Showing posts with label Salvation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salvation. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
“Everybody talks about living and worshiping to the glory of God. And I find that something now is missing in the heart of it and the mind of it unless they are really happy about the fact that the most God-centered person in the universe is God. That God loves His glory more than He loves them. If we are only God-centered because He is man-centered, we are man-centered! But if we are God-centered because we want to get on board with God’s God-centeredness, then God is God and we are not. God chose us to the praise of the glory of His grace. God has from eternity reached out and made us His own that He might be made much of. God chose you for God. Isaiah 43:6 “bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who I created for My glory.” You were made for God’s glory. There’s no doubt about why you exist. You exist to make God look good like He really is, that’s why you’re on planet earth. To draw attention to the magnificence of God, you were created for that, to the glory and praise of God. Oh, if we could just remember the beginning of sentences when we get to the end, our whole lives would be different. Christ suffered and died on the cross to vindicate the righteousness of God because God had passed over so many sins. Get that? Hardly anybody in America gets that. What the cross was designed to solve is the unrighteousness of God in forgiving sinners. You know its unrighteous to free rapists and murderers and say, ‘Oh, let it go.’ The whole bible says it is an abomination to justify the wicked. This is unjust to let off so many criminals that fill this room who rage against the living God or are indifferent to God. He kills it, punishes it, He hates it, He pours out wrath upon it, He condemns it. ‘It’ is called ‘Jesus crucified’.” - John Piper (transcribed from "Real"; a Sermon Jam from relevantrevolution.com)
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
On D.L. Moody: “On Sunday night, October 8, 1871, while preaching at Farwell Hall, which was now being used because of the increased crowds, Moody asked his congregation to evaluate their relationships to Christ and return next week to make their decisions for Him. That crowd never regathered. While Sankey was singing a closing song, the din of fire trucks and church bells scattered them forever, for Chicago was on fire. The Y.M.C.A. building, church, and parsonage were all to be lost in the next 24 hours.” Between 200 & 300 people died in that fire. “I always think about D. L. Moody, the night he preached in Chicago and said - I want you people to go home and think about what I've said and come back tomorrow night ready to make a decision for Christ. And that night the Chicago fire broke out and a great portion of his audience was dead. He said I never told anybody tomorrow again.” - John MacArthur Jr "http://www.gty.org/Resources/transcripts/1378"
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
“What does it mean (number one) that God foreknew those He referred to in [Romans 8:28)? ‘Because those whom He foreknew,’ what does that mean? Some would say, many would say, it simply means that God foresees who will believe on Him and then He decides what will become of believers. Now there are two assumptions in that interpretation that are wrong, unbiblical, and which make that view impossible to believe. That he simply foresees who is going to believe, on their own, and then decides what the destiny of those believers will be.
Here’s assumption number one that is not true: it assumes that ultimately we, in our own will power, provide the decisive, ultimate cause of our faith. That’s the point of that interpretation. That God only foresees people, not resting in God to provide the ultimate, decisive, faith that they need to believe, but producing, on their own, the decisive ultimate ground and cause of their faith. That is a false assumption. It’s false elsewhere in the NT, because faith is described a gift from of God in Philippians 1:29 and Ephesians 2:8-9 and 2 Tim 2:24 and Matthew 16:17 and Jeremiah 32:40, and other places. Faith is God’s work, it is God’s gift, and not only that, it is shown to be such here in this very context.
Let’s look just briefly so that you can see. You don’t have to go anywhere else but right here in Romans 8:29-30 to see it. Look at verse 30, ‘those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified.’ [ESV] Now think about that with me. Everybody who is called is justified. You know and I know, from the book of Romans, that nobody is justified except through faith. Romans 5:1, ‘therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God.’ Nobody is justified except they believe in Jesus, but this text says [that] everybody who’s called is justified. Not, ‘some of those who are called are justified’, namely those who choose to be, but everybody who is called is justified which means everybody who is called believes. How can that be? How can you say, ‘everybody is called believes? Aren’t some called who say “no” to the call?’ No! Now I’m rehearsing an old sermon from five weeks ago, so I can’t give it all, but here’s the summary statement. When God calls effectually, it’s like Jesus saying to Lazarus, ‘Lazarus, come forth,’ and he comes forth. Dead men live when God calls. When God called you to Himself effectually, in and through the preaching, the preaching of the gospel is not the effectual call of God. It’s the general call that goes out to everybody. In and through the gospel comes this mighty, ‘Piper, Live,’ and you live, and the cry of the newborn baby is faith. Therefore, this text will not allow us to buy the assumption that foreknowledge is simply a foreknowing of a faith which we produce on our own, without the decisive, ultimate, enabling of God. That’s clear, and therefore this interpretation won’t stand; that foreknowing is simply foreseeing self-wrought faith, it isn’t. It’s seeing God-wrought faith.
