“ Great Sermon! ” This is a strong encouragement for any church that is losing a beloved pastor, to keep our eyes and our hope firmly fixed on Christ our Chief Shepherd, who remains the same in every changing circumstance. Change is always hard, all the more when the one leaving is greatly loved. I pray for the Stornoway congregation that God's grace and comfort may uphold them and that He will guide their steps in the choices they now face, and for Rev. Craig, that he will enjoy great blessing and favor in his new charge in Ayr. I greatly hope he will continue to post his sermons on SermonAudio!
“ Great truths. ” How many people want to enter with their sin into the Kingdom of Heaven, without repentance and without renouncing the sin they love!
“ Great encouragement. ” This message encouraged my heart, because it reminded me that the Lord is interested in His church and will visit and revive His people, and put stop to the oppression of the wicked.
“ Blessed holy God. ” Blessed vision of the holy God! How I need to see more of this for the radical transformation of my life, of my thinking, of my loves and of my service!
“ Great lessons. ” Heart searching message. How little we love the Lord Jesus! How much of our love goes to other things! When the light of God shines upon our lives, we start to see our vanities which fill our lives. Oh, for a greater love for the Lord!
“ Great blessing. ” This was a message that touched my heart today. How serious is sin in the eyes of the Lord. Oh, for a total cleansing in the precious and powerful blood of the Lamb! How blessed to be white as snow!
“ Great Sermon! ” I wish every Christian could hear this message! Rev. Craig beautifully shows the unity of God's dealings with His people under the old and new covenants. God's moral law has always been rooted in His grace and goodness and given to a redeemed people to be obeyed out of love and gratitude, by faith in Christ, the one Savior of all of God's people. Summarized in the Ten Commandments, it is a law of love -- fulfilled perfectly for us by Christ in His sinless life, and now fulfilled in those who are His by the power of His indwelling Spirit. Christ died to uphold the just claims of God's law so that we, freed from its curse, are also set free to fulfill its requirements in union with Christ, according to Romans 8:1-4.
As I see it, the new covenant in Christ is a strong and sturdy house built upon the foundation of God's moral law. The moral law alone is not the whole house; it is Christ who is our righteousness, our life, our all in all, and we live in Him. But you don't rip out the foundation when you build the house! God's law is an expression of His own nature of wisdom, goodness, and perfect love, and to reject it is to reject Him. Those who truly love Christ will be able to say from the heart with David, "O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day" (Psalm 119:97).
“ Beautiful insights into Christ's prayer life! ” I never before realized how the Messianic Psalms reveal the hidden prayer life of Jesus and give us rich insights into His heart and thoughts. Rev. Craig shows how these psalms not only reveal His loving submission to the Father and His forgiveness of His enemies who acted in ignorance, but also His plea for justice and for deliverance out of His sufferings, which was fulfilled in His resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of the Father.
We rightly see Jesus as the object of our faith. But Rev. Craig brings up something else that we don't often recognize as clearly: that Christ Himself, while He was on earth bearing our lowly, mortal, weak human nature, also had to walk by faith just as we do. Faith enabled Jesus to so lay hold of God's promises that He was able to give thanks that what was promised was His already, even when as yet He saw no sign of it. By faith He had the joy of His resurrection and the reward of His sufferings - bringing many sons to glory - set before Him, even while He was enduring God's wrath against our sins on the cross, while all around Him was darkness, hatred, and mockery, with our curse upon Him. This gives fresh meaning to Hebrews 12:2, that Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith. What a Savior!
“ Great Sermon! ” This is the clearest and most helpful sermon on sanctification I have heard. While we Reformed folk rightly look to Christ alone for our pardon and justification, we too often fall back on our own methods and natural willpower to help us overcome sin and make us holy. Yet it is "Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Cor. 1:30-31). Rev. Craig points us to God's way - not man's - for attaining humility and holiness: we are transformed into Christ's image as we fix our eyes on Him and behold His glory and rely on His Holy Spirit, who indwells every regenerate believer, to do in us what we can never do for ourselves.
Not that we don't need to be watchful and to mortify sin, but it is through the Spirit of Christ that we mortify the deeds of the body (Rom. 8:13). He alone is able to write God's Law in our hearts and make Christ's victory over sin manifest in our own hearts and lives, all to the praise of the glory of His grace.
This is a message I've listened to over and over and want to share with many friends.
“ Great Sermon! ” This is a wonderful encouragement to all of us who are burdened by the great needs within the Body of Christ and aware of our own weakness and inadequacy to meet those needs. How good to know we are personally responsible only to be faithful to Christ and to persevere in the work He has called us to do. It is His work, and the results are His responsibility.
