Gospel Preaching 6

April 17, 2015

Thirdly, God requires that those who do receive Christ shall depart from iniquity. “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his; and, let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” {II Tim.2:19} “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” {Tit.2:11-14} And that they shall sell all, lose all, and hate all for the sake of Christ and take up the cross and follow Him. Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

While it may seem odd to many that part of Gospel preaching is that God requires those who receive Christ to depart from iniquity, this is the longing of a new heart. It can also be the desire of the one that God has put His hand on and is breaking the person and giving them a taste of the bitterness of sin, but in that case a person hates sin out of self-love rather than hating sin as sin and as against God. However, the Gospel includes the good news of how God gives people new hearts and they will turn from iniquity as a result of being new creations. The point is that no matter how free true grace is preached, it does not include lascivious people giving themselves over to sin and loving their sin as such.

The grace of the Gospel must be preached with great clearness and freeness to sinners. But it should also be preached as to what grace will do once a person has been captured and cleansed by grace. Those who love their sin and are not weary by it will not want to hear of a Gospel or a grace like that. Those people want a grace (which is not true grace at all) where they can be saved from hell but not from the love and power of sin. The Gospel is that God saves sinners by His grace alone, but the grace that saves is a grace that works in sinners and takes the love and power of sin from them. Christ Himself will cleanse the heart that He will dwell in and out of love for His own name He will cleanse those who bear His name.

The free Gospel of grace alone must not be diluted with any legalism and any form of anything that teaches us that grace is contingent on our fleeing from sin, because that makes grace no longer to be grace. But the glory of the grace in the Gospel and of the Gospel is that it gives sinners new hearts and new desires. It is grace that delivers sinners from the power and love of sin rather than sinners having to work hard to deny what they love in order to receive grace. Instead, and to be repetitive, sinners are not saved by being sanctified but they are saved for the purpose of being sanctified. Sinners are not saved from the law so that they can be sanctified by the law, but they are saved by grace so that out of the strength of grace they will love God and their neighbor and in doing that the law is fulfilled.

It is so hard to preach a free-grace and not be accused of antinomianism (anti-law), but it is even harder to preach the law and still preach free-grace. This is because the glory of grace is that it will work in a person to love and so keep the law, yet the law never works to produce free-grace. It is true that the law is preached to some degree so that men can see their inability and their sin, but the law will never work to produce grace. This is why, I think, Paul said he preaching nothing but Christ and Him crucified. He preached Christ and the cross in such a way that the law was exalted and honored as it reflected the holiness of God, but he did not focus on preaching the law other than as a way of preaching Christ.

Christ Himself must be preached in such a way that He is the sanctification of saved sinners. Grace must be preached in such a way that sinners become holy by grace and not by keeping the law. This is a balance that is very hard to keep, not so much because it is fuzzy, but because there are so many legalists (or one stripe or another) in the world. Saved sinners keep the law (imperfectly) because they have the life of Christ in them and because He is working in them by grace alone. We must never give in to the idea that sinners are saved or sanctified or assisted in those things by their own keeping of the law. We must never give in to the idea that free-grace promotes sin rather than promotes true holiness. As Ephesians 2:8-10 sets out, we are not saved by good works but are saved for good works. Good works and holiness come from grace and the life of Christ in sinners and nothing else.

Our preaching must always reflect these things, though all preachers are far from imperfect and their preaching needs the blood of Christ as well as the preacher’s open sins. There is no room for preaching anything but Christ and Him crucified to the glory of God, which is why we must preach and always preach a free-grace. A true and free-grace is never obtained by anything a creature can do, but instead all true good or spiritual good that a creature can do comes from free-grace. True holiness and true good works can only come from free-grace and we must never preach anything that contradicts that. Pleasing God can only come when God works this in us by free-grace, though this is rarely heard in our day either. The only kind of grace is free-grace as we can do nothing to move God to show grace to us or work it in us. This is the grace that must be our love and the focus of our preaching.

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Real Repentance 14

April 17, 2015

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

No man has the least glimpse of the inside of truth, till all conceit of merit and self-power is annihilated, and he is pierced through and through with a sense of his vileness and unworthiness. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

The Scriptures in all places condemn pride, self-love, and haughty eyes. It is pride that is idolatry itself in man choosing himself and loving himself supremely rather than God. It is that pride that works in man and makes man to think that he can work righteousness and that he has the ability to do things apart from Christ. It is pride that puts blinders on men and keeps them from seeing that they are proud and full of self. It is pride that blinds men from the understanding of humility and the real truth of God and so proud man lives in a perpetual lie about reality.

