Church cleaning this month: Wayne and Tara Kinnel.

If God Almighty gives command to save a sinner, how can that sinner ever perish? If God Almighty does not give life to a dead sinner, how can that sinner ever live?

Someone may think, “I would like to believe on Christ, but I am afraid that I am not one of the elect so I do not have any right to believe.” My friend, that thinking could not be more wrong. A sinner’s right to believe on Christ comes from the commandment of God. “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment” (I John 3:23). Refusal to believe on Christ is not based on being afraid God will not accept us in Christ. Refusal to believe on Christ is a demonstration of man’s self-righteous rebellion.

Nothing Between

“Nothing between my soul and the Savior.” – More than thirty years ago I sat in the home of a young preacher who had come up the novel idea that no sinner can be saved until he has attained a certain degree of knowledge. He even argued that Peter, James, and John were lost until after the resurrection, because they had not yet arrived at a saving level of knowledge. After a good bit of discussion, I leaned over, looked the man in the eye, and said, “That is nothing but a subtle form of works salvation. The Bible never says, ‘Know this doctrine and you shall be saved.’ Holy Scripture says, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ Anything you put between Christ and the sinner is works salvation. It does not matter whether it is experience, emotionalism, feelings, or knowledge, anything you put between Christ and the sinner is works; and it is just as damning as telling sinners that they must be circumcised to be saved.” Sadly, my friend quickly became an enraged foe and continues his determined path of error. I have said all that to say these two things…

1. Preacher, put nothing between poor, lost sinners and Christ: no conditions, no prerequisites, no qualifications for the sinner to meet. Preach to sinners as sinners, urging them to trust the Lord Jesus.
2. Sinner, put nothing between your soul and the Savior. There are no conditions, prerequisites, or qualifications for the sinner to meet before coming to Christ. “All the fitness He requireth is to feel your need of Him. This He gives you, this He gives you. ‘Tis the Spirit’s rising beam!” – “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” – “He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life.”

Pastor Don Fortner

A GOOD HOPE!

When the conscience is not wounded by the "Sword of the Lord," there can be no healing from the "Balm of Giliad." Preaching which neither wounds nor heals is of the devil. A sinner who neither knows nor cares how the Law, which he has transgressed, has been magnified, how the justice that demanded his death, has been satisfied, how the name of God, which has been dishonored by him, has been glorified by Christ, and how the blood of Christ worked all these to give us hope in the presence of the "God with whom we have to do," may be zealous and active, but cannot have "a good hope through grace."