Examining the Heart 46

May 30, 2014

The sun may as well be hindered from rising as Christ the Sun of righteousness (Mal 4:2). Look not a moment off Christ. Look not upon sin, but look upon Christ first. When you mourn for sin, if you see Christ then, away with it (Zech 12:10). In every duty look to Christ; before duty to pardon; in duty to assist; after duty to accept. Without this it is but carnal, careless duty. Do not legalize the gospel, as if part remained for you to do and suffer, and Christ were but half a Mediator and you must bear part of your own sin, and make part satisfaction. Let sin break your heart, but not your hope in the gospel. Thomas Willcox

The believer in Christ Jesus must look to Christ at all times and for all things. The gaze of the inward eye of the believer must always (in some sense and to some degree) be looking to Christ for grace and the strength of grace. The believer must look to Christ alone for justification, for sure, but also look to Christ alone for sanctification and Christ alone for holiness and Christ alone for strength in all things.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

The heart of the believer is in what seems to be a constant battle, and in many ways it is. There is the battle with sin, with the fiery darts and accusations of the evil one, and then striving for holiness. There is the battle with self and pride in doing works by the strength of grace rather than the strength of self and pride. All men have wicked hearts and thought the bondage of sin is broken in redeemed man, he still cannot do one iota of good apart from receiving that from Christ.

The Gospel of grace alone saves men from self and pride by grace alone, yet this does not mean that grace stops. Men are saved by grace alone that they may live by Christ and His grace rather than self. Justifying faith is a gift of God by grace and yet faith must continue and it will only continue if it is upheld by the grace of God. Faith will never come from the will of a believer, but instead the only source of true faith is God. The opposite of faith is pride and self, which means that the more a person looks to self for faith the more opposite of true faith that really is. The encouragement is for the believer to always look to Christ regardless of what is going on and regardless of the circumstances surrounding the believer. There are no answers other than Christ.

The first example given of looking to Christ is that of a person mourning for sin. A person mourning for sin will either be focused on the sin itself, the inward pain or the idea of self-defeat, or the mourning soul will mourn as it looks at Christ and then the looking to Christ will take away the mourning. The point is that so many seem to think that there is something holy about a long mourning for sin and so they focus on the mourning, but the purpose of true mourning is to drive us from sin to Christ. The purpose of mourning for sin is not so that the sinner can suffer enough as if that makes up for part of the sin. That view tells us that there is something insufficient in the sufferings and cross of Christ.

It is important for believers to understand the fullness of Christ and the sufficiency of His cross and righteousness. The believer has no suffering for sin left, though indeed there may be suffering for other reasons. The believer needs to examine his or her heart and look for its attitudes and the secret things of the heart for what it is really doing during times of mourning and suffering. If it is deceived into thinking that the mourning and suffering is in some way meritorious to God, then the soul is not truly looking to a totally sufficient work of Christ. If the soul has the sneaking thought that it deserves something for the suffering or mourning it is going through, then it is not resting completely on the righteousness of Christ. If the soul is mourning and pride comes sneaking in that “I” am mourning in a right way and others are not, then that soul is not looking at the humble Savior. The heart is very deceptive and it takes a lot of humbling of the soul and seeking of the Lord to open our eyes to those deceptions. But that is another aspect of constantly looking to Christ for all things in all circumstances.

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Genuine Christianity Rare 22

May 29, 2014

Exhortations to forsake sin, and to obey God, upon Arminian Principles, never can be attended with any good success, seeing they neither shew man the depth of his disease, nor the freeness, fullness, and all-sufficiency of the Gospel salvation; so that he neither knows his own utter helplessness, nor where all his strength lies.        Sir Richard Hill

The old and biblical doctrine of the Gospel was based around the glory of God in Christ and that by grace alone. The Arminian position, regardless of how much it is denied, is a system that demands something other than the pure grace of God alone. God saves by grace alone because that means it is His choice and His work alone. God saves sinners to the glory of His name and He will not share His glory with another. There is only one way to the Father and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. We cannot obtain salvation by an act of our will and we cannot go to the Father by an act of our own will. We can only be saved on the basis of Christ alone by grace alone and we can only go to the Father by Christ alone.

Romans 11:6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.