It is no wonder, then, that for there to be a real repentance that man must be pierced through with a sense of his vileness and unworthiness. What can man repent of unless he knows what he is repenting of? How can man repent of all conceit of his merit until he knows and understands that he has no merit? Here we see some experimental teaching that reaches the depths of our souls if the Lord is pleased to open our hearts to it. How can we truly rest in Christ and His merits and righteousness alone if we have not repented of our own merit? But our pride hides some of the secret spots and hiding places where our heart grasps at our own merit and righteousness. Surely it is self-evident that as long as we are holding to our own merits and righteousness that we cannot hold on to Christ alone and grace alone. Surely it is clear that we cannot see and understand from the depths of the soul about the Gospel until God has rooted up our conceit or merit and leaves us naked and ashamed in His presence.

The Gospel is the power of God for salvation, but in no place do we see that the Gospel leaves some room for the power of man to contribute to his own salvation. If man is to really repent of sin, then man must repent of the sin of trusting in his own power and not looking to the power of God alone. How crushing this is to the pride of man to stand annihilated before God and have no power and no righteousness, but if man is to really repent from the inward man he must repent of all self-power and look to the power of God in Christ for grace alone. As Paul put it in II Corinthians 12, it is in our weakness that we are strong. Another way he put it was that in our weakness it is His power that is perfected in us and it is the power of Christ who dwells in us. Until that power or self or self-power is annihilated (real repentance) there will not be the power of Christ in the soul. Until Christ kills the power of self in the soul He will not reign in that soul by grace. This is to say that there will only be one, true reigning power in the soul and the one must be repented of.

A real repentance will necessarily be preceded by a person being pierced through and through with a sense of his vileness and unworthiness. God works a sense of vileness and unworthiness upon men before they are converted and this conviction does deepen as the sense of conviction goes on. If once we think about it, we can know that our repentance will not be any deeper than the sense of conviction that precedes it. Our repentance from self will not be any deeper than our sense of the vileness of self. It is interesting to note that in Acts 2:27 some who heard the sermon of Peter were said to be pierced to the heart. Peter had just finished telling them that they had crucified Jesus. John 19:34 has the account of Jesus on the cross and a soldier pierced his side to show He was already dead. The Greek word used for piercing there (John 19:34) was nusso. The word in Acts 2:27 is katanusso. The end of the word is the same in John 19:34 and Acts 2:27, but there is a preposition added on front of the word used in Acts. It adds a more violent aspect to the pricking or piercing. The point is that the word for the conviction (piercing) brought on the people in Acts 2:27 is that used of what they were guilty of, the crucifixion of Jesus where He was pierced through with a spear.

A conviction of sin that brings about a piercing like that of a spear is one bought about by a sight of sin by the work of God. These people felt a deep and piercing conviction and it certainly appeared to lead to a deep and real repentance. These people went from mocking the apostles to following the apostles. They went from being part of having Christ crucified to a real repentance where they bowed before the crucified One as Lord. No longer did they have the illusion that they had merit, but their conviction was deep and thorough. They did not just need a little help to be converted, they needed a Savior who would do all the work. They had no merit to add to the merits of Christ and they had no self-power to trust in. They needed a Divine power and they looked to that alone. This piercing conviction brought them a sense of how vile they really were and they were turned from their pride and righteousness to Christ and Christ alone. Real repentance of the inner man requires a real conviction in the inner man.

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Gospel Preaching 5

April 16, 2015

Secondly, God does offer Christ to lost sinners without respect to price or person. He invites them that have no money to come and buy wine and milk {that is to say, Christ} without price. {Isa.55:1} And anyone that will are invited to take Christ freely. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life {that is, Christ} freely.” {Rev.22:17} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

You will say to me, alas, here is my misery, to wit, although God propounds Christ upon gospel terms to poor sinners to me among others, I have no power of myself to receive Christ and to believe in Him and accept of Him. True, it is not {as I said} in him that wills, or him that runs, but only in God who shows mercy….And you ought to wait on God in the diligent use of means until the day of His power come upon you and then you shall be a willing, a believing people….It is my duty to preach the gospel to you and to exhort you to seek Christ, Acts 17:22,27, but it is the mere mercy and free grace of God to drive you to Christ, which nothing, but His everlasting love can move Him to do….You ought to seek, wait, ask, and use all the means which God has appointed and afforded you, both secret, private and public, Rev.2:29, but God must make the means effectual. Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

The first paragraph (above) is built upon the great truths of Scripture and in some ways dependent upon other great truths of Scripture that are set out in the second paragraph. The argument is that preachers should learn to preach a Gospel that is free of depending upon them and upon those listening. The Gospel message of Christ and Him crucified do not depend upon the one preaching for its power and it does not depend on the sinners who hear to make it efficacious. The preacher must be free from depending on himself and the hearers in order to preach a free grace that saves from beginning to end. The response of sinners cannot depend on my offering Christ or the Gospel is less than free and less than of grace alone. The response of sinners cannot depend on anything they do or the power of the Gospel depends on them to some degree and as such is less than free and less than of grace alone.

