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Christ Preparing our Hearts 39

December 30, 2016

Come to Christ, a poor lost and undone wretch, hopeless and helpless; as to an only, able and merciful Savior. Cry out as one sinking under the waves and boisterous tempests of sin. Master save or else I perish. If Thou wilt, thou can. Say with Thomas, My Lord and my God! My Christ and my Savior! (Unknown)

Away with unprofitable controversies: spend your thoughts rather upon this momentous question, “Am I sound, or am I rotten at heart?” “Am I a new creature, or the old disguised in borrowed clothing?” Let it be your prayer that you may not be given up to a heedless and vain spirit, and then have religious duties for a show to beguile and hush your conscience…Deceive not yourself with names and notions; they cannot change your heart. If you are still impenitent, if you have not been renewed and sanctified by the Spirit of God, it matters little by what name you are called, or how warmly you advocate the distinguishing doctrines of the Gospel; you are in the sight of God a guilty, perishing sinner. (John Flavel)

These writings as they set out the truth of Scripture and the clear difference between those who know about things or the name of things and then those who have those things in their hearts because Christ has worked them in the hearts, should cause all to bow low before Him and His sovereign work. As men fight over words, duties, and names, others should seek the face of God in truth. This is not to say that there are not doctrines and truths that should not be fought for, but they should be fought for at the substance level rather than just over names and words.

This quote of Flavel should show us the absolute need of Christ to prepare our hearts for grace and Himself. This quote, in the hands of God, is able to drive away the subterfuge of religious activities and put man upon seeking God Himself. But again, it is quite a different thing to have notions of God in the intellect than it is to have God Himself dwelling in the heart and through Christ revealing those things as truths about Him so that we would love Him and live for His glory.

As long as the heart is unchanged all that a person can possibly do is serve self and be filled with external religion. All the things of external religion can do is either puff us up with pride or be used by Christ to show us how they cannot possibly please God. External religion cannot change the heart and this must be preached and taught to the people constantly. Church membership cannot change the heart. The external doctrines of the Bible and the creeds cannot change the heart. These things are good things and necessary things, but only God Himself can change the heart. Being involved in the activities of the church will not change the heart. Being friends with members of a church will not change the heart. Attending the church every time the doors are open will not change the heart. Instead, all of those things can be used by self to deceive us as to our real standing before God.

When a person stands before the living God on judgment day it will not matter what church one belonged to if that person does not have Christ. When a person stands before the living God on judgment day it will not matter if that person was a minister, an elder, a leader, or a busy person doing things in the local church is that person does not have Christ. Oh how people will bemoan the day that they joined the church and “got busy” in the church because they trusted in those things rather than Christ.

On that day it will not matter how much a person advocated for a confession or Calvinism or any other doctrine, because all of those things can be done out of pride and those things can be done to hide the impenitent and rotten heart of the person advocating those things. It will not even matter in that day if a person preached the true doctrines of Gospel as far as he could, because even those things can be done to hide a person’s rotten and impenitent heart.

Anything that has to do with Christianity can be used by a selfish and proud heart to hide the rottenness of our own hearts from us. We can use long morning devotions and vast amounts of memorization of Scripture to convince ourselves that we are regenerate. We can practice long fasts and practice self-denial of things, yet all of that can be done as a way to build up self. It is only Christ Himself who can show us these things and bring us to the end of all the efforts of self and to a true self-denial. It is only Christ who can show us the truth of our hearts and how it is truly only Christ who can save us and He will only do that by grace alone. Until Christ breaks the heart of trusting in the things of the world and the things of religion we cannot rest in Christ alone and grace alone. Let us seek Christ to teach us as our great Prophet. Let us ask Him to break our hearts from religion and things and to settle for nothing else but His making us new creatures by grace alone.

