Feast on Truth

“It is a principle of the gospel never to be lost sight of, that gracious affections, both in their commencement and progress, are all exercised in view of truth.

 ‘Sanctify them through thy truth.’

One of the more obvious ways in which truth is presented to the mind, is the direct contemplation of it, by the increase of divine knowledge. The Apostle Paul, in writing to the Colossians, says,

‘We do not cease to pray for you and to desire that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; so that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work.’

 The Apostle Peter expresses the same sentiment when he says,

 ‘Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;’

and also when he enjoins,

‘As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.’

The knowledge of divine truth is, to the renewed mind, what food is to the body; it is the native and proper aliment of every gracious affection. There is high and holy joy in a clear perception of the nature, connections, consequences, and glory of the truth of God. The sensations of a devout mind in the contemplation of divine truth are like those of a hungry man when he sets down to a feast; he is fed; his hungering and thirsting after righteousness are gratified. Let him possess enlarged views of God, and just conceptions of his excellence and loveliness; let his thoughts be turned toward the ineffable glory of the divine nature, as it is manifested in the works of creation, providence, and redemption; let him dwell on the glory of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ; let him become more and more acquainted with the harmony and beauty of the divine design, and the great end which God has in view in all that he does, and his holy desires will be enkindled and flow out, his heart will become enlarged, his affections elevated, and his piety will become manly.

One reason why Christians are not more holy, is that they do not read and converse, and think enough about the great truths of the Bible. There may be excitement and fervor without Christian knowledge; but there can be little growth in piety. By confining the thoughts to a narrow circle of truths, the mind becomes impoverished, and its piety languid and declining; while if we would raise the tone of spirituality and devotedness, we must raise the standard of Christian knowledge, and become more deeply imbued with the precious truths of the gospel. It is thus that the soul, instead of starving and pining away, is nourished; it lives in holiness, and is comforted in hope, and advances toward the stature of the perfect man in Christ Jesus.”

Spring, Gardiner. First Things: Lectures in the First Lessons God Revealed to Mankind. Vestavia Hills: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2004. 113-15. Print.

"God judgeth not of his servant's work by the success of their labour, but by their faithfulness to deliver his message." ~ William Gurnall

It is Critical to Know the Difference

“To know the difference so as to be able to distinguish aright between the law and the gospel is of the utmost importance to the faith, holiness, and comfort of every true Christian. It will be impossible otherwise for a man so to believe as to ‘be filled with joy and peace in believing.’ If he does not know the difference between the law and the gospel he will be apt, especially in the affair of justification, to confound the one with the other. The consequence will be that in his painful experience, bondage will be mixed with liberty of spirit, fear with hope, sorrow with joy, and death with life. If he cannot so distinguish the gospel from the law as to expect all salvation from the grace of the gospel, and nothing of it from the works of the law; he will easily be induced to connect his own works with the righteousness of Jesus Christ in the affair of his justification.”

“This was the great error of the Judiazing teachers in the church of Galatia. They mingled the law with the gospel in the business of justification, and thereby they so corrupted the gospel as to alter the very nature of it and make it another gospel. They taught that unless men were circumcised and kept the Law of Moses, they could not be justified or saved (Acts 15:1-5). They informed the people that while the righteousness of Christ received by faith was necessary, their own works of obedience were also requisite in connection with it to entitle them to justification before God. This is a fundamental error, and such a one that if even an angel from heaven would publish it he should be accursed. Accordingly, the apostle boldly affirmed to the Galatians, and he deliberately and earnestly repeated his declaration, that though he himself, or even an angel from heaven, were to preach any other gospel to them than that which he had preached unto them, he should be accursed (Galatians 1:8-9). To mingle, then, the law with the gospel, or to teach men to join the works of the law to the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ as the ground for a sinner’s title to justification in the sight of God, is, according to the apostle, to preach another gospel. “

“As this is a great error, so it is a very dangerous error. If a man attempts to add any works of his own to the consummate righteousness of Jesus Christ as the ground of his justification before God, Christ profits him nothing. The obedience and death of Christ have become of no effect to him.”

“Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye become circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:2-4).”

“If a man tries to connect his own performances with the righteousness of Jesus Christ for the pardon of his sins and the acceptance of his person as righteous in the sight of God, he deprives himself of all benefit from that perfect righteousness. If he relies on his own works of obedience for even the smallest part of his title to eternal life, he is a debtor to the whole law in its covenant form, and he fixes himself under the dreadful curse of it. Christ will profit him nothing unless he relies on his infinitely glorious righteousness only for all his title to justification and eternal life.”

Colquhoun, John. A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel. Grand Rapids: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2009. 141-43. Print.

 

Opinions and Errors

“The fifth ground of abounding errors is the great connivance, nay, encouragement that errors find among the people of God – this is a great ground of broaching opinions. We say a receiver makes a thief; your readiness to comply with opinions, and to receive all, gives great encouragement to broach them.”