The Gospel that is the power of God to save must show that it is the power of God to save and not the power of the sinner that contributes. The Gospel that is the power of God must be all of the power of God to save or it is not all of grace alone. This is how and why preachers must preach a full Christ and a free grace to sinners. When something is expected of sinners in terms of response, then sinners will look to themselves for the power and ability to respond. Instead of that, sinners must look away from themselves because they have no power and no ability to respond. Sinners are full of sin and they can do nothing but sin, so something that saves them must come from Another. A sinful response cannot save sinners at all, but instead the power of God can.

Jesus said that those who had ears were to hear. That is much like Knolly working with Isaiah 55 above. The passage of Isaiah 55 is one of a free Gospel because it is one where God is the One who is working and it is God who is enabling sinners. Those whom God works in and makes them willing hear His invitation and they come running. They come despite all of their fears and all of their sin and their wicked hearts and they know that nothing but wonderful and glorious grace will save them. Those who have tasted of a grace that came to them and saved them want nothing to do with a free-will which is free from depravity and free of grace. They have felt their sin and they feel the continuing burden of their sin and nothing but free-grace will satisfy them.

When poor sinners who are burdened from their own wicked hearts and sinful thoughts and desires pray, they will pray for God to deliver them from their sin. Their hearts ache and long to be granted deliverance from the burden of sin and they have no thought that they have an ability to get rid of that bondage and burden. These are the hearts that God has taught and these are the hearts that God calls. This is why (once again) preachers should focus on Christ and His grace in the Gospel over and over again. Unregenerate sinners cannot deliver themselves and cannot work up any merit, so they must hear the glory of a God who saves sinners by His power. Regenerate sinners need to hear of this glorious grace because they are burdened by sin and haunted with past sins and weakness against present sin. They also need to hear of a Savior who saves sinners by grace alone in accordance with the riches of His grace. Wounded souls have no taste for legalism and not taste with being beaten with Christless sermons, but instead God Himself has prepared their hearts, their ears, their spiritual taste buds for a free and sovereign grace. That is what God has said should be preached and that is what hearts that He has taught long for.

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Gospel Preaching 4

April 16, 2015

Secondly, God does offer Christ to lost sinners without respect to price or person. He invites them that have no money to come and buy wine and milk {that is to say, Christ} without price. {Isa.55:1} And anyone that will are invited to take Christ freely. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life {that is, Christ} freely.” {Rev.22:17} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

The statement above comes with a context, which will be given in the following days. However, for the moment a few statements from the context may be helpful:

You will say to me, alas, here is my misery, to wit, although God propounds Christ upon gospel terms to poor sinners to me among others, I have no power of myself to receive Christ and to believe in Him and accept of Him. True, it is not {as I said} in him that wills, or him that runs, but only in God who shows mercy.

And you ought to wait on God in the diligent use of means until the day of His power come upon you and then you shall be a willing, a believing people.

It is my duty to preach the gospel to you and to exhort you to seek Christ, Acts 17:22,27, but it is the mere mercy and free grace of God to drive you to Christ, which nothing, but His everlasting love can move Him to do.

You ought to seek, wait, ask, and use all the means which God has appointed and afforded you, both secret, private and public, Rev.2:29, but God must make the means effectual.

We can see that Knolly does not preach in accordance with what is taught in the modern day. While it may seem that the approach in the modern day is more in line with grace, in fact it is far from being in line with grace alone. It is God who invites sinners to Himself and He invites a certain type of sinner. Perhaps the real issue at hand is who invites sinners, the sinners who are invited, and how sinners are invited. Of course we must be careful to state that Christ is to be preached to any and all sinners. The wonders and glories of Christ are to be declared to all without hesitation and without holding back. The grace of the Gospel is to be declared to all sinners as well. But we must be careful to state that the only sinners who are invited by God will respond to His efficacious call. When men offer Christ, they offer Him to sinners who are full self-love and only want Him for fire insurance. When God offers Christ, He works in them so that they will respond. It is an offer that they cannot refuse, so to speak.

The Gospel of grace alone is to be proclaimed to all sinners with freeness knowing that those on whom God sets His love will respond. The Gospel is to be proclaimed to all sinners of all kinds and types, because there is nothing in the sinner that can stop the hand of God when He works in the heart. While all unregenerate sinners are lost, not all know that they are lost. The beauty of Christ proclaimed shows them that they are lost and His being given by grace alone shows sinners that they don’t need any of their own merit and they don’t need to be a great person. Sinners who come to the point of seeing their great lostness and their great sinfulness and inability are the ones that Christ came to save.

