So now, you are in God’s work but lost, no feelings and you can’t feel your faith so what do you do? You have to depend on gimmicks and amusements to keep your “employers” (the church board) believing in you, for many of them are using you like Micah from the book of Judges – replacing the works of Christ as the mediator.
Jesus Christ tells us, “Upon this rock will I build my Church.” What did the Lord Jesus Christ mean when He spoke of this foundation? Did He mean the Apostle Peter, to whom He was speaking?
It is impossible to conceive a Saviour more suited to the wants of man’s heart than our Lord Jesus Christ—suited not only by His power, but by His sympathy—suited not only by His divinity, but by His humanity.
The disciples had seen mighty signs and miracles. They had seen the dead raised with a word—and lepers healed with a touch —the blind receiving sight—the dumb made to speak—the lame made to walk. They had seen thousands fed with a few loaves and fishes. They had seen their Master walking on the water as on dry land.
How many clergymen work hard in their profession for a few years, and then become lazy and indolent from the love of this present world?
Are my affections dead toward the world and alive toward God? What engages my mind in seasons of recreation? Can I truthfully say, “How sweet are Thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Psalm 119:103). Is communion with God my highest joy? Is the glory of God dearer to me than all the world contains?
The drive of man to establish himself by his own efforts, even when these efforts are religious in character, belongs to the sphere of the old man. Yet there is a place for good works.
The presence of God is a dreadful and a fearful thing; yes, his most gracious and merciful appearances; how much more then when he shows himself to us as one that dislikes our ways, as one that is offended with us for our sins?
In matters pertaining to his salvation, the unregenerate man is not at liberty to choose between good and evil, but only to choose between greater and lesser evil, which is not properly free will. The fact that fallen man still has ability to do certain acts morally good in themselves does not prove that he can do acts meriting salvation, for his motives may be wholly wrong.
We are dead! Dead is a strong word, but it is not my own coining and invention. I did not choose it. The Holy Spirit told Paul to write it down about the Ephesians: “You hath he quickened who were dead” (Eph 2:1).
It is our deep conviction that the vital question most requiring to be raised today is this: Is man a totally and thoroughly depraved creature by nature? Does he enter the world completely ruined and helpless, spiritually blind and dead in trespasses and sins?
So, I saw that when they awoke, they addressed themselves to go up to the city. But, as I said, the reflection of the sun upon the city—for “the city was pure gold” (Rev 21:18)—was so extremely glorious that they could not, as yet, with open face behold it but through an instrument made for that purpose (2Co 3:18). So, I saw that as they went on, there met them two men in raiment that shone like gold, and their faces shone as the light.
Reader, I want you to go to heaven after this life is over. I want heaven to be very full, and I want you to be one of its inhabitants.—J. C. Ryle
To the worldly and careless they may seem nothing at all. To all who feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of God, they are full of unspeakable comfort. If we hope to be in heaven, it is pleasant to know what heaven is like.
You cannot save that soul of yours…remember that! You cannot make your own peace with God. You cannot wipe away a single sin. You cannot blot out one of the black records that stand in the book of God against you. You cannot change your own heart. But there is one thing you can do: you can lose your own soul.
Hell is a real place. It is not a metaphor or a symbol, not a description of our inner desolation or our present sufferings, no matter how agonising these may be. It is not a state of mind. It is a place with spatial dimensions.
It is a fearful thing to fall into a fire or to be shut up in a fiery furnace on earth. But the terror of these vanishes when we consider how fearful it is to fall into the hands of the living God, which is the lot of the damned. “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?
This book contains easy to use orders of service which are guides for various services. They are valuable, but in no way should they replace the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Now God says “do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. But the world says, “come lie with me and satisfy the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and fulfil the pride of life… you don’t even have to leave the church congregation.” Having intercourse right at the altar like Absalom did to David to shame him – they are now sleeping with other gospels of prosperity, social-economic and dominion spirits that lead the Father’s children astray.
The person who grovels in depression and says he hates himself for having wasted his life would actually be glad that he had wasted his life if he really hated himself. In fact, he is unhappy about having wasted his life because he loves himself. The apparently remorseful criminal, who says he hates himself because of the crimes he has committed, should then be glad to see himself suffer in prison. Yet he hopes to escape that fate, which proves he loves himself in spite of his protestations of self-loathing.
Jesus did talk about tithing as shown in Matthew 23: 23 and Luke 11: 42, but these verses cannot be quoted in our day to encourage Christians to tithe because it was not His intentional message. Although Jesus did not condemn tithing here, we must understand Jesus was still under the Old Covenant as the New Covenant began with His death and resurrection.
This is exactly what has happened to humanity through sin. The human free will is biased toward evil. It really exists, and really can make decisions – just as the loaded scales still work. But instead of giving a balanced judgment, a serious bias exists toward evil. Therefore, human free will really exists in sinners, but that it is compromised by sin.
This lack of personal development is just sheer laziness on the part of many, and as a result, the church is happy just paying someone else to look after their Christianity. We need to address the fundamental issues facing Christendom with Scripture and Scripture alone.
More than 245 million Christians worldwide are enduring high levels of persecution for their faith—from militant extremist groups like ISIS and Boko Haram (an Islamic extremist group terrorizing West Africa), to government law and the general culture that often sees converting to Christianity as betrayal.
God’s whole counsel includes both the bad news about our natural state and the good news about God’s plan to redeem us.
True Christians need to strip the idols from what should be a Christ-centred Christianity. I believe that much incorrect understanding and thinking about God is due to poor teaching, this then leads to “pastors farting on their congregations”. We need to bring people back to the fundamental truths—out of the serious misrepresentation of Christianity—in order to introduce them to true Christianity and not showmanship.
Liberal theology, with its belief in the inherent goodness of man and his ability to help himself is making a comeback. For the doctrine of salvation by grace has practically become an insult for it’s portrayal that man is innately spiritually dead – unable to ever come to God. The word “grace” is also emptied of all spiritual meaning and vanished from religious discourses. It is retained only in the sense of “graciousness,” something that is quite external.
Christ came into the world as the second Adam. And Paul demonstrates here in Romans 5 that just like Adam, Christ is the covenant representative of all those who believe in Him. So, just as all humanity was condemned on the basis of Adam’s disobedience, so too, all those who belong to the Saviour are justified on the basis of Jesus’ obedience as their covenant representative.
The faculties which men receive at birth have a carnal bias, an earthly trend, a distaste for the heavenly and divine, and are inclined only to selfish aims and groveling pursuits. In the most polished or religious society, equally with the vulgar and profane, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” and can never be anything better. Prune and trim a corrupt tree as much as you will, it can never be made to yield good fruit. Every man must be born again before he can be acceptable to a holy God.
This remission of all sins is not limited to past sins only, but to all sins—past, present, and future. If it were not so, then justification would have to be repeated over and over again, and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ would be lowered to the level of the animal sacrifices of the old covenant. Therefore it has to be offered over and over again for the continued presence of sin.
SPREADING THE WORD IN A DIGITAL WORLD 