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More Than Conquerors
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


Two boys fight in a back alley. Fists fly. Shouts go up from the other youngsters standing by. “Give it to ‘im! Let ‘im have it!”

Finally one of the two struts away with an arrogant bearing, head and shoulders wagging. He has won!

But has he? Look at him. He has a bloody nose, a black eye and welts on his face and arms. And if looks could kill he wouldn’t even be alive, for while his friends shout his praises, the boy he has beaten gives him a look that says: “Just wait.” He has not won anything except, perhaps, a bitter and lasting enemy.

So it is with the wars that nations wage against each other. Necessary as it sometimes becomes to defend our liberties, our homes, our way of life, by force of arms, seldom does any nation actually win the war. Rather all lose, even the “victors,” as in their “victories” they sow the bitterness and hate which are the seeds of future wars.

It is different, however, with “the good fight of [the] faith,” for the Christian may come out of every battle stronger than when he went in. Only the Christian can say with regard to the heartaches and disappointments, the difficulties and obstacles, that cross his path: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us” (Rom. 8:37).

During Paul’s busy ministry for Christ he suffered a painful “thorn in the flesh,” and “besought the Lord thrice” that it might be taken away. The Lord did not see fit to remove the thorn, but answered Paul:

    “My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (II Cor. 12:9).

Paul’s response:

    “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me… for when I am weak, then am I strong” (Vers. 9,10).

Let all go well, and we are prone to grow careless in our Christian lives. Adversity, on the other hand, makes Christians lean the harder and pray the more — and therein lies their strength and their victory.

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The Hope of Glory
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


We are taught in Romans 5 that the believer in Christ receives justification, peace with God, access to God and the “hope,” or anticipation, of sharing His glory some day. God wants His children to enjoy this coming glory by faith, to live in eager anticipation of it.

How much there is to humiliate us in this life! God created man in His own image and likeness, but man sinned and fell from his exalted position. To Adam God said:

    “Cursed is the ground because of thee; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.”

Since that dreadful day man’s life has been a constant struggle. Everything tends to go wrong rather than right. Each has his share of trouble, sorrow, sickness and then — death, the greatest humiliation of all, when in sickness and pain, or at best in utter weakness, he must give up this life itself.

Sin and the fall! This is what modern science and philosophy fail to face up to. Most popular scientists and philosophers today hold that man has come up from the slime pit and the ape to modern man; that man is improving all the time. But the truth of God’s Word is that man has fallen through sin and is growing worse morally and spiritually until now he can kill more of his fellowmen faster than he ever could before.

But it is this fact, this fact of sin and the fall that God has so graciously provided for. He took all the suffering and shame, paid all the penalty for our sins, and then rose from the dead so that we might rejoice in the hope, the eager anticipation, of glory to come!

As St. Peter puts it in I Pet. 1:3:

    “[He] hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

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Wrath or Respite
by Pastor Ricky Kurth


When natural disasters such as hurricanes and tsunamis take their toll in death and destruction, many preachers insist these calamities are the result of the wrath of God on sin, pointing to such verses as Ephesians 5:6, where speaking of the sins of Verses 3-5, Paul says:

    “…for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.”

Since the Greek word for “cometh” here is in the present tense, we believe Paul is saying that while God’s wrath is coming, it hasn’t yet arrived. Consider: after the Lord announced that His betrayer was “at hand,” we read that “immediately… cometh Judas” (Mark 14:42,43). However, we know that Judas had not yet arrived, for Verse 45 tells us what happened “as soon as he was come.” You see, the word “cometh” means that something is presently on its way, but the word must be in the past tense for us to understand that whatever is coming has arrived.

While many preachers declared that Hurricane Katrina was God’s wrath on New Orleans for the debauchery of Mardi Gras, others surmised the catastrophe was rather an example of God’s mercy, for thousands more would have died had the levies broken during the storm rather than after. Herein lies the problem in determining what God is doing or not doing by trying to interpret circumstances, which are always subjective and open to speculation. The only sure way of knowing what God is doing is from the Word of God, and God’s Word tells us that the presence of even ten believers in New Orleans would have prevented God from destroying it (Gen. 18:23-33). And so while even insurance companies call tornadoes and earthquakes “acts of God,” the Bible asserts that we are living in the dispensation of grace (Eph. 3:2), an age in which God is dispensing grace, not wrath, an age in which mankind is experiencing a respite from His judgment.