Isaiah 55, as given by Knolly, tells us that all who will are invited to take Christ freely. The one who hears is to say come and the one who thirsts is to come. The only sinners who can will, the ones who hear, and the ones who thirst have had the hand of God upon them working in them so that they will hear and thirst for Christ and a true salvation by grace alone. These are the ones that God has prepared and it is God who invites them to come. Oh how poor are the invitations of men who can do nothing but plead with the pride and self-love of sinners. But oh how great it is when preachers proclaim the glory of Christ and tell sinners that they must deal with God who alone can open their ears and make them willing in the day of His power. How freely can one preach grace when even the faith that a sinner must have is given by grace. God saves sinners to the glory of His own name and as such He does not save sinners because of anything in them, which means that the Gospel is all of grace.

The modern way of preaching is shallow and depends on the ability of men to respond rather than pointing men to their inability and the ability of God to work in them so that they are willing and able to respond. The old way of preaching the Gospel has for the most part been lost, or so it seems, but it is the way of leaving men without any hope in themselves or any hope in any merit or abilities they think they have. Instead it leaves them in the hands of God and leaves no doubt that salvation is by grace alone. The freeness of this type of preaching is in that it leaves grace in the hand of God to bestow on whom He is pleased to do so. The freeness in this preaching is that it does not depend on the inability of man and it does not leave us a God who is weeping and hoping that men will choose Him, but instead this is a Gospel that is truly free and is truly worth proclaiming a risen Savior who really and truly saves sinners from eternity past to eternity future and it is all of free and glorious grace.

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Gospel Preaching 3

April 15, 2015

Secondly, God does offer Christ to lost sinners without respect to price or person. He invites them that have no money to come and buy wine and milk {that is to say, Christ} without price. {Isa.55:1} And anyone that will are invited to take Christ freely. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life {that is, Christ} freely.” {Rev.22:17} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

This particular part of Gospel preaching can be quite confusing as seen by how much people differ on this issue today. The concept of offering Christ is thought to be the distinction between Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism. The majority in today’s world would say that unless one offers Christ as they define it then one is a hyper-Calvinist. They are free to use that term as they will, but perhaps they are too hasty in their generalizations. Whatever the designation or name one is called one must be biblical in the approach.

The first thing to note in what Knolly says is that God offers Christ. This is a very, very important point. Some of the older writers would say that the preacher is to preach Christ and not offer Him. They said this because we are commanded to preach Christ, not offer Him. If we offer Christ we have stopped preaching Christ and as such we stop doing what is commanded to do what is not commanded. But the point stands from the text itself. God offers Christ to lost sinners. So the least we can say (following Knolly) is that during Gospel preaching God Himself is offering Christ. But of course what it means to offer Christ is a thorny issue. Does it mean, as so many today say it does, to tell sinners that God loves them, wants them to be saved, and so He tells them to believe on Him? I would argue that it does not mean that. The Latin word for “offer” (offero) means to set forth, proclaim, bestow, exhibit and so on. I would argue that it is the Latin background that makes more sense than the modern way. I would also argue that in the context given by Knolly (seen in the next few posts in this series) that is how he means it.

If we take this seriously, we would have to say that no preacher has ever been commanded to offer Christ to sinners as if they could take Him of their own power and will. Is Christ really for men to offer in the modern way? Instead, when a preacher has been called by God and is preaching by the Spirit of God then we can say that God is speaking through that man. When the preacher is preaching Christ in truth and spirit, there is a sense in which God is offering Christ to sinners. Knolly goes on to say that “God does offer Christ to lost sinners without respect to price or person.” Once again, there are some very important points here.

The first point is that God offers Christ to lost sinners. In this context it has to do with sinners who know that they are lost. This is not only an important point, it is a vital point. Not all sinners see themselves as lost. As the context of Isaiah sets out, only those who have been broken to the point of seeing that they have no righteousness and no ability to do good are those that God offers Christ to. Those who cling to their own merit and their own ability to choose when they please are not really lost in their own minds. Those who think that they have any merit of their own or any ability to take Christ as they please have money to buy, yet it is those who have no money and not price that the text says are offered Christ. This is such an important point. Sinners must be at the place where they understand and feel themselves as lost before they will come to Christ. Sinners must be at the place where they understand and feel that they have no merit before they will truly come to Christ.

It is very true that all who truly want Christ are invited by God to take Him freely, but I would also argue that in His invitation there is the efficacious call. This is why preachers are to preach Christ and Him crucified as the core and center of all their preaching. It is in preaching Christ that God Himself offers and brings lost sinners to Himself. Preachers must learn to preach Christ in such a way that they deal with sinners and show them how utterly lost that they are and that they have no ability and no merit before God. But instead, preachers plead with sinners to come to Christ before they are lost sinners and before they have been broken from trusting in their own merits and abilities.

