declaration of the birth of Jesus Christ! Zechariah pointed Israel to the Messiah more than almost any other prophet. … Read more
Earlier this year I started a sermon series going through each book of the Bible chronologically and identifying some truth related to the unfolding plan of the Gospel, of redemption. I have also tried to convey the narrative of the Gospel. So, the majority of the messages have focused around a person, a people, or … Read more
A few thoughts came to mind about listening to sermons as I listened to one this morning. I initially shared them on Twitter but thought I’d put them all together in one blog post here: Prepare your heart before the service, even before Sunday, to receive what God has prepared for you. Put as much … Read more
In Hosea we find a tragic love story that pictures the relationship between Israel and God. Hosea’s wife, Gomer, betrays him, abuses his trusts, takes advantage of him and no doubt wounds him deeply. Yet, when Gomer finds herself sold off as a slave and abandoned by her lovers, it is Hosea that comes to … Read more
In Sidlow Baxter’s daily devotional, “Awake My Heart”, he shares this thought on David’s plight and his response in 1 Samuel 30:
“Afflictions and trials are sometimes allowed to accumulate without intermission, until it seems as though one more ounce of pressure, and our spirit will snap. Then, just at what seems to be the last minute, providential intervention transforms the whole picture; and oh, what lessons in trust we learn! Human help is vain. Heart and flesh fail. The one resort is the flight of the lonely heart to God.”
“Though they did not understand it-even the disciples themselves did not understand, but presently the light came, and ever and anon these men who wrote the records reveal in some passing phrase their past ignorance and their new illumination – the truth is this, that all those whom He (Jesus) had already saved, He had saved in the power of the fact that He could not, in that final way, save Himself.
“He had opened blind eyes, He had healed palsied limbs, He had driven fever away, He had restored physical conditions; but He always did these things upon the basis of His passion and His atonement.
“The writers came to know it, I repeat, and one memorable passage comes to mind, in which Matthew tells the secret of a wonderful eventide by the side of the sea. They brought unto Him from all the countryside the sick fold, and He healed them all.
“If Matthew had written his record that night, he would have written with wonder and amazement; but later on the publican saw things as he had never seen them; and in the light of the resurrection, when he wrote his record afterwards, this is what he said: He healed them all, ‘that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our diseases.’
Behind all His physical healing, was the spiritual passion of the Lord. I reverently declare that the Man of Nazareth would never have healed a sick lad or lass, man or woman, but in the power of that hour, when they mocked Him and scorned Him.”