The text of Scripture just above is a short passage, but it has a very powerful message. Grace is not consistent with works for justification. Even more, grace is not consistent with one work for salvation either. If we take any solution or substance (substance A) that is 100% pure and add the slightest bit of something else (substance B) to it, substance A is no longer pure substance A. We cannot say that one has substance A apart from any other substance. The same is true with grace. The Gospel proclaims the glory of God in salvation by grace alone. If we add one work to it, then it is no longer by grace alone.

Another way to think of it is that sinners are saved by God alone who saves out of love for Himself and His glory alone. If we add one work, for example, an act of the so-called free-will, we have a so-called Gospel of grace alone. That would mean that God saves out of love for Himself and His glory primarily, but not alone. That would mean that either the cross of Christ was not quite 100% efficient or that His righteousness was not 100% enough. There is a lot riding on the “Arminian Principles.”

While it seems so self-evident to some that the teaching of “free-will” is antithetical to the Gospel of grace alone, others defend it vociferously. They tell us with great cheerfulness that Arminians preach the same Jesus and the same Gospel, though Calvinists approach it some differently. I argue that a true Arminian not only does not preach the same Jesus, but that his system cannot allow him to do so. The true Arminian cannot preach the same Gospel as the Bible Gospel of grace alone, though granted he may preach it the same way as many professing Calvinists do. But again, the Bible does not allow for one work in the Gospel of grace alone regardless of whether it is called that or not. When someone drags a work into what they call the Gospel and yet calls it by another name, we must stand firm and tell people that they are preaching something other than the Gospel of grace alone.

The importance of preaching the biblical doctrines of depravity and inability is so that man can be delivered from thinking that his own will can do anything that contributes to his own salvation. The Arminian teaching on this will never bring a person to utterly renounce his or her own righteousness and ability and to prostrate at the foot of the cross looking for mercy and grace alone that is not based on anything he can do. Luther wrote that until a man denied his own free-will he was not ready to be saved. The doctrine of people is not preached to make people feel bad and to manipulate them into a decision, but it is in order to break them from all that they are trusting in other than Christ alone and grace alone. Until the soul is turned from its own free-will and the power of its own will it is not really broken from self and is not looking to Christ and His grace alone. Therefore, “Arminian Principles” are dangerous to the Gospel and in exhorting people to flee from sin and seek the Lord. If “Arminian Principles” are truly dangerous, then the state of Christianity in the modern day can be seen quickly and easily. We are inundated with “Arminian Principles” in our land and that even in the professing Reformed. May God grant us a true repentance from “Arminian Principles” that we may seek Him by grace alone.

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Genuine Christianity Rare 21

May 28, 2014

Exhortations to forsake sin, and to obey God, upon Arminian Principles, never can be attended with any good success, seeing they neither shew man the depth of his disease, nor the freeness, fullness, and all-sufficiency of the Gospel salvation; so that he neither knows his own utter helplessness, nor where all his strength lies.       Sir Richard Hill

This is not a statement that would go over well in the modern day. It is so opposed to the modern idea of being nice and winsome and not speaking against other theological positions. It would be especially anathema to those who are trying to work in denominations of various theological stripes. However, all of those things have nothing to do with the truth of the statement. This statement should shake the ground that Arminians and anyone close to that position stand on. While Arminians claim that Calvinists (so-called) cannot be truly moral, the truth of the matter is that Arminianism as a system destroys any real basis for biblical holiness.

The biblical teaching on justification is that a sinner is justified by Christ alone, grace alone, and through faith alone. The biblical teaching on sanctification is that all that a sinner does that is acceptable to God must be done out of love for God. Love for God is a fruit of the Spirit and as such is a spiritual work and is not of the flesh or the will of the flesh. Jesus also told us that apart from Him we can do nothing (spiritual or good). Another biblical principle is that all good comes from Him, though Him, and is back to Him. Any motive or action that comes from the flesh or the will of the flesh, therefore, cannot be good or holy. True holiness comes from God and is out of love for God. True holiness is done in the strength of grace. The Arminian, however, teaches that the free-will is necessary for true holiness, but the truth of the matter is that what comes from a free-will is a will that is free from grace and free from true love and holiness.

