This addresses “believers only.” I speak of those who have believed and are believing to the saving of their souls, that Jesus Christ is all their hope. The things that we read in the following texts are PRECIOUS only to those who truly believe that Jesus Christ alone is all their salvation. “That the trial of your faith, being much more PRECIOUS than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:7). “Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, PRECIOUS : AND HE THAT BELIEVTH ON Him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe He (Christ) is PRECIOUS: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner” (I Peter 2:6-7). “Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like PRECIOUS faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 1:1). “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and PRECIOUS promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (II Peter1:4). “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the PRECIOUS blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Peter 1:18-19). Above all things, Christ is PRECIOUS to a believing soul. Everything that relates the believer to Christ is PRECIOUS. The promises concerning Christ and what he has in Christ are PRECIOUS to him. His God-given faith and even the trying of his faith are PRECIOUS to him. And then the blood of Christ, which only merits him favor with a Holy God, is most PRECIOUS to him. To the self righteous religionist, the denomination is precious to him. The building that he assembles in, the beauty and magnificence of its furnishings are precious to him. His robed choir, special singing, the form and beauty of the program, the entertainment (dramas, cantatas, and such) are precious to him. He can discuss these things with great delight, but to rejoice in a conversation that takes up Christ and those things alone that relate believing sinners to Christ he finds no taste for. I have now been preaching in the same place for forty-nine years, and I find that congregational singing of the old hymns and expositional preaching of nothing but Christ and His atoning work has absolutely no appeal to the irreligious or the self-righteous But we shall continue to preach “Christ crucified.’ Unto the Jews (the religionist) He yet remains a stumbling block, and to the unconverted heathen foolishness, but unto believers Christ is the power of God and wisdom of God.
Older
Top
