Spirit

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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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Why People Find the Bible Difficult

by A. W. Tozer

Chapter 6 from Man: The Dwelling Place of God (Camp Hill, Penn: Christian Publications, 1966).

That many persons find the Bible hard to understand will not be denied by those acquainted with the facts. Testimony to the difficulties encountered in Bible reading is too full and too widespread to be dismissed lightly.

In human experience there is usually a complex of causes rather than but one cause for everything, and so it is with the difficulty we run into with the Bible. To the question, Why is the Bible hard to understand? no snap answer can be given; the pert answer is sure to be the wrong one. The problem is multiple instead of singular, and for this reason the effort to find a single solution to it will be disappointing.

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Why would someone hate the word Exegesis? part 3

John MacArthur – Grace to You

How to Study Your Bible

Psalms 1:1-2; Deuteronomy 29:29; 1 Corinthians 8:1

Introduction

Truly the Bible is magnificent. Early twentieth-century evangelist Billy Sunday pictured the Bible like a majestic palace. He wrote,

I entered through the portico of Genesis and walked down through the Old Testament’s art gallery, where I saw the portraits of Joseph, Jacob, Daniel, Moses, Isaiah, Solomon and David hanging on the wall; I entered the music room of the Psalms and the Spirit of God struck the keyboard of my nature until it seemed to me that every reed and pipe in God’s great organ of nature responded to the harp of David, and the charm of King Solomon in his moods.

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Happiness Is . . .

John MacArthur – Grace to You – Drawing Near

“Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . those who mourn . . .the gentle . . . those who hunger and thirst for righteousness . . . the merciful . . . the pure in heart . . . the peacemakers . . . [and] those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness” (Matt. 5:3-10).

A quiz in a popular magazine characterized happy people as those who enjoy other people but aren’t self-sacrificing, who refuse to participate in negative feelings or emotions, and who have a sense of accomplishment based on their own self-sufficiency.

But Jesus described happy people quite differently. In fact, He characterized them as spiritual beggars who realize they have no resources in themselves. He said they are meek rather than proud, mournful over their sin, self- sacrificing, and willing to endure persecution to reconcile men to God.

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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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Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith 2 Corinthians 13

John MacArthur – Grace to You – Bible Q & A

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! (2 Corinthians 13:5)

The Corinthians, prompted by the evil insinuations of the false apostles, had demanded proof of Paul’s apostleship. He reluctantly defended himself, not for his own sake, but for the Lord’s, and so the Corinthians would not be cut off from the truth he preached to them. But in this passage, he turned the tables on his accusers and challenged them to test and examine themselves. The Greek text places the pronouns before the verbs for emphasis and literally reads, “Yourselves test to see if you are in the faith; yourselves examine.” Instead of arrogantly and foolishly challenging the genuineness of Paul’s relationship to the Lord, the Corinthians needed to examine the genuineness of their own salvation. The familiar New Testament terms peirazo (test) and dokimazo (examine) are used here as synonyms. They convey the idea of putting something to the test to determine its genuineness. The test was to see if the Corinthians were in the faith. Pistis (faith) refers here not to the subjective element of belief but to the objective body of Christian truth —the Christian faith.

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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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Faith and the Gospel (Part 2)

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 3. – Grant Swart

FAITH AND THE GOSPEL (PART 2)

But whatever view of faith we take, one thing is obvious; that it is from first to last “the gift of God.” Make it as simple as you please, still it is the result of the Holy Spirit’s direct, immediate, all-quickening power. Never attempt to make faith simple, with the view of getting rid of the Spirit to produce it. This is one of the most wretched devices of Satan in the present evil day. By all means correct every mistake in regard to faith, by which hindrances are thrown in the sinners way, or darkness thrown around the soul. Show him that it is the object of faith, even with Christ and His cross, that he has to do, not with his own actions of faith; that it is not the virtue of merit that is in his faith that saved him, but the virtue and merit that are in Christ Jesus alone. Tell him to look outward, not inward for his peace. Beat him off from his self-righteous efforts to get up a particular kind of faith or particular acts of faith in order to obtain something for himself — something short of Christ to rest upon. Simplify, explain and illustrate faith to such an one, but never imagine that you are going to make the Spirit’s help less absolutely necessary.

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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 Biblical Portrait of Women: Setting the Record Straight

John MacArthur – Grace to You

Leviticus 19:3, Exodus 20:12, Genesis 1:27; 5:1-2, Ephesians 5:23, 1 Peter 3:7, Proverbs 12:4

The Bible is, and has always been, a revolutionary book. It stands like a coastal rock cliff to resist the surging, crashing waves of cultural change. And there may be no clearer demonstration of the Bible’s immutable word than what it teaches about genuine femininity.

The Bible rightly exalts women against cultures that distort, degrade, and debase them. Many in our society tout the sexual and reproductive liberation of women against the supposed oppressive, outmoded strictures of the Bible. I have to ask, “In what way are women truly free? In what way does our culture honor them?” Sure they can vote; sure they have opportunities to compete in the marketplace. But are they really free? Is their dignity and honor intact?

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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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Jesus and Judas

John MacArthur – Grace to You

John 13:18-30

Turn to John 18, starting in verse 13. Jesus, speaking to His disciples, says,”‘I speak not of you all, I know whom I have chosen; but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, he that eateth bread with Me has lifteth up his heel against Me. Now I tell you before it come, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he who receiveth whomever I send, receiveth Me. And He that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me. When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me.’ Then the disciples looked

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After I lead people to Christ, should I offer them immediate assurance?

John MacArthur – Grace to You – Q & A

John 3:16; Romans 8:16; Romans 15:4

It isn’t your task as an evangelist to give immediate assurance to people you lead to Christ. The Holy Spirit will do that work: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16).

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Sovereignty and Freedom

John MacArthur – Grace to You

Well, we are alerted throughout this series that every time you come to a service at Grace Church, you’re going to hear about an attribute of God. We want you to know our all glorious God. We want you to know all that you can know about Him, all that is revealed on the pages of Scripture.

And the emphasis that we have for this morning is on the sovereignty of God. Simply stated, Psalm 103 verse 19 says, “His sovereignty rules over all.” And we saw that demonstrated, didn’t we, in the passages that we read earlier from Isaiah and from Daniel. God is the absolute ruler of this world and the entire universe. God is the one who decrees all things, who purposes all things and who accomplishes all things that He decrees and purposes. He is simply in charge of absolutely everything.

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Sneaky Superstition

A.W. Tozer

Superstition is inherent in fallen human nature and I suppose there is no one entirely free from it.
There are two classes of men who appear to have come the nearest to getting deliverance from the bondage of superstition: the scientist who has developed a mentality that accepts nothing that cannot be proved and the philosophical skeptic who has taught himself to discount the supernatural. By denying the existence of the spiritual they reduce their hopes and fears to the ordered operation of the natural, but that seems too high a price to pay for their freedom.

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