The Arminian position leaves man depraved but not totally depraved, so man has something he can look to of himself. If man is not totally depraved, then man does not need to be totally saved and does not need Christ totally. The issue from that position is that men are told to make good choices, but the biblical position is that man needs grace to make any choice that is pleasing to God and the power of grace to carry out that choice. The issue becomes, as always, the tension or battle between free-will and free-grace. But if the will is free, it is also free of grace and as such it is of human works and human strength. If the will is free, it is free of Divine love and as such it is not from God and is from human effort and human strength. If the will is free, it is free of the fruit of the Spirit and as such it is the fruit of the flesh. If the will is free, it is free of the work of Christ and as such it is of self.

The issues cannot be any clearer when one sees this in the biblical context. The will that is free is a will that is given to works, while the will that is of Christ is freed from the flesh and enslaved to Christ and grace. The Arminian position does leave one dependent on works while the biblical position has people depending on Christ and His grace. When the doctrine of man’s total depravity and utter helplessness and inability is watered down, it always leaves men to their own devices and their own strength to some degree. As long as men look to themselves in any degree, they are not broken from their own righteousness and they are not looking to grace alone.

The Arminian position also leaves the Gospel of grace alone in reality, though perhaps not in words, and adds something to it. Anytime people are told that they must pray a prayer or make a choice or do an act of the will and that comes from a free-will, those people are not hearing the Gospel of grace alone. True faith does not come from the will that is free of grace and free of Christ, but instead Christ gives faith by grace. Sinners do not believe in Christ by an act of the will that is free from grace, but instead true faith can only come from grace and sinners must look to Christ for the faith they must have in Christ. Part of believing in Christ is to believe in Christ for faith and all spiritual blessings. The same thing is true of repentance. We must look to Christ for repentance instead of self or we will never repent of self.

The Arminian system is against the Gospel of grace alone and of the freeness of Christ to save sinners by His power and grace alone. The Gospel of grace alone does not depend on sinners to do one thing, but instead it depends on Christ to do all things and that by grace alone. The Gospel is all about the sufficiency of Christ instead of Christ having most of the sufficiency and man just a little or even the deciding amount. Oh no, Christ is fully sufficient and the teaching of free-will opposes that in theory. But the denial of free-will and the setting forth free-grace is rare today, especially if it includes opposing Arminian teaching at this point. As long as the Scriptures teach Christ alone and grace alone, it will stand against the Arminian teaching of free-will and oppose it for what it is. It is opposed to the Gospel of grace alone as the act of a will that is free of grace and love (which it must be if it is to be truly free) is nothing but the work of the flesh.

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Genuine Christianity Rare 20

May 28, 2014

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.          Sir Richard Hill

The formalist is a person that does not pant and labor after more and more true grace and holiness, but is contented with his present state or present attainments thinking (perhaps) that this happened by grace. This is so important to point out to anyone that will listen. This is important in a day of great darkness where it appears that we are in a virtual Gospel eclipse. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is one of grace and grace alone, but when a different Jesus and a different grace are preached, the Gospel itself is changed. Each person should and must examine his or her own heart to see if s/he is caught up in formalism. Yes, formalism is consistent with a virile form of orthodoxy. Yes, formalism is consistent with a virile form of moralism. The formalist may be a person that is strong on the sacraments and/or strong on creedalism or confessionalism. While confessions and creeds are important, they will not protect a church against formalism.

The formalist just keeps plodding along on the path s/he is on and is thought to be faithful. But where is the life of Christ in the soul of the formalist? The formalist will find religious excuses to be worldly in some ways, if not many. The formalist will not recognize how divided his heart is between God and the world, but will tell himself and deceive himself into thinking that he is walking with God. After all, he tells himself, there is nothing wrong with his hobbies and the things he loves, just as long as he does them in a way that honors God. The formalist will think that the morality of true Christianity is legalism as true Christianity wants to love God rather than just be content with some externals. True Christianity does not ask as the main question about things whether it is wrong, but is it true love for the true God.

The formalist goes on in life with an external morality and even a strong version of Christianity, but this can be but to “content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion.” Formal religion is, as Hill notes, “lifeless and luke-warm.” There is no life of Christ there is no true fruit of the Holy Spirit. Formalism settles for the works of the flesh and deludes self into thinking that these things are the real thing. But to settle for formalism, which is lifeless and luke-warm, is to settle for the type of religion that Jesus says He will spew out of His mouth. Formalism, then, is a false form of confidence in salvation that the Devil uses to deceive and delude people with.

