Lasting Foundations

August 11, 2009

The Other Side Of The Good News

By Ken Silva
Posted on August 8th, 2009 in his blog, apprising.org.

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? (Romans 10:14)

How About You; Can You Handle The Truth?

There’s no shortage of confusion today, inside the visible church as well as out, about how God views sinners; those who continue on in their willful sin, even if they’ve heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ve probably all heard the phrase — “God hates sin, but He loves the sinner”; however, is that really the case? Let’s consider a book called The Other Side Of The Good News (TOS), which I highly recommend to every serious student of the Bible.

It’s written by Dr. Larry Dixon, who reminds us that one of Christianity’s greatest theologians John Calvin, one of the great Church Reformers whom Jesus raised up said : “We are taught by Scripture to perceive that apart from Christ, God is—so to speak—hostile to us, and His hand is armed for our destruction.” In his article “Does God Love the Sinner and Hate Only His Sin?” Dr. John Gerstner also brings out:

“Repent or Perish” forces people to ponder seriously the popular slogan, “God hates the sin and loves the sinner.” Is a necessary repentance consistent with “God loves the sinner?” If God loves the sinner while he is alive, it is strange that God sends him to hell as soon as he dies. God loves the sinner to death? Loves him to everlasting torment? …

God is perfectly displeased with the sinner. The sinner hates God, disobeys God, is ungrateful to God for all His favors, would kill God if he could. He is dead in trespasses and sins. (Eph.2:1) “The thoughts and intents of his heart are only evil continually.” (Gen.6:5) He is the slave of sin (John 8:34), the servant of the devil, (Eph.2:2). God has no complacent love for the sinner at all. He has a perfect hatred of him, “I hate them with a perfect hatred.” (Ps. 139:22) (Online source)

Then in TOS Dixon goes on, “Seldom do we consider the malevolence of God, and almost never do we hear, or preach sermons on God’s wrath and the justified perfect hatred God has of sinners.” We need to remember that God is infinite; and to our degenerate, limited, and finite minds many things about Him are a paradox. Paradox meaning things that appear to contradict, but actually don’t. At the same time God loves the you He will regenerate if you come to Him in Christ—He also hates the you that rejects Him—that very you, which actually hates Him.

You must come to understand—despite what man-loving “preachers” whine today to win the favor of the world— that apart from Christ we are simply not the delightful little creatures we like to think we are. In fact, here’s what Jesus said about man in Matthew 7:11 — If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him. Did you get that? Christ Jesus—our Creator—has just said — though you are evil.

Now let’s go to the Book of Romans, chapter 8, for a moment. The inspired Apostle Paul tells us that, without the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, our basic nature is self-ishness as our minds are set on the “flesh”, the “carnal” — in other words on our-selves. Romans 8:7 — the sinful mind — if you have the King James Version it reads — the carnal mind; the Greek word here is sarx, and it refers to your body; your flesh, the carnal nature…well, you.

With this in mind — the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. The absolute Truth is that all who are without Christ are controlled by the carnal, sinful, human nature—those not regenerated i.e. born again— cannot [possibly] please God. And this is not just my opinion; that’s the very Word of God from the Holy Spirit Himself. In commenting on this verse John Calvin put it this way, “the will of man is in all things opposed to [God’s] will; for, as much as what is crooked differs from what is straight, so much must be the difference between us and God.”

Still need convincing? Then listen to what Jesus tells us about mankind in the following from Mark 7:21-23 — For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside. And the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit once again — I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature…What a wretched man I am! (Romans 8:18, 24)

Now We Bring It Up Close And Personal

Does that wound your self-esteem? Good; it was meant to. This is not a matter to be taken lightly. And if you are beginning to feel condemned, and without hope, then you are getting the initial message; the other side of the Good News. Romans 6:23 — For the wages of sin is death — this is talking about spiritual death, eternal separation from God. In John 3:18 Jesus says — “Whoever believes in [Me] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already.”

