Glory

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The Mystery of the Resurrection

Here is a wonderful sermon series I found on the Grace to You website with John MacArthur at his best as always.

With Easter in mind it is my prayer that you the reader/listener may enjoy to learn from the Word of God in this wonderful expository as only John MacArthur can !! 

Here is a short writing by  A W Tozer– Easter Meditation

THERE IS AN EXQUISITE APPROPRIATENESS in our celebrating the resurrection of Christ in the spring. When nature is waking to life again after her long winter of sleep, it is then that the thoughts of Christians everywhere are turned to the wonder of the Savior’s coming out of the tomb after His ordeal with sin and death. Christ’s resurrection was an act once accomplished at a given moment in history. It does not in any sense depend upon seasons or celebrations, nor does the miracle of the springtime add anything to the glory of the once-done deed. The workings of God in nature do, however, cast a warm light upon His workings in redemption and the springtime of life in the earth illustrates the miracle of life in the new creation.

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WHY DO WE MEET AS WE DO?

By J.R. Gill, 1926

“Father, Thy sovereign love has sought
Captives to sin, gone far from Thee;
The work that Thine own Son hath wrought
Has brought us back in peace and free.”

Hymn 331 (Little Flock)

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I have the thought before me, beloved Christian friends, of taking up a certain line of things that already has engaged the attention of some of us in one or two gatherings recently and would ask the indulgence of any here, in the matter, if what is before us has been rehearsed before. There are other persons present to whom these things are newer, and I trust I have the Lord’s mind in taking them up again. The subject before me is this: why do we, who are gathering unto the Lord’s name, meet as we do? Why do we?

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And who can praise Him?

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “Golden Vials Full of Odors,” delivered May 19, 1872.

 

The prayers which the Lord accepts are not the chantings of functionaries, the litanies of priests, or the devout tones of a mechanical service; they must be the prayers of saints: in the life, the character, the soul, the sweetness lies — the acceptance comes not unless they be the prayers of saints.
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Praying for our Fellow Believers

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “Intercessory Prayer,” delivered May 5, 1872.

Every believer has a watchman’s place appointed him in the matter of prayer, and he is bound not to be silent, but to give the Lord no rest till he establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. We are all equally bound to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and our prosperity is made to hinge upon it. The new commandment which the Lord has given us, in which he bids us “love one another,” necessitates our praying for each other.

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The Doctrines of Grace (Part 9 of 10)

John MacArthur – Grace to You

The Doctrine of Actual Atonement, Part 2

Those of you who have been with us know we are tackling some of the more challenging and profound and difficult doctrines in the Scripture. And I trust we’re having a wonderful time digging deeply into God’s precious truth.

Last Sunday night we began to look at the subject, “For whom did Christ die?” Or, “The Nature of the Atonement.” Or as I chose to call it, “The Doctrine of Actual Atonement.” And I want to go back to that. If you weren’t here last week, it really would be helpful for you to get the tape or the CD, whatever is best for you, and to listen to what I said and pair it up with what we’re going to say tonight because you’re going to get just a very abbreviated review of that important foundation.

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The Doctrines of Grace (Part 4 of 10)

John MacArthur – Grace to You

The Doctrine of Election, Part 1

As you know, a couple of weeks ago we completed our study in the wonderful epistle written by Jude which ended with a promise that God is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before His presence with glory.  And because that introduced to us the wonderful doctrine of eternal security, or better stated, the perseverance of the saints, or the preservation of the saints, we spent a few weeks talking about that doctrine.  And in the discussions that I had with you regarding that, I said that the end is determined by the beginning.  Our salvation is secure to the end because our salvation was predestined in the very beginning to be completed.  And we remember that Romans 8 makes a monumental and very clear statement to that regard.  When in Romans 8 the Apostle Paul writes, “For whom He foreknew, He predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.” That is all whom God predestined will become conformed to the image of His Son in eternal glory.  And thus whom He predestined He called, and whom He called He justified, and whom He justified these He also glorified.

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Being Poor in Spirit

John MacArthur – Grace to You

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3).

The Puritan writer Thomas Watson listed seven ways to determine if you are poor in spirit (The Beatitudes [Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1971], pp. 45-48):

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The Doctrines of Grace (Part 3 of 10)

John MacArthur – Grace to You

The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 3

1 Peter 1:6-9

We are continuing a study for these few weeks on the subject of the perseverance of the saints. That is a, I think, a good biblical title to describe a doctrine that is often called the doctrine of eternal security, or the security of the believer. The bottom line in this doctrine is that when the Lord saves someone, that salvation is forever, never to be reversed. The Bible is clear on that basic truth and the basic truth is that salvation by its very nature is irrevocable.

In spite of the clarity of Scripture, however, on this, there are those who have fallen under the influence of teaching that denies it. There are many in the Christian church who are living in some kind of fear with the possibility that they could lose their salvation. They are warned that they can by sin or failure to believe forfeit that salvation which God has given to them. That is to say a believer can become again an unbeliever, a new creation in Christ can become again the old. Those who are now the children of God can become again the children of the devil. Those who are citizens of heaven can become occupants of hell. In fact, all that is given to us in Christ can be lost and forfeit. And inevitably those who teach that doctrine endeavor to support it in Scripture. And they bring up a list of doctrinal passages to be used as a support for the idea that you can lose your salvation. I’ve dealt with this through the years many, many times and many fronts and not the least of which is trying to help the Russians, the Russian believers understand this doctrine because for so many years they have been taught that it is possible to forfeit your salvation.

