The Necessity of Christ

The contingency of our existence declares the providence of God.  Which one of us will grasp our next breath?  Who will produce global photosynthesis and provide the next meal?  Who will maintain our proper distance from the sun?  We are contingent beings, totally dependent upon God’s merciful provision for our being.  Acts 17:25 says, “God gives to all life, breath, and all things”  and verse 28, “in Him we live and move and have our being.”  Thomas Aquinas rightly noticed that the contingency of our existence cries out the necessity of God’s existence.  I would add that it also reveals to us God’s common grace.  He is gracious to send the rain upon the just and the unjust.  He is benevolent to grant us the ability to enjoy love, kindness, and beauty.  It would be logically absurd to deny the necessary existence of God, but I do not wish only to say that God exists.  The cry of the human heart does not stop there.  We need more.  Who will make God personal to us?  Who will comfort us in our times of sorrow?  Who will rescue us from the trouble sin delivers?  The Bible speaks without equivocation to these questions and so much more.  For Colossians 2:9 tells us, “For in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” and John 1:14 says, “And the Word (Christ, who is divine) became 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.”  It does not require any great leap of faith to believe that God exists.  The eternally necessary question is this, “will you receive His grace and truth which comes only in the person of Jesus Christ?”

Jimmy Draper Interview

https://vimeo.com/56047191

It was recently my privilege to interview Jimmy Draper regarding many key issues in church life.

Beware of a Prayerless Life

It is way too easy to get caught up in the events of life and neglect prayer.  A busy day awaits most of us and we rush off to meet the day.  Even in vocational ministry it is easy to be surrounded by all of the right books, sermon resources, and reminders of the need for prayer, but to neglect the time in prayer needed to accomplish the work.  Prayerlessness is our great sin.  The life without prayer will find no power to quench the fiery darts of the evil one.  After writing with skillful instruction about equipping ourselves with the whole armor of God, Paul says we must be, "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit...with all supplication" (Eph. 6:18).  In other words, PRAY! PRAY! PRAY! PRAY!  There is no ability to discern the events of life without prayer and there is no power to stand victoriously without prayer.  We must pray long and we must pray hard.  We must pray without ceasing.  

E.M. Bounds, in his immortal book, "Power Through Prayer" shares these piercing words:
"A prayerless ministry is the undertaker for all God's truth and for God's Church.  He may have the most costly casket and the most beautiful flowers, but it is a funeral, notwithstanding the charmful array.  A prayerless Christian will never learn God's truth; a prayerless ministry will never be able to teach God's truth.  Hell has enlarged herself and filled her dire caves in the presence of the dead service of a prayerless Church."

So many of our sins are wretchedly flowing out of prayerless lives.  Pray, and please don't think you can be or do anything truly good without it.  Communion with Christ is our greatest need, and our only hope.

The Cure Begins With A Proper Diagnosis

In these days of people hurting without knowing their source of pain.  People avoiding responsibility with terminology such as "sickness" and "mental illness".  Society blaming inanimate objects for destruction of life that requires a wicked person to pull the trigger or to set the switch.  I found these words from one of the great preachers to be very fitting:

Now the problem with the world today is we’ve never really seen where the problem is. And the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart, which is desperately wicked. But I wouldn’t expect anyone to stand up in Congress and say, “Gentlemen, the problem is sin.” Would you expect that? Or would you expect someone to stand up in one of our great universities—a PhD—and say, “Sirs, I have finally found the problem with mankind. It’s sin”? Of course not! Would you expect anybody to come running out of the laboratory with a test tube and saying, “Eureka! I’ve found it! The problem is sin”? Do you think the Security Council of the U.N. is going to stand up and say, “The problem in the world and the problem between nations is sin”? No, they’re not going to say that, and that’s the reason they’re never going to solve the problem. You see, they never do get a proper diagnosis; so how on earth are they ever going to get a proper remedy? They can’t do it. And so all of these agencies and all of these people they’re spending time sweeping down cobwebs rather than killing the spider, which is sin.

And we’re just dealing with the effects. For example, we have a war on poverty. Well, we don’t need a war on poverty nearly as badly as we need a war on sin. Now I’m not saying poverty is a good thing, but dear friend, poverty is even rooted in sin: the greed, and the grasping, and the carelessness, and the hatefulness, and the waste, and the strife, and the wantonness, that has turned this world into a garden of weeds and a swamp where the mosquitoes of hate are breeding by the millions. The costliest thing around is sin. Don’t you forget it. And I tell you, if we’d just have a war on sin, we’d do something about the poverty problem and every other problem. But you see, nobody wants to admit what the problem is, so no wonder we are never coming to the solution.