The contrast drawn in the paragraph above (quote of Hill) is that of those who bewail their own sinfulness and then those who with confidence trust in their own religion. Jesus the Christ came to save sinners and not those who are confident in their lifeless religion. Jesus the Christ is the very life of the souls of all who are united to Him by grace alone. Jesus the Christ is the Savior of those who have had their eyes opened and despite their little faith and enormous sin they rest in Christ alone. Jesus the Christ has given those who are stripped of their own righteousness and their own religious formalism His own perfect righteousness. Formalism in the things of Christianity is not just a little dangerous, it is as deadly as anything on the planet. It seems that people who gain confidence in their state before God based on formalism are greatly deceived and this great deception is like a sleep that one never awakes from. “Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.” “Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you” (Eph 5:14). Formalism is the walk of death into hell. Christ is the way, the truth, and the LIFE.

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Examining the Heart 45

May 26, 2014

You may be brought low, even to the brink of hell, ready to tumble in; you cannot be brought lower than the belly of hell. Many saints have been there, even dowsed in hell; yet even then you may cry, even there you may look toward the holy temple (Jonah 2:4). Into that temple none might enter but purified ones, and with an offering too (Acts 21:26). But now Christ is our temple, sacrifice, altar, high priest, to whom none must come but sinners, and that without any offering, but His own blood once offered (Heb 7:27).      Thomas Willcox

This describes the experience of many of the saints of God, both before they were converted but also after. With the terrors of a tender conscience and the devil’s fiery darts, true believers are brought low and think that they are ready to fall into hell. Their fears are great because they have been wrestling with a heart that has so much darkness and evil in, but the fiery darts of the evil one makes it far worse. They feel that they have been given over to a final hardness of heart and they know that they cannot soften their own hearts. They have this sense of utter terror of hell and the sense of a complete inability to do anything about it. They will walk through a town or the country bemoaning the day that they were born because they were born into sin.

The hand of the living God is merciful toward His people that He leads in this way. He is burning off the dross and teaching them by experience the hatefulness of sin and of their own inability. Those He chooses to lead in this path will not doubt their own inability or of the grace of God. In the perfect timing, providence, and wisdom of God brings the person to the perfect breaking of heart, the brass of heaven will be removed and that person will be able to cry out to God. But even more the brass (in appearance) of heaven is removed and while that person is in a great trial of body or perhaps of faith, even from there the soul should cry out to the living God. It is when the soul has been delivered from self and pride and all trust and confidence in self that the soul knows that there is only One that can help it. It knows that the only One who can help it is not One who helps based on the worth of the soul needing help, but of His own worth. The soul must learn to look to Christ regardless of its condition and regardless of how close to hell it thinks it is. The soul should look to Christ and Christ alone and it needs to learn that by practice, though the Lord makes that practice a hard thing. But we learn obedience through suffering.

There are other things that the soul looks to and must be broken from that. When the soul is brought low by trials, it can look to the law and the keeping of the law, but this will lead the soul to despair or legalism. The soul can look to itself and complain to God that if God loved the soul it should not be treated like it is being treated, but this usually leads to either despair or anger and pouting. Both of the methods of treating the soul and all others is based on the soul looking to self in some way. The soul, though it tells itself that God blesses the obedient and so it strives for obedience according to rules and laws, will be looking to self and the strength of the flesh. It is only the soul that looks to Christ alone that will overcome its great trials by grace. It must be grace that strengthens us and not the flesh. As long as the soul is looking to the law and/or to self in some way, it has not learned to lean on Christ alone and rest in Him alone.

The picture that Willcox gives us is that of the soul entering into the temple. In the temple of the Old Testament one had to bring the blood of a sacrifice and it had to be brought by a high priest. The soul that has been stripped of self-righteousness and stands naked of any help but Christ alone has a High Priest to offer a perfect sacrifice in its place. This soul stands in the blood of Christ and that is its plea. This soul will stand in the righteousness of Christ without one look to its own righteousness. The law was never given so that sinners could have a method of coming to God on the basis of, but instead in the hands of the devil who uses it to point to our sin is accuses and points out the damnation we so richly deserve. The law was never given so that sinners could have righteousness from that law to come to God on. The law was never given as a way for sinners to make up for their sins. No, the law was given in order to show sinners just how sinful they are. When sinners see just how sinful they are, they desire nothing of themselves and will only be satisfied with Christ. Therefore, from the depths they will cry out to Christ and Christ alone and they will look to grace alone rather than anything from themselves. But oh what a hope poor, stripped and naked sinners have in Christ. “Nothing of my own do I bring, simply to the cross I cling.”

