Give her a special rainbow

"...are we to continue in sin that grace may increase?"

Romans 6:1

The faith that saves is not an unproductive faith, but is always a faith which produces good works and abounds in holiness (Eph 2:10; Titus 2:14). Salvation in sin is not possible, it must always be salvation from sin. It would be just as well speaking liberty while still in handcuffs, or boast of a healing while the disease grows worse and worse, or declare war's victory while the men still die and the army surrenders, as to dream of a salvation in Christ while the sinner continues to give full swing to his evil passions. 

 

"...Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?"

Romans 6:1

Remember God gave us liberty not license and while He gives us protection He will not give us presumption. 

"...He fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness..."

Acts 17:31

Be as seeker sensitive as you will, try and be very affirming, be conscious of the self-image of the hearer; in the end the message to a lost world is that God will one day righteously judge all those who reject His warnings.

Adapting the gospel will only cloud the reality. Witness, be instant in season and out, warn them until they realize you are serious and pray the Holy Spirit opens their hearts with repentance.  

"...Christ Jesus; who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds"

Titus 2:14

There are some in the church today who maintain a false thought that redeemed man has two natures, his old existing and operating right alongside his new. They want to give place for the choices the new man makes to commit sins, or solace to one who thinks he is new when he is not and can't explain away his continued life of sin.  They talk of feeding the old or new and having the strongest victorious and such. I have a problem with this theory. Remarkably there are even societies and associations that codify this theory of two natures.

In saving us it was not His end to save us only from God's wrath to come at sin, but to save us from the procuring cause of that wrath; not forcibly and violently to save us, but in methods congruous to the honor of God's wisdom and holiness: and thereby to purify us. That word purify is the operable word. He saved us that we might have a holy nature, whereby we might perform holy actions, and be a zealous of good works and the honor of God as we had been of bad works and the bringing of dishonor to Him.

Realize "If any man be in Christ he is a new Creation..." not one added to his old but dead old and new to the new. This is what Jesus explained so adequately to Nicodemus in John 3. Therefore, when I sin, I do so willfully and to my own peril if it is habitual because it is an evidence then of the reality of the life still lived in sin by that man I claim to have been. I am still then dead in my trespasses and sins and not a new man in Christ.

Don't take today's easy believism as gospel. Instead look to God achieving His purposes, as He always will and making you anew man. 

 

This is a testimony, regardless how you feel about him as a player.

"And the law entered that the transgression may abound..."

Romans 5:20a

A crooked stick may look straight until a truly straight one is laid beside it.  An eggshell looks white until you place it on a sheet of paper. So, the holy and pure law of God. When our eyes are opened in salvation we see ourselves against this background of truth and we know that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. 

This is for our good, for truth awakens us to the truth of our condition, that drives us to God for resolution and in thanks for His wondrous work. The law has impact for saved and lost. We tend to lean on our own righteousness until we see the truth of His righteousness through a sight of His Law. 

 

"For as through one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners..."

Romans 5:19a

This may sound somewhat strange but we should be glad that the fall of man into sin happened in the actions of one individual, Adam. Why, you ask. Consider this; angels fell by individual decisions and therefore because they are faulted they cannot be redeemed. But, mankind, fallen by one who represents us all, can be redeemed by one who represents the many. Oh, what a glorious truth. 

 

"...sin entered into the world and death by sin..."

Romans 5:12

Ask Noah as he looks out of the ark, "Does sin bring bitterness?" and he will point out at the surface of the waters and show you the thousands of carcasses and bodies floating atop the flood.

Ask Abraham "does sin bring destruction?", and he will point to the smoke rising from the ruins of Sodom and the pillar of salt that was a woman.

Ask Moses and he will tell you of Korah, Dathan and Abram who the earth swallowed up in that great chasm on the earth.

Don't blame cancer or fat or other things. They are but God's instrument. At the end it is sin that brings true the verse "It is appointed unto man, once to die..."

 

"...We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ..."

Romans 5:11

This is the purest of joy, the first drop out of the honeycomb of heaven. The joy of God is the most elevating of joys. Those who joy in possessions only develop avarice. Those who joy in association eventually come to the end of relationships. But the one who joys in God eventually grows to be like the one who gives him joy. God joy is a solid joy without fading or ruin. His is an abiding joy. I could say it is a heavenly joy.

Do you know this joy? You can! 

""...while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son..."

Romans 5:10

No more love to God is there in an unrenewed heart than there is life in a piece of granite. No more love to God is there within the soul that is unsaved than there is fire within the depths of the ocean. And here is the wonder, that when we have no love for God, He loved us and gave His Son.

"Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God shouldest die for me?" 

