The absolute sovereignty of God supplies the key, and nothing else does, to the unpardonableness of any sin. God has sovereignly assigned the limits to which He will suffer each rebellious creature to go--and that limit varies considerably in different cases. He has sovereignly determined when any sinner shall be finally deserted by the Holy Spirit and given over to hopeless impenitency. He has sovereignly determined when sin becomes unpardonable in the life of each transgressor. It is this which makes the subject so unspeakably solemn, for men have no means of knowing whether or not their very next act may seal their doom irrevocably. When Christ said to the Pharisees, 'Ye shall die in your sins' (John 8:21), they might be allowed to live on another fifty years, and hear the Apostle Paul preach the Gospel, yet their day of grace was over. The sins of Manasseh and Paul were pardoned because God had sovereignly decreed they should be; the sins of the Pharisees were unpardonable because God had so sovereignly ordained. Beware then of trifling with God. Beware of continuing to provoke the Most High. He will not be mocked with impunity.
None but the Lord himself can afford us any help from the awful workings of unbelief, doubting, carnal fears, murmurings. Thank God one day we will be done forever with 'unbelief.'
An ineffably holy God, who has the utmost abhorrence of all sin, was never invented by any of Adam's fallen descendants.
The atonement was not the cause but the effect of God's love.
To be strong in grace, is to be weak in sin. It is vitally essential to remember that we need to have our strength and courage renewed daily. Be strong in the Lord: seek His strength at the beginning of each day-'they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength' (Isa 40:31). God does not impart strength to us wholesale: He will not give me strength Monday morning to last through the week. No, there has to be the renewing of our strength, and that strength has to be drawn from the Lord by the acting of faith, appropriating from His 'fullness.' The enemies we have to contend with cannot be overcome by human wisdom and might. Unless we go forth to the conflict continually looking to Christ for all needed supplies of grace, deriving all our vitality from Him, we are sure to be defeated.
Learn then this basic truth, that the creator is absolutely sovereign, executing His own will, performing His own pleasures, and considering nought but His own glory. "The Lord hath made all things for Himself." (Prov. 16:4) And had He not a perfect right to? Since God is God, who dare challenge His prerogative? To murmur against Him is rank rebellion. To question His ways is to impugn His wisdom. To criticise Him is sin of the deepest dye. Have we forgotten who He is? Behold, All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God?
The sovereignty of God is an expression that once was generally understood. It was a phrase commonly used in religious literature. It was a theme frequently expounded in the pulpit. It was a truth which brought comfort to many hearts and gave virility and stability to Christian character. But today, to make mention of God's sovereignty is, in many quarters, to speak in an unknown tongue. Were we to announce from the average pulpit that the subject of our discourse would be the sovereignty of God, it would sound very much as though we had borrowed a phrase from one of the dead languages. Alas! that it should be so. Alas! that the doctrine which is the key to history, the interpreter of providence, the warp and woof of scripture, and the foundation of Christian theology should be so sadly neglected and so little understood.
Alas, how very little real Christianity there is in the world today! Christianity consists in being conformed unto the image of God's Son, 'Looking unto Jesus' constantly, trustfully, submissively, lovingly, the heart occupied with the example which Christ has left me, just in proportion as I am living upon Him and drawing from His fullness, am I realizing the ideal He has set before me. In Him is the power, from Him must be received the strength for running 'with patience' or steadfast perseverance, the race. Genuine Christianity is a life lived in communion with Christ: a life lived by faith, as His was.
The nature of Christ's salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist. He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of Fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness. The very first thing said of Him in the New Testament is, 'Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people (not from the wrath to come, but) from their sins.' (Matt. 1:21) Christ is a Savior for those realizing something of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, who feel the awful burden of it on their conscience, who loathe themselves for it, who long to be freed from its terrible dominion; and a Savior for no others. Were He to 'save from hell' those still in love with sin, He would be a Minister of sin, condoning their wickedness and siding with them against God. What an unspeakably horrible and blasphemous thing with which to charge the Holy One!
The entire doctrine of Scripture is a perfect and harmonious unit, yet for our clearer apprehension thereof it may be considered distinctively in its component parts. Strictly speaking it is inadmissible to talk to 'the doctrines of grace,' for there is but one grand and Divine doctrine of grace, though that precious doctrine has many facets in it.
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