Now you can understand what the Holy Spirit was talking about through Paul earlier; in our fallen human condition we literally are condemned to sin against God; with no ability whatsoever on our own to stop. John 3:36 — Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him. That’s already upon all who reject God’s only provision for the forgiveness of sins, the sacrificial death on the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think we are safe in saying that one doesn’t feel wrath toward someone you are pleased with.

I will close with this: Any one of us can have our lives changed in a mere instant; and, it can happen to anyone at any moment. And it happened to my own family one Spring evening several years ago. As my family waved goodbye to our Mom, just as we’d done for years each evening as she left for her work as a Nurses Aide at Valley Regional Hospital, we had absolutely no idea that a mere five minutes later we were going to receive a phone call that would forever change our lives.

A drunken driver going seventy miles an hour down the narrow, twisting, Old Claremont road, upon which she’d driven to work hundreds of times, smashed directly into her car killing her—instantly. In a split second her eternal destiny was sealed; with no second chance. Perhaps this should give you pause for concern. You see, there was an old Nazarene preacher who gave some advice to a young minister who was just starting out. Sound wisdom, which the young man never forgot. “Son,” he said, “I sure like the way you preach the Gospel, and I’d like to give you a little bit of advice.”

The young minister eagerly told him that he would love to hear anything the more experienced man of God might wish to share. And the old preacher looked at him and said, “When you go out, always preach the love of God, and the grace of God, in Jesus Christ. But, if they don’t want Jesus—then leave ’em with the Law according to Moses.” The other side of the Good News; the choice now lays before You: grace alone, the unmerited favor of God through faith alone, in Christ Jesus alone; the only One Who could have perfectly fulfilled that Law.

Or, you are them left with the righteous judgment of this very same Lord according to the perfect Law of Alnighty God—which no mere mortal man could ever even dream of beginning to fulfill. Let me ask you: Does this trouble you; do you find yourself stirred up, even confused inside? Is your heart beating faster now because this doesn’t sound like the “gospel” of the god with a man-shaped hole in its heart that you so often hear about today:

“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to Me. No one has seen the Father except the One Who is from God; only He has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.” (John 6:43-47)

And to answer the call to come to Christ Jesus is the all-important decision that only you alone can make. Is He calling to you right now; then, what say ye?

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at  gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

top of page

August 9, 2009

Preach Jesus Christ to Them

By Charles Spurgeon
Excerpt from "The Soul-Winner: or How to lead sinners to the Saviour" (1895) pg. 99-100

"I believe that those sermons which are fullest of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and His cross, for I know nothing else, and long ago, like the apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. People have often asked me, "What is the secret of your success?" I always answer that I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the gospel,—not about the gospel, but the gospel,—the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who is the incarnation of the good news. Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in the sermon. You remember the story of the old minister who heard a sermon by a young man, and when he was asked by the preacher what he thought of it he was rather slow to answer, but at last he said, "If I must tell you, I did not like it at all; there was no Christ in your sermon." "No," answered the young man, "because I did not see that Christ was in the text." "Oh!" said the old minister, "but do you not know that from every little town and village and tiny hamlet in England there is a road leading to London? Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, 'There is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep on His track till I get to Him.'" "Well," said the young man, "but suppose you are preaching from a text that says nothing about Christ?" "Then I will go over hedge and ditch but what I will get at Him." So must we do, brethren; we must have Christ in all our discourses, whatever else is in or not in them. There ought to be enough of the gospel in every sermon to save a soul. Take care that it is so when you are called to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, and if you have to preach to charwomen or chairmen, still always take care that there is the real gospel in every sermon.

I have heard of a young man asking, when he was going to preach in a certain place, “What kind of church is it? What do the people believe? What is their doctrinal view?” I will tell you how to avoid the necessity of such a question as that; preach Jesus Christ to them, and if that does not suit their doctrinal views then preach Jesus Christ the next Sunday you go; and do the same thing the next Sabbath, and the next, and the next…"

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at  gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

top of page

July 21, 2009

The Sin of Homosexuality is Different

By Ken Silva
Posted on July 19, 2009 in his blog, apprising.org.