"Christ died for the ungodly"

Romans 5:6

Satan will often assail with this lie about you at one time or another, "You aren't that bad, after all. Doesn't everyone have this little quirk or another". It is then is must shake off the coat of the enemy, look at myself in the light of God's word, see the truth lite by the Holy Spirit and confess my own inadequacies. But, do you realize the Devil will never come and tell you that you are a sinner! Why not? He knows that I know. A true believer realizes now what they didn't know before salvation, I am a sinner capable of the most heinous crimes and I don't need the Devil to tell me that. Christ died because I am a sinner. I now rest in Him who has saved me.

 

Life exciting enough for you?

A Weekend Special

Yes, every "joyful noise" is received by God to whom it is offered, yet here is one with a question after it.

"...Christ died for the ungodly"

Romans 5:5

It is marvelous for me to realize that the gospel is addressed to those who have added no iota of input to the salvation of their souls. It is the singular work, without need of any aid, of the God who has all in His hand. It comes to men ruined in Adam and doubly damned by their own efforts. It comes to them in the hole they have been cast and cannot recover from and brings them up from the gates of Hell. 

 

If You Marry the Spirit of the Age You'll Soon Be a Widower

If You Marry the Spirit of the Age You'll Soon Be a Widower

. The following excerpt is from "His Own Funeral Sermon." That's a sermon Spurgeon preached on Sunday evening, 19 October 1890, the weekend after the death of William Olney, longtime deacon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Mrs. Spurgeon said the message would have been a suitable eulogy for Spurgeon himself. So when he died less than two years later, the sermon was published within a few days of Spurgeon's funeral. Thanks to the guys at Teampyro

eople talk nowadays about Zeitgeist, a German expression which need frighten nobody; and one of the papers says, "Spurgeon does not know whether there is such a thing."

Well, whether he knows anything about Zeitgeist or not, he is not to serve this generation by yielding to any of its notions or ideas which are contrary to the Word of the Lord.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not only for one generation, it is for all generations. It is the faith which needed to be only "once for all delivered to the saints"; it was given stereotyped as it always is to be. It cannot change because it has been given of God, and is therefore perfect; to change it would be to make it imperfect. It cannot change because it has been given to answer for ever the same purpose, namely, to save sinners from going down to the pit, and to fit them for going to heaven.

That man serves his generation best who is not caught by every new current of opinion, but stands firmly by the truth of God, which is a solid, immovable rock.

But to serve our own generation in the sense of being a slave to it, its vassal, and its valet—let those who care to do so go into such bondage and slavery if they will.

Do you know what such a course involves? If any young man here shall begin to preach the doctrine and the thought of the age, within the next ten years, perhaps within the next ten months, he will have to eat his own words, and begin his work all over again. When he has got into the new style, and is beginning to serve the present world, he will within a short time have to contradict himself again, for this age, like every other, is "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

But if you begin with God’s Word, and pray God the Holy Ghost to reveal it to you till you really know it, then, if you are spared to teach for the next fifty years, your testimony at the close will not contradict your testimony at the beginning. You will ripen in experience; you will expand in your apprehension of the truth; you will become more clear in your utterance; but it will be the same truth all along.

Is it not a grand thing to build up, from the beginning of life to the end of it, the same gospel? But to set up opinions to knock them down again, as though they were ninepins, is a poor business for any servant of Christ.

David did not, in that way serve his own generation; he was the master of his age, and not its slave. I would urge every Christian man to rise to his true dignity, and be a blessing to those amongst whom he lives, as David was. Christ "hath made us kings and priests unto God his Father"; it is not meet that we should cringe before the spirit of the age, or lick the dust whereon "advanced thinkers" have chosen to tread.

Beloved, see to this; and learn the distinction between serving your own generation and being a slave to it.

A lot of what's called ministry these days is mere spectacle. Authentic apostolic-style gospel ministry is nothing like performance art.

When evangelical megachurches gave up the pulpit for a stage; traded psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs for AC/DC tracks; hired vaudevillians instead of pastors; and turned away their ears from the truth to follow fables, they chose a path of apostasy.

The only way back starts with repentance.

(Thanks to Phil J. for the insight)

"...Christ died for the ungodly."

Romans 5:6

If i were to live another 50 years and were allowed only to speak these five words, I would be at peace. If I could whisper into the ear of ever man, woman, and child "Christ died for the ungodly", wouldn't it be wonderful. Even angels cannot carry a better, sweeter message. To saint and sinner, nothing better can be said. 

 

Something light for Friday

All of you who are familiar with my attitude toward current church "music" will appreciate this cartoon. Thanks Jon G. for forwarding this. 

 

"...Christ died for the ungodly"

Romans 5:6

Never has the human ear heard a more astonishing yet cheering truth.

Your sense of unworthiness, if it be properly used, should drive you to Christ. You are unworthy, but Jesus died for the unworthy. Are you one?