Abide in Me

It is true that once a man is saved by God’s grace through faith, he will remain saved forever; yet the Scriptures are full of warnings to believers against unbelief (Heb. 3:12-14), against drawing back (Heb. 10:38-39), and against neglecting the Word of God (Heb. 2:1-3).

Abiding in Christ is abiding in His WORD, abiding in His LOVE, and abiding in His SPIRIT and in FAITH. This abiding in Christ is NOT a condition which a man fulfills before receiving life, but abiding in Christ is a result of Christ’s gift of life and is true evidence that we have the life of Christ.

Branches on a grapevine do not bear fruit by themselves but from the vine and as a result of their union with the life-giving vine. Neither can any man bear, produce, nor possess any spiritual knowledge, life, gift, grace, or holiness except through Christ’s abiding in Him and HIS ABIDING IN CHRIST.

Pastor Henry T. Mahan (bulletin 1987)

“…His Power To Usward…”

“And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power” (Ephesians 1:19).

In this text Paul told the people of God at Ephesus that both he and they believed “according to the working of God’s mighty power.” The same is true of all believers today. Faith in Christ is not the work of man for God; it is the work of God in man. Faith in Christ is not the result of man’s free-will; it is the result of God’s sovereign will. Faith in Christ is not the operation of man’s natural heart; it is the operation of God in man’s heart. It does not lie within the realm of man’s will, nor within the realm of man’s ability to believe on Christ.

Faith is a supernatural gift of God’s grace. God alone can give faith. He gives faith and withholds faith as he pleases. And when God the Holy Spirit gives faith to a sinner, his gracious operations are so powerful that they are irresistible. Every sinner who is born again by the grace of God comes to Christ because he wills to come to Christ, and he wills to come to Christ because he cannot do otherwise.

Pastor Don Fortner

NEWTON'S DYING THOUGHTS

In the last few weeks of his life, John Newton, author of the famous old hymn "Amazing Grace," became so weak that he had to stop preaching and eventually was confined to his bed. His friends said that he never feared age nor death. To a close friend he wrote, "Through God's grace I am perfectly well, yet laboring under a growing disorder for which there is no cure--old age. But I am glad for this disease, for who would live always in such a world as this." Shortly before he died, he told visiting friends, "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Saviour." Copied

HOW GOD SAVES SINNERS
Genesis 6-7

In Genesis chapter six and seven we have the story of the flood and how God saved Noah and his family from the horrendous destruction by putting them into an Ark. We see the righteous judgment of God against sin and the mercy of God revealed through Christ. The Ark of God is a worthy picture and pattern of how the Lord is pleased to save sinners and justify them in Jesus Christ. Here are five things to remember about how God saves sinners.

1). The grace of God, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (Gen. 6:8). Noah did not earn, merit or deserve grace, he found God to be gracious. It was the sovereign grace of God that made Noah to differ from the rest of the population (1 Cor. 4:7). Noah was just as guilty as the rest (Gen. 6:5) or he would not have needed the grace of God to justify him (Rom. 3:24). The only explanation for the grace of God in Noah's life is sovereign grace (John 1:16; Rom. 9:12-16).

2). The Ark of God, "Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch" (Gen. 6:14). God uses means to attain His righteous end. The Ark is the means God chose to save his people. This Ark is a type and picture of our only refuge from sin, the Lord Jesus Christ. There was just one Ark, there is only one way of salvation (John 14:6). The Ark was sufficient to save all that God brought into the Ark, Jesus Christ is the sufficient Saviour of His chosen people (Matt. 1:21).

3).The covenant of God, "I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee" (Gen. 6:18). The mercy and salvation that Noah experienced was because of the covenant that God had established with Noah before the flood. All the mercy any sinner receives from God is because of the eternal covenant of grace established in the Lord Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world (2 Thes. 2:13; Eph. 1:3-7). Jesus Christ is the Surety of the covenant (Heb. 7:22), the Mediator of the covenant (Heb. 8:6), the sacrifice of the covenant (Heb. 13:20).

4). The call of God, "The LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark" (Gen. 7:1). God did not invite Noah and his family into the Ark; He commanded them and irresistibly drew them in. This is exactly the same way the Lord calls out His elect through the preaching of the gospel (Psa. 110:3; John 10:27). God is not trying to save all men everywhere, He is sovereignly calling out His sheep to Himself. (Gal. 1:15; Matt. 11:28).