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Christ Preparing our Hearts 38

December 30, 2016

Come to Christ, a poor lost and undone wretch, hopeless and helpless; as to an only, able and merciful Savior. Cry out as one sinking under the waves and boisterous tempests of sin. Master save or else I perish. If Thou wilt, thou can. Say with Thomas, My Lord and my God! My Christ and my Savior! (Unknown)

Away with unprofitable controversies: spend your thoughts rather upon this momentous question, “Am I sound, or am I rotten at heart?” “Am I a new creature, or the old disguised in borrowed clothing?” Let it be your prayer that you may not be given up to a heedless and vain spirit, and then have religious duties for a show to beguile and hush your conscience…Deceive not yourself with names and notions; they cannot change your heart. If you are still impenitent, if you have not been renewed and sanctified by the Spirit of God, it matters little by what name you are called, or how warmly you advocate the distinguishing doctrines of the Gospel; you are in the sight of God a guilty, perishing sinner. (John Flavel)

When Christ calls the weary and heavy-laden to Himself in Matthew 11, He is essentially calling the lost and undone wretch. He is calling the hopeless and the helpless. He is calling those who are utterly undone and have lost all hope in themselves. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only Savior and He will teach people that in their hearts. He will convict them of their sin as against Him and He will convict them or their sinful nature and what that means. As has been said before, men are not sinners because they sin, but they sin because they are sinners. Men are profoundly lost and profoundly blind and unable to help themselves. They are dead in sin and by nature they are children of wrath.

The person that Christ has taught in the inward man that the doctrine of depravity is not just some objective intellectual truth but is true of “me” in the heart, that person understands that s/he must be made a new creature in Christ Jesus. As long as people think that these are just truths we need to understand, they will not have the deep conviction that this is something that must happen to them. This is the type of person that begins to understand that the issue is not just a truth that must be known, but that this is a vital reality. I must be made a new creature by the grace of God or I will perish. The person taught of Christ will no longer be satisfied with a study of doctrine, though indeed that is needful, that now understands that Christ must teach the heart and lead it to a desperate state of knowing that the true state of the heart is vital.

The soul that Christ teaches no longer studies from a totally objective and intellectual level, that soul longs to know the truth about the very nature of its own soul. It wants to know if it is a new creature or if it has disguised itself with religious activities and religious beliefs. It examines itself to know (as Paul said to do in II Cor 13:5) if Christ is in it or not. When Christ awakens the soul to where it begins to search itself and begins to see the eternal importance as opposed to something of this life that soul will begin or continue an earnest seeking to know of its true state before God. Oh how this awakened person will feel the weight of sin as the conviction of the Spirit works. Oh how this person will feel the utter lack of righteousness as the Spirit opens the eyes to that. Oh how that person will feel the weight of eternal wrath when the Spirit teaches him or her that. Now the world is seen for what it is, a vain and empty deception.

The awakened soul will begin to be made aware by the work of Christ that names and doctrines and the thinking of men have deceived it. The soul will grow less and less satisfied with preaching that focuses on anything but spiritual realities and wants preaching that focuses on driving the soul away from self and away from what self can do to Christ alone. The soul that has been brought to see the vanity, emptiness, and deception of names and doctrines that are not brought into a spiritual focus and application to the soul will be nauseated when it sees how blinded it was by those things. The very same truth that was used as religion to blind the soul is now a truth that brings conviction to the soul and brings thirst to it for the true Christ. Even the doctrines of Christ can be used to blind a soul to its own state as knowledge puffs up. Oh how this awakened soul wants to know Christ and if indeed it has Christ. Nothing else will satisfy this soul now.

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Christ Preparing our Hearts 37

December 29, 2016

Come to Christ, a poor lost and undone wretch, hopeless and helpless; as to an only, able and merciful Savior. Cry out as one sinking under the waves and boisterous tempests of sin. Master save or else I perish. If Thou wilt, thou can. Say with Thomas, My Lord and my God! My Christ and my Savior! (Unknown)