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Examining the Heart 44

May 25, 2014

You complain much of yourself. Does your sin make you look more at Christ, less of yourself? That is right, or else complaining is but hypocrisy. To be looking at duties, graces, enlargements, when you should be looking at Christ, that is pitiful. Looking at them will make your proud; looking at Christ’s grace will only make you humble. By grace you are saved (Eph 2:5). In all your temptations be not discouraged (James 1:2). Those surges maybe not to break you, but to heave you off yourself upon the Rock Christ.       Thomas Willcox

The idea of complaining is not necessarily bad, but it depends on what one is complaining about and to whom one is voicing the complaints. The driving point of this paragraph (above) is that a person must be driven to Christ or flee to Christ regardless of whether one has the sense of drowning in sin or experiences much grace. If we complain of sin in order to appear righteous to others, that is sinful. If we complain of sin and yet don’t even try to leave the sin, that is sinful. If we complain of sin and yet that drives us to an unhealthy form of introspection, that is sinful as well. What we must see is that if we truly complain of sin that should lead us to complain to Christ who alone can deliver us from sin.

The believer must learn to quit looking at self so much as that leads to a focus on self rather than a sense of dependence on Christ for all things. The heart must be given to Christ and to Christ alone rather than doting on self in some way. The gaze of the believer’s love and heart is to be fixed on Christ rather than self. Christ opens the hearts of His children at times so that they can see how foul they are which should drive them to Him. Christ may open the hearts of His children so that they can see their great weakness, but that is so that they will seek Him as the total Self-Sufficient One in all things. But by nature men are focused on self and want to remain that way. For some reason they think that they can cure themselves of sin or that there is some righteousness to be obtained by focusing on the sin. There are times to focus on sin, yes, but that is to break ourselves of a self-focus and drive us to Christ in all things.

The opposite of the person (only in one sense) who dwells on his own sinfulness rather than the sin driving him to Christ is the person that dwells upon his or her own gifts and graces. What these two things have in common is that they both dwell on self rather than Christ. The person that focuses on his or her own gifts and graces rather than being taken with the giver and worker of those gifts and graces is a proud person and does not realize the true source of those graces. If we see graces and kept duties in ourselves, that should lead us to praise Christ alone and not self. The giving of grace that gives us graces should lead us to marvel at the grace that God shows. But it is so easy for an imperfect heart to use grace to focus on self rather than Christ.

Whether God opens the eyes of sinners to see their sin or opens the hearts of some to obedience by grace, the purpose is to show all our utter dependence upon Christ. How the heart of the believer may be taken up with a temptation, but the believer needs to focus on the grace of Christ and the cross of Christ in order to break the power of that temptation. But the heart of the believer may also be taken up with the graces that God gives and works through that believer, but in that case the believer should also look to Christ for strength to overcome such a sinful and wicked heart that would try to take the credit for what Christ is doing in the soul.

The soul must learn that it has no strength in terms of fighting sin at its root apart from Christ. The Lord Jesus has left His people in a state of total and utter dependence upon Him if they are to do good at all. Jesus told us that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). It is only grace that can teach us this in the depths of the soul and it is only grace that can give us the grace to rest in Christ whether in times of temptation or in times where God is working His graces in and through us. Both temptations to sin and graces given are to teach us that we must have Christ at all times. We may indeed swing from one to the other as we grow, but we need to learn to seek Christ as our Rock and our Anchor at all times. Our hearts are too often taken away from Christ to look to self in some way.

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Musings 50

May 24, 2014

1 Timothy 1:15 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.

Matthew 9:13 “But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Mark 2:17 And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

If it is part of our theological statement or creed, we will say that we believe that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. But it is to be wondered just how far that statement has sunk into our hearts. It is far more important to us in the modern day that people be respectable and have the right morality. It is far more important for us to have those who have the same creed we do and believe it to the letter than it is to deal with each other as sinners or to understand that sinners need Christ. It is far easier to just accept the fact that all men are sinners, though maybe not all that bad, than it is to really accept the fact that I am a really bad sinner, my children are really bad sinners, and that all my relatives are really bad sinners.