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The Doctrines of Grace (Part 2 of 10)

John MacArthur – Grace to You

The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 2

We are in a bit of a brief study on the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. And we sort of picked up on this doctrine because the study in the marvelous epistle of Jude and this little epistle, as you will remember, we’ve been studying on Sunday nights, ends with this great benediction, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy.” That is a statement of the security of our salvation. Our Lord is able to keep us and to present us. This was so important for us as we were going through it that I wanted to enrich our study of just that passage and so last week, and again this week and perhaps one other session next week, we will look at this very, very important doctrine.

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The Doctrines of Grace (Part 1 of 10)

John MacArthur – Grace to You

The Doctrines of Grace sermon series

At some time in your Christian life, you may have struggled with questions like, When a sinner is saved, who chooses whom—does God choose the sinner, or the sinner choose God? Did Christ die for the sins of everyone, or just the people He saves?

The vast majority of those kinds of thorny, persistent, mind-boggling questions are directly related to the sovereignty of God, election, predestination, perseverance, and the question of “free will.” Those, of course, are doctrines associated with Calvinism. All are vital to a sound, biblical understanding of the gospel, but they are not without difficulty.

In The Doctrines of Grace, John MacArthur takes you to God’s Word and walks you through challenging truth that’s often neglected, maligned, or mischaracterized, but critical for every Christian to understand. This series will help you come to grips with what you believe about God, the gospel, and the nature of man.

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Metamorphosis, Part 2 (proliferating ignorance)


John MacArthur – Grace to You

 

The World Wide Web had quietly been implemented less than a year after the Soviet Union broke up. Still, by 1993, when the first edition of Ashamed of the Gospel hit the shelves, no one but the earliest Internet insiders had even heard about the Web—much less seen it. Most people had no clue how quickly or how drastically the Web would alter the world as we knew it.

I remember being told at a strategic planning retreat in 1996 that the World Wide Web would eventually become the primary vehicle for the dissemination of our radio broadcast and recorded sermons. (At the time, radio and cassette tapes were still the only media we were using for audio content.) When the men at Grace to You who stay abreast of new technologies predicted that within twenty years or so cassette tapes would be a totally dead technology, I thought they were exaggerating. “You can’t access the Internet in a car,” I pointed out. “Even if you could, who wants to carry a computer on the car seat, when it’s so much more convenient to pop in a cassette tape?”

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Faith and the Gospel (Part 3)

Horatius Bonar (The prince of Scottish hymn writers)

For ease of reading, I have divided this article into 3 parts. Please see further on this blog Parts 1 and 2. – Grant Swart

FAITH AND THE GOSPEL (PART 3)

“Shall we tell men that unless they are holy they must not believe on Jesus Christ; that they must not venture on Christ for salvation until they are qualified and fit to be received and welcomed by Him? This would be a forbearing to preach the gospel at all, or to forbid all men to come to Christ. He is well qualified to come to us, but a sinner out of Christ has no qualifications for Christ but sin and misery…. Shall we tell people that they should not believe on Christ too soon? It is impossible that they should do it too soon. Can a man obey the command of the gospel too soon or do the work of God too soon?… Continue reading →

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The Tragedy of Rejecting Salvation

John MacArthur – Grace to You

Hebrews 5:10–6:20

Spelling errors can be changed with an eraser or liquid paper. When you get lost trying to follow a map. you can ask for help. But there is one mistake that doesn’t give a second chance; rejecting salvation through Christ. Once a person comes face-to-face with God. his eternal destiny is established.

What can you say to someone who knows and understands how to become a Christian but doesn’t? And what does God have to say about those who fully know the gospel message but don’t take the final step of receiving Christ as their Lord and Savior?

These messages will spur your heart to have greater concern for unbelievers!

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The Passing of the Saints

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “Precious Deaths,” delivered February 18, 1872.

Let us be persuaded of this, that no believer dies an untimely death. In every consistent Christian’s case that promise is true, “With long life also will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation;” for long life is not to be reckoned by years as men count them. He lives longest who lives best. Many a man has crowded half a century into a single year. God gives his people life, not as the clock ticks, but as he helps them to serve him; and he can make them to live much in a short space of time. There are no untimely figs gathered into God’s basket; the great Master of the vineyard plucks the grapes when they are ripe and ready to be taken, and not before. Saintly deaths are precious in his sight.

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If God is good, why is there so much suffering in the world?

Robert Passantino

If God Is Good, Why Is There So Much Suffering in the World?

Each of us has watched a loved one die, been the victim of a crime, lived among the poverty-stricken, or in some way been confronted with the reality of suffering. Human history sometimes seems like one long chronicle of suffering and despair. In the midst of suffering we cry out,

Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of the soul, to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure. . . . For sighing comes to me instead of food; my groans pour out like water. What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil. [Job 3:20-21, 24-26]

Why is there suffering? Why are the innocent victimized? Is there purpose in pain? Is there any escape? For the Christian, who believes that God is all-good and all-powerful, answers to these questions are especially important. Continue reading →