Jacksonville, NC 28584

Phone: Cell: 910-382-5920 Home: 910-347-0088

Email: shepard495@embarqmail.com

Website: sermonaudio.com/allsovgrace

Services: Sunday 10:30 AM and Wednesday 7:00 PM

December 28, 2014

CHECK ME CLOSE

I am not only willing but truly want all who hear me to check what I say with the scriptures. Paul the apostle subjected his preaching to the same scrutiny as he did those at Berea: “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11) Not a verse here and one there, but the whole of God’s written word. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isaiah 8:20)

GS

No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by SIGHT hereafter, who does not in some measure behold it by FAITH here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight. Where the subject (the soul) is not previously seasoned with grace and faith, it is not capable of glory or vision. Yea, a person not disposed hereby unto it cannot desire it, whatever they pretend...if a man pretend himself to be enamored on, or greatly to desire, what he never saw, nor was ever represented to him, he does but dote on his own imaginations. And the pretended desires of many to behold the glory of Christ in heaven, who have no view of it by faith while they are here in this world, are nothing but self-deceiving imaginations.

John Owen

DO YOU LOVE TO HEAR THE GOSPEL?

My friends, do you love to hear Christ lifted up and exalted as your all and in all? If you do, you are willing to be made less than nothing and vanity in yourselves. Professors of religion, generally, do not like to be thus humbled. They love to have something to do, in whole or in part, to recommend themselves to God. But the Lord’s salvation is not a mixture of grace and works. It is of free and sovereign grace, and received by faith alone, which is the gift of God. It is “not of works, lest any man should boast.” The Lord alone be exalted as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last in the salvation of His people.

John Kershaw

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”- John 3:6

THERE is no promise made that we shall be set free in this life from the in-being and the in-working of sin. Many think that they are to become progressively holier and holier, that sin after sin is to be removed gradually out of the heart, until at last they are almost made perfect in the flesh. But this is an idle dream, and one which, sooner or later in the case of God’s people, will be rudely and roughly broken to pieces. Nature will ever remain the same; and we shall ever find that the flesh will lust against the spirit. Our Adam nature is corrupt to the very core. It cannot be mended, it cannot be sanctified, it is at the last what it was at the first, inherently evil, and as such will never cease to be corrupt till we put off mortality, and with it the body of sin and death. All we can hope for, long after; expect and pray for, is, that this evil nature may be subdued, kept down, mortified, crucified, and held in subjection under the power of grace; but as to any such change passing upon it or taking place in it as to make it holy, it is but a pharisaic delusion, which, promising a holiness in the flesh, leaves us still under the power of sin, whilst it opposes with deadly enmity that true sanctification of the new man of grace, which is wrought by a divine power, and is utterly distinct from any fancied holiness in the flesh, or any vain dream of its progressive sanctification.

J.C. Philpot

“And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.” (1 Samuel 30:6) Strength, encouragement and comfort shall be given by God to all His people in the morning, noon day and evening of their lives. It will never diminish just as He will never diminish! Whatever our time, let us be encouraged in our God as He is in Christ! He is the Lord that changes not so we will not be consumed!

GS

The word “satisfaction” has at least two meanings. First, it has to do with meeting and filling up that which is required. Secondly, with pleasing or making content the one satisfied. Christ is both to God and His believing people! He has satisfied all that God’s law and justice required and because of this, also satisfies the one who is brought by the Spirit to believe on Him. He pleased God and therefore pleases all who trust Him. God says, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased..” We say, “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.“ (Psa 17:15)