Here’s a second assumption that will make that interpretation not work. The interpretation that says all that foreknowledge is, is the foreseeing of human produced faith so that it will then decide what will become of them fails to give the meaning to the word ‘know’ in ‘foreknow’ a broad, biblical meaning that would make more sense out of this text. For example, let me read for you a half-a-dozen texts about ‘knowing’, and you supply the meaning. I might chip in a suggestion as I go along, but it will be plain to you what knowing means, and then keep this text in mind as I read these. In Genesis 18:19 God says of Abraham, ‘I have known him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord.’ Every English translation translates ‘y-da’ as choose, which baffles me, they shouldn’t. That is the meaning, but you ought to translate the word ‘know’ [as] ‘know’ so that people like you can read it and learn the meaning of ‘know’ for Romans 8:29. It’s not good when translators interpret, that’s another issue. In Amos 3:2 God says to the people of Israel, ‘You only have I known among all the families of the earth.’ He knew about all the families, but only chose Israel. In Matthew 7:23 Jesus said to the hypocrites at the judgment day, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’ What does that mean? I never knew about you? I never knew you were on the earth? I never knew anything about your life? No. I never knew you, I never made you mine, I never loved you with electing love. Psalm 1:6 says, ‘The Lord knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked will perish.’ He knows about the way of the wicked too. But he knows the way of the righteous in the sense of approving and recognizing and loving. In Hosea 13:5 God says to Israel, ‘I knew you in the wilderness, In the land of drought,’ meaning he took note of your plight and cared for you. And Genesis 4:1 says, ‘Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.’ That is, he made her his, and knew her intimately and loved her.
If you don’t know that biblical background of the word ‘know’, so much richer than our heady word ‘know’, it will be hard, I think, to put a proper meaning on verse 29. ‘Whom He foreknew,’ cared for, loved, chose, made His own. Because of all those texts I think John Stott and John Murray are exactly right when both of them say, ‘”Know” . . . is used in a sense practically synonymous with “love” . . . “Whom he foreknow” . . . is therefore virtually equivalent to "whom he foreloved.”’ Foreknowledge, is ‘sovereign, distinguishing love’ (John Stott, quoting Murray, Romans, p. 249). It's virtually the same as set your affection on and choose for your own.
So the meaning of the first act of God that guarantees Romans 8:28 is that God foreknows his own people in the sense that he chooses them and loves them and cares for them. All things work together for good for those who love God and are called because they are foreknown." - John Piper,
“Foreknown, Predestined, Conformed to Christ” preached on 8/4/02, radio broadcast 3/30/07. This quote is a compilation of transcribing (mine) some of the audio to supplement desiringgod.org’s posted manuscript http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2002/98_Foreknown_Predestined_Conformed_to_Christ/
Here’s assumption number one that is not true: it assumes that ultimately we, in our own will power, provide the decisive, ultimate cause of our faith. That’s the point of that interpretation. That God only foresees people, not resting in God to provide the ultimate, decisive, faith that they need to believe, but producing, on their own, the decisive ultimate ground and cause of their faith. That is a false assumption. It’s false elsewhere in the NT, because faith is described a gift from of God in Philippians 1:29 and Ephesians 2:8-9 and 2 Tim 2:24 and Matthew 16:17 and Jeremiah 32:40, and other places. Faith is God’s work, it is God’s gift, and not only that, it is shown to be such here in this very context.
Let’s look just briefly so that you can see. You don’t have to go anywhere else but right here in Romans 8:29-30 to see it. Look at verse 30, ‘those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified.’ [ESV] Now think about that with me. Everybody who is called is justified. You know and I know, from the book of Romans, that nobody is justified except through faith. Romans 5:1, ‘therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God.’ Nobody is justified except they believe in Jesus, but this text says [that] everybody who’s called is justified. Not, ‘some of those who are called are justified’, namely those who choose to be, but everybody who is called is justified which means everybody who is called believes. How can that be? How can you say, ‘everybody is called believes? Aren’t some called who say “no” to the call?’ No! Now I’m rehearsing an old sermon from five weeks ago, so I can’t give it all, but here’s the summary statement. When God calls effectually, it’s like Jesus saying to Lazarus, ‘Lazarus, come forth,’ and he comes forth. Dead men live when God calls. When God called you to Himself effectually, in and through the preaching, the preaching of the gospel is not the effectual call of God. It’s the general call that goes out to everybody. In and through the gospel comes this mighty, ‘Piper, Live,’ and you live, and the cry of the newborn baby is faith. Therefore, this text will not allow us to buy the assumption that foreknowledge is simply a foreknowing of a faith which we produce on our own, without the decisive, ultimate, enabling of God. That’s clear, and therefore this interpretation won’t stand; that foreknowing is simply foreseeing self-wrought faith, it isn’t. It’s seeing God-wrought faith.
