When Our Resurrected Lord Appears by Randal Pelton

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Let Everything That Has Breath Praise The Lord

Randy Alcorn:

"Throughout Scripture we read that animals praise God. Psalm 148 commands all of creation to praise the Lord, including the animals: "Wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds, kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth, young men and maidens, old men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his splendor is above the earth and the heavens" (vv. 10-13). If in some sense fallen animals, shadows of what they once were, can praise God on this fallen Earth, how much more should we expect them to do so on the New Earth? "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord" (Psalm 150:6). Since animals are said to have breath, they are included among those directed to praise God."

Read the entire article here.

Not Comfortable....But Comforting

"To know that our Father in heaven has ordained our pain is not a comfortable truth, but it is comforting. That our pain has a loving and wise and all-powerful purpose behind it is better than any other view—weak God, cruel God, bumbling God, no God. To know that in his hands “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17) is profoundly reassuring. And yes, “light” and “momentary” meant, in Paul’s case, a lifetime of suffering. The excruciating “lightness” of his suffering was light compared to the weight of glory. And the interminable “momentariness” of his suffering was momentary compared to the eternality of the glory."

John Piper, A Sweet and Bitter Providence, pp. 138-139.

(HT The Works Of God)

The Gospel Commission - Dr. Michael Horton

(HT Lane's Blog)

Salvation Is A Gift

"No more soul-destroying doctrine could well be devised than the doctrine that sinners can regenerate themselves, and repent and believe just when they please. As it is a truth both of Scripture and of experience that the unrenewed man can do nothing of himself to secure his salvation, it is essential that he should be brought to practical conviction of that truth. When thus convinced, and not before, he seeks help from the only source whence it can be obtained."

Charles Hodge

God's Creation

Russell Moore:

Some have charged Christians with holding an inherent hostility to environmental protection—rooted often in a caricature of evangelical views of human dominion, Armageddon, and the imminence of the end times. Such caricatures do not stand up to close scrutiny. Or, at the very least, they shouldn’t.

Evangelical Christians agree that the kingdom is both here and not yet. An understanding of salvation as both individual and cosmic in scope should inform the way we, as followers of Jesus, think about the doctrine in our churches and the recycling bin next to the cubicle down the hall.

Jesus, after all, doesn’t save us simply to “go to heaven when we die.” That human beings bear the image of Jesus, the perfect icon of God’s nature, is at the very heart of the Christian understanding of the universe. The earth was indeed created, Christians believe, for human beings—or, more correctly, for a human being: Jesus Christ.

God saves us to be as we were intended to be—to be even more than we could have been, apart from Christ—that is, to be kings and queens of the universe, in resurrected and glorified bodies. It’s not just that the meek shall go to heaven; they shall inherit the earth.

Read the entire article here.

Affliction

"Affliction is one of God's medicines! By it He often teaches lessons which would be learned in no other way. By it He often draws souls away from sin and the world, which would otherwise have perished everlastingly. Health is a great blessing but sanctified disease is a greater. Prosperity and worldly comfort, are what all naturally desire, but losses and crosses are far better for us if they lead us to Christ. Let us beware of murmuring in the time of trouble. Let us settle it firmly in our minds, that there is a meaning, a “needs be”, and a message from God in every sorrow that falls upon us. There are no lessons so useful as those learned in the school of affliction. There is no commentary that opens up the Bible so much as sickness and sorrow. The resurrection morning will prove, that many of the losses of God’s people were in reality, eternal gains. Thousands at the last day will testify with David, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted” (Psalm. 119:71)!"

J.C. Ryle

Jesus Wins

(HT Randy Alcorn)

Embrace The Paradox

"Embrace the paradox of God's sovereignty and man’s responsibility. The sad thing is that some embrace the sovereignty of God over the human will and say: “It is wrong to portray God with His arms stretched out, inviting and calling.” And others embrace the responsibility of man and say, “If God invites and calls and beckons, then he can’t really be sovereign over man’s will, and man really is ultimately self-determining and God is not really in control of all things.” Both of these are sad mistakes. It is sad, because one group rejects something deep and precious that God has revealed about Himself for our strength and hope and joy and love – namely, his absolute sovereignty. Oh, how sweet it is when all around our soul gives way, and we need a reliable and firm rock in a world that sometimes seems utterly out of control and meaningless and cruel. Oh, how sweet at these times to know that God is not good and helpless, but good and sovereign. And the other group (who embrace the sovereignty of God) sometimes rejects something utterly crucial for understanding the justice of God in dealing with people, and they fail to see how we should plead with people and persuade people and invite people and woo people with tears, to Christ, and on behalf of Christ."

John Piper

Death In His Grave

(HT For His Renown)

We Never Out-Grow Our Need For The Gospel

Spurgeon on Free-Will

"Free-will doctrine – what does it? It magnifies man into God; it declares God’s purposes a nullity, since they cannot be carried out unless men are willing. It makes God’s will a waiting servant to the will of man, and the whole covenant of grace dependent upon human action. Denying election on the ground of injustice it holds God to be a debtor to sinners, so that if He gives grace to one He is bound to do so to all. It teaches that the blood of Christ was shed equally for all men and since some are lost, this doctrine ascribes the difference to man’s own will, thus making the atonement itself a powerless thing until the will of man gives it efficacy. Those sentiments dilute the scriptural description of man’s depravity, and by imputing strength to fallen humanity, rob the Spirit of the glory of His effectual grace: this theory says in effect that it is of him that willeth, and of him that runneth, and not of God that showeth mercy."

