The Reformed Gospel, Part 1

     The Reformed Gospel is described as the Gospel of God (Romans 1:1), the Gospel of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:12), the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 24:14), the Gospel of the Grace of God (Acts 20:24), the Gospel of Peace (Ephesians 6:15), the Gospel of Salvation (Ephesians 1:13) and the Gospel of the Glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4).

     The Gospel is defined as of supernatural origin (Galatians 1:10-12), the Good News of God’s power (Romans 1:16), the Gospel of Mystery (Ephesians 6:19), the Gospel of Revelation (Ephesians 3:1-6), and the Gospel of the Deposit of Truth (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).  The source of the Gospel is hope (Colossians 1:23), salvation (2 Thessalonians 2:13, 14), faith (Acts 15:7), life (1 Corinthians 4:15), immorality (2 Timothy 1:10), afflictions (Philippians 1:16) and peace (Ephesians 6:15).

We Are Called to Share the Gospel of Glad Tidings

     We are called to share the Gospel of His unified imputed righteousness.  We are called to believe and repent towards God of the sins we have committed.  The Glad Tidings of the Gospel is the Good News for lost sinners, because God has chosen to be gracious, filled with loving-kindnesses and tender mercies. 
     Have you repented of your total depravity?  Have you repented of your transgressions, iniquities and sins?  May God grant you the God-appointed Spirit's repentance for your sins through His crucified Son.  Amen.

78-Disputations on the Denial of the Despisement of Jesus Christ

1.     Jesus Christ was despised and rejected of men.

2.     The hatred of men was predicted by the messianic predictions.

3.     The Almighty Father made known the treatment of His dear Son.

4.     Seven hundreds before He was born Isaiah prophesied the mistreatment of His Son.

5.     Isaiah was totally accurate in his prophecy.

6.     The prophecy of Isaiah demonstrates its inspiration.

7.     God worked through Isaiah to state this vital truth.

8.     We should have welcomed the Messiah.

9.     His vocation and mission was that of mercy and grace.

10. Jesus forgave sins, healed the sick and raised the dead.

11. We see that He was not welcomed with open arms.

12. Jesus is the Holy One of God.

13. He did not appear attractive to unregenerate men.

14. Man is desperately wicked and by nature hates the Messiah.

15. The OT records much against man but the NT also says that the carnal mind is against God.

16. There is no cloke for sin apart from the covering of Christ at the Cross of His imputed unified righteousness.

17. Jesus was sinless but in comparison to man it demonstrates that man by nature because of Adam is wicked.

18. Christ preached the absolute sovereignty of God.

19. The Lord does what He pleases.

20. The fact that God does what He pleases is distasteful to man.

21. God does what He pleases in accord with His will and He does not consult with His creatures.

22. God does what He pleases and does not consult with His creatures.

23. We ought to forgive and pray for people who hate us.

24.Jesus forgave His enemies at the Cross, "Father, forgive them...." Man is spiritually depraved and hates whatGod acts according to His good pleasure.

25. God does what He pleases with His own.

26. His mission was to glorify His Heavenly Father.

27. Jesus has His rights to the crown of glory in absolute sovereignty.

28. Jesus was hated, rejected and despised of men.

29. Jesus upheld His holy and sacred law.

30. Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets.

