Have you ever stopped to consider what the god of this age is like? How he is presented to eternity bound souls? A popular way of trying to get someone “saved” is to say “now if you make a move, god will make a move”. It seems to me as if those who do this are telling souls that god is playing checkers and that whoever makes the best move wins and that it is possible to beat god in this game.
Souls are being told, “god has done all he can do, now it is all up to you”, or they say something like this, “god has given you your chance it’s up to you what you do with it”.
My friends, please listen to me, if this were the way God really is, he is not worthy of worship but contempt. This god has no power, no will, no glory, and no honor, no justice or righteousness. He is bound by what you do, by your choice; he is bound by the awful concept that he must give every soul a chance. But could the GOD who created all things, and upholds all things by the word of his power, be like this? (
Heb.1:2-3)
Have you never read in his holy word: “The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand” (Isa.14:24&27)? Or have you read that his elect were,
“predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph.1:11)?
I exhort you to take your bibles and a concordance and study, and if you do you will find that the God and Father Of Jesus Christ is a God who does all things on purpose. God has never thought, or planned, has never had to figure out the best way of doing something.
“He declared the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” ( Isa.46:9-10).
If God must depend on you or me to do something before he will save us, then salvation could not be by grace, it would be a debt. If He has to give us salvation based on what we do, that, my friends is salvation by works. No where in God’s word can you find where salvation is by chance, or by the will of man, or that God is bound to give salvation to anyone because they do something, or he is bound to give everyone a chance to be saved. Salvation is not by chance but by the purpose and grace of God in Christ.
- Pastor
The Question of Good Works:
Q. Which of the following three statements best reflects your position on the Christian and good works?
1. The Christian does no good works at all.
2. The Christian does good works, but not meritorious good works.
3. The Christian does meritorious good works.
I am not good (Matthew 19:17). I am therefore incapable of doing good (Romans 3:12).
John Newton wrote: “If I hear, or pray, or read Sin is mixed in all I do. Ye that love the Lord indeed, Tell me, is it thus with you?”
I confess there is enough sin in my “best works” to condemn me to a thousand hells. I find it necessary to even repent of my repenting. I pray God never gives me what I deserve, for I am a “wretched man” (Romans 7:24) and chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15) and an “unclean thing” who must confess that “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).
Nevertheless, I have been through God's free and sovereign grace in Christ Jesus “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Ephesians 2:10). But these are not my own, but those “which God prepared beforehand” (Ephesians 2:10). Therefore “it is God who works in [me] both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). Any good deed ever attributable to me was “done in God” (John 3:21). I pray I will never be found among the ranks of works-mongers who boast of “what I have done for God.” I pray instead that I may follow the example of Barnabas and Saul when “they reported all that God had done with them” (Acts 14:27).
- Pastor Daniel Parks
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