But there are sinners out there who are lost and who are poor and needy sinners and they are being overlooked by the preachers of today. They sit there without merit and ability with nothing to bring to Christ and they are told that they must believe, yet they cannot do so. But the preachers have stopped preaching Christ to them at that point and they are offering Christ. Oh no, sinners need to hear the wonders of Christ proclaimed and how He freely saves sinners quite apart from their merit or worth. Lost sinners and saved sinners must hear of God manifested in Christ and the glory of God in Christ. In a very real sense when preachers start offering Christ themselves they have stopped preaching Christ to the lost sinners and so God is not speaking to the lost sinners (as such). This means that the preachers are offering Christ in an unbiblical way to those who don’t see themselves as lost. The freeness and wonder of the Gospel is to those who don’t have money and without anything to hold to but Christ. Preachers must preach this Christ and never turn from preaching this Christ. Preachers must set forth this glorious Christ to the thirsty and the hungry because in setting Him forth in that way Christ will be seen as the bread of heaven and sinners will feed on Him rather than on their own merits and abilities.

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Real Repentance 13

April 15, 2015

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

No man has the least glimpse of the inside of truth, till all conceit of merit and self-power is annihilated, and he is pierced through and through with a sense of his vileness and unworthiness. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

Here is a truth that seems to be lost in our day. Here is what used to be known as experimental Christianity or experimental religion. It was not enough to know that Scripture tells us that we have no merit or self-power, which is seemingly rare today, but one must feel the weight and the arrow of those truths in his or her own soul. I must be rid of all conceit that I have any merit before I can truly look to the merits of Christ alone. I must not only believe that, but I must be rid of all hope and all trust in my merit from my inward man. But even more, I must know that not only do I know that I have no merit, I must feel the weight of being before a thrice holy God with nothing but demerit. Oh how the soul must fight through self-love and pride to arrive at that in the intellect, but that is nothing compared to the battle of the soul that comes to this realization from the depths of the soul. A real repentance is when I am turned from looking to my own merit to looking to the merit of Christ alone. The soul that has been changed by the Spirit will not only turn from looking to its own merit, but it will turn in disgust and loathing at the thought that it might have merit. It will then be turned to the merits of Christ and love and boast in His merit alone.

Not only must I come to the intellectual awareness that I have no merit and not only must I come to the experimental knowledge of that in my own soul, but I must also come to the point of having all of my self-power annihilated in my own eyes and in my own heart. Once again, it does not good to hear those things or read those things as long as I secretly trust in my own power in my heart. A real repentance is being turned from any hope or trust in any power or strength I have in the spiritual realm to looking to grace alone to work in me all that I can possibly do in the spiritual realm. Once again, the soul that has truly been changed will have disgust toward the idea that it has any power in the spiritual realm. Oh how this soul will fight against the through of free-will or the power of man in spiritual things and point others to the glory of free-grace in the spiritual realm. The soul that has tasted of its own depravity and the goodness of the Lord knows that apart from Him it can do nothing.

It is an interesting point to think of people seeing inside the truth as Adam says. The other side of that is people looking upon the truth from the outside and thinking that they know the truth because of their intellectual grasp of it. This provides us with an excellent picture of reality. Man stands outside the truth looking upon it until the truth works itself in him and he sees how he is utterly without merit and utterly without self-power. It is only when man sees that and that by Christ opening his eyes to see that man begins to see the inside of truth. It is no longer just the subject of the mind, but truth becomes part of the person and truth becomes the light by which a person sees all things. Christ Himself, of course, is Light and Life, but until a person has reached the end of any hope or illusion of merit or self-power that person cannot see with Life and Light.

The soul will not know the truth from the inside until that soul is “pierced through and through with a sense of his vileness and unworthiness.” Now this is not a popular teaching in the modern day, but it was a few centuries ago. It was thought that man must come to the point of seeing himself as vile and unworthy before he could understand the nature of grace. As long as a person thinks that s/he is not vile and has some worth, that person will have no real understanding of grace. This is why the doctrines of grace (experimentally) are at best shallow in our day if not virtually gone. It is easy enough for the intellect to grasp the doctrines of grace and view them in a logical order from the outside, but it is hard to grasp them as beautiful and glorious apart from Christ teaching the soul how vile it is and how unworthy it is. How the pride and self-love of the heart fights to maintain some worth, some righteousness, and some power of its own, but in doing so it only keeps looking upon the doctrines of grace from the outside. In order to understand grace one must understand what makes grace necessary and in order to understand grace from the depths of the soul one must understand the depravity of the soul to its depths. In order to taste the glory of grace shown to sinners, one must feel the piercing and awfulness of sin.

