Good Soldier

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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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The Word which brings faith

 

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “How Can I Obtain Faith,” delivered January 21, 1872.

The theory now-a-days is that all preachers worth hearing by this refined generation must be profound thinkers, and inventors of improved theologies. Brethren, let man’s thoughts perish for ever; the thoughts of God and not the thoughts of man will save souls. The truth of God should be spoken simply, with as little as possible of the embellishments of metaphysics, and philosophy, and high culture, and all that stuff. I say the word of God delivered as we find it is that which, when heard, brings faith to the souls of men.

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The Bible

D.L. Moody :

People say this Bible was good enough for ancient days, but we have men of culture, of science, of literature now, and its value has decreased to the people of our day. Now, give me a better book, and I will throw it away. Has the world ever offered us a better book? These men want us to give up the Bible. What are you going to give us in its place? O, how cruel infidelity is to tell us to give up all the hope we have, to throw away the only book which tells the story of the resurrection. They try to tell us that it is all a fiction, so that

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Picking up the Bible

D.L. Moody

The hardest thing, I will admit, ever a man had to do is to become a Christian, and yet it is the easiest. This seems to many to be a paradox, but I will repeat it; it is the most difficult thing to become a Christian, and yet it is the easiest. I have a little nephew in Chicago. When he was three or four years of age, he threw that Bible on the floor. I think a good deal of that Bible, and I didn’t like to see this. His mother said to him, “Go, pick up your uncle’s Bible from the floor.” “I won’t,” he replied. “Go and pick that Bible up directly.” “I won’t.” “What did you say?” asked his mother. She thought he didn’t understand. But he

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HIS CROSS IS MY CROSS

A.W. Tozer

To take Jesus Christ into your life without reservation is to accept His friends as your friends and to know that His enemies will be your enemies! It means that we accept His rejection as our rejection. We knowingly accept His cross as our cross. If you then find

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Faith Divisions

A.W. Tozer

It should always be kept in mind that the Church is a divine family and that its loyalties sometimes cut sharply across the ties that bind earthly families together.
The cross is a sword and often separates friends and divides households. The idea that Christ always brings peace and patches up differences is found nowhere in His own teachings. Quite the contrary is true. For a man to cast in his lot with Christ often means that he will be opposed by his blood relatives and will find his true family ties only in the community of regenerated souls.
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Slavery

Bible Q & A with John MacArthur – Grace to You

(Titus 2 )

Urge bond-slaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect. (Titus 2:9–10)

The fifth category of believers about which Paul admonishes Titus is not based on age but on social standing. Douloi (bond-slaves) refers to slaves, those who were owned and controlled by their own masters.

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What makes my soul dance…

C H Spurgeon

There was nothing in the character of Jupiter, or any of the pretended gods of the heathen, to make glad a pure and holy spirit, but there is everything in the character of Jehovah both to purify the heart and to make it thrill with delight. How sweet is it to think over all the Lord has done; how he has revealed himself of old, and especially how he has displayed his glory in the covenant of grace, and in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. How charming is the thought that he has revealed himself to me personally, and made me to see in him my Father, my friend, my helper, my God.

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Christian Love

D.L. Moody

IT speaks in Galatians about love, the fruit of the Spirit being love, joy, peace, gentleness, long suffering, meekness and temperance. The way this writer has put it — and I think it is very beautiful — is that joy is love exultant, peace is love in repose, and long suffering is love enduring. It is all love, you see, a gentleness is love in society, and goodness is love in action, and faith is love on the battle-field, and meekness is love at school, and temperance is love in training.

Now there are a great many that have got love and they hold the truth. I should have said they have got truth, but they don’t hold it in love, and they are very unsuccessful in working for God. They are very harsh, and God cannot use them. Now let us hold the truth, but let us hold it in love. People will stand almost any kind of plain talk if you only do it in love. If you do it in harshness it bounds back and they won’t receive it. So what we want is to have the truth and at the same time hold it in love.

