A MIND AGAINST GOD

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." (Romans 8:7)

All men by nature hate God. any say that they don't but God who knows the hearts of all men and needs not anyone to tell Him says they do. Perhaps one of the greatest evidences of this is seen in how that enmity defies even the plainest human logic. One would think that since men are naturally religious they would find a gospel church exactly to their liking. Where else can they go and find a building that is heated in the winter and cooled in the summer to a temperature naturally pleasant at no cost to themselves? Where can they go in religion without being begged and pleaded with to give money or support some expensive program? Where can they go and not be pressured into some religious decision? Where in this religious world can they go and not be asked to raise a hand, sign a card, come to the front or any of the other multitude of things that men are pressed to do in our day? What church can they go to without being threatened with hell, lured by the offer of rewards or nearly dragged to the baptismal pool? Where can the go without it being advised or at least suggested that they join up? Where else can they go where the preacher will not be on their doorstep the next day or some religious zealot dogging their heels for the next weeks? Where else can they go and hear the Word of God without opinion, philosophy or compromise and then leave without question? Where else can they go where a man will be honest with the gospel and tell them the truth about God, about themselves, about sin, about Christ and about salvation? Where else could they go and not hear what they are to do but hear what Christ has already done? Where else can you hear salvation in Christ alone, righteousness given as a free gift, sin fully put away and all things freely given in Christ? It would logically seem that men would be overfilling our building to hear such a gospel! But that is not the case. Why? Because men hate God and will go to any place, be subjected to anything, and do or give anything rather than submit themselves to the righteousness of God in Christ.

Gary Shepard

All glory to the great I AM,

Who chose me in the blessed Lamb;

While millions of the human race,

Will never know or taste his grace!

Tucker

A FAITHFUL MINISTER

A faithful minister of Christ is one that sincerely desires His Master's glory, not his own. He delivers the whole counsel of God, not his own theories and ideas. He proclaims the pure gospel of grace, not a watered-down counterfeit that appeases the flesh. He boldly declares that salvation, from beginning to end, is of God, and of Him only. He sets forth the unchanging truth of God without apology. He always points His hearers to the Lord Jesus, the only Savior of sinners. His message can be condensed into these words of another preacher of days gone by, "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord" (2 Corinthians 4:5).

Jim Byrd

THE LANGUAGE OF LIFE

There is a wonder in the preaching of the Gospel. Those who have been appointed to the task of preaching know that they face an amazing dilemma. As far as they know, no one is able to hear what they say with the ears of faith. They wait on the Spirit of God as they preach to spiritually dead men and women, all the while, directing their hearers to do the impossible! This would seem a most daunting job, one fraught with assured disappointment and a sense of futility, were it not for the language of life that is built into the Gospel. For the preacher there is hope in the words employed by the Scripture. The language itself speaks to LIFE! Though no one is privy to the inward workings of the Holy Spirit, nor can anyone see a person being given life through the Word, the preacher is yet told to use language that only the spiritually living can hear. To the dead sinner the command is "Come to Christ", "Believe on Christ", "Call on the Name of the Lord", "Repent" and "Turn". These are admonitions to the living. The Gospel addresses living needs, such as hunger, thirst and relief from burdens. Such terms are exclusive to the realm of the living. The dead do not know nor can they experience such things. Sweet dilemma this …knowing that God alone gives life, the preacher is told to speak in a manner as if everyone to whom he speaks can hear. The preacher is thus, gloriously insulated from the burden of making folks hear, which to him, is an impossibility anyway. However, at the same time he is commanded to speak to his fellow sinners as if they can respond. "Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Ephesians 5:14

Tim James

GOD’S HUMBLING GRACE IN CHRIST

For any who are under the false illusion that they are somehow growing in perfection and holiness, consider carefully the following excerpt taken from a letter by John Newton (preacher and author of the hymn, “Amazing Grace”) to a friend, written on Nov. 23, 1774. “I have no idea of any permanent state in this life, that shall make my experience cease to be a state of warfare and humiliation. At my first setting out, indeed, I thought to be better, and to feel myself better, from year to year. I expected, by degrees, to attain everything that I then comprised in my idea of a saint. I thought my grain of grace, by much diligence and careful improvement, would, in time, amount to a pound. That pound, in a farther space of time, to a talent, and then I hoped to increase from one talent to many, so that supposing the Lord should spare me a competent number of years, I pleased myself with the thoughts of dying rich. But, alas! These golden expectations have been like South Sea dreams. I have lived hitherto a poor sinner, and I believe I shall die one. Have I then gained nothing by waiting upon the Lord? Yes, I have gained that which proofs of the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of my heart, as I hope, by the Lord’s blessing, have, in some measure, taught me to know what I mean, when I say, ‘Behold, I am vile!’ In connection with this, I have gained such experience of the wisdom, power, and compassion of my Redeemer, the need, the worth of His blood, righteousness, ascension, and intercession, the glory that He displays in pardoning iniquity and sin, and passing by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage, that my soul cannot but cry out, “Who is a God like unto Thee?’”

John Newton

Before we can worship God in peace of conscience and liberty of heart, we must know, upon authority of God's Word and by the power of God's Spirit, that the entire question of sin has been forever settled by the blood of a divine sin offering. All of God's claims and all our necessities as ruined, guilty sinners have been forever answered. This gives us peace; and in the enjoyment of that peace, we worship God. We have a perfect Sacrifice, and a perfect conscience.