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Real Repentance 12

April 14, 2015

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

It is the vainest of all vanities, and pride in perfection, to pretend to separate ourselves from the world outwardly, before we are separated from it inwardly. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

While outward repentance is necessary, even vital, Adam points to something that the scribes and Pharisees should have thought of. It is vanity and pride to pretend to separate ourselves from the world when we are not separated from it inwardly. If we have separated ourselves from the world in the externals and have not separated ourselves from the world inwardly, we have not been separated from the world at all. While that may sound a bit odd to some, let us look at the example of the Pharisees. They pretended to be very holy while that holiness and external religious activity did nothing but hid their greedy hearts. They were not separated from the world at all, but instead they just used religious things to gain worldly things (money, honor).

This should make all who interested in their own souls to examine themselves in the inner person and not just assume that they are okay because they keep from external sin. The essence of worldliness consists in our loves, desires, attitudes, motives; intents, and all the things of the heart and mind. At the heart of worldliness is the love of what the world will do for me rather than to seek the honor and glory of God. It is important to the worldly person to have people honor him or her and to have others think well of him or her. The worldly person is not just the person who seeks the outward pleasures of the world, but is one that seeks the honor and esteem of others. The worldly person does good things and may be very involved in civic concerns and moral issues, but the worldly person does those things in order for others to think well of him or her.

The same thing is true of the worldly person who is quite religious. A worldly person in religion can be liberal in order to please others or be conservative in order to please others. This religious person can be very involved in church in order to be highly thought of and this religious person can refrain from many external sinful activities in order to be thought highly of. A religious person can hold to conservative creeds and be quite intellectual in many religious things, yet this person longs and desires for the esteem of others in what s/he tries to convince self is a true and inward belief. This person will believe as long as this person finds that others esteem him or her because of it. However, when believing these things does not gain the esteem of others or this person finds another way to gain more esteem, that person will leave the religious things for other things. This kind of person is described in Matthew 13 (verses below) who receives the word with joy, yet at some point will fall away for various reasons.

Matthew 13:20 “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. 22 “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

The vain person and the proud person don’t always see themselves as such, but their lack of a true and inward repentance is seen by the eye of God at all times and in most cases it will be seen by others. It is that same pride that will deceive a person into thinking that his or her outward repentance and outward religious actions are evidence of a real repentance and a real Christianity. Instead, the vain and proud person is in bondage to self-love and pride and that person’s outward repentance is being used to blind him or her to a lack of inward repentance. Real repentance is a work of God in the inner man and it cannot be done by the act of man or any power of man. Real repentance must be preceded by a changed heart or a new heart that God has worked by grace alone. Real repentance does not make the person perfect, but it is real. The proud heart may think it is perfect, but the heart of one that has really repented now sees worldliness with new eyes and longs to repent of even more of the world. The proud heart may repent of its repentance, but a true repenter will repent of the world the rest of his or her life.

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Gospel Preaching 2

April 14, 2015

Let me tell you that God sets before you Christ upon gospel terms, which are these three. First, God in the dispensation of the gospel propounds Christ to lost sinners as the only necessary and all-sufficient means of salvation. Christ is the only necessary means of salvation. “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” {Acts 4:12} And Christ is the all-sufficient means of salvation so that we need none but Him. “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” {Heb.7:25} Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

Gospel preaching sets forth Christ upon Gospel terms. This should be shouted to the heavens and to the ends of the earth (so to speak), but there are ways, terms, and methods that the Gospel should be preached and without those the Gospel is not preached. A man can stand in the front of a building (regardless of how many listen to him) and say many true things about the Bible and about God and still not preach the Gospel. A man can stand in front of a congregation of people Sunday after Sunday and say many biblical things and many moral things, but he can be without the Gospel. A man can say many true things about Christ and many true things that are true of the Gospel, but that man can still miss preaching the Gospel of the grace of God. It is also true that a man can set forth many of the distinctives of the orthodox teaching on justification and of the cross and not preach the Gospel.

It is an absolute part of Gospel terms to show that Christ and Christ alone is the only necessary and all-sufficient means of salvation. In our easy day of desiring to be nice rather than to stand for truth, Christ is seen as a one way of salvation and it is thought that those who say He is the only way are narrow and judgmental. As has been said long ago, we should be amazed that God has provided a way of salvation instead of being upset that He has not provided more. We should also be utterly amazed that God has saved some sinners rather than complaining that He does not save them all. While not all will argue about the sufficiency of Christ on the face of it, many will argue about the absolute necessity of Christ. Yet, this is the only way that the Gospel can be proclaimed in truth. If Christ is not absolutely necessary for salvation, then there are other ways of salvation and other ways of glory. If Christ is not absolutely necessary for salvation, then there are either other ways of grace or there are now ways of merit. In those cases, then, those are not ways God has revealed.