31. He was despised and rejected of men in Isaiah 53:3.

32. Jesus enforced the Ten Commandments,

33. Because He enforced the Ten Commandments, He was despised and rejected of men.

34. Jesus hated unbiblical human tradition.

35. Man is a religious being but He does not know the Living God.

36. The image of God is not entirely destroyed from the fall of Adam.

37. People all the time pay worship to false gods.

38. Man has a religious to him.

39. Jesus charged the Jewish people making the Word of God of none effect through their tradition.

40. Jesus cleansed the temple but the priests were sore displeased in Matthew 21:15.

41. Jesus repudiated empty professions.

42. Jesus confronted the Jewish leadership in being of their father the devil in John 8.

43. Christ exposed and renounced sin.

44. Because Jesus hated sin, this explains why the Jews did not accept Him.

45. Jesus’ holiness caused His advertises question Him.

46. Jesus’ words tested everyone.

47. Jesus was despised because of His inward purity.

48. God looks at the heart but man looks at the outward appearance.

49. Jesus demanded true repentance.

50. Jesus came to save His people from sin and the wrath of the Father.

51. He gave Himself to save His people.

52. Jesus taught the denial of self.

53. The depravity of man killed Jesus Christ.

54. He was hated of men.

55. People were abominable, disobedient and every work reprobate.

56. He was hated because of authoritative teachings.

57. The yoke of Christ is rejected of men.

58. The depraved man wants nothing more then to be “lord” over his life.

59. The gospel of Christ is rejected by men because man is sinful, wretched and wicked.

60. People intellectually reject Christ.

61. People deny that Jesus is God Incarnate.

62. People deny that Jesus came to save sinners.

63. People demonstrate their depravity in rejecting Christ.

64. Christ comes to sinners first and then sinners respond.

65. Jesus saves from sin, God’s wrath and hell.

66. The question is not what you will do with Christ but what He will do with you.

67. No one can be a Christian and deny the Incarnate Second Person of the Trinity.

68. It is anti-Christian and unchristian to reject Jesus.

69. Christians suffer because of Jesus.

70. God’s people are objects of hatred by mankind.

71. The object of hatred by people is God.

72. The object of hatred by people is Christ.

73. The object of hatred by people is light.

74. The hatred of men is a sign of a Christian’s discipleship.

75. The hatred of men is a sign of a Christian’s election.

76. The hatred of men is a sign of a Christian’s regeneration.

77. The hatred of Christ in the end is the outcome of hell.

78. The hatred of the Holy Trinity is the outcome of hell.

The Holy Love of God in and through Christ

We are called the live holy lives unto our Lord.  He desires us to be holy as He is holy.  We ought to repent of our sins throughout the day to our Lord Jesus.  We ought not to leave repentance to a dying hour but we ought to know that all our sins are already forgiven in past, present and future occasions of sin.  We ought to turn to the Lord in faithful repentance.  He accepts our prayers of repentance.  He is plenteous in loving-kindnesses and tender mercies.  He never gives up on us and He never leaves us.  There is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of our Triune Lord.  He has us in His Triune grip.  We cannot even dare to escape of His hands: He is faithful and true and will finish His work that He started in us.  We are secure and always in His protected hand of mercy, grace and love.  He lived a perfect life for us.  We are to believe that Christ died and rose for us.  We are accepted by Jesus Christ because of God’s unfailing love.  We are indeed written in His unchanging book of life.  That is, our names are written in heaven.  The intention of the Cross was to save His people to the uttermost from every tribe, tongue, nation and people.  The Cross is applied to our account by the Spirit of God and the Word of God in regeneration; that is, God the Holy Spirit gives us the unified righteousness of Christ alone in His life and death alone by faith alone. Faith is a gift of God and not of ourselves in anyway, but by His sovereign grace alone.  When we stand before the great Judge of all heaven and earth, we plead our trust in His unified grace-willed righteousness imputed to us by faith alone from grace alone based on Scripture alone.  We are not into the plus religion by adding the Virgin Mary to Jesus for merit, but the unified merit of Christ alone is enough for sinners to enter heaven.  Christ is our all in all and no one can take us away from Him.  I want so badly to stand before the King and Judge of all the earth in robes of His white righteousness that He taught me about through my bitter experience of torment and torture by the hands of the enemies of the Cross, and see the smiling faces of great mentors of old!  He showed me that His unified merit is alone enough to stand before Him.  We do not need to add to His merit.  It is complete.  It is enough.  We ought to rejoice with unspeakable clarity of His awesome love for us!  There is one thing the world cannot take away is our first trust in Christ and His unified meritorious work.  All hell may break loose and all friendship die but one foundation is secure: Jesus’ blood and righteousness!  That is, He paid full satisfaction for our sins by taking upon Himself our sin to bring justice to it in Himself.  What an amazing thought!  May glory, honor, praise, thanksgiving and adoration be to Him who lives forever and ever.  Amen.

Love Your Enemies

We are called as Christians to love our enemies.  Sometimes they may provoke us to wrath but we are to love them.  This commandments causes enemies to abuse us.  I remember when I was in a Muslim chat room and they never stopped beating the Christian over his head, because they view what Christ said below as taking advantage of us.  Remember when Jesus was on the Cross, He forgave His enemies who spitefully abused Him.  In my life, I have enemies that spitefully abuse me.  Nonetheless I pray for them that God would be merciful to them by giving them a born again experience with the Spirit of God and the Word of God.  I do not believe that loving one’s enemies means an exception of self-defense.  However, we are unconditionally called to love our worst enemies.  It was said of old that we should hate our enemies but Jesus uses the terminology of “but I say unto you.”  He is God Incarnate and able to tell us what He understands as the righteous will and law of God.  No one is beyond love.  Loving should not be an excuse to destroy someone.  We are called to take care of our bodies and souls through godliness.  Let us pray for the wicked,

Matthew 5:41-46:

⁴¹And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. ⁴²Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. ⁴³Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. ⁴⁴But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; ⁴⁵That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?  (KJV).

