Is God not willing that any should perish?

Is it true that God is not willing that any should perish? But, is that a proper reading of what Peter actually wrote? Jim McClarty explores the answer to this question from 2 Peter 3:9 in this short video clip.



HT: Lane's Blog

What is the Gospel?

Excerpt from a sermon preached on October 28, 2010. Paul Washer explains what the true Gospel is to a group of Korean students at Virginia Tech.

Watch, listen to or read the full sermon here.

The Gospel Unchained

This sermon, “The Gospel Unchained” (2 Tim 2:1-10), by Dr. Russell D. Moore, was originally preached on Sunday, February 20, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

Download the mp3 or listen to the full message at Moore to the Point

What We Love...

Now, let me show you, beloved, what it is in salvation that the thoughtful believer loves; and I may begin by saying that he loves, best of all, the Savior himself. Often our Lord is called Salvation, because he is the great worker of it, the author and finisher, the Alpha and the Omega of it. He who has Christ has salvation; and, as he is the essence of salvation, he is the center of the saved ones’ affection.

Have you, beloved, carefully considered that Jesus is divine, that he counts it not robbery to be equal with God, being our Creator and Preserver, as well as our Redeemer? Do you fully understand that our Lord is infinite, eternal, nothing less than God; and yet for our sakes he took upon himself our nature, was clothed in that nature with all its infirmities, sin alone excepted, and in that nature agonized, bled, and died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Oh, marvel of marvels, miracle of miracles! The immortal Lord stoops to death; the Prince of glory bows to be spit upon. Shame and dishonor could not make him start back from his blessed purpose, but to the death of the cross he surrendered himself.

O, you who are saved, do you not love Christ, who is your salvation ? Do you not feel a burning desire to behold him as he is ? Is not his presence, even now, a nether heaven to you ? Will not a face to face view of his glory be all the heaven that your utmost stretch of imagination can conceive ? I know it is so. Your heart is bound to Jesus, his name is set as a seal upon it; therefore, I charge you to say continually, “Let God be magnified.” Glory be to the Father who gave his Son, to the Son who gave himself, to the Spirit who revealed all this to us. Triune God, be thou extolled for ever and ever.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Our Watchword," delivered October 1, 1871.

From: The Daily Spurgeon

The Unconditional Love of Christ

Paul Washer reads an excerpt from Puritan John Flavel, called "The Father's Bargain".

"Here you may suppose the Father to say when driving His bargain with Christ for you:

The Father speaks. My Son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lay open to my justice. Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them.

The Son responds. O my Father. Such is my love to and pity for them, that rather then they shall perish eternally I will be responsible for them as their guarantee. Bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe thee. Bring them all in, that there be no after-reckonings with them. At my hands shall thou require it. I would rather choose to suffer the wrath that is theirs then they should suffer it. Upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt.

The Father responds. But my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite. Expect no abatement. Son, if I spare them... I will not spare you.

The Son responds. Content Father. Let it be so. Charge it all upon me. I am able to discharge it. And though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures... I am content to take it."



Download the mp3 here.

Going The Way of All the Earth

Bob Jennings preaches a message on Joshua Chapter 23 at the Bentley Grace Bible Camp. This is a powerful sermon from a brother who is 61 and dying of pancreatic cancer.



Listen to the full sermon here.

Jesus Died for Me

Galatians 1:4b-5 - the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,

Providence and the Problem of Evil

Excerpt from the message "Providence" on Romans 8:28 by Pastor Ron Bridge of Rehoboth Baptist Church given on Feb 6, 2011



Download the mp3 or listen to the full message here.

Is John 3:16 "the gospel in a single verse"?

Jim McClarty does an excellent job in this video to answer the questions: Is John 3:16 "the gospel in a single verse"? And does it effectively counteract the Reformed notion of God's sovereignty in salvation?



HT: Lane's Blog

The Converting Power of the Holy Spirit

Let us dismiss from our minds forever the common idea that natural theology, moral persuasion, logical arguments, or even an exhibition of Gospel truth, are sufficient of themselves to turn a sinner from his sins, if once brought to bear upon him. It is a strong delusion. They will not do so. The heart of man is far harder than we fancy—the ‘old Adam’ is much more strong than we suppose.

