The Peace, Grace and Hope of Imputed Righteousness

     The imputed righteousness of Christ alone gives us peace.  It gives us peace because we trust in His death and resurrection.   His death and resurrection gives us assurance of salvation.
     The imputed righteousness of Christ alone gives us grace.  It gives us grace because of His good pleasure alone.  His good pleasure gives us hope that He will finish what He started. 
     The imputed righteousness of Christ alone gives us hope.  It gives us hope because of His life, death, burial and resurrection.  His work gives us an assured hope that we will get into heaven and be with Him forevermore.
    The imputed righteousness is the essence of grace alone and the essence of the work of Christ alone.  It gives us peace, grace and hope.  We can rest in it as all-sufficient to know God and fellowship with Him. 

Happy Thanksgiving

     I wish everyone reading my blog a happy thanksgiving.  We are called to give thanks with great gratitude and love the Lord our God with all our hearts, mind, soul and strength.   I hope you have a happy thanksgiving with lots of food and warm Christian love.  May Christ raise up and bless you. 

Heaven and the Cooperation of Man

Heaven is a place of bliss, rest, work and holiness.  Does man cooperate with God?  Man does not want to cooperate with God.  The moment we want to cooperate with God it is surely the Holy Spirit’s work in us, because God chooses to give us His Spirit.  The moment we love God, it is the Holy Spirit’s work in us.  Heaven is a place of Christian love and the perfected of the Cross. 

What Will You Be Doing In Heaven? A Brief Study of Heaven

     If we fail to do something here on earth, it is always available in heaven.  God gives us all eternity to answer our requests, because He is a gracious God.
     If I am not ordained as a pastor here on earth, I hope to be ordained in heaven and work as a pastor before God there.
     I also hope to play the piano, but also if professional basketball is open in heaven I hope to play in that field.  I did not get a chance to play professional basketball in this life but God will always answer my request to play basketball in heaven.
     God is a God of sure delight and He answers all our requests.  Ask and ye shall receive.  What will you be doing in heaven?  Think upon it because it brings happiness to the soul.

Regarding Those Who Pass Away

My brother Stephen passed away last Friday of complications of pneumonia.  He was a good friend and brother.  We went to grammar school together at different grades and the same for high school.  He was a brother in Christ and he repented of his sins.  He goes to join my dad who passed away last year.  Here are some quotes that may help comfort people who have lost love ones. 

Octavius Winslow wrote, “All is shadow here below! The world is a shadow; and it passes away! The creature is a shadow; and the loveliest and the fondest may be the first to die! Health is a shadow; fading, and in a moment gone! Wealth is a shadow; today upon the summit of affluence, tomorrow at its base, plunged into poverty and dependence! Human friendships and creature affections are but shadows; sweet and pleasant while they last, but, with a worm feeding at the root of all created good, the sheltering gourd soon withers, exposing us to the sun's burning heat by day, and to the frost's cold chill by night! Oh, yes! “Passing Away” is indelibly inscribed upon everything here below! Yet how slow are we to realize the solemn lesson: “What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!” Unconverted reader, what is your life but a vapor that passes away?and what are its pursuits but shadows; unreal, unsatisfying, evanescent? Your rank, your wealth, your honors, your pleasures, are but phantoms which appear but for a little while, and then are lost in the deeper shadow of the grave, and the still deeper and longer shadow of eternity! Oh, turn from these dreams and hallucinations, and, as a rational, accountable, immortal being, on your way to judgment, fix your mind upon your solemn, endless future! You are going to die! And, oh, when that dread hour comes, so real and appalling, how will your past life appear?”

John Owen author of Meditation on the Glory of Christ wrote, “We cannot enjoy peace in this world unless we are ready to yield to the will of God in respect of death. Our times are in His hand, at His sovereign disposal. We must accept that as best.”

William Mason wrote, “Christian! Death cannot hurt you! Death is your best friend – who is commissioned by Christ to summon you from the world of vanity and woe, and from a body of sin and death – to the blissful regions of glory and immortality, to meet your Lord, and to be forever with Him!”

CH Spurgeon wrote, “The very happiest persons I have ever met with have been departing believers. The only people for whom I have felt any envy have been dying members of this very church, whose hands I have grasped in their passing away.  Almost without exception I have seen in them holy delight and triumph.  And in the exceptions to this exceeding joy I have seen deep peace, exhibited in a calm and deliberate readiness to enter into the presence of their God.”

John Owen wrote, “Some may not fear death but may dread the way they might die. Long illness, great pain, or some form of violence could be the means of bringing our earthly life to an end. We shall be wise if we are always ready for any experience which God may allow us to pass through. Is it not right that He should do what He will with His own? Is not His will infinitely holy, wise, just and good in all things? Does He not know what is best for us and what will bring most glory to Himself? Very many people have found they have been able to endure the things they have dreaded most because much more strength and peace of mind have been given them than they could ever have expected.”

CH Spurgeon, “Never fear dying, beloved. Dying is the last, but the least matter that a Christian has to be anxious about. Fear living – that is a hard battle to fight, a stern discipline to endure, a rough voyage to undergo.”

JC Ryle wrote, “Let all true Christians remember, that their best things are yet to come. Let us count it no strange thing, if we have sufferings in this present time. It is a season of probation. We are yet at school. We are learning patience, gentleness, and meekness, which we could hardly learn if we had our good things now. But there is an eternal holiday yet to begin. For this let us wait quietly. It will make amends for all. “Our light affliction which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17).”