Rev. Craig doesn't often talk about himself, so the brief glimpse into God's encouragement of him early in his ministry through this text in Revelation 3:7 was especially precious. We should remember that even our most godly and zealous ministers are human and need our prayers as we need theirs. Even Elijah got dejected and needed supernatural encouragement after a time of demanding and fruitful labor for God! (See 1 Kings 19.)
“ Great Sermon! ” I wish every Christian in America could hear this sermon. We are too often led to view faith as a path to an easier, more comfortable and prosperous earthly life and too seldom trained to "endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ". How good to be reminded that even in the midst of persecution and trial, "Christ yet reigns". We are His, and even death cannot snatch us out of His Father's hands. I pray that we will not fear those who can only kill the body, but rather fear and love the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell, and who can also preserve us in His grace in the midst of every trial. May we be ready to suffer out of love for Christ and even to be faithful unto death if need be rather than to commit sin or compromise His truth. We have much to learn from this church in Smyrna that was so poor in earthly goods, but so rich towards God.
“ Amen! ” This is a sobering, humbling message that we much need. Christ died to redeem a Bride for Himself who will love Him with all her heart and soul, not merely to acquire efficient servants. If our service is motivated by anything less than love for Him, it is not worthy of His much greater love for us. Lord, renew our hearts by your Spirit, and rekindle our first love for you!
“ Great Sermon! ” This is a wonderful sermon to help us forgive others from the heart. First, Rev. Craig makes the point that real sins produce real guilt that calls for punishment and must not be excused or ignored. Only when we acknowledge this will the cross have real meaning and value to us as a refuge from God's well-deserved wrath. If we're tempted to hold onto grudges and resentments, we should ask God for a fresh view of what it cost Him to forgive our own sins. How can we refuse to forgive when we have been forgiven so much more than we will ever have to forgive others for?
Finally, only when we know ourselves to be in God's hands and not helplessly at the mercy of our enemies can we really leave our vindication to Him and forgive as we have been forgiven. Rev. Craig uses the example of Joseph in Genesis 50 to show how God's loving providence overrules even the sins of our enemies for His glory and our good, bringing blessing out of a situation they intended for harm. God's sovereignty and the cross of Christ are a strong refuge when we have been greatly wronged, and Christ's resurrection assures us of final victory in our Savior over all injustice.
“ Great Sermon! ” This sermon is full of practical and helpful wisdom from God's Word to help us put sin to death rather than just trying to manage its effects, as so much psychological counseling does. With the heart of a true shepherd, Rev. Craig goes to the root of the problem in a clear and gracious way that works and that exalts Christ. How can we look on Him whom our sins pierced and yet continue to trifle with temptation? Indifference to sin is indifference to Christ and to the terrible suffering He willingly bore in our place, not only to purchase our forgiveness, but to break the stranglehold sin had on us. I recommend this message to everyone who really wants to overcome sin--whether grievous, life-destroying wickedness or those pesky little habits that we fail to take seriously enough.
“ Great Sermon! ” Thank you, Rev. Craig, for holding Christ crucified constantly before our eyes. How much better we would love and worship Him if we thought more deeply on His love for us and on what it cost Him to redeem us. Is it because we don't take our own sins all that seriously that we don't realize the horror of that living hell He endured for us on the cross, being accursed and forsaken by His Father in our place? Truly, He is the only One worthy of all our love.
“ Grace Abounding! ” This message is a wonderful encouragement to all of us who have wasted part of our lives in sin or by following Christ afar off. How amazing that our Lord not only took the punishment for our sins upon Himself, but then restores to us what we robbed Him of! Who ever heard of a crime victim making restitution to the criminal? Mercy heaped on mercy and grace piled upon grace, to overflowing! How could we not love such a Savior and stand in awe of His grace?
“ Great Sermon! ” A beautiful, uplifting word of encouragement! How easily our love for Christ and our joy in obeying Him would grow if we would take more time to ponder His Word as Mary did, and let it work its way deep into our heart and transform us. Yet we are often too busy for the one thing--and the one Person--that is most important. I'm sharing this message with my friends. God bless you, Rev. Craig, for sharing these riches with us who live far away, but are one with you in heart and soul.
“ The plain and simple truth ” Amen! How good it is to hear the fundamental truths of our faith. It is not temporal blessings that are our greatest need, it is forgiveness for our sins through the death of Christ. Thank you
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