PREACHING CHRIST

Some years ago I ran into a preacher I had known many years before. Before God revealed Christ to and in me. Before I knew and believed the word of truth of the gospel. He asked me what I’d been doing and on that particular occasion I had been playing golf with some brethren. He said, “Golf, I preach against that.” In my mind I suddenly remembered again what God in grace had delivered me from. I replied, “I don’t preach against things, I preach Someone, Jesus Christ.” He had nothing more to say. He thought that in just mentioning the name of Jesus as a prefix to or appendix to his preaching “against” things that he was preaching Christ. The preaching of Christ is not the mere repeating of His name. It is not saying the name “Jesus” and leaving men to put to it their own views to it as to who He is or what He has done. No, to preach Christ is to declare what the scriptures say about who He is. He is God manifest in the flesh. He is the One who is the “Wisdom” that was in the beginning. He is the Angel of the Covenant, the eternal Son, the holy One and the everlasting Father of His people. Furthermore, it is to declare from the scriptures what God says He has done. As the angel said, His name is called Jesus because He has saved His people from their sins. (Matt. 1:21) We are to preach Christ “crucified.” We preach who He was crucified for, the design of His sufferings and also the glory that must follow! What did He accomplish? He suffered, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. He died a particular death, “even the death of the cross.” His being “obedient unto death” is the act by which God has justified all His people and at the same time satisfied His just Self in the matter of their sins. If Christ is all and everything in God’s salvation, and He is, then let us hear more and more about who He is and what He’s done! No true preacher need fear running out of material or can ever think he has said all that can be said about the Him whose name is “Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” (Isa.9:6) Through the preaching of Christ, the Spirit of God will take the “things” of Christ and show them to His people!

Gary Shepard

ACCEPTANCE

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Eph 1:6

There is nothing more opposed to each other, than the Scripture sense of acceptation, as it relates to the Lord, and as it relates to man. To accept any man's person, is the sinful act of a sinful man. And to accept a poor sinner in Christ, is the gracious act of a gracious God. And those different views of acceptation very fully explain the meaning of the apostle, in his sermon before Cornelius and his household. "Of a truth I perceive, (said Peter)that God is no respecter of persons." God hath no respect to the person of any, but as they are in Christ. It is to Jesus, that the Lord hath respect. And, therefore, "in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Jesus." (Ac 10:34-35.)

Robert Hawker

Of all the presumptuous sins which may be charged upon religious people, in this day of flaming profession, none is more awful than their charging the doctrines of grace with a licentious tendency. To assert that the truths of eternal election, free justification, imputed righteousness, efficacious redemption, and invincible grace in regeneration, lead to carelessness and an ungodly life, is to sin with a very high hand indeed. How odious soever the loose principles of the Sadducees may be, or the gross practices of publicans and harlots, the iniquity of these is far surpassed by the spiritual wickedness of self-righteous persons, who discover the enmity of their hearts against sovereign grace, in a similar manner to those referred to by the apostle in Ro 3:8: "We be slanderously reported, and some affirm that we say, let us do evil that good may come; whose damnation is just." But this unrighteous reflection upon the distinguishing truths of the gospel, is not confined to the open opposers thereof. Many who profess attachment to the doctrines of sovereign grace do not fully and openly exhibit them, lest evil consequences should be the result. If they assert them at all, it is in so guarded a manner as betrays a secret suspicion that such doctrines are injurious in their tendency. But if those prudent men, who are so careful to guard the gospel, really believe that the open declaration of the doctrines thereof is dangerous, why do they profess attachment to them? Surely the doctrines which require to be thus guarded, are in themselves mischievous and can not be of God!

William Rushton 1831

THE LOST SHEEP RESTORED

Our first view of this peculiar people shall be in the place where God finds them. "My people," He says, "have been lost sheep." They do not become sheep by being found, nor do they cease to be sheep by being lost. They were sheep eternally in the mind of God; and their becoming lost did not alter nor destroy their character of being sheep any more than the wandering of a sheep literally and naturally from the fold turns it into a goat. It may be lame, sick, or diseased; it may stray away miles from the fold; its fleece may be torn with briars or soiled with mud, and its whole appearance so altered that the shepherd can scarcely recognize it; but it is a sheep still, and ever will be a sheep while it continues to exist. And thus the elect being sheep eternally in the mind of God, and as such possessing an eternal union with the Son of God, could not cease to be sheep by falling in Adam, nor do their personal, individual falls, slips, and transgressions destroy their original, unalterable character

J. C. Philpot

‘Can these bones live?’ Ezekiel 37:1-10

What a clear and unmistakable lesson in the absolute and sovereign grace of God in the calling and saving of sinners is before us here! We see unquestionably: 1. (vs 1,2) The plain truth of our natures revealed: dead and very dry bones. No ability to cause life by power or will here, unable to do one single thing to come to God. This is you; this is me by nature and by practice, religious or otherwise. 2. (vs 4) The blessed command: “prophesy to these bones”. Preach the word, speak the truth in love and reverence, tell about the living word from the written word….Preach Christ who is the word! 3. (vs 5,6) Tell who God is: “I will…and you shall”. God is God over and above all, He is supreme and governs all by the power of His character. Sovereign purpose, Sovereign election, Sovereign and particular redemption, sovereign and effectual calling; all things come from Him including life peace and mercy in the salvation of sinners. 4. (vs 7-10) Results of Sovereign Mercy upon dead sinners: a noise of interest, a noise of concern, a noise of awakening grace upon the hearts and souls of men. The Holy Spirit in power and grace moves upon His chosen people and gives them life and when life happens it begets faith, love and good works! Come now my friend and hear the word of the Lord and may He give life where there was only death and very much spiritual dryness.