I am preaching this morning and tonight at First Baptist Church in Almont, MI. Elders Jim Casey and Randy Wages are preaching here this morning in my absence. Please pray for us as we deliver God’s Word in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior, and please keep me in your prayers as I travel home this week. – Pastor Bill Parker
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EVERY BELIEVER’S ACCOUNT
In matters of weak and strong believers judging each other’s salvation based on wrong grounds and standards, the Apostle Paul wrote that Christ alone is our Judge, and He judges based on the right grounds and by the righteous standard of His truth. Paul wrote, “But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” (Rom. 14:10). He also wrote, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:12). Some imagine that giving an account to God involves a believer standing at Judgment and having to account for all his sins. But this is far from truth. First, every true believer has already been judged for all his sins in and by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Substitute and Surety. Because of the blood Christ, the Lord God Himself says, “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. 10:17). God Himself has justified His people and will not lay any sin to their charge (Rom. 8:33-34). If we are true believers, we can know for certain that all our sins were charged to Christ, that He paid our debt in full, and we have His righteousness charged to us. Secondly, we as believer’s will all most assuredly “give account” of ourselves to God, but what is our account? Our account is in and with the Lord Jesus Christ. He was accounted with our sin, and we are accounted with His righteousness. Thank God that our account is not some listing of our sins or even our good works. Our good works do not and will not measure up to the righteousness we must have to pass Judgment. But our account IN CHRIST JESUS, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS does and will measure up to the righteousness we need to pass Judgment. In short, CHRIST JESUS IS OUR ACCOUNT!
-- Pastor Bill Parker
Our name is written in the Lamb’s book of life if we can find it in the promises of the Bible addressed to sinners! The book of life, or decree of election, is the marriage-register of the saints in which their everlasting espousal to Christ stands indelibly recorded by the pen of God's free and eternal love. As the gold of which money is made is the king's property ever before it is struck into coin, and before it visibly bears the royal image and superscription; so the unregenerate elect are God's own heritage, though they do not appear to be such until the Holy Spirit has made them pass through the mint of effectual calling and actually stamped them into current coin for the kingdom of Heaven. The elect are betrothed to Christ from everlasting in the covenant of grace; they are actually married to Him, and join hands with Him, in conversion; but they are not taken home to the bridegroom’s house until death dismisses them from the body.
-- Augustus Toplady
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Instead of shrinking back in horror from the doctrine of predestination, the believer, when he sees this blessed truth as it is unfolded in the Word, discovers a solid ground for gratitude and thanksgiving such as nothing else affords, save the unspeakable gift of the Redeemer Himself.
– A. W. Pink
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Instead of a river, God often gives us a brook, which may be running today and dry tomorrow. Why? To teach us not to trust in our blessings, but in the Blesser, Himself. Yet, is it not at this point that we so often fail – our hearts being far more occupied with the gifts than the Giver. Is not this just the reason the Lord will not trust us with a river? – because it would unconsciously take His place in our hearts. “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.” (Deut. 32:15). And the same evil tendency exists within us. We sometimes feel we are being hardly dealt with because God gives us a brook rather than a river, but this is because we are so little acquainted with our own hearts. God loves His own too well to place dangerous knives in the hands of infants. – Author Unknown
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