The heart of man will never look to Christ, repent, and believe, until the Holy Spirit comes down upon it. Until that takes place, our inner nature is like the earth before the present order of creation began, “without form and void, and darkness covering the face of the deep.” (Gen. 1:2.) The same power which said at the beginning, “Let there be light—and there was light,” must work a creating work in us, or we shall never rise to newness of life.

~ J.C. Ryle

From jcrylequotes.com

Love and Truth: Together Forever

by Phil Johnson

It's not easy, especially nowadays, to keep love and truth together in a balanced way.

Our culture force-feeds us a postmodern notion of love. Tolerance, diversity, and broad-mindedness are its defining features.

Meanwhile, truth is generally held in high suspicion, if not treated with outright contempt. After all, if the very essence of love is to accept all points of view, how could it possibly be virtuous to believe that one idea is true to the exclusion of all others? Indeed, many in our culture regard emphatic truth-claims as inherently unloving. As a result, truth is regularly sacrificed in the name of love.

As Christians, we need to understand love from a biblical perspective. Authentic love "rejoices with the truth" (1 Corinthians 13:6). Love and truth are perfectly symbiotic, and each virtue is essential to the other. Love without truth has no character. Truth without love has no power.

In fact, when radically separated from one another, both virtues cease to be anything more than mere pretense. Love deprived of truth quickly deteriorates into sinful self-love. Truth divorced from love always breeds sanctimonious self-righteousness.

Continue reading here.

Christian Humanism by Paris Reidhead

Powerful Quotes From Leonard Ravenhill

Moments of Time

What is a moment of time? Scripture relates a moment to "the twinkling of an eye" (1 Corinthians 15:52). God told Israel that their many years of captivity were but "a small moment" in His eternal counsel (Isaiah 54:7). The apostle Paul knew that the trials of this life, when compared to a vast eternity, are just a "light affliction, which is but for a moment" (2 Corinthians 4:17).

A "moment" is definitely a relative and subjective measurement of time. A moment spent in pain is much longer than a moment spent in pleasure. The average human life--measured in seconds--consists of between 2 and 3 billion moments. That sounds like a large figure until you compare it with an atomic clock, which records more than 9 billion moments every second.

Counting the Moments

The Psalmist prayed, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). If we are to be wise, to "walk circumspectly, not as fools" (Ephesians 5:15), the first thing we must do is take stock of our time. How many moments do we have left? How will we spend them?

With today's busy schedules, it may rightly seem that once we have stretched ourselves to accomplish the day's tasks, all we have left over are some spare moments--odd fragments of time. Remember the feeding of the five thousand? After the Lord had stretched five barley loaves and two small fish to accomplish that miracle, He said to the disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost" (John 6:12). If we simply gather up the moments of left over time in our day, we may find we also have "twelve baskets"--a veritable feast--that can either be put to use or left to spoil.

Making the Moments Count

Once we "number our days," that is, begin to view our life and use of time in the context of eternity, we will be better equipped to obey the exhortation of Ephesians 5:16: "redeeming the time." It is interesting to note that the Greek word translated "time" in this verse (as well as in the similar verse in Colossians 4:5) is not chronos, which speaks of time as we primarily understand it today--a measured span of moments (see Acts 18:20,23), but rather kairos, also translated as "season" or "opportunity" (see Acts 24:25; Galatians 6:10).

As we begin to look at time from God's perspective, it will no longer be a taskmaster ruling our lives, but a resource--a season of opportunities for serving and glorifying our true Master! Jesus knew the value of redeeming, or buying up, the opportunities around Him: "I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work" (John 9:4).

The season for hunting souls and growing spiritual fruit will not last forever: "Behold, now is the accepted time [season]; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2).

--T. Don Johnson

One Glimpse of Hell

Excerpt from the message "Waiting For Glory" on Romans 8:19-25 by Pastor Ron Bridge of Rehoboth Baptist Church given on Jan 9, 2011



Download the mp3 or listen to the full message here.

Easy Like Friday Afternoon: A Manifesto on Hard-Believism

"I am a hard-believist. I am a hard-believist because I take Jesus at his word when he says easy is the way to destruction and hard (or narrow, if you prefer) is the way to life. I am a hard-believist because I take him at his word when he says that with man, being saved is impossible. I am a hard-believist because I believe salvation isn't easy: it requires the death of Christ. It requires new birth. (Anybody know what a baby has to do to be born?) It requires nothing short of Spiritual intervention. It requires quickening, resurrection, cured blindness and healed deafness, a softened heart -- none of which we can do for ourselves. We need radical intervention. We need the command of God, "Let there be light!" We are helpless to be saved. We simply can't do it." --Jared Wilson

Read the full post here.