Away with unprofitable controversies: spend your thoughts rather upon this momentous question, “Am I sound, or am I rotten at heart?” “Am I a new creature, or the old disguised in borrowed clothing?” Let it be your prayer that you may not be given up to a heedless and vain spirit, and then have religious duties for a show to beguile and hush your conscience…Deceive not yourself with names and notions; they cannot change your heart. If you are still impenitent, if you have not been renewed and sanctified by the Spirit of God, it matters little by what name you are called, or how warmly you advocate the distinguishing doctrines of the Gospel; you are in the sight of God a guilty, perishing sinner. (John Flavel)

Most people think about the things that their hearts love most. Regardless of what they say or try to convince themselves that they love the most, the desires of the heart will be reflected on what we think about and what we desire. People will assume a form of religion and yet their hearts will not truly be taken with Christ. It is possible to have a strict form of religion and an orthodox creed and the heart remain unchanged. It is also possible to be much in thought about doctrine and about things one can dispute with others about and not be taken with the Christ of the doctrine. It is only Christ who can fill our hearts with Himself and make Himself our true and chief love.

How easy it is for people to either not know or ignore the fact that their hearts must be changed by Christ Himself or they will perish. How easy it is for people to turn from outward sin and take up a form of religion and as such deceive themselves. It is not the religion that teaches of Christ and morality that saves, it is Christ Himself who saves. As the first quote above says, we must come to Christ “a poor lost and undone wretch, hopeless and helpless.” We must come to Christ “as to an only, able and merciful Savior.” Regardless of how much we know about Christ, that is not the same as knowing Christ. Regardless of how much religion we have, that religion will not save us. Regardless of how much morality we have obtained, that morality will not save us.

The old creature (as opposed to being a new creature in Christ) or old man is a terribly deceptive being and as such we deceive ourselves. That old creature loves to take up the covering of religion, of knowledge of the things of religion, of doctrines, of creeds, of things of church and rest in those things. The old creature loves to take things that have the appearance of truth or of things that truth can be seen in and admire itself in the mirror of self. The old creature is easily deceived because it does not want to be exposed to eternal wrath. The old creature is easily deceived because it does not want to feel the weight of the conviction and burden of its own sin and utter helplessness before God.

Oh how the old creature or old man will find comfort in religion and even conservative religion. It almost seems as if religion is perhaps one of the strongest ways that men are deceived. It is so easy for men to hear the history of religion and then make the jump to thinking that they are now part of that true religion. It is so easy for men to just assume that they have Christ because they are part of a local church. In other words, the old creature loves itself and is full of pride and self. It does not want true religion in truth but since it does not want to go to hell it will happily take up the outward appearance of those things and deceive itself.

It is not the name of something that makes it what the name would imply, but it is the reality of something that shows what it truly is. There are many people in the world today that make shoes, clothes, and purses with the brand of a famous maker on it. That name does not reflect the quality or value of the item, but instead it hides the true quality and true value of the item. It might take a practiced eye, but once it is seen that the name on the item is a fraud, the item is then seen as a fraud and the quality of it is then seen for what it is. These fake items are then taken out and destroyed. Thus is the creature that has taken a garment of religion and does not truly have Christ. The name does not hide the cheap workmanship that the fact that it was not made by the real maker when it is examined by one with knowledge. The soul has no place to hide when the all-seeing eye of God sees it. He is not fooled with names; He sees the real nature of the heart. He will cast those who are clothed with fake garments into the fire, and that regardless of the name it has taken by the act of self.

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Gospel of Grace Alone 57

December 28, 2016

As newness of life is necessary, so it is as necessary that we should put ourselves into the hands of God for it. It is this sense and conviction which brings us to him hungering and thirsting, and casts the soul upon him with all the strength of its desire, for that change when he alone can work in it. It is the knowledge and belief of this, which makes Gospel mercy and Gospel power so welcome and seasonable a relief to us. It is the hearty persuasion and inward feeling of our helpless state in sin, which constitutes the very life and spirit of prayer; and if it is not working at the bottom of all our prayers, they will be no better than a fruitless, dead formality, and can never work us one jot nearer to God, “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Little children are without strength and without knowledge, weak and ignorant, have every thing to learn, receive what is taught them with undisputing simplicity, and are incapable of thinking, acting for, and governing themselves. Just thus we should judge of ourselves. We are mere children in respect of any knowledge we have of our proper happiness, or ability to attain it. And this child-like, humble disposition is our necessary preparation for receiving the salvation of God—so called, because it is all his gift and his work. And neither the book of our own heart nor the book of Scripture has been opened to us, till we are brought to this conviction—“that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” (Thomas Adam, Sermons)