As long as people will go along with certain statements in Romans 9 and Ephesians 1-2, we will account them orthodox and accepted into our fellowship. But Jesus Christ came to save sinners and not those who can articulate a sound belief about Romans 9 and Ephesians 1-2. It is the spiritually dead that He will raise to spiritual life rather than those who are know a lot about Romans 9 and Ephesians 1-2. It is one thing to know that God makes people alive in Christ, but it is quite another to be raised to life by God. It is one thing to know about the facts that people are dead in their sins and trespasses, but it is quite another to come to a soul-wrenching knowledge that I am dead in sins and trespasses. It is even more to understand that each member of my family is dead in sins and trespasses and there is nothing I can do to raise them from that spiritual death. God alone can do that and He only does so by grace alone.

In the I Timothy passage about it tells us that the statement “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” deserves “full acceptance.” This seems to intimate at the very least that there are levels of how we accept that statement. We can hear it with the ears or we can understand in the depths of our souls that Jesus Christ did not come to save/call the righteous, but sinners. This teaches us at the very least that we must not have confidence in our own salvation or anyone else’s regarding their external righteousness. This teaches us not to trust in anything but Christ alone and His grace alone. This teaches us God alone can save sinners and He must do it by grace rather than by our theological and biblical understandings.

Rather than churches being the place where the nice people, the moral people, and the well-dressed people meet; they are to be places where the worst of sinners (in their own eyes) gather. It is hard to be among those who are full of themselves and their own self-righteousness as they walk around smiling and seeming to be without a hard thing in life when you are wrestling with the horror and misery of your own wicked heart. Attending “church” where people are positive and glib about how God works things for the positive in all instances and hearing the testimonies of how God has blessed people with this and that by the happy people can make one who is sick at heart over his or her bondage to sin rather nauseated.

There are people “in the pews” who are sick of their sin but they never receive the message of the true Healer of sin. They don’t know that there is anyone else in the world that wrestles with sin and a hard heart. They hear positive messages about how nice God is to the moral or perhaps some exposition of a verse or a passage that feeds the intellect but leaves the soul on ice. Oh, the poor sinners cries, where is God? Oh how poor and broken sinners long to have a few crumbs from the Bread of Life and yet all they hear is teaching to inform the brain. How these foremost of sinners in their own feelings and hearts long to hear of a Savior who can deal with their own misery, but they get nothing but intellectual information. Christ did not come to save us from our ignorance as such, but He came to save sinners from their sin. How sinners need to hear more of Christ saving sinners rather than theological dry bread, though theology is deeper when it is focused on Christ and His saving sinners.

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Musings 49

May 23, 2014

Matthew 21:31 “Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. 32 “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.

Attending church while dressed well and appearing respectable may be a dangerous thing. Attending church with a solid creed and having the good people in town attending may be a dangerous thing as well. The Pharisees were very religious, had the educated clergy, and all the respectable people in town would meet with them. Jesus, however, would preach to the common people and in ways that they could understand. Jesus preached to sinners. The very religious Pharisees would look down their noses at people because the common people would gladly hear Him. The very people the Pharisees seemed to despise the most Jesus said were entering the kingdom of God before the Pharisees themselves. Do people take that seriously today? Really?

Jesus Christ did not come to save the righteous, but instead sinners and the worst of sinners. He saved and continues to save the worst of sinners and people who are not respectable in their own eyes and perhaps the eyes of others. However, we continue to try to have a respectable version of Christianity. As has been noted before, church starts seem to be aimed at the upper middle class, which is to say that it is aimed at those with a fair amount of money and respectability. Some in seeing that have tried to start churches in other places. The problem, however, is that Jesus the Christ came to save sinners and not just people of a particular economic group. Whether or not people are rich or poor or something in between, the real issue is whether they are broken sinners.