Luke 6:27-35

²⁷But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, ²⁸Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. ²⁹And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. ³⁰Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. ³¹And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. ³²For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. ³³And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. ³⁴And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. ³⁵But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.  (KJV).

Dear Blessed Heavenly Father, we approach the throne of grace through Thine own crucified Son by the power of the Spirit of God, and in accordance of Romans 5 we have access through our Lord Jesus Christ to Thee:  help us to love our enemies and be good to them as they seek to destroy us.  Please bless them with eternal life and the fearing of Thy blessed commandments so that they may walk in the fear of God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer.  We ask that Thou wouldst soften their hearts and give them a repenting spirit.  Please deliver us from our enemies through the Captain of the Lord of Hosts.  If necessary, strike them down to make them see the errors of their ways.  We ask that Thou wouldst give them eternal life and save them from the wrath to come by granting them repentance and faith.  We ask these things in the name of our precious Lord Jesus.  Amen.

The Faithfulness of Jesus Christ

Children of God... will you not bear witness, that, through all your trials and troubles, the faithfulness of your Savior's love has been the “very joy of your hearts?” You have had many crosses and losses – has He ever deserted you? You have been in severe afflictions, and have seen the flowers of many a “sweet hope” wither and decay – did your Friend desert you then? Others may have proved faithless – all other help may have failed you – friendship’s help, promised help, expected help – all, all may have been but as the foam upon the billow, as the footsteps in the sand – but, has Christ ever failed you? Could you, in the darkest and the saddest hour of your grief, say to Him? “Lord, You have promised what You did not perform.” Will you not bear witness concerning the past? – “Not one good thing has failed, of all that the Lord has promised – all has come to pass.”

 John MacDuff

 The Throne of Grace, Alexander Strahan Publishers, 1865.

Faith and Repentance

We ought to repent of our sins.  It good that we repent of known sins particularly and generally.  I have repented of all known sins in my life.  It is the repentance of grace and peace.  We should rest our hopes on Christ alone.  It is through Him alone we should pray through.  Here are a few quotes on repentance: 

Repentance is as much a mark of a Christian, as faith is. A very little sin, as the world calls it, is a very great sin to a true Christian.

C.H. Spurgeon

Repentance is the inseparable companion of faith. All the while that we walk by faith and not by sight, the fear of repentance glitters in the eye of faith. That is not true repentance which does not come of faith in Jesus; and that is not true faith in Jesus which is not tinctured with repentance. Faith and repentance, like the Siamese twins, are vitally joined together. Faith and repentance are but two spokes in the same wheel, two handles of the same plow. Repentance has been well described as a heart broken for sin and from sin, and it may equally well be spoken of as turning and returning. It is a change of mind of the most thorough and radical sort, and it is attended with sorrow for the past and a resolve of amendment in the future. Repentance of sin and faith in divine pardon are the ways and woof of the fabric of real conversion.

C.H. Spurgeon

When the hand of faith opens to lay hold of Christ, it drops the sin it had grasped before.  You must part with your sin – or Christ.

J. A. James

The Christian Professor.

Repentance is the hand releasing those filthy objects it had previously clung to so tenaciously.  Faith is extending an empty hand to God to receive His gift of grace.  Repentance is a godly sorrow for sin.  Faith is receiving a sinner's Saviour.  Repentance is revulsion of the filth and pollution of sin.  Faith is a seeking of cleansing therefrom.  Repentance is the sinner covering his mouth and crying, “Unclean, unclean!”  Faith is the leper coming to Christ and saying, “Lord, if You will, You can make me clean.”

A.W. Pink

Salvation From the Penalty of Sin.

Studying Christlikeness

Douglas Webster wrote,

The communion of the gospel is by seeing as well as by hearing. This double strand runs all through the Bible: image and word, vision and voice, opening the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of the deaf. Just as Jesus is the Word of God and the Image of God. The Word become visible, the Image audible... We are familiar enough with the verbal element of evangelism. Where is the visual?