Matthew 18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

For the Gospel of grace alone to be truly grace alone, it must be a pure grace (unmixed) from beginning to end and nothing but that pure grace. This Gospel of grace alone is grace alone regarding the humbling of the soul, to regeneration, and then of all aspects of the Gospel. The hungering for God is God’s work in the soul. The conviction of sin is God’s work in the soul. The recognition and then deep brokenness of heart over the inability of the soul is the work of God in the soul.

For some reason in our own day we think of God having provided some grace for us and the rest of the labor and work is up to us. Even if a person has a creed that states something different, people do not hear that their regeneration, their faith, and their repentance are the works of God and all of those works as well are by grace alone. In other words, people are taught to look to themselves for something because they are not told how helpless they are in sin and the extent that grace has to reach to save them.

When the Scriptures are so clear about these things it is hard to understand why people appear to make efforts at hiding these truths from people. It is almost like we are ashamed to go against the flow of Arminianism and Pelagianism and simply tell people that they are dead in sin with no ability at all in the spiritual realm and that the whole of salvation is by grace alone. We seem somewhat eager to tell people that they must repent and believe, but we are far from eager to tell them that a repentance and faith that comes from them is simply another way for them to work dead works. Unless the dead soul is enlivened with the life of God the soul simply exchanges the open sin of pride and self for the religious acts of pride and self.

It seems rare for us to take the words of Christ seriously and think that He gave His statement of the absolute need for a person to be converted and become like a child. Apart from a person becoming like a child that person cannot enter the kingdom. The word “cannot” is a word of ability (can) and strength. No one has the strength or ability to enter the kingdom in his own work and his own ability. This must come to the soul from the outside and the soul must look to Christ alone for this work. The text tells us what must happen (be converted and become like a child), but it does not tells us that we must do this work ourselves.

This very basic teaching has been virtually lost in the modern day. The proud heart is opposed by God rather than given grace. It is only by the grace of God that a heart is humbled to where it will see and long for grace. It is only the work of grace in the soul that will convert that soul and make it like a little child. It is only that soul that has been made to be like a little child that will look to grace alone rather than to something of self and grace to make up the lack that it can do rather than grace alone. The glory of the Gospel of grace alone is not something that can be understood by the intellect alone, it must be taught to sinners in the heart by God Himself.

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Gospel of Grace Alone 56

December 27, 2016

Galatians 1:6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

As newness of life is necessary, so it is as necessary that we should put ourselves into the hands of God for it. It is this sense and conviction which brings us to him hungering and thirsting, and casts the soul upon him with all the strength of its desire, for that change when he alone can work in it. It is the knowledge and belief of this, which makes Gospel mercy and Gospel power so welcome and seasonable a relief to us. It is the hearty persuasion and inward feeling of our helpless state in sin, which constitutes the very life and spirit of prayer; and if it is not working at the bottom of all our prayers, they will be no better than a fruitless, dead formality, and can never work us one jot nearer to God, “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Little children are without strength and without knowledge, weak and ignorant, have every thing to learn, receive what is taught them with undisputing simplicity, and are incapable of thinking, acting for, and governing themselves. Just thus we should judge of ourselves. We are mere children in respect of any knowledge we have of our proper happiness, or ability to attain it. And this child-like, humble disposition is our necessary preparation for receiving the salvation of God—so called, because it is all his gift and his work. And neither the book of our own heart nor the book of Scripture has been opened to us, till we are brought to this conviction—“that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” (Thomas Adam, Sermons)

Matthew 18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

The sinfulness of man is not just an easy fix as it appears that so many believe. It is thought that as long as man stops his outward sin and starts doing some good things or becomes religious that that is all that can be expected. However, Scripture teaches something totally different. The Scriptures teach us that man is dead in sin (spiritually dead) and completely unable to do one thing spiritual or pleasing to God in his own strength. The Scriptures tell us that something dramatic must happen to man and that it must be done by God rather than man. While so many tell men to believe today as if men could do that in their own strength, men must know that God must work His work in them so that they can believe. It is only in this way will men know that they are saved by free-grace alone.