What Must I Do to go to Hell?

(The answer is--NOTHING!)
What Must I Do to be Saved?
REALIZE

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.... For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.... It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:23; Hebrews 9:27

REPENT

Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.... Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. Luke 13:3; Acts 3:19

RECEIVE

But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.... If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. John 1:12; Romans 10:9

MWTB

Why should I believe in Jesus Christ?

John Piper answers the question "Why should I believe in Jesus Christ?" —

. . . The reason Jesus is essential to believe in is because there is a holy God who is infinitely just and infinitely loving. And in his justice he is angry at us because we have sinned against him. We have rejected him, we haven’t trusted him, we haven’t loved him as we ought, we have broken his commandments. All we have to do is list out, “Thou shall not steal, thou shall not lie, thou shall not lust or covet and shall love him only above all things, and we’ve broken those and so wrath rests upon us. Jesus is the son of God sent into the world as the atonement, the sacrifice that bears our sins and that provides our righteousness. So that if there were no Christ we would only have guilt and judgment and condemnation and Hell from God.

But because Christ came and God sent him, in his love we can look away from ourselves. This is what faith means: we look away from ourselves, we cast ourselves on Christ for his mercy and we trust his death to be our punishment.

And we trust his righteousness to be imputed to us so that now in Christ, that is in relation to Christ, by faith, God looks upon us as having fulfilled his whole law, as having all of our sins forgiven, and being acceptable in the beloved Jesus Christ. So that now we have eternal joy, eternal glory.

So the practical answer, “Why believe in Jesus” is because it’s the only way to escape Hell, to know God, to have everlasting joy in the presence of God. And we believe it because it’s true.

Source: http://www.desiringgod.org

The Holy Spirit And Prayer

Message on Romans 8:26,27 by Pastor Ron Bridge of Rehoboth Baptist Church given on Jan 23, 2011



Download the mp3 or listen to the full sermon here.

His Very Essence

What is the nature and character of the Supreme? “Is he harsh or loving?” saith one. The Scripture answers the question, not by telling us that God is loving, but by assuring us that God is love. God himself is love; it is his very essence. It is not that love is in God, but that God himself is love. Can there be a more concise and more positive way of saying that the love of God is infinite?

You cannot measure God himself; your conceptions cannot grasp the grandeur of his attributes, neither can you tell the dimensions of his love, nor conceive the fullness of it. Only this know, that high as the heavens are above the earth, so are his ways higher than your ways, and his thoughts than your thoughts. His mercy endureth for ever. He pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. “Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive: and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.” “Thy mercy is great above the heavens.” “The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Number One Thousand; Or, 'Bread Enough And To Spare'" delivered July 16, 1871.

From: The Daily Spurgeon

This Present Evil System

I feel it a duty to bear my solemn testimony against the spirit of the day we live in, to warn men against its infection. It is not Atheism I fear so much, in the present times, as Pantheism. It is not the system which says nothing is true, so much as the system which says everything is true. It is not the system which says there is no Savior, so much as the system which says there are many saviors, and many ways to peace! It is the system which is so liberal, that it dares not say anything is false. It is the system which is so charitable, that it will allow everything to be true. It is the system which seems ready to honor others as well as our Lord Jesus Christ, to class them all together, and to think well of all. It is the system which is so careful about the feelings of others, that we are never to say they are wrong. It is the system which is so liberal that it calls a man a bigot, if he dares to say, “I know my views are right.” This is the system, this is the tone of feeling which I fear in this day, and this is the system which I desire emphatically to testify against and denounce. From the liberality which says everybody is right, from the charity which forbids us to say anybody is wrong, from the peace which is bought at the expense of truth – may the good Lord deliver us!

- J.C. Ryle
1816 – 1900

HT: http://defendingcontending.com

Slaves for Christ - John MacArthur

Throughout the Bible, followers of Jesus are commanded to submit to Him as their King. They are told to obey and follow, faithfully and without hesitation. Every time Christians utter the word Lord, they make a subtle yet profound declaration—that God is their Master and that they belong to Him. In fact, the Bible describes believers as His slaves. They have been bought with a price and now live for Christ as a people for His own possession.

But go into most churches today, even flip through most Bible translations, and you won't see or hear the word slave anywhere. That's because it has been lost in translation.