“There is much connivance, too much contentment, too much pleasure among the godly themselves in variety of opinions, though none under the notion of error.  Indeed, there is this much good in it, that things come to be debated and scanned, and by this we come to search upon what grounds we stand; we come to sift out the truth of God, which certainly was never more clearly revealed than when some errors have been the occasion to discover it and bring it forth.”

“Indeed, were they undoing errors that are preached and held forth by any, St. John’s rule comes in (2 John 10-11): “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine [that is, that Jesus is the Christ, as he showed before in verses 7-8], receive him not into your houses, neither bid him Godspeed, for he that biddeth him Godspeed is a partaker of his evil deeds." So then, if you know any to hold forth fundamental errors, such as are the overthrow of faith or destructive to the power of godliness, there is no countenance to be given to such. You make yourselves sharers with him in his sin, and bring upon yourselves the same guilt.”

“These are the rules for undoing errors. Nay, and were they defiling though not damning errors, were they but sinful though not destroying errors, yet if they were evidenced to us and manifest to us to be errors, we ought not to connive at them to countenance them in their way, but to admonish, to reprove them, to exhort them, and to use all possible ways offered by Christ to reclaim them.”

“But now when things held forth are merely opinions, or, if more, yet they are not in any way injurious to faith or hurtful to the power and practice of godliness, then there may be more agreement. The difference of judgment should not in this case alienate affections; though you are not all of one mind, yet you are all of one heart, and here you differ only about the way to advance God’s glory. You both have cordial affections to God and Christ; you desire to bring Him glory, only you differ in the way.  One thinks this way, and the other this, and in both, it may be, the Scripture is silent or holds out as much for one as the other. Now, in this case, why should there be a falling out? Certainly, diversities of opinion may be countenanced, and yet without sin, provided that they do not arise either from fickleness, unsettledness and inconstancy in us, or pride; that we do not love to take issue with others; and they do not tend to disturb the peace of the churches of Christ.”

Bolton, Samuel. The Arraignment of Error. Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1999. 86-88. Print.

Prayer of Faith

"It is the highest expression of faith to submit to the sovereignty of God. The real prayer of faith is the prayer that trusts God no matter whether the answer is yes or no." R.C. Sproul

The Heart of Herod in Everyman

“Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.” ~ Matthew 2:16

“Here is opened the mystery of iniquity, which lay brooding in the heart of Herod, all the while he put on the apparent regard he proposed to shew to the new born king.  But, can the imagination form an idea so horrid, as that of the destruction of such a number of little harmless children, in order to be sure of the One? Alas! What is the human heart in a state of unredeemed nature! But, reader, be not offended. Your heart, my heart, every man’s heart by nature is the same. And we read this account of Herod to little profit, if we do not see in him the portrait of every son and daughter of Adam by the fall. For there can be no difference in the same nature, but what sovereign grace hath wrought. What one man’s nature hath done, every man’s nature is capable of doing; yea, and would do if the same corresponding causes, temptations, and opportunities led to it, and grace did not restrain.  Oh! Who shall calculate, who shall tell, to what a desperate state of wickedness the whole nature of man is fallen, by the original apostasy of our first father? Reader, do you believe this? I do from my very heart. And I bless God the Holy Ghost for the merciful discovery. For never should I have known the want of salvation, neither rightly valued that salvation, but for this divine teaching. Never should I have loved thee, or wouldest thou have been so endeared to my soul, blessed, precious Lord Jesus, as thou now art, had not God the Holy Ghost, as thou didst promise concerning him, convinced me of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.”  

Hawker, Robert. The Poor Man's New Testament Commentary. Vol. 1. Birmingham: Solid Ground Christian Books, 1815. 17-18. 3 vols. Print.

Hindrances to Faithfulness With God in Their Generation

“They ought carefully to consider the temptations which are prevalent, and which unavoidably we are exposed to. Every age and time has its especial temptations; and it is the will of God that the church should be exercised with them and by them. And it would be easy to manifest, that the darkness and ignorance of men, in not discerning the especial temptations of the age in which they have lived, or neglecting of them, have been always the great causes and means of the apostasy of the church. By this means has superstition prevailed in one age, and profaneness in another; as false and noxious opinions in a third. Now, there is nothing that God requires more strictly of us, than that we should be watchful against present prevalent temptations; and he charges us with guilt where we are not so. And those which are not awake with respect to those temptations which are at this day prevalent in the world are far enough from walking well-pleasing before God.”

Owen, John. An Exposition of Hebrews 8:6-13. Wherein, the nature and differences between the Old and New Covenants is discovered. Palmdale, CA: Reformed Baptist Academic Press, 2005. 225. Print.