Without the converting work of God men will not be changed and they cannot believe because they have an unbelieving heart. They need a new heart in order to have a believing heart. This is set out in Matthew 18 (above) and it starts off with the word “except” in the KJV and “unless” in the NAS version. Both of these set out the same point. Something must happen to the sinner or that sinner cannot and will not enter the kingdom of heaven. What the text tells us must happen is that the sinner must be changed or turned or converted and become like a little child or that person will not enter the kingdom. The disciples were asking about who was the greatest in the kingdom, but Jesus severely rebuked them and told them that they must become like a little child to even enter the kingdom.

While there are several things that stand out in this text, one thing that stands out is that sinners must be changed by an external power. The power to change them cannot be caused by them as they have no capacity to change themselves from a proud heart to a humble heart. Sinners have no ability to turn themselves from seeking greatness out of pride to seeking His glory out of a humble heart. Sinners have no ability to turn themselves from trusting themselves to trusting in Christ alone.

What we see with great clarity, then, is the hand of sovereign grace working according to His people and His own glory. All are born dead in sin and by nature are children of wrath, so only a Divine hand can change the heart of those people and cause them to be born from above and make them children of the living God and children of love. This can only happen by a grace that cannot be helped, merited, or earned in any way, shape, form, or fashion. It is free-grace that takes sinners and converts them and makes them children who rest in Him and His grace. This does not deny the use of means, but it does say that it is His work alone that can do this and He will only do this by grace alone.

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Gospel of Grace Alone 55

December 26, 2016

Galatians 1:6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

As newness of life is necessary, so it is as necessary that we should put ourselves into the hands of God for it. It is this sense and conviction which brings us to him hungering and thirsting, and casts the soul upon him with all the strength of its desire, for that change when he alone can work in it. It is the knowledge and belief of this, which makes Gospel mercy and Gospel power so welcome and seasonable a relief to us. It is the hearty persuasion and inward feeling of our helpless state in sin, which constitutes the very life and spirit of prayer; and if it is not working at the bottom of all our prayers, they will be no better than a fruitless, dead formality, and can never work us one jot nearer to God, “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Little children are without strength and without knowledge, weak and ignorant, have every thing to learn, receive what is taught them with undisputing simplicity, and are incapable of thinking, acting for, and governing themselves. Just thus we should judge of ourselves. We are mere children in respect of any knowledge we have of our proper happiness, or ability to attain it. And this child-like, humble disposition is our necessary preparation for receiving the salvation of God—so called, because it is all his gift and his work. And neither the book of our own heart nor the book of Scripture has been opened to us, till we are brought to this conviction—“that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” (Thomas Adam, Sermons)

The Gospel of grace alone is the same thing as the Gospel of God. The term “Gospel of God” is used eight times, though there are other ways that it means the same thing. The Gospel is the good news of God and that is the same Gospel as the Gospel of Christ alone or the Gospel of grace alone. The Gospel is the Gospel of the glory of God as seen in the face of Christ. This should teach us that the very heart of the Gospel is the character of God. The Gospel of free-grace or the Gospel of the sovereign grace of God is the same thing as the Gospel of God. The living God is the truth of the Gospel and it is only good news when we understand who God is in Christ.