Here’s a second assumption that will make that interpretation not work. The interpretation that says all that foreknowledge is, is the foreseeing of human produced faith so that it will then decide what will become of them fails to give the meaning to the word ‘know’ in ‘foreknow’ a broad, biblical meaning that would make more sense out of this text. For example, let me read for you a half-a-dozen texts about ‘knowing’, and you supply the meaning. I might chip in a suggestion as I go along, but it will be plain to you what knowing means, and then keep this text in mind as I read these. In Genesis 18:19 God says of Abraham, ‘I have known him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord.’ Every English translation translates ‘y-da’ as choose, which baffles me, they shouldn’t. That is the meaning, but you ought to translate the word ‘know’ [as] ‘know’ so that people like you can read it and learn the meaning of ‘know’ for Romans 8:29. It’s not good when translators interpret, that’s another issue. In Amos 3:2 God says to the people of Israel, ‘You only have I known among all the families of the earth.’ He knew about all the families, but only chose Israel. In Matthew 7:23 Jesus said to the hypocrites at the judgment day, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’ What does that mean? I never knew about you? I never knew you were on the earth? I never knew anything about your life? No. I never knew you, I never made you mine, I never loved you with electing love. Psalm 1:6 says, ‘The Lord knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked will perish.’ He knows about the way of the wicked too. But he knows the way of the righteous in the sense of approving and recognizing and loving. In Hosea 13:5 God says to Israel, ‘I knew you in the wilderness, In the land of drought,’ meaning he took note of your plight and cared for you. And Genesis 4:1 says, ‘Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.’ That is, he made her his, and knew her intimately and loved her.
If you don’t know that biblical background of the word ‘know’, so much richer than our heady word ‘know’, it will be hard, I think, to put a proper meaning on verse 29. ‘Whom He foreknew,’ cared for, loved, chose, made His own. Because of all those texts I think John Stott and John Murray are exactly right when both of them say, ‘”Know” . . . is used in a sense practically synonymous with “love” . . . “Whom he foreknow” . . . is therefore virtually equivalent to "whom he foreloved.”’ Foreknowledge, is ‘sovereign, distinguishing love’ (John Stott, quoting Murray, Romans, p. 249). It's virtually the same as set your affection on and choose for your own.
So the meaning of the first act of God that guarantees Romans 8:28 is that God foreknows his own people in the sense that he chooses them and loves them and cares for them. All things work together for good for those who love God and are called because they are foreknown." - John Piper,
“Foreknown, Predestined, Conformed to Christ” preached on 8/4/02, radio broadcast 3/30/07. This quote is a compilation of transcribing (mine) some of the audio to supplement desiringgod.org’s posted manuscript http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2002/98_Foreknown_Predestined_Conformed_to_Christ/
Monday, August 27, 2007
“God’s call is almighty, and very different from my call. I’m a preacher; I call you to faith every week. I call you to love God; I call you to follow Christ; I call you to embrace Him; I call you to treasure Him. I call you week after week, and that is not the same as the divine call.
What’s the difference? My call is general, God’s call is specific.
My call offers hope, God’s call creates hope. My call offers life,
God’s call, in and through mine, gives life. My call commands you to love God, God’s call through mine grants what He commands.” - John Piper “All things for Good, Part 3a”, Desiring God Radio 3/28/07
What’s the difference? My call is general, God’s call is specific.
My call offers hope, God’s call creates hope. My call offers life,
God’s call, in and through mine, gives life. My call commands you to love God, God’s call through mine grants what He commands.” - John Piper “All things for Good, Part 3a”, Desiring God Radio 3/28/07
“God calls a person to Christ by bringing them into contact with the gospel of Jesus Christ and then making their dead hearts alive so that they hear the gospel as irresistibly true and beautiful.