Sinclair Ferguson wrote,

Perhaps the most wonderful thing of all is this: God lifts us not only from what we are by nature to what Adam was in the Garden of Eden, but to what Adam was to become in the presence of God, and would have been had he persevered in obedience. The gospel does not make us like Adam in his innocence – it makes us like Christ, in all the perfection of His reflection of God.  (The Christian Life, p. 16, 1997, by permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA).

John Angell James wrote,

Press right home to your conscience the question, “What do I have of the mind of Christ?” Does my heart answer, does my disposition correspond, to the holy, meek, humble, forgiving, benevolent, patient, self-denying mind of Christ? Do men who know the beauty and glory of the Original, as it is delineated on the page of the gospel, when they see me, say, “There is the image of Christ!” Or do they look skeptically on, and after standing in silence for some time, profess they can see little or no resemblance? Oh, be satisfied with nothing short of a copy of Christ’s heart into yours!

Nothing But the Blood of Jesus

Only the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse from all sin.  There is no other way of forgiveness save the blood of Christ alone.  I praise Him for the blood of Christ alone.

 

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Refrain

Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

For my pardon, this I see,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
For my cleansing this my plea,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Refrain

Nothing can for sin atone,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
Naught of good that I have done,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Refrain

This is all my hope and peace,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
This is all my righteousness,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Refrain

Now by this I’ll overcome—
Nothing but the blood of Jesus,
Now by this I’ll reach my home—
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Refrain

Glory! Glory! This I sing—
Nothing but the blood of Jesus,
All my praise for this I bring—
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Refrain

A Quote from James Smith, "The Person and Work of Christ" 1849

What a wonderful person is my glorious Lord Jesus! All the divine attributes are found in Him. As there are no limits to His fullness—there can be no limit to my supplies, or the least prospect of need.

Jesus is my divine Savior!
His bounty will supply me,
His omnipotence will deliver me,
His omnipresence will protect me,
His omniscience will guard me,
His love will animate me,
His mercy will heal me,
His grace will support me,
His compassion will comfort me,
His pity will relieve me,
His goodness will provide for me,
His tenderness will soothe me,
His kindness will encourage me,
His patience will bear with me,
His justice will avenge me,
His faithfulness will embolden me,
His holiness will beautify me,
His anger will awe me,
His life will quicken me,
His light will illumine me,
His Word will regulate me,
His joy will delight me,
His blessedness will elevate me,
His long-suffering will lead me to repentance,
His immutability will secure the fulfillment of all the promises to me,
His truth will be my shield and buckler,
His sovereignty will raise my admiration,
His condescension will inspire me with gratitude and love,
and His all-sufficiency will satisfy me both in time and eternity!

In Jesus, God has reconciled me to Himself—imputing my trespasses to Him—and His obedience to me.

God by Jesus, takes away . . .
  all my sins,
  His own wrath, and
  my deserved condemnation!

All good things . . .
  are treasured up in Christ,
  were procured for me by Christ,
  flow to me through Christ, and
  are conferred on me for the sake of Christ!

How exactly suited is the Lord Jesus to my case! Inflexible justice demands my blood—but He becomes my substitute, and spills His own!

In Jesus, I see my sin—and God's justice meet!
He removes the one—and satisfies the other!

What is Jesus called in God's holy Word?
A Savior—in reference to my lost condition.
A Reconciler—in reference to the enmity that existed between myself and God.
A Redeemer—in reference to my slavery to sin.
A Mediator—in respect to the disagreement between myself and the Most High God.
A Refiner—with respect to my filthiness.
An Advocate—with regard to my perplexed cause.
A Prophet—in respect to my ignorance.
A Priest—with a view to my guiltiness.
A King—in regard to my weakness and foes.
A Bridegroom—regarding my lowly estate and relationship.
A Physician—with regard to my many soul maladies.
In a word, Jesus is "All In All."

O to know more of Jesus, in . . .
  the glory of His person,
  the riches of His grace,
  the perfection of His work,
  the tenderness of His heart,
  the strength of His love and
  the effectual working of His power!