While our creed says that God saves by grace alone and it would appear that people intellectually believe that, it is also true that people seem much more comfortable attending “church” in a plush building with people who don’t have problems or at least don’t appear to do so. But again, despite what the creed says and despite the fact that we say that we agree with it, do we really believe that Christ saves really bad sinners and does so by grace alone? Do we think that sinners must become well-behaved and well-dressed before Christ will save them? Though we may not admit that in word, isn’t that what our actions declare?

Now all people who have studies the history of the Church know that church discipline is a sign of a true church. But has it devolved to where church discipline is really a means of doing other things? Could it be a means of getting rid of sinners rather than really dealing with them about their souls? Indeed our creeds inform our minds of what we should believe, but how deep that belief goes is another issue. It is easy enough to want to be one of the crowd and be respectable in believing that creed, but do we really understand that Jesus Christ came to save sinners? He came to save the most vile sinners and not necessarily those who wear expensive suits and give large amounts of money to the church. Does Jesus need large amounts of money?

Perhaps it has been made too much of to note that Jesus was impoverished in many ways and used a rock for a pillow. He was supported by others and was what we would call homeless in our day. Would Jesus be allowed in our churches today? He was, after all, rather outspoken. He had harsh words for the most religious and most scholarly people of His time on earth. Jesus welcomed sinners and did not live in a sanitized churchy atmosphere. He came to suffer and die for the worst sinners. Where are the worst sinners in our day? Would we hang out with Paul who thought of himself as the worst of sinners? Would we hand out with Paul who wanted to preach the Gospel to all kinds of people?

Once again, it is important to note that it is not the economic status of the people that is the real point. It has to do with the kind of people that Jesus came to save. He came to save the broken, the poor in spirit, which is to say people who are really bad sinners. Some seem to think that only those who are very poor should be preached to while others only want to hang around the rich. It is not whether a person is externally rich or poor, but whether that person is one who sees that s/he is a vile sinner or not. It is not whether a person is dressed in rags or expensive clothing, but whether that person is groaning under a burden of sin. Jesus Christ came to save sinners and He only does so by grace alone. Those who are saved by grace need to remember this.

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Musings 48

May 22, 2014

Romans 3:21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

There are some passages in the Scriptures that just stand out because they are dripping of a special kind of spiritual honey. This is one of those passages. This is one passage that those who are weighed down with their sin should turn to, whether converted or not. The honey of this passage is so sweet in that the focus is not on my righteousness, but the righteousness of God. This passage is not about how much sinners should suffer for their sin, but it sets forth how Christ has fully satisfied the wrath of God for the sins of sinners. This passage does not put a huge burden on me to do and do some more, but it sets out the glory of God in doing all that needs to be done. This passage does not tell me that I must do one thing in order to be saved from my own strength, but instead it tells me of a God who saves by grace apart from what I have done, am doing, or will do.

It has been said that one of the greatest questions that can be asked by a sinner is how can a man be just before God. This passage, then, is one of the greatest answers to that question. On the one hand it tells us that all have sinned (I would argue that the past tense refers to our sin in Adam and so sinful nature) and that we continue to sin by falling short of the glory of God. The perfect law has been broken and the perfect Judge demands a perfect satisfaction for breaking that law. When the sinner feels the weight of that upon his or her conscience, it is simply unbearable as the sinner knows that s/he cannot satisfy God for one sin much less for all the sins committed. Oh how sinners should be brought to know that this is what it means to be guilty before the living God. How sinners should be taught to pray for God to show them their guilt before Him.

The verses before the passage (same chapter) above are very somber in that they tell us that no one is righteous and that no one seeks God. But glory be to God that out of His mercy and grace rather than our righteousness and goodness He seeks to save man. Indeed no one is righteous if you are talking about human beings, but in the verses above the righteousness of God is declared four times. It is a terrible fact that there is no one righteous when we are speaking of the human race, but it is a glorious fact that God is perfectly righteous. This perfectly righteous God sent His Son who came and took a body to go to the cross and be a propitiation (removal of wrath) for the sins of sinners. In that suffering for the sins of sinners the wrath of God was perfectly satisfied and so His righteousness was manifested and glorified in the cross and at the cross. The righteousness of God was displayed and it declares to all sinful men that there is a perfectly righteous God and He will not declare sinners just because of themselves but only because of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This righteous God declares sinners just by grace alone. To the sinner it is nothing but grace and more glorious grace, but to the Lord Jesus Christ it was suffering the wrath of God for those who had nothing in them worth dying for. But oh the good news in that is that Christ died in order to manifest the righteousness of God rather than anything good about me. Christ died to satisfy the wrath of the Father in order that God could be both just and the one that justifies sinners. What a glorious sweetness there is in the passage of Scripture for hungry souls and sinners who are not looking for anything in themselves worthy to be saved. What they see is the glory of grace and a God who demonstrates His righteousness in Christ. What they see is that they have nothing in themselves to boast of but they have the Lord Jesus and His cross to boast of. For poor sinners there is hope set before them in this text. God does not save those who become good enough or work hard enough. God does not save because people are smart or good looking or any other physical or spiritual reason found in sinners. God saves to the glory of His own name. When God beholds a saved sinner, He sees Himself and His glory shining in the salvation of that person. All praise is His, but for the poor sinner it is all grace. How sweet that grace is.