The modern idea is that Christ has done all He can do to pacify and angry God and the rest is up to us. The biblical truth is that God loved sinners and sent His Son to die in their place. This great love of God was such that He sent His Son to actually accomplish salvation, to procure salvation, and then to so fully procure their salvation that it will most certainly be applied at the good pleasure of God. The Gospel of the grace of God stands firmly against all the merit of men and all the contributions that men think that they can make. The Gospel of God or the Gospel of the grace of God means that every single thing that can possibly be done has been done by Christ. The true God stands serene and need absolutely and utterly nothing from man to save man. This is quite hard for men to swallow and they cannot humble themselves deep enough to submit to this. This too is the work of God.

It is God who calls sinners to Himself and He does that by the grace of Christ. As long as men are not deeply and thoroughly humbled in heart, they will not understand the wonder and glory of a free-grace. As long as men do not understand that the Gospel is really the good news of who God is as opposed to what fallen man thinks He is, they will not understand how deeply they must be humbled and what the true nature of the grace of God is. The selfish hearts of men and the proud hearts of men oppose and fight the deep humiliation and the deep breaking of the heart that God works in men in order to prepare them for the true Gospel. Men are blinded to this and as such they are satisfied with the mere doctrine of things and of a simple intellectual belief of these things.

When the Scriptures tell us that we must become like little children in order to enter the kingdom, we must take this seriously. When the Scriptures tell us that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, we must inquire with humble prayer seeking to know the mind of God as to what these things mean, what they really are, and for Him to work them in our proud and stubborn hearts. There is nothing so fruitless and hopeless in the universe as men who think that they can do anything to convert themselves or to help God convert them. God has never put any amount of grace in the hands of men to dispense to themselves or others as they please. Men are utterly and totally in the hands of God to show grace as He pleases. This is precisely what the natural man hates and as such he will develop a religion that will allow him to use the language of Scripture and yet keep his heart that is like the Pharisee.

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Holiday Thoughts 9

December 25, 2016

Romans 1:15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH “.”

II Cor 4:4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

1 Timothy 1:11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

2 Timothy 1:10 but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

John 16:20 “Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy.

John 15:24 “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.

The world hated Christ once they saw His life and heard His teachings. This is why we must be so careful this time of year (December 25) as well as other times. The holiday periods are fraught with great danger because the world is caught up with the wrong idea of Christ and they will celebrate the birth of baby Jesus while at the same time they hate His true teachings about Himself, which is the very truth of God. False churches and seemingly the whole world will join in a celebration of the birth of baby Jesus, but that does not change their hatred for the true Christ and His true teachings. We must never forget that the world is at enmity toward the true God and they hate Him when they see the true Jesus. One cannot hate the Father without hating the true Jesus and one cannot hate the true Jesus without hating the true Father. This makes it so clear that the world has a false Christ in mind when they celebrate (to some degree and in some way) baby Jesus.

It is perhaps a terrible way of thinking in the minds of most, yet the Bible is quite clear that people hate God and they hate the Son He sent. The great celebrations that go on this time of year are really demonstrations of how willing people are to love some idea of the baby Jesus and yet just how much they hate the true Jesus. The world loves the things of the season as long as they are not confronted with the truth of God, yet it also appears that the professing Church (majority, if not vast majority) goes along with that. The Lord Jesus Christ cannot be worshiped in truth and spirit apart from a true worship of Him as Divine. A celebration of baby Jesus does not follow the truth in the slightest.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has fallen to the side in our day and appears to be virtually unknown in most religious circles. Yes, that sounds arrogant, but that does not falsify the claim. Where is the true Gospel of God (a sovereign God at that) be found in our day? Where is the true doctrine of free-grace found? There are all forms and ways for people to preach and talk about grace and Christ without speaking of the biblical Christ and the true biblical grace. In the New Testament times the professing Church was plagued with Pharisees and then Judaizers. In the modern day there are all sorts of heresies that have virtually engulfed the professing Church and it seems as if the Gospel of the sovereign God in and through the true Christ has been hidden.