My Conversion to our Lord Jesus Christ

     I did whatever I could to belong to Christ.  God knew I wanted to belong to Him but I had moral inability.  I repented of my sins in times past but never so constantly than after I gained assurance in January 2005.  I began the search for assurance of salvation, I think, sometime in 2003.  I began attending a Reformed Presbyterian church and later a Reformed church that was Baptist. There is purity found in the Gospel in the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.  I loved the confession's testimony on the life and death of Christ alone in the awesomeness of the Gospel.   This was the sole reason why I became a Reformed Baptist Christian.  I later was baptized in the threefold name of the Triune Godhead by immersion.  The Westminster Confession did not have the same testimony though it was also awesome in its testimony!  I began to take a calender of my sins and repent of all of them since I was in the womb of my mother.  I remembered in the past when people ministered unto me and how it helped me when God converted me to the Reformed faith.  I also remembered my encounter with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ before I was converted.  The theological education helped a lot at Liberty University but also after conversion I learned a great deal more from Ligonier Ministries.  During the time when I was born from above in 2004, I earned a doctorate of theology where I studied all the Reformed doctrines of sacred Scripture.  This helped me learn a lot more in my search for God as a Christian.  I know I am justified by faith alone through Christ alone.  When I first trusted Christ, it was great joy and I told my mother about it.  I know I am a sinner saved by God's grace alone, but I also know that all the punishment I deserve is placed on Christ alone at the Cross!  May all glory, honor, veneration, worship, thanksgiving, rejoicing and blessing be to Him alone forever and ever.  Amen.

A Quote from Spurgeon's sermon, "The Fruitless Vine"

It is grace, free, sovereign grace, which has made you to differ!

Should any here, supposing themselves to be the children of
God, imagine that there is some reason "in them" why they
should have been chosen, let them know, that as yet they are in
the dark, concerning the first principles of grace, and have not
yet learned the gospel.

If ever they had known the gospel, they would, on the other
hand, confess that they were less than the least- the offscouring
of all things- unworthy, ill-deserving, undeserving, and hell-
deserving, and ascribe it all to distinguishing grace, which has
made them to differ; and to discriminating love, which has
chosen them out from the rest of the world.

Great Christian, you would have been a great sinner
if God had not made you to differ!

O! you who are valiant for truth, you would have been
as valiant for the devil if grace had not laid hold of you!

A seat in heaven shall one day be yours; but a chain in hell
would have been yours if grace had not changed you!

You can now sing his love; but a licentious song might have been
on your lips, if grace had not washed you in the blood of Jesus!

You are now sanctified, you are quickened, you are justified;
but what would you have been today if it had not been for the
interposition of the divine hand?

There is not a crime you might not have committed;
there is not a folly into which you might not have run.
Even murder itself you might have committed
if grace had not kept you.

You shall be like the angels; but you would have been like the
devil if you had not been changed by grace!

Therefore, never be proud- all the garments you have
are from above; rags were your only heritage.

Never be proud, though you now have a wide domain of grace;
you had once not a single thing to call yours own, except your
sin and misery.

You are now wrapped up in the golden righteousness of the
Savior, and accepted in the garments of the beloved!
But you would have been buried under the black mountain of
sin, and clothed with the filthy rags of unrighteousness,
if he had not changed you!

And are you proud?

Do you exalt yourself?

O! strange mystery, that you, who have borrowed everything,
should exalt yourself; that you, who have nothing of your own,
but have still to draw upon grace, should be proud- a poor
dependent pensioner upon the bounty of your Savior, and yet
proud; one who has a life which can only live by fresh streams of
life from Jesus, and yet proud!

Go, hang your pride upon the gallows, as high as Haman!
Hang it there to rot, and you stand beneath, and execrate it to all
eternity; for sure of all things most to be cursed and despised is
the pride of a Christian.

He, of all men, has ten thousand times more reason than any
other to be humble, and walk lowly with his God, and kindly and
humbly toward his fellow-creatures.

On Scripture

God’s Holy Spirit creates His people by His Word. We can create a people by other means, and this is the great temptation of churches. We can create a people around a certain ethnicity. We can create a people around a fully-graded choir program. We can find people who will get excited about a building project or a denominational identity. We can create a people around a series of care groups, where each feels loved and cared for. We can create a people around a community service project. We can create a people around social opportunities for young mothers or Caribbean cruises for singles. We can create a people around men’s groups.  We can even create a people around the personality of a preacher. And God can surely use all of these things. But in the final analysis the people of God, the church of God, can only be created around the Word of God.

 Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Crossway, 2000, p. 36