dead in sin

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Abhoring Error and Loving the Truth

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— By Horatius Bonar

“Our Reformers, following Scripture, abhorred error. They regarded it as sin, as in itself evil, and as the root of almost every evil. They loved truth, upheld it, sought to spread it. They eschewed error as poison; they prized truth as medicine, containing in it the world’s true health. They knew that men might have it and yet not use it, that they might abuse it, that they might ‘hold it in unrighteousness;’ but they loved it still, and refused to believe that any untruth, however beautiful, however well argued or well adorned, however recommended by authority, or antiquity, or genius, could be available for the revivification of collapsed prostrate Europe, for expelling the poison of ages from the veins of humanity, for bracing the constitution of the race, even apart from the great purpose of saving the lost, of gathering in the chosen of the Father, the purchased of the Son.

Our Reformers, working on the model of the Bible, laboured to set truth before the nations. They did not despise ‘head knowledge.’ They were careful that head knowledge should be true knowledge; and, in so far as it was so, they urged its widest propagation; undeterred by the thought which acts as a drag or damper on some, ‘What is the use of head knowledge without heart knowledge?’ They had confidence in truth, because it was of God, and because it was the representative of Him who is the wisdom and the truth of God. Continue reading →

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What is conviction of sin?

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled

“An Old-Fashioned Conversation,” delivered March 16, 1873.

The Lord shuts us up to hopelessness and helplessness in order that he may come, as a God of grace, and display his abounding mercy. All our hope lies in him, and all other hopes are delusions. The great work in conversion is not to make people better, so that they may come to God on a good footing, it is to strip them completely and lay them low, so that God may come to them when they are on a bad footing, or rather on no footing at all, but down in the dust at his feet. The Son of man is come to seek and to cave that which is lost, but it wants* God himself to convince men that they are lost; and the Spirit’s work of soul-humbling is just this – to get man to feel so diseased that he will accept the physician; to get him to feel so poor that he will accept the charity of heaven; to get him to know that he is so stripped, that he will no longer be proud of his fig leaves, but will be willing to take the robe of righteousness which Christ has wrought out.

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Saved or Deceived

John McArthur (1 of 2)

Is it possible to understand the gospel message, have strong religious convictions, serve in a Bible-believing church, and be convinced you have a saving relationship with God, and yet still not get into heaven when you die? The Bible couldn’t be any clearer on the answer. Yes, many people will one day stand before God and be shocked as they hear Him say, “I never knew you; depart from Me.”

see more …….(2nd short video)

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There Is No Wisdom in Sin

A W Tozer –  Man – the dwelling place of God

There Is No Wisdom in Sin

 

THE WORLD HAS DIVIDED MEN into two classes, the stupid good people and the clever wicked ones.

This false classification runs through much of the literature of the last centuries from the classics to the comic strip, from Shakespeare’s Polomus, who furnished his son with a set of good but dull moral platitudes, to Capp’s Li’l Abner, who would never knowingly do a wrong act but who would rather fall on his head than on his feet because there is more feeling in his feet than in his head.

In the Holy Scriptures things are quite the opposite. There righteousness is always associated with wisdom and evil with folly. Whatever other factors may be present in an act of wrongdoing, folly is one that is never absent. To do a wrong act a man must for the moment think wrong; he must exercise bad judgment.

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The Heart of True Ethics

By John MacArthur – Grace to You

It is common in the evangelical church today for people to verbally acknowledge that the Bible, as God’s Word, is the final authority for both what they believe and how they live. Yet in reality, a clear connection between that public confession and personal conduct is rare.

Instead of looking to the Bible, many professing Christians look to psychology and sociology for supposed solutions to personal needs and social ills. The rise of postmodern thought has similarly skewed the church’s understanding of right and wrong—as an unbiblical tolerance (in the name of love) has weakened churches to the point where they are as soft on truth as they are on sin. Popular television shows, from Oprah to Leno to the average sitcom, have had a tangible effect (and not for the better) on how American Christians think through everyday issues. The political arena, too, has played a major role in shaping an evangelical understanding of morality, as words like “Republican” and “Democrat” or “liberal” and “conservative” have come to redefine the difference between what is good and what is evil.

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