“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.
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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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.
Grace to You Blog (a follow up) Friday, April 21, 2011
| If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that religion is a means of gain (1 Timothy 6:3-5). |
No one in all the Scriptures had more to say about hell than Jesus. No stern messenger of doom from the era of the Judges, no fiery Old Testament prophet, no writer of imprecatory psalms, and no impassioned apostle (including the Boanerges brothers)—not even all of them combined—mentioned hell more frequently or described it in more terrifying terms than Jesus.
Well, this is a special Lord’s day in the sense of our text of Luke because we have finally come to the final paragraph in Luke’s gospel, and we close out this great history with many wonderful memories of what we have learned in these ten years in Luke, many wonderful benefits spiritually to these great truths, this great account of Christ. Let’s look together at the final paragraph, verses 50 to 53.
Before I read them to you, just simply to make a comment. This is the brief account of the ascension of Christ into heaven, having completed His earthly journey and His earthly work. It is a significant event, maybe, in some ways, far more significant than most people give it credit for. In our culture we have a tradition of honoring the birth of people. We celebrate birthdays. When there is someone important, we make note of their birthday. Sometimes we even make national holidays out of the birthday of famous people, Presidents, and so forth. We do that not because their birth was significant, because none of their births were really significant. And when they were born, they had accomplished absolutely nothing. So at the risk of seeming a little bit odd, may I suggest another approach? That we begin to celebrate the death day of significant people which marks the culmination of their achievement.
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.
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)
* * *
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?
Let’s open our Bibles this morning to 1 Timothy chapter 1. We’re looking again at verses 3 through 11. The opening charge that is given from the Apostle Paul to Timothy to carry out a work in the church and the region around the church in Ephesus.
Now as I mentioned last time, the primary objective that Paul has in mind with Timothy in the writing of this epistle is to encourage Timothy to bring the church to a place of sound doctrine and godly living. He is concerned about the impact of false teachers, not only what they say but what they model by way of a life style. And he is greatly concerned that Timothy reverse the impact of these false teachers. In so writing to Timothy he has left us a letter which all of us in the church of Jesus Christ today, or in any era, can benefit from because we all face the same potential encroachment of false teaching and unholy living.
John MacArthur – Grace to You
Turn in your Bible to the first chapter of 1 Timothy. We have recently begun a study of 1 Timothy. We’ve had a couple of messages getting started, looking at the introduction, and now we come in this next section to verses 3 through 11. This section has to do with dealing with false teachers. I want us to take verses 3 through 11 as a unit, but we’re going to divide it between two weeks, this Lord’s day and next.
Let me introduce our study today by reminding you of something I’m sure you’re very much aware of. In John’s gospel chapter 8 and verse 44, it reminds us that Satan is not only a murderer but Satan is also a liar. One of the manifestations of the lying intent of Satan is the proliferation of false teachers that besiege the gospel and the church through all the history of the church’s life. False prophets and false teachers are a part and parcel of the battle the church has to fight in every age.
For the Love of His Truth 