C.H. Spurgeon

Free Moral Agents

"All people freely and voluntarily and willingly reject the gospel because it is their heart’s desire to do so. A person’s freedom consists in the ability to act according to one’s desires and inclinations without being compelled to do otherwise by something or someone external to himself. So long as one’s choice is the voluntary fruit of one’s desire, the will is free. This is what I mean when I say, “Yes, all people are free moral agents.” On the other hand, to say that a person has free will is to say that he has equal ability or power to accept or reject the gospel. It is to say that he is as able to believe as to disbelieve, and that this ability springs from his own making and is native to him notwithstanding his fallen and sinful state. If this is what you mean when you ask me, “Is man free?” my answer, or rather, the answer of the Bible, is “No.” A man’s will is the extension and invariable expression of his nature. As he is, so he wills. A man is no more free to act or to will or to choose contrary to his nature than an apple tree is free to produce acorns."

Sam Storms

Treasure Christ

If it be so that your death is your gain, be exhorted to wean your hearts more and more from the world. If your gain consists not in staying in the world but in going out of it, how important is it to set your hearts upon it as if it consisted in it.

Will you set your hearts upon the things of this life when your gain consists not in this life but in the next? Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Is death gain to you?

Be entirely resigned to God's will while living or dying: you are always safe in either of these conditions, for you to live is Christ and to die is gain. . . . And seeing it is so that you are got into such a happy estate and condition that either by life or death you obtain your great end, cast yourself upon God's hands: let his will be your will, knowing that whether you are to die in youth or in old age, this year or next, today or tomorrow, whether a natural or violent death, by sickness or by accident, whether at home or abroad, whether an easy or a painful death; yet let it come when, how, and where it will, it will be your unspeakable gain.

Jonathan Edwards - 'Dying to Gain,' in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 10, Sermons and Discourses 1720-1723 (ed. Wilson Kimnach; Yale University Press, 1992), 590

(HT Dane Ortlund)

Election

" ...the conversion of a sinner being not owing to a man's self determination, but to God's determination, and eternal election, which is absolute, and depending on the sovereign will of God, and not on the free will of man; as is evident from what has been said : and it being very evident from the Scriptures, that the eternal election of saints to the faith and holiness, is also an election of them to eternal salvation; hence their appointment to salvation must also be absolute, and not depending on their contingent, self-determining Will."

Jonathan Edwards

David Platt On The Gospel & God's Election

Unembarrassed Sovereignty

John Knight:

"God says some pretty amazing things about his sovereign authority. And he never appears to be embarrassed about it.

My Bible reading on Sunday had me in Leviticus, Proverbs, Psalms and 2 Thessalonians.

Just look what he says about his authority over leprosy:

The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 34 “When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a case of leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession,35 then he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, ‘There seems to me to be some case of disease in my house.’ Leviticus 14:33-35

This is a direct statement of “I did it.” There really isn’t a way to get around the plain meaning of it – nor should we want to!

I’ve read Leviticus a number of times but had passed over this strong, direct statement of his sovereignty over leprosy every time – until Sunday. I looked at my index of verses on disease and disability to make sure I had included these verses, and I had. So, for some reason the Holy Spirit wanted me to feel the significance of verse 34 on Sunday, and I did!

Then my reading concluded in 2 Thessalonians:

13 But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. 2 Thessalonians 2:13

We have so many reasons to hope in God! And I am glad he is unembarrassed to express how he exercises that authority, including over disease and disability."

Read the entire article here.

Striving For Purer Worship

Striving For Purer Worship

2 Kings 17: 41 So these nations feared the Lord and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children’s children—as their fathers did, so they do to this day. Our efforts to live for Christ inevitably means attempting to dilute this concoction so there is less and less serving other gods and more and more fearing the Lord. I read this description of God’s people and think: “How could they do both at the same time?” Then I take an accurate assessment of my own life and realize it’s always that way. That’s why God urges us on in faith and obedience in the power of the Spirit.
 
A Double Portion of God's Spirit

2 Kings 2: 9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” 10 And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.” There was another time in redemptive history when some watched as a Greater than Elijah was taken from them. Jesus’ disciples would later receive the Holy Spirit as recorded in Acts 2. As a Believer in Christ, you, too, have received a “double portion” of God’s Spirit. You are never powerless in your circumstances because God’s Spirit resides and is active as you rely on Him. Think and act by the Spirit today and experience life as God designed it to be lived.

Our God Is Mighty To Save

In 2 Kings chapter 4 we read a series of miracles performed by Elisha. These are a sign that God is with him. Elisha’s miracles point to our Lord Jesus Christ who, like Elisha, performed an impressive string of miracles that authenticated His ministry as the Messiah. When you doubt God’s presence and power to save you in certain circumstances, allow the record of Elisha’s miracles to encourage you. God is there; He is able!

HT: Do You Understand What You Are Reading?

Is There a Second Chance for Salvation After Death?

The Pleasure of Taking Offense

"You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill — he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness."

Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov

Grace Alone

If any man ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ rightly.

Martin Luther

The Resurrection

"Evolution, the Western view, sees life as the product of only a chemical activity that stops permanently at death. So, humans can't possibly have an immortal spirit. To Easterners, we have a spirit, but are reincarnated and leave the old body behind forever. Jesus' resurrection proves both of these wrong. After his death, he returned to an immortal state in the same body he lived in for 33 years." 


Stan Tees

Matt Chandler Sermon Jam Prayer

(HT Challies)

Peace

"God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."

C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity.

It Will Cost You Everything