The absolute necessity of Christ alone for salvation appears to be a minority view in our day among the professing Church even. What we must see is that unless Christ alone for salvation is preached then we are preaching another gospel according to Scripture. We must also see that Christ alone is the all-sufficient means of salvation as well, which is really a twin truth to the absolute necessity of Christ alone for salvation. If Christ is not all-sufficient, then there is something else that is sufficient or contributes to His sufficiency. If Christ is not all-sufficient, then it is but a short step to conclude that He is not absolutely necessary for salvation.

For many it is okay to preach Christ as long as He is not preached as the only necessary means and the all-sufficient means. But the Lord Jesus Christ cannot be preached in truth and reality unless He is preached as the only necessary and all-sufficient means of salvation. If the cross was not necessary and all-sufficient, then Christ is not the only necessary and all-sufficient means of salvation. If the imputed righteousness of Christ is not absolutely necessary and the self-sufficient means of salvation, then Christ is not either. If the mediatorial work of Christ in making intercession for His people is not the necessary and self-sufficient means of salvation, then Christ is not either. If the Divine nature of Christ taking human flesh to Himself is not the necessary and self-sufficient means of salvation, then Christ is not either.

The denial that Christ is the necessary and all-sufficient means of salvation is really demonstrative evidence that a person does not believe in the Person or work of Christ and the Gospel of grace alone. There is no preaching of the Gospel at all if Christ is not preached as absolutely necessary and as the all-sufficient means of salvation. Not only is there no Gospel preached where those things are denied, there is no Gospel where those things are not clearly and plainly taught. The ramifications of statements like this are enormous in our day and in all days. This reaches to ecumenical issues. This reaches to theological “differences” between Calvinism and Arminianism. This reaches to those who proclaim to be historical in their theology and yet are not openly declaring that Christ is all-sufficient and that anything less is not the Gospel of Christ alone. If it is not by Christ alone, then it is no real Gospel at all.

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Gospel Preaching 1

April 13, 2015

God’s gracious and free promises do not exclude the means he has appointed to attain the mercies therein promised. It pleases the Lord to tie his creatures to the use of means when he affords it them, though he will sometimes work without it. Now the ordinary means which God has in His infinite wisdom appointed to convert sinners, and also to build them up in Christ, is the word preached. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” {Rom.10:17} This word of the gospel, God will have preached to every creature in all parts of the world. {Mk.16:15} None are exempted or prohibited from hearing the gospel preached, but everyone that has an ear is required to hear. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” {Rev.2:7} And let such as neglect the hearing of the word of God {preached by such as are called and sent of Christ} consider what the Lord says in Proverbs 1 from the 20th verse to the 32nd. But albeit some of you see it is that which you ought to do and that you had need to do, to wit, to seek the Lord. Assenting to what you heard in the first use of the doctrine that there is much worth, beauty, and excellence in Christ. And that poor lost undone sinners stand in need of Him, notwithstanding how to obtain Christ, you know not as yet. Hanserd Knolly (Baptist, 1645)

There are many important things about Gospel preaching that are being ignored today or perhaps people have lost what it means to preach the Gospel. The first point that Knolly sets out is that God uses preaching to convert sinners and to build sinners up, but specifically He uses preaching the word. Without trying to denigrate all forms of evangelism, we should exalt the preaching of the Scriptures as the way God has set out as His revealed way to bring sinners to Himself. True evangelism will work with and look to preaching when there is biblical preaching to be found, but that is not always the case. This is also not saying that preaching is the exclusive way God draws sinners to Himself, but it appears to be the main way that He has ordained to do so. But again, if there is no biblical preaching to be found, then that is no excuse for believers not to be telling and teaching sinners the ways of God.
It might not be the worst thing to point out that when preaching is weak and biblical preaching is hard to find, God has sent forth a strong judgment whether people recognize it or not. If the main way God speaks to people is through preaching, when He withholds preaching from the people that is a very strong judgment upon them. If people need water to life and someone withholds water from them, then all will recognize that as a very, very serious situation. But when God withholds what He uses to convert people and build people up in the faith for eternal issues, then that is far more serious.

We might also not be amiss in pointing out that not all preaching of the Bible (verses of the Bible, topics from the Bible, and so on) is biblical preaching. A person can preach a text of Scripture in conservative manner and set out conservative topics and yet miss the main point of the text and of the Bible. The main point of the Bible is the glory of God in Christ. When men do not preach the greatness and glory of God in Christ, then they are not preaching in a biblical manner. When men do not preach a thorough God-centeredness of a text, then they are missing the point of the text.