The practice of religion keeps on and the practice of holidays keep on, but the Gospel of our sovereign God is being hidden. The world rejoices today (December 25, 2016) and the professing Church rejoices today. Some, however, grieve at the state of the professing Church in a day such as this. May God grant us a sight of Himself shining forth in the true Christ and His true Gospel by His sovereign mercy and grace. There is no other Gospel and no other way. It could be said that all the attention on baby Jesus is one way that people are blinded and so they do “not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” If people do not behold the glory of God in Christ, they do not see the true Christ nor the true God. The ways of religion and tradition do a good job of hiding His glory.

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Holiday Thoughts 8

December 23, 2016

Romans 1:15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH “.”

II Cor 4:4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

1 Timothy 1:11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

2 Timothy 1:10 but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

We live in a day of great spiritual famine and that is a truth without much controversy at all if we simply compare what is going on in our day with the times when God poured out His Spirit upon His people. We have people taking loud and very strong stands against certain sins and certain positions. We have people being very strong for certain doctrines and certain practices. We have people who will stand strong for moral positions and for doctrinal creeds. There are many people like that in our day.

However, some of those same people cannot be found preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His free-grace. It is almost bizarre (in my opinion) to find people who will rant on moral issues and leave the Gospel virtually unmentioned much less preached. Oh how people will make much of the birth of baby Jesus and at best one here or one there may mention that He came to love God with all of His being and give His life as a sacrifice for sin. The birth of Christ should show us how vile and wretched we are and how helpless we are in our spiritual death and bondage to sin, but that is not mentioned either. We are so vile in our sin that the second Person of the Trinity had to take human flesh in order to earn a perfect righteousness and be a perfect sacrifice. The birth of Christ does not declare to us how wonderful we are, it declares to us how sinful we are.

Christ did not come to give useless toys to people and He did not come to show us how we are to give gifts to others. He came to glorify God by saving sinners. We have no record of the Lord Jesus Christ giving a gift to anyone, but what we see is that He Himself is the best and greatest gift. When we give gifts we can give things that turn the hearts of people from Christ, yet He have Himself and turned people to Himself. He is the greatest gift and He will turn hearts back to the Father.

It is still a puzzle and grief when the professing churches in our day will spend so much time on the baby Jesus theme and spend time on the sentimentality of it all, yet the true Christ is not preached. The true Gospel of Jesus Christ appears to be well hidden in our day and this time of year it is hidden quite well behind the curtains of sentimentality and a Jesus that as a baby is helpless and harmless (we think). While it is true that Jesus was not born on December 25 and it is a Roman Catholic holiday that Protestants have swallowed whole, if only the ministers of the day would stay away from all the trappings of this time of year and seek and preach Christ, even and especially the whole Christ.

As stated above, we are in a terrible spiritual famine. Following the calendar as to stated holy days will not help. The only thing that will help is if God Himself will put rods in the backs of His ministers and they will preach the whole Christ week after week. We need the whole Christ and we need the whole Gospel. We need the whole Gospel preached from men who have hearts full of Christ and a conviction of Christ and His Gospel of free-grace. We don’t really need to hear nice little sermons about the facts of Christ; our hearts must be confronted with the Lord of glory. We don’t need to hear nice sermons on the birth of Christ, we need to hear the full Christ declared from hearts who are bowed before this Lord and who are full of the life of this resurrected Christ.

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Holiday Thoughts 7

December 22, 2016

Romans 1:15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH “.”

II Cor 4:4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

1 Timothy 1:11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

2 Timothy 1:10 but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

Luther stated that the Church (and each person) did in fact rise or fall with the Gospel. It is the Gospel of Christ and the Gospel of God and the Gospel of the glory of God that we are speaking of. The Gospel is not some simple message that we unload on people in a couple of minutes here and there, but the Gospel of the glory of God is the very heart of the Old and New Testaments. The Gospel is not just some facts that we tell people and it is not just some information given, it is the good news of who God is and what He has accomplished in and through Jesus Christ. The Gospel is not limited to what we can know by our intellects, it is about the acts of God and God Himself. This is to say that we must change our thinking about the Gospel.