From the sermon, “The Victory of Faith,” by Adrian Rogers

Considering the Sinner's Prayer

Considering the Sinner’s Prayer

The debates can be intense and the misrepresentations superfluous regarding the role and use of a sinner’s prayer.  Certainly we have seen many improper uses of a sinner’s prayer that have led many to a false sense of security regarding salvation.  These excesses must be avoided.  Yet we also must confess that Scripture provides precedent for one convicted about their sin crying out for God to be merciful.  Jesus speaks of a humbled tax collector who felt the convicting power of God in Matthew 18:13.  The man, “standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’”  Peter certainly offered a prayer of acceptance and humility, when after Jesus showed him divine power over the fish of the sea, Peter “fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:8)  The prodigal son came to the realization of his sinful condition and expressed a prayer of repentance in Luke 15:18, “I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.”  The clear repentance reflected in this great parable manifests the heart’s cry of one turning away from sin and turning to God.  The thief on the cross offers a type of sinner’s prayer when he spoke up for righteousness by correcting the other thief, and expressed repentance with, “do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds.”  And then He turned to Jesus and said, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” (Luke 23:29-40)  At Pentecost, Peter even instructs his responsive audience after preaching a convicting sermon.  In response to their question, “What shall we do?” Peter tells them they must “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” (Acts 2:37-38)  Paul and Silas instruct the Philippian jailer in the same manner as he asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”  They guide him to a proper response in salvation, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:30-31)  The biblical record is clear that a proper response to the hearing of the gospel is for a sinner to pray to the merciful God.  The mistake against which we must guard is the false promise that seems to accompany some type of mechanized prayer.  We must not give a sense of assurance to someone just because they have repeated the words of a prayer recited before them.  It is right and biblical to instruct someone honestly responding to God’s grace, but we must never cheapen the call to discipleship.  There are too many today who, “went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.” (1 John 2:19)  It is my fear, and the fear of others, that many have contributed to this error by offering people a half-true gospel.  And in the end a half-true gospel makes half-true disciples, who are no disciples at all.

We Give Thanks

We Give Thanks

Pastor Richmond Goolsby

"We give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks!  For your wondrous works declare that Your name is near."  Psalm 75:1

It is that wonderful time of year when we set aside a special day to give thanks to God.  We are to give Him thanks with great exuberance as reflected in the repetition of “we give thanks!” in Psalm 75.  Enthusiastic praise is the cry of the hearts of God’s people everywhere, for we know that “every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights.” (James 1:17)  It is the providential hand of our Father which reaches into the depth of His goodness and dispenses multiplied blessings to His children.  And as we look at His wondrous works we stand amazed in His presence. We stand amazed not only because His works are so wondrous, but that He would extend them to us.  As undeserving as we are of God’s bountiful blessings, we give Him thanks out of a gratitude that knows He gives goodness that we do not deserve.  At no time in history has God declared His wonder more than in the life of Jesus Christ.  The Bible tells us that Jesus “became 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 1:14)  In the incarnation of Christ we find the glory of God displayed.  In the first coming of Jesus we see God dwelling among us.  God has made His name near and proclaimed it to be so in the works of our merciful Savior.  As Jesus died on the cross, He displayed God’s love for fallen sinners and provided the way for salvation.  As Jesus rose from the grave, He declared that victory is won for all who depend upon Him.  For this, and so much more, we give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks!

Giving Thanks

"We give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks!  For your wondrous works declare that Your name is near."  Psalm 75:1

God is so worthy of our thanksgiving.  With His gentle hand He has provided our lives.  With the might that holds up the universe, He sustains each breath we breathe.  Each individual act of God's power and grace is a gift.  And the gifts He gives are innumerable.  We give Him thanks because He is good.  He gives because He is good.  Out of His goodness flows the wondrous works we receive.  Each wondrous work declares the goodness of His name.  But the goodness of God refuses to leave His name out of reach, for we see that His works declare His name is near.
In His transcendent magnificence He is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light.  No man dare to even consider looking upon His full glory.  Certainly there are times that He chooses to reveal a portion of the glory which surrounds Him, but no man can look upon God and live.  Yet, in all of His omnipotent splendor God has chosen to come near.  He has chosen to declare that He is near by declaring so through His wondrous works.  He has chosen to come near in the person of Jesus Christ.  As John says, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father."
God is near today for all who follow Christ, and we should thank Him.  He is good.  He is powerful.  He cares enough to intervene.  Give Him thanks with your life.