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Examining the Heart 43

May 21, 2014

Because our blessed Lord, His apostles, and prophets have said such things, many think they believe them, when in truth they do nothing less. The reason why they so deceive themselves, is, that what they read in the Scripture, they readily make bond to their own fancies; but were they to hear the same words from any minister of the gospel in a sermon, or to read them in any evangelical author, they would immediately exclaim against them, as Methodism, Enthusiasm, Calvinism, Antinomianism, and what not. To make us believe God’s word upon its own record and upon its own authority, requires a power more than human.      Sir Richard Hill

The truth of the words above has much to teach all, from the lowest to the highest in understanding. It is easy to read the Bible and think that the words are understood, but what is hidden to us is that we read the Bible and we understand it according to our own ways of thinking. That way of thinking may have been developed by history or by others around us, but that is not the same thing as reading the Bible and understanding it according to the intent of the Author of Scripture. We can see that in others when they read the Bible to find proof of their own positions. This is quite easy to do, as those who know their own hearts even a little will testify that they have done so. The Scriptures say what they say, indeed, but our intent and motives in reading them will cause us to twist things to our own prejudices if we are not very careful. The understanding we have combined with self-love will always move us to read the Bible in accordance with our present understanding and it will also move us to interpret things in a way that make them easier on our own hearts and sin.

Every single time a person reads the Scriptures something changes. The Scriptures (by the power of the Spirit) will change the person to be more in line with the will of God or the person will change the meaning of the Scriptures to be more in line with the person. Indeed there may be a middle ground where a person is reading so lightly that no real changing is taking place, but instead the person is just reading to be reading or to do the ritual for the day and no understanding is taking place. But if a person is paying attention to the Scriptures, that person will either be changed or will change the Scriptures. It must happen.

The nature of the unregenerate is to hate the truth of God and of true light holiness. The unregenerate person will twist and turn the Word of God to where s/he is comfortable with it or can like it at that point, but at the same time will insist that s/he is simply reading or interpreting the Bible as to what it clearly says. The regenerate person has to watch his or her own heart as well. True holiness and love for God is not natural, but instead must come from God each time it comes. Reading the Bible can cause the regenerate person to become uncomfortable as well. The regenerate person is in a spiritual battle each time s/he reads the Bible as well. Reading the Bible, then, is not an easy task where the calm person simply takes a seat in a comfortable chair and reads the Bible while sipping on a hot drink. If a person is really engaging the Scripture, a battle is taking place and the Scriptures may be insulting the person doing the reading. If a person is wrestling with God while s/he reads, this person can actually be groaning, weeping, praising, and even crying out to God in a loud voice.

Reading the Bible with the intent to be conformed and transformed is not an easy task, but instead it is a battle with self and the devil. We cannot come to the Scriptures with a proud heart and a confidence in our methods of interpretation and our own intelligence if we wish to find out the true meaning of Scripture. The true meaning of Scripture has more to do with the work of the Spirit in us in conforming us to Christ and transforming us as it does just simply understanding the doctrine or narrative. We cannot claim to understand Scripture unless we see how Christ shines forth in them and His Spirit is working the fruit of the Spirit in us to make us like Christ. Believing the Scriptures is not just saying we believe them, nor is it just an intellectual exercise we go through. It is being changed by the living God who speaks in the Scriptures and through His people.

John 7:17 “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.

John 13:17 “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

Ezekiel 36:27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

Matthew 7:24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

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