What makes it so extremely difficult to discuss the issue of practicing homosexuality, which is having sexual relations with another of the same sex outside of marriage, is the huge straw man erected whenever the subject is brought up. The argument that’s almost immediately raised goes something like this: “Why single out this particular sin while ignoring the sins of injustice, pride, hypocrisy, and so on and so on and so on…” 

If you’re not careful to sidestep here and stay on point you’ll end up in what I refer to as wrestling with the snake. As soon as you focus on one area it then twists you to another, and before you know it, you’re far away from the subject you’re actually attempting to discuss. Concerning homosexuality, we must remind people that this is sin of a sexual nature, which immediately sets it apart from the other sin mentioned above. 

The way we know this for certain is because God actually tells us this Himself in 1 Corinthians 6:18 — Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Note carefully how the Holy Spirit chose to set all other sins apart from sexual immorality, which itself includes all sexual relations outside of marriage—whether it be homosexual or heterosexual.

And as I’ve pointed out before Jesus of Nazareth—our Creator—Who, by the way, is speaking from the perspective of an eyewitness, defines marriage when He informs us — “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.’ ”  (Mark 10:6-8, ESV)

So in the case of homosexual activity, it will always be outside of the marriage covenant from a Biblical standpoint; and therefore, is among the sexual immorality we are told to flee from. Sadly, we in the Body of Christ are being forced today to single out homosexuality because the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—morphing into Emergence Christianity (EC)—is attempting to make this deviant lifestyle into a viable one for the evangelical Christian. 

As I’ve said previously, you’d best realize that there’s a very dark and threatening same-sex storm right now approaching hurricane force, and which is currently only slightly off the coast of the mainstream evangelical community. Don’t you kid yourself; the EC is right now working to make affirming homosexuality an issue within your own mainstream evangelical church—and sooner than you may even think.

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at  gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

top of page

July 18, 2009

Stunning

By Katie Morrison
Posted on December 11, 2008 in her blog, madeforeternity.wordpress.com

Sometimes I get shocked again by the fact that I am one whom Jesus loves. I hear it all the time, but sometimes there’s that stop-dead-in-my-tracks moment when it comes at me from a new angle (and considering the fact that it is an infinite love, there’ll be forever new angles). In that moment I am awed and humbled afresh. Me = crummy sinner. God = holy. I have nothing to offer; he offers everything. God became a man, died, and rose again so that by simple faith I could live forever in his heaven.

And all I can think is: Jesus. Loves. Me.  

Wow.

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at  gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

top of page

July 17, 2009

Buy the truth, and sell it not

By Charles Spurgeon
Preached on Sunday evening, June 26, 1870

"Buy the truth, and sell it not." -- Proverbs 23:23
JOHN Bunyan pictures the pilgrims as passing at one time through Vanity Fair, and in Vanity Fair there were to be found all kinds of merchandise, consisting of the pomps and vanities, the lusts and pleasures of this present life and of the flesh. Now all the dealers, when they saw these strange pilgrims come into the fair began to cry, as shopmen will do, "Buy, buy, buy--buy this, and buy that." There were the priests in the Italian row with their crucifixes and their beads. There were those in the German row with their philosophies and their metaphysics. There were those in the French row with their fashions and with their prettinesses. But the one answer that the pilgrims gave to all the dealers was this--they looked up and they said, "We buy the truth; we buy the truth," and they would have gone on their way if the men of the Fair had not laid them by the heels in the cage, and kept them there, one to go to heaven in a chariot of fire, and the other afterwards to pursue his journey alone. This is very much the description of the genuine Christian at all times. He is surrounded by vendors of all sorts of things, beautifully got up and looking exceedingly like the true article, and the only way in which he will be able to pass through Vanity Fair safely is to keep to this, that he buys the truth, and if he adds to that the second advice of the text, and never sells it, he will, under divine guidance, find his way rightly to the skies. "Buy the truth, and sell it not."

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Gregg at  gregg@lastingfoundations.com.

top of page