John MacArthur – Grace to You
All these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.”
– John 15:21
The world, in its general hatred of the truth and ignorance of God, will also hate believers.
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
– John 15:18-19
Because they are not part of the world’s system, Christians should expect it to hate and oppose them.
Well, as I said last week, I have taken a bit of a diversion from our study of the gospel of Luke. I warned you a few weeks in advance that I was prompted to write a book on the subject of deliverance because the theology of deliverance which is so intensely biblical is so completely neglected today. And when I was away for a couple of weeks in Italy, it really began to weigh heavy on my mind that I needed to address this subject. And so it became like Jeremiah, fire in my bones and I can’t go back to the gospel of Luke until I have delivered my soul on the subject of deliverance.
As I said last week, and I would just encourage you, if you weren’t here last week to get the tape and listen because what I said last week is essential and foundational to this discussion. It’s not one of those messages that’s sort of optional, it’s a mandatory theme to be understood by all of us. So if you didn’t hear the message, you certainly can pick up the tape out at the tape center today.
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “Why Am I Thus?,” delivered March 14, 1872.
John MacArthur – Grace to You
(9min Audio)
The issue of who is truly a Christian is at the very center of the church’s life and ministry. This has to be protected. There isn’t any fellowship between light and darkness, is there, 2 Corinthians 6? There isn’t any concord between Christ and Satan. Two can’t walk together unless they be…what?…agreed. You have to come out from among them and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing.
And here is the church absorbing all of this. And now it’s so confusing that the church itself doesn’t even know who’s a Christian and frankly I don’t think they particularly care as long as you say you believe in Jesus. A friend, Iain Murray who is a gifted theologian and a great biographer, wrote the massive two-volume biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones has also written on Jonathan Edwards and many others, he is a very esteemed Englishman and has been here many times, we’ve spent many hours together, has written a new book called Evangelicalism Divided in which I read it, just devoured it over the last few weeks while I was in Italy in the plain, in the back of the bus, in the room, everywhere because it just consumed me. Murray is tracking the twentieth century decline of evangelicalism and it’s a book of history that is very, very revealing. And Murray says, and I think he’s absolutely right, he says, the inability of the evangelical church to distinguish between a Christian and a non-Christian is quote: “The greatest failure of professing Christianity in the English-speaking world in the twentieth century,” end quote.
John MacArthur – Grace to you – Bible Q & A
Pray without ceasing; (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
Joyful believers will also be prayerful believers. Those who live their Christian lives in joyful dependency on God will continually recognize their own insufficiency and therefore constantly be in an attitude of prayer. Paul’s exhortation to the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing is thus a divine mandate to all believers. Pray is from proseuchomai, the most common New Testament word for prayer (e.g., Matt. 6:5–6; Mark 11:24; Luke 5:16; 11:1–2; Acts 10:9; Rom. 8:26; 1 Cor. 14:13–15; Eph. 6:18; Col. 1:9; 2 Thess. 3:1; James 5:13–14, 16). It encompasses all the aspects of prayer: submission, confession, petition, intercession, praise, and thanksgiving. Without ceasing means “constant” and defines prayer not as some perpetual activity of kneeling and interceding but as a way of life marked by a continual attitude of prayer.
John MacArthur – Grace to You
As I have been traveling across America this past week and ministering in a number of cities and encountering a number of people, I have been reminded again of the tragic reality that there is a world dying in sin. And as I was thinking about our brief meditation time this morning in preparation for the Lord’s table, my heart was drawn to John chapter 8. Would you open your Bible for a moment and look with me at one of the most tragic portions of Scripture reflecting the ministry of our Lord?
In John 8 Jesus says these tragic words in verse 21, “I go away and you shall seek Me and shall die in your sin. Where I’m going, you cannot come.” Then again in verse 24, “I said therefore to you that you shall die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins.” Three times Jesus makes that tragic condemnation…You shall die in your sin…you shall die in your sins…once in the singular, twice in the plural.
I shall not die, I can, I do, believe in the Lord my God, and this faith will keep me alive. I would be numbered among those who in their lives are just; but even if I were perfect I would not try to live by my righteousness; I would cling to the work of the Lord Jesus and still live by faith in Him and by nothing else. If I were able to give my body to be burned for my Lord Jesus, yet I would not trust in my own courage and constancy, but still would live by faith.
Were I a martyr at the stake
I’d plead my Saviour’s name;
Intreat a pardon for His sake,
And urge no other claim.
To live by faith is a far surer and happier thing than to live by feelings or by works, The branch, by living in the vine, lives a better life than it would live by itself, even if it were possible for it to live at all apart from the stem. To live by clinging to Jesus, by deriving all from Him, is a sweet and sacred thing. If even the most just must live in this fashion, how much more must I who am a poor sinner! Lord, I believe. I must trust Thee wholly. What else can I do? Trusting Thee is my life….
Source : http://www.spurgeongems.org/fcb4.htm
Social Media and Digital Discernment a must read for all.
From Grace to You blog.
Twenty-five years ago Neil Postman observed that television had become an American “necessity” and lamented its effects on society. He correctly described the culture of the 1980s as one that was amusing itself to death. If he were alive today, Postman would be astonished at how quickly Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social media have gripped our society. His earlier criticisms raise an interesting question about these current trends: If TV put our culture in the casket, has social media nailed the coffin shut?
In this edition of Pulpit, Pastor John takes a careful look at social networking and encourages believers to exercise discernment.
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By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Apr 25, 2011
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
“And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
(Matthew 10:37-39)
John MacArthur – Grace to YouIt’s always a highlight of worship to turn to the Word of our God because His Word is His response to us, the Spirit applies it to our hearts. His Word is also the revelation of Himself so that we know His way and His will and His purpose and thus can worship Him more perfectly.
As you know, for many, many months we’ve been studying 1 Thessalonians and we have been interrupted a bit in the summer, but we go back to it this morning. Open your Bible to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 9 through 12…1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 9 through 12.
“These destroyers of our churches appear to be as content with their work as monkeys with their mischief. The case is mournful. Certain ministers are making infidels. …. A little plain-speaking would do a world of good just now.
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “,” delivered.”
There is only one sacrifice for sin, there never was another and there never can be. All those offerings under the Aaronic priesthood which were presented because of sin were only representations of the One Sacrifice; they were that and nothing more. Jesus far excels them all. Beloved, if you want to see the lamb that Abel offered on the altar, the lamb because of which God accepted his faith, and had respect unto him, you must see Jesus Christ, for we are accepted in the Beloved. God hath respect unto any man who brings this sacrifice; but unto any who bring a bloodless sacrifice, such as the Cainites of Rome foolishly do when they offer the unbloody sacrifice of the mass, unto them God hath no respect, and never can have.
The blood of Jesus once presented has for ever put away sin, and no further sin offering can be brought.
For the Love of His Truth 