Assurance

Can one have assurance of being a child of God?

Can one know for sure heaven will be their eternal home?

Do you know beyond a doubt, that when you die, you will be welcomed into the presence of God and not have to face hell as your eternal abode?

Some say “That’s absurd! No one will know absolutely until they die…”

Others have said, “I hope so.”

Some very pompous religionists will tell us “If we continue in good works (defined by various criteria) we have a good chance, if we endure to the end.”

Romans 10:17; says, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

I cannot make you, dear reader, believe what I am about to layout here. Nor is it my intention to do so, but the Bible is God’s Word and it loudly says that you can know for sure without doubt that you are a child of God, heaven will be your eternal home, you will be welcomed into the presence of God and not have to face hell. Don't take my word for it see what God has said.

This promise is not made for everyone, but only to those who believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead. Here are a few Scriptures to read, ask God to help you understand them. If you have questions about them let me know in the comment section or by my email link in the profile section.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.. (John 1:12-14)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John. 3:16-18)

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. (John. 5:24)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. (Ro. 8:1-2)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of his glory. (Eph. 1:13-14)

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ro. 6:23)

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1Jo. 5:13)

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Heb 9:12-14)

In His fellowship,
Brother John

בראשית

בראשית

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Is this first verse of Genesis to be taken figuratively, or spiritual? What does it mean? When the author wrote this down what was He (oops, he) thinking?

Perhaps this is mythical or poetical. Is it valid to view it either of those ways?

What if it is literal? Then what?

Then what?

Stay bright,
brother John

Right Where They Are

For this post I am assuming some knowledge on the part of the reader. I wish to sway certain reductionists, whom I love in the truth that we do have biblical precedence to evangelize in cultures that have no Bible background beginning right where they are. Presenting the Lord Jesus Christ just as He is the Creator God become man dying and raising from the dead! This is the good news. We may be born again.

Acts 17:15-34 (NIV)

The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.

In Athens
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

In His fellowship,
brother John

The Longest Psalm

Last week our ABF teacher Dave Mullins has challenged our class to read Psalm 119 this week we are to begin to memorize verses 9-16. Prompted by my Monday morning meeting with brother Chad Preslowski (I hope I am pronouncing it correctly) we read the psalm in three (3) different versions. After reading it through I began to read Spurgeon’s Treasury of David, this man truly waxes eloquent and I am commending it to your reading. I will be posting some of it here at The Earnest Contender Blogspot the whole volume can be found by clicking here.

Stay salty,
Brother John

Introduction to Psalm 119

TITLE. There is no title to this Psalm, neither is any author's name mentioned. It is THE LONGEST PSALM, and this is a sufficiently distinctive name for it. It equals in bulk twenty-two psalms of the average length of the Songs of Degrees. Nor is it long only; for it equally excels in breadth of thought, depth of meaning, and height of fervour. It is like the celestial city which lieth four square, and the height and the breadth of it are equal. Many superficial readers have imagined that it harps upon one string, and abounds in pious repetitions and redundancies; but this arises from the shallowness of the reader's own mind: those who have studied this divine hymn, and carefully noted each line of it, are amazed at the variety and profundity of the thought. Using only a few words, the writer has produced permutations and combinations of meaning which display his holy familiarity with his subject, and the sanctified ingenuity of his mind. He never repeats himself; for if the same sentiment recurs it is placed in a fresh connection, and so exhibits another interesting shade of meaning. The more one studies it the fresher it becomes. As those who drink the Nile water like it better every time they take a draught, so does this Psalm become the more full and fascinating the oftener you turn to it. It contains no idle word; the grapes of this cluster are almost to bursting full with the new wine of the kingdom. The more you look into this mirror of a gracious heart the more you will see in it. Placid on the surface as the sea of glass before the eternal throne, it yet contains within its depths an ocean of fire, and those who devoutly gaze into it shall not only see the brightness, but feel the glow of the sacred flame. It is loaded with holy sense, and is as weighty as it is bulky. Again and again have we cried while studying it, "Oh the depths!" Yet these depths are hidden beneath an apparent simplicity, as Augustine has well and wisely said, and this makes the exposition all the more difficult. Its obscurity is hidden beneath a veil of light, and hence only those discover it who are in thorough earnest, not only to look on the word, but, like the angels, to look into it.

The Psalm is alphabetical. Eight stanzas commence with one letter, and then another eight with the next letter, and so the whole Psalm proceeds by octonaries quite through the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Besides which, there are multitudes of appositions of sense, and others of those structural formalities with which the oriental mind is pleased, -- formalities very similar to those in which our older poets indulged. The Holy Spirit thus deigned to speak to men in forms which were attractive to the attention and helpful to the memory. He is often plain or elegant in his manner, but he does not disdain to be quaint or formal if thereby his design of instruction can be the more surely reached. He does not despise even contracted and artificial modes of speech, if by their use he can fix his teaching upon the mind. Isaac Taylor has worthily set forth the lesson of this fact: -- "In the strictest sense this composition is conditioned;nevertheless in the highest sense is it an utterance of spiritual life; and in thus finding these seemingly opposed elements, intimated commingled as they are throughout this Psalm, a lesson full of meaning is silently conveyed lo those who shall receive it-- that the conveyance of the things of God to the human spirit is in no way damaged or impeded, much less is it deflected or ciliated by its subjugation to loose modes of utterance which most of all bespeak their adaptation to the infancy and the childlike capacity of the recipient."

The Teaching Ministry of Dave Mullins

I had the privilege of sitting under the teaching ministry of Dave Mullins in our Adult Bible Fellowship (ABF). What a refreshing time. Dave will be teaching our class for the summer months and gave us a preview of what he is planning for us. I’ll post more details if God permits, but my time is limited on Monday morning due to an early Bible study with a friend.

In His fellowship,
Brother John

Lordship

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

The Bible does not speak of Lordship Soteriology but it does speak much of Lordship Christology.

Stay salty,
Brother John

A Good Post

There is a good post at Still Reforming. I don't know how I overlooked it. See it by clicking here.