The Gospel is also a Gospel of life. The Gospel of Christ is also the Gospel of life because Christ is life Himself. I John 5:20 is quite clear that eternal life is Christ, which shows us why we must have Christ in order to have life. The Gospel is the living God bringing life to dead sinners by the death of Christ and His resurrection to life. Christ Himself is the way, the truth, and the life. It is Christ Himself who is the way itself and not just that Christ tells us of a way. It is Christ Himself who is the truth as opposed to just telling us about the truth. It is Christ Himself who is the life and it is not just something He tells people about.

The holiday season, as practiced in our day, is really all about the birth of baby Jesus and not about the shining forth of the glory of God. The holiday season focuses on the baby Jesus and not about how He was the very tabernacle of God on this planet. The holiday season has forgotten about the real and true Gospel of Christ and instead focuses on a baby in the manger. Not one person can ever be saved by a preaching of the baby Jesus, but instead it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the hands of the living God that saves sinners.

Acts 17:18 And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”– because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about the resurrected Savior and not about a baby in the manger. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about the resurrected and living Savior who is sovereign over all men. The Gospel is a living Gospel because it is about the living God and the living Christ. The Gospel is not about a baby in the manger, it is about the Lord Jesus Christ before whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. The holiday season does not move hearts to awe, it moves them to sentimentalism. The Gospel of life looks to Christ who was sacrificed and rose again in the place of sinners. It is the crucified and resurrected Savior that we should preach as it is the Gospel of the crucified and resurrected Savior that is the power of God unto salvation.

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Holiday Thoughts 6

December 21, 2016

Exodus 20: 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol…7 “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

Matthew 6:9 “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

Leviticus 10:3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the LORD spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.'” So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.

Psalm 2:11 Worship the LORD with reverence And rejoice with trembling.

Isaiah 6:3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”

Hebrews 12:28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe;

There is no day commanded in Scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s day, which is the Christian Sabbath. Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued. (Westminster Confession of Faith, Directory of Public Worship)

The Westminster divines, as they have been called, were quite clear on this subject. They were quite aware of what they were saying and why they were saying it. Roman Catholicism had brought in many superstitions and holy days (as they called them) and the Westminster divines saw the damage that those things had done. The Westminster divines longed for a pure worship and a worship that was strictly according to Scripture. Some men from Scotland were there as advisors for the writers of the Westminster Confession and in Scotland during those days keeping a holy-day (like Christ-Mass) that was not the Sabbath was something they saw as worthy of church discipline. It was not a small thing in their way of thinking.

In the modern day, things like keeping the church calendar and keeping certain days are thought of as normal. If one does not keep them then one is thought of as odd at best and perhaps even non-Christian. The vast majority of people have followed Rome into keeping their special days. It was Rome that set up a special mass in celebration of the birth of Christ, which is why it is called Christ-mass. It was Rome who made this a special day when in fact the New Testament does no such thing. We must learn to look past our own sentimentality and look to Scripture as our guide.

Is it wrong to preach on the birth of Christ? Perhaps not, but why do people choose this day rather than others? It seems to be clear that Rome started this unbiblical celebration and if we continue it we are following Rome in what they do rather than the Bible. We follow Rome in terms of the dating of the day. We follow Rome in setting this day out as a special day when the Bible does not. We follow Rome in what we call the day, that is, Christ-mass which is a special mass for the birth of Christ.

As we think of the origin of this day and the meaning of the word (Christ-mass), surely we should take pause and think of what we are doing. There is no command or example in Scripture to do this, but there are commands and examples of how we should revere Him and treat His name as holy. We can also simply look at the virtual insanity that does with this time of year with the shopping, debt, and enormous greed that seems to permeate what drives the day. There is a lot of worship that takes place during this time of year, but it is the worship of profit, of self, and of greed. We do what we please while ignoring the broader biblical teaching on all of life. We give ourselves to all sorts of idolatry and yet excuse it saying it is for “Christ-mass” and all of that. We have followed Rome into using religion as a way of excusing our selfishness and our sinful hearts.

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