It should also be pointed out that biblical preaching will point out the truth of human beings and the sinfulness of the nature of human beings as their actions that flow from those natures. As Knolly says, “poor lost undone sinners stand in need of Him.” But when preachers do not preach in such a way that sinners see themselves as lost and undone, then those sinners don’t see their real need of Christ. Indeed there are many who will preach about man’s need of Christ, but they teach that men need Christ in order to be healed, in order to be rich, and in order to lead a full life. But they don’t set forth the awfulness of man in his sin and his dire need of new life and a Savior.

The last thing (mentioned, though not last in importance) left in this is to point out is that biblical preaching sets out the “worth, beauty, and excellence in Christ.” So many so-called sermons focus on morality, social issues, and perhaps some historical matters regarding a text. But God shines forth His glory in Christ. We must preach Christ if we are to preach about God and His Gospel. Regardless of how much a man preaches about biblical things and regardless of how well he exegetes a text and regardless of how well he keeps in line with his confession, if he does not preach the worth, beauty, and excellence of Christ that man is not preaching in a biblical manner. The Gospel cannot be preached unless Christ is being preached in His fullness and glory. The Gospel cannot be preached unless men see their utter lostness and sinfulness and utter helplessness before God. The Gospel cannot be preached until the glory of God in saving sinners by grace alone is set out. There is not much Gospel preaching in our day. We should seek the Lord that He would raise up men who do not fear the frowns and disapproval of other men, but instead they would fear God and preach His truth in His way.

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Christ Preparing our Hearts 16

April 12, 2015

Be persuaded that your soul is far more valuable to you than the whole world and there are only two places (heaven and hell) that you will spend all eternity in.

You can count on it that it is very difficult to come to heaven, but the way to destruction is broad and easy. Take it to heart that you have a deceitful heart with you, a wicked devil close to you, and snares and hindrances around and before you.

The deceptions that come to the soul are varied and they are vast. It is so hard to get men to see that they are deceived about spiritual things, physical things, and things regarding themselves. Because of that deception, they have to be persuaded that their soul is far more valuable to them than the whole world. Instead, they spend their whole lives pursuing things that are worthless and yet doing nothing that is beneficial to their eternal souls. The Scriptures set out that there are only two places for a soul to spend eternity and that each soul will spend eternity in one of those two places. Our time on earth is spent building treasures for one of those places. When a person becomes a believer, that person has treasure in heaven where no man can steal or plunder that treasure (Mat 6:19-21). Yet the unbeliever spends his time and efforts at building treasures of wrath for the day of wrath (Romans 2:5). When these things are taught so clearly in Scripture and yet man ignores them, it should be clear that there is a lot of deception going on.

One of the ways men are deceived about treasures in eternity is from other men. Over and over we are told in the Scriptures that other men deceive us and are trying to deceive us. But our own deceptive hearts may not understand how they are deceiving us. People are not always making and effort to knowingly deceive us, but if they are deceived themselves then their efforts to convince us to believe and act like them are deception. Romans 3:13 is speaking of all unbelievers when it tells us that “THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING,” “THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS”. The nicest and kindest human being that we can imagine is a deception machine (so to speak) in all that s/he does. The person is just trying to be nice and kind, but that person is deceived and so that niceness and kindness (in appearance) is deceiving others about the truth of God. A nice and kind person may be appalled at the doctrine of eternal damnation, but that does not change the truth of it. So the nice and kind person may go on and on about how eternal damnation cannot be true, but that is nothing more than deception and is nothing less than the devil himself would do and wants to do.

We also see repeated warnings in Scripture regarding homosexuals, adulterers, drunkards, and things along those lines. The nice and kind people among us want to say that those things are okay and that God would never send those people to hell. We have nice and kind ministers who are nothing less than the breath of hell as they ignore sin and the need for men to be granted repentance of those things. Those same ministers do not minister the things of God, but instead they minister the deceptions of the devil and show just how broad the road is to hell as they deny the hell they are deceiving people about. Ephesians 5:5-6 puts the matter plainly: “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” In other words, there are deceptions and there are people who are being used to deceive other people about immorality.

While we can say that men are concerned (in a fallen way) about us and others, it is the case that they are deceived about that concern and also deceived about what the help is that they are trying to give. Our hearts love those who love us (in appearance) and so we just follow along thinking that they would not harm us, but in spiritual terms our souls are receiving great harm. We must understand and we must show others that we must have the teachings of Christ (the Scriptures) and we must have Christ Himself teaching us or we will continue in our deceptions. It is not just that Christ keeps us from deception, but He must deliver us from our present deception. A deceived heart that loves itself and is full of pride loves its deceptions and hates the light and as such it is willingly deceived. However, the only way for anyone not to be deceived and to be brought out of the darkness of deception into the light of reality and truth is for Christ to teach them. Those who know their hearts know that they don’t have a free-will that can just make a choice and for them not to be deceived and to be delivered from the power of deception. Oh no, the heart that realizes the true nature of deception knows that it must be born again into the Truth.

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