God calls a person to Christ by bringing them into the hearing, or the exposure or contact with the gospel (it could be a tract, it could be radio talk, it could be a sermon, it could be the Bible); he brings them into contact with the Word of God in the gospel of Christ Crucified and risen and He uses that word, in and through it, to make their dead, unbelieving, hostile hearts awaken and come alive so that they hear and see the gospel of Christ as irresistibly true and beautiful.” John Piper “All things for Good, Part 3a”, Desiring God Radio 3/28/07
God calls a person to Christ by bringing them into the hearing, or the exposure or contact with the gospel (it could be a tract, it could be radio talk, it could be a sermon, it could be the Bible); he brings them into contact with the Word of God in the gospel of Christ Crucified and risen and He uses that word, in and through it, to make their dead, unbelieving, hostile hearts awaken and come alive so that they hear and see the gospel of Christ as irresistibly true and beautiful.” John Piper “All things for Good, Part 3a”, Desiring God Radio 3/28/07
Thursday, August 16, 2007
“How many children, now I’m going to be dangerous here but this is a warning to parents, how many children’s testimonies say that they were scared when they heard about hell and wanted to escape and so prayed to receive Jesus? Now, I believe that in His mercy, God works in little children’s hearts often at those moments so that there is more than fear of hell going on. There really is a little seed of delight in God, love for God, love for Jesus. If there isn’t, they’re not saved. To embrace Jesus as a fire insurance policy and not a beloved savior is not salvation. To embrace Him as the forgiver of sins and not to embrace Him as the lover of our soul that satisfies our desires so that we want to be with Him forever as the result of our forgiveness is not salvation.
Do you know why we love to be forgiven? Do you know why we love justification? Do you know why we love escape from hell? Do you know why we love the promise of heaven? Because all of those things do two things. One, they show us the kind of God we have and two they get us there, they get us to Him. That’s why they’re precious. Who cares about forgiveness of sins unless it means reconciliation with our Father who satisfies our souls in relationship? Forgiveness means nothing if it doesn’t produce that. Neither does justification, neither does escape from hell. ‘Heaven without Jesus,’ if that is attractive to you, you’re not saved.” - John Piper (“All Things for Good” by John Piper, originally preached June 9, 2002; radio broadcast 3/23/07)
Do you know why we love to be forgiven? Do you know why we love justification? Do you know why we love escape from hell? Do you know why we love the promise of heaven? Because all of those things do two things. One, they show us the kind of God we have and two they get us there, they get us to Him. That’s why they’re precious. Who cares about forgiveness of sins unless it means reconciliation with our Father who satisfies our souls in relationship? Forgiveness means nothing if it doesn’t produce that. Neither does justification, neither does escape from hell. ‘Heaven without Jesus,’ if that is attractive to you, you’re not saved.” - John Piper (“All Things for Good” by John Piper, originally preached June 9, 2002; radio broadcast 3/23/07)
Monday, August 6, 2007
“The human side of our salvation from the penalty of sin respects our repentance and faith. Though these possess no merits whatever, and though they in no sense purchase our pardon, yet according to the order which God has appointed, they are (instrumentally) essential, for salvation does not become ours experimentally until they are exercised. Repentance is the hand releasing those filthy objects it had previously clung to so tenaciously; faith is extending an empty hand to God to receive His gift of grace. Repentance is a godly sorrow for sin; faith is receiving a sinner s Saviour. Repentance is a revulsion of the filth and pollution of sin; faith is a seeking of cleansing therefrom. Repentance is the sinner covering his mouth and crying, "Unclean, unclean!"; faith is the leper coming to Christ and saying, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." - A.W. Pink
“A Fourfold Salvation, Chapter 2, Salvation from the Penalty of Sin” by A.W. Pink http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Four_Fold_Salvation/ffsalvation_02.htm
“A Fourfold Salvation, Chapter 2, Salvation from the Penalty of Sin” by A.W. Pink http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Four_Fold_Salvation/ffsalvation_02.htm
Thursday, July 19, 2007
“You’re not a Christian if you only love what you would have loved without being confronted with a God-centered God. If God is only a means to your self advancement and exaltation, rather than your seeing in Him something infinitely glorious as a god consumed with the manifestation of His glory, then you need to check your conversion?” - John Piper (“God's Passion for His Supremacy, Part 1 3/16/07”)
“Your passion for the supremacy of God in all things is based squarely on God’s passion for the supremacy of God in all things. Your God-centeredness, if it is going to last, if it is going to endure, has to be rooted in God’s God-centeredness. If you want God to be supreme in your life, you have to see and believe and love the truth that God is supreme in the life of God. If yo want God to be your treasure so that you value God more than anything, you have to see and believe that God’s treasure is God.” - John Piper (John Piper – “God's Passion for His Supremacy, Part 1 3/16/07”)