RC Sproul wrote, “There is, however, a crucial difference between a profession of faith and the possession of faith… It is not the mere claim to faith that makes us Christians. We must have what we claim to have to be truly in Christ.  Jesus somberly warned about those who say, “Lord, Lord,” who are not His (Matthew 7:21). He made it clear that people can honor Him with their lips while their hearts are far from Him.”

We are called to "...repent and believe in the gospel."  (Mark 1:15 NASB).

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:18
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

John 3:36
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
 

John 10:28
and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.

John 10:29
My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

I conclude with Spurgeon who said, “I know of nothing which I would choose to have as the subject of my ambition for life than to be kept faithful to my God till death, still to be a soul winner, still to be a true herald of the cross, and testify the name of Jesus to the last hour. It is only such who in the ministry shall be saved.”

Heaven is the presence of mercy and grace personified, but hell is a place of the absence of God’s mercy and grace but the presence of God’s wrath.  We read in the London Confession of Faith about….

Chapter 31: Of the State of Man after Death and Of the Resurrection of the Dead

1._____ The bodies of men after death return to dust, and see corruption; but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous being then made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise, where they are with Christ, and behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies;

Justification

(Henry Law, "The Song of Solomon" 1879)

"You are all beautiful, My love; there is
 no spot in you." Song of Solomon 4:1

There is no spot in the Church, because the
blood of Jesus entirely obliterates each stain.

Omniscience may look for sins, but no more
can they be found. The absence of defect is
the result of her being adorned with His perfect
righteousness. In this no blemish can exist.
Thus she appears righteous, even as God is
righteous.

This blessed truth must be held fast without
obliterating the knowledge of our own constant
and innumerable transgressions. It cannot be
too often repeated, that in ourselves we are
deformed and loathsome.

The most saintly of saints will ever breathe
the prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

But Jesus says of His people, "You are all
beautiful, My love; there is no spot in you."

The Sin of Cheating: Taking Someone's Works

     No one should take someone's works, because it is against the Ten Commandments.  We should not bear false witness against our neighbor.  It is contrary to the Law of God.  One could considered these works of mine copyrighted (C) Copyright 2011.   

     C. Matthew McMahon wrote regarding obedience,

"For we do not keep the Law to be saved. But rather, in keeping the Law we show ourselves to already have gained salvation through the cross of Christ. In light of the cross of Christ and the liberation from the (sting) of sin we receive from it, we are now free to keep the Law (Gal. 4:31)."

"We are not Legalists when we keep the Law, because we do not look to the Law for life. Rather the Law shows us we have true life in our hearts. We keep the Law to be obedient to Christ and show Him how much we love Him for rescuing us from the damning influences of trying to keep the Law to gain eternal life. Obedience is a far cry from Legalism."

Augustine wrote,

"The law orders; grace supplies the power of acting."

The Mercy of Christ our Friend and Savior

Here is a quote by Spurgeon on Christ's mercy,

"Let your tears fall because of sin; but, at the same time, let the eye of faith steadily behold the Son of man lifted up, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, that those who are bitten by the old serpent may look unto Jesus and live.  Our sinnership is that emptiness into which the Lord pours his mercy."

Monergism: Do Men Naturally Cooperate With God?

      Do men normally cooperate with God?  Is it in their nature to cooperate with God?  Is it native to their wills to cooperate with God?  I would say that the evidence of cooperation with God is the evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.  C.H. Spurgeon says, 

 "You might as well expect to raise the dead by whispering in their ears, as hope to save souls by preaching to them, if it were not for the agency of the Spirit."

D.A Carson wrote,

"There has not only been an objective, public act of divine self-disclosure in the crucifixion of God’s own Son, but there must be a private work of God by His Spirit, in the mind and heart of the individual.  If we should express unqualified gratitude to God for the gift of His Son, we should express no less gratitude for the gift of the Spirit who enables us to grasp the gospel of His Son…Unless the Spirit enlightens us, God’s thoughts will remain deeply alien to us."

The Divine Authority of God's Word

  Here are a few quotes from Christian leaders on the authority of God's Word:

  John MacArthur wrote,

"When the Word of God is not set up as the supreme authority, division is inevitable. Such happens even in evangelical churches, when pastors and other leaders begin substituting their own ideas for the truths of Scripture. The substitution is seldom intentional, but it will always happen when the Bible is neglected. A Bible that is not studied carefully cannot be followed carefully. And where it is not followed there will be division, because there will be no common ground for beliefs and practices. When the truth of Scripture is not the sole authority, men's varied opinions become the authority."

  John Wycliffe wrote on God's Word,

"The true Christian was intended by Christ to prove all things by the Word of God, all churches, all ministers, all teaching, all preaching, all doctrines, all sermons, all writings, all opinions, all practices.  These are his marching orders.  Prove all by the Word of God; measure all by the measure of the Bible; compare all with the standard of the Bible; weigh all in the balances of the Bible; examine all by the light of the Bible; test all in the crucible of the Bible.  That which cannot abide the fire of the Bible, reject, refuse, repudiate, and cast away.  This is the flag which he nailed to the mast.  May it never be lowered!"