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God’s Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men

Jonathan Edwards

ROMANS 9:18.
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and
whom he will he hardeneth.

THE apostle, in the beginning of this chapter, expresses his great concern and sorrow of heart for the nation of the Jews, who were rejected of God. This leads him to observe the difference which God made by election between some of the Jews and others, and between the bulk of that people and the christian Gentiles. In speaking of this he enters into a more minute discussion of the sovereignty of God in electing some to eternal life, and rejecting others, than is found in any other part of the Bible; in the course of which he quotes several passages from the Old Testament, confirming and illustrating this doctrine. In the ninth verse he refers us to what God said to Abraham, showing his election of Isaac before Ishmael – “For this is the word of promise; At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son:” then to what God had said to Rebecca, showing his election of Jacob before Esau; “The elder shall serve the younger:” in the thirteenth verse, to a passage from Malachi,

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Unforgiveness imprisons people in the past

John MacArthur – Grace to You

Ephesians 6:3

The Key to Maintaining Family Unit

Now I said this morning that I was going to continue in our discussion about the fulfilled family and talk about the most important virtue in any relationship, the most important ingredient in holding a marriage together or keeping a family united, something that is absolutely crucial to the success of a marriage and a family.  I know that some of you were guessing this afternoon, some of my family were making suggestions about what they thought the subject was going to be.

What is it most importantly that causes relationships to be sustained over the long haul?  In a word, it is forgiveness…it is forgiveness.  Why do I say that?  Well first of all, no matter who you’re married to, they’re going to fail you, they’re going to offend you, they’re going to misunderstand you, they’re going to misinterpret what you mean by what you do.  You are going to offend them, you are going to sin against them, you are going to disappoint them.  This is true in any kind of relationship because we are sinful creatures, we are fallen creatures.  And what essentially keeps that from destroying relationships is forgiveness…forgiveness.

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Your Best Life: Now or Later?


John MacArthur – Grace to You

1 Peter 1:3-5

Lately I’ve had the occasion to fly a lot around the country, preaching here and there. Even though I’m here on Sundays, it seems like my weeks have been spent in airports, sometimes for a long time, as I’ve had mechanical delays and things like that. And I’ve become very much aware of a book that I knew was out there but I see literally all over all the airports that I’ve been in, in the last month or so, it has been labeled, at least, the best selling religious book of the time. The title of it is Your Best Life Now. I have seen stacks and stacks and stacks of those books everywhere I’ve gone.

Out of curiosity, I want to know what’s in the book and so I found this on page 5, “God wants this to be the best time of your life.” On another page it says, “Happy, successful, fulfilled individuals have learned how to live their best life now. On another page it says, “As you put the principles found in these pages to work today, you will begin living your best life now.” And that is absolutely true if you’re not a Christian. This is it, you better get the book because your next life is going to be infinitely worse than this one.

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Psalm 73

Psalm 73 (King James Version)

1Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.

2But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.

3For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.

5They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.

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What Does It Mean to Be, “Unequally Yoked?”

John MacArthur – Grace to You – Bible Q & A
(2 Corinthians 6)

What Does It Mean to Be, “Unequally Yoked?”

Believers and unbelievers inhabit two opposing worlds. Christians are in Christ’s kingdom, which is characterized by righteousness, light, and eternal life. Unbelievers are in Satan’s kingdom, characterized by lawlessness, darkness, and spiritual death. The saved and the unsaved have different affections, beliefs, principles, motives, goals, attitudes, and hopes. In short, they view life from opposing perspectives.

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Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Wrath

John MacArthur – Grace to You – Bible Q & A

Ephesians 4

Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. (Ephesians 4:26–27)

Parorgismos (anger) is not momentary outward, boiling–over rage or inward, seething resentment, but rather a deep–seated, determined and settled conviction. As seen in this passage, its New Testament use can represent an emotion good or bad, depending on motive and purpose.

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