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Saturday, July 7, 2007
"Our basic problem as Catholics was that personal worth and dignity was ingrained into us. We believed that could respond to the help God gives us to be right in His sight. This presupposition that many of us have carried for years is aptly defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) #2021, “Grace is the help God gives us to respond to our vocation of becoming his adopted sons....” With that mindset, we were unknowingly holding to a teaching that the Bible continually condemns. Such a definition of grace is man's careful fabrication, for the Bible consistently declares that the believer's right standing with God is “without works” (Romans 4:6), “without the deeds of the Law” (Romans 3:28), “not of works” (Ephesians 2:9), “It is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8). To attempt to make the believer's response part of his salvation and to look upon grace as “a help” is to flatly deny Biblical truth, “...if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace...” (Romans 11:6)." - Richard Peter Bennett (Former Roman Catholic Priest)
"From Tradition To Truth - A Priest’s Story" by Richard Peter Bennett, p. 8-9
"From Tradition To Truth - A Priest’s Story" by Richard Peter Bennett, p. 8-9
Thursday, July 5, 2007
“I ask them, ‘How do [professing Christians] know that they’re saved?’ Well because they believe! How do you know that you believe? ‘Well I know in my heart of hearts that I am saved.’ The bible says that the heart is deceitfully wicked, Do you really want to trust a heart that can be wicked? Examine yourself. Take the Word of God, and what the Word of God says about a true Christian, and if you fall short of the test, repent. One of the greatest evidences that a person is truly a child of God is that they will be sensitive to the sin in their life. And they will be led to repentance and confession of that sin. If you don’t have a new relationship with sin, you don’t have a new relationship with God.” - Paul Washer
Friday, June 29, 2007
"’In Him’, don’t miss those two last, little, explosive, words. What this teaches is that because of our union with Him, because we are ‘in Him’, we become righteous [in] the same way Jesus became sinful. How did Jesus become sinful? Did He become sinful by sinning? No, nor do we become righteous by doing righteousness. He became sinful by having God recon to His account my sin, and I become righteous by having God recon to my account, His righteousness. And if that isn’t the best news in all the world, I don’t know what is because I know that in this life, both biblically and experientially, I’m not going to ever arrive at a point where I would qualify to be accepted by God. Ever! Therefore I must have the qualification from another, and it is His. And then the question is, ‘How do I get it?’ And the answer is ‘In Christ!’ United to Jesus, my sin is on Him, his righteousness is mine, and do you then see how huge this issue is? [Do you see] how important being ‘in Christ’ is? Union with Christ is not a throw-away, minor doctrine; it is at the center [of our doctrine]." - John Piper
(“United with Christ in Death and Life” by John Piper 10/8/2000. I personally transcribed and added the information in the brackets of this transcription.)
(“United with Christ in Death and Life” by John Piper 10/8/2000. I personally transcribed and added the information in the brackets of this transcription.)
“And I want to make sure that you understand; saving faith is not a believing in something you don’t like. Saving faith is not believing in a person [that] you don’t cherish and treasure and love. Saving faith is a believing in and a receiving of a treasure or it does not save.” - John Piper
(“Dead to the Law, Serving in the Spirit, Part 1a” Desiring God Broadcast aired on November 24, 2006 that was originally preached on January 28, 2001.)
(“Dead to the Law, Serving in the Spirit, Part 1a” Desiring God Broadcast aired on November 24, 2006 that was originally preached on January 28, 2001.)
“On one occasion when [Henry Drummond] was in England, he was invited to speak at a very uppity, snobbish, high class, west end, London club. Upon his arrival he found all of the members present, and everything was arranged for his message. And he began his speech with this very provocative truth, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the entrance fee into the Kingdom of Heaven is nothing. However, the annual subscription is everything.’”
(John MacArthur, GTY “James the son of Alphaeus, Labbeus, and Simon the Zealot part 1” 6/11/07 quoting Henry Drummond)
(John MacArthur, GTY “James the son of Alphaeus, Labbeus, and Simon the Zealot part 1” 6/11/07 quoting Henry Drummond)
“There’s a real sense, for thousands of years, up until Christ, there was a moral scandal in the universe. Divine righteousness seemed to be sleeping. Some might [have] asked if it even existed. Where is the God of justice, [because] men sin and they live.” – Dr. John F. MacArthur Jr.
(Speaking about the death of Christ as necessary for salvation/justification & without it, any forgiveness would have been evil. (4/6/7 radio; heard on 4/11/07)
(Speaking about the death of Christ as necessary for salvation/justification & without it, any forgiveness would have been evil. (4/6/7 radio; heard on 4/11/07)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