But if the reader of this page is not saved, please don’t think you will get away with sin forever. Romans 2:5 describes you as one who “treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath.” You may not have an account with any bank, but you have a sin account with God. His wrath on your sin is not being revealed today, but the day of the “revelation of the righteous judgment of God” is coming. Why not “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

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A Spiritual Workout
by Pastor Kevin Sadler


    “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12,13).

Perhaps you have seen the Christian slogan, “Exercise Daily.  Walk with the Lord!”  Essentially, that is what the Apostle Paul is calling for when he requests for the Philippians to “work out your own salvation.”  When Paul makes this statement, he has already acknowledged that he is writing to “saints” (Phil. 1:1), to believers who were positionally in Christ, set apart from sin and set apart to God.  Paul does not say to “work for your own salvation,” but to work “out” the salvation God had already given them.  Scripture is clear that salvation today is all of grace through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast (Eph. 2:8,9).  Salvation must first be worked in before it can be worked out.

The Philippians are instructed here by Paul to “work out,” to put into practice in their daily experience what God had wrought in them by His Spirit.  When we trust the all-sufficient provision made for us by Christ’s death and resurrection, salvation is worked in by the Spirit (Titus 3:5).  And salvation is worked out by the Spirit through our faith and obedience to God’s Word (Rom. 8:11).

Working out your salvation is about living the way you were saved: by grace through faith in Christ (Col. 2:6).  Salvation is found in a Person.  Christ is our salvation.  At the moment of trusting Him alone for our salvation, Christ’s life is in-worked in us.  Paul says in Colossians 1:27 that all who have trusted the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior have “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  After salvation from sin’s penalty, God desires Christ’s life to be outworked practically in our lives, so others see His life in our life.  As we do so through the Spirit’s power, by the Word, in faith, we work out our own salvation and our lives will exhibit Christ-like attributes (cf. Gal. 5:22,23).  To work out our salvation is also to live in victory over sin in our daily lives, experiencing salvation over sin’s power by God’s resurrection power within, living righteously in the life and freedom we have in Christ (Rom. 6:1-13).

Verse 12 shows us there is human responsibility to our Christian lives as we are told to “work.”  Effort must be put into the Christian life, effort to grow, effort to know the Word, effort to pray, effort to serve, and effort to be in fellowship with others.  And Paul says that we are to work out our own salvation “with fear and trembling.”  These terms show us that the outworking of our salvation must be done realizing the seriousness of the Christian life in living before a lost and dying world.  We live “in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation [generation]” and God would have us shine brightly and boldly for Him “as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).  Working out our own salvation with fear and trembling also reminds us of our own weakness and inability to live the Christian life in our own strength.  We should rightly fear and distrust our own ability to meet God’s will and instruction.  We need to humbly trust in Him and not in ourselves to live godly lives.  By His power we work out our own salvation and can show Christ’s life in us.

Paul is talking about the believer’s practical, daily sanctification here and he shows both the believer’s responsibility and God’s role in it.  Verse 12 could not be carried out without the reality of verse 13.  We could never work out our own salvation and grow and mature to be more like Christ without God working in us.  God does not ask of us what we can’t do, and He Himself is our provision.  The Christian life is a process of “ins” and “outs.”  God works in and we work out.  As God works in us and we grow spiritually in Him and His Word and prayer, we then work out His life and light, serving Him and others.

I Thessalonians 2:13 says, “the Word of God…effectually worketh…in you that believe.”  God works in us by His Word, and changes our will and desires as we grow and apply it.  Our minds, attitude, priorities, worldview, and understanding of life are transformed by the Word of God.  Through it we learn to see the world through His eyes and feel with His heart.  As God works in us by the Word, His “will” becomes ours, and we will seek to “do” things of “His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).  And to will and do of God’s good pleasure is about “Look[ing] not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Phil. 2:4).  God’s will and desire is for us to put the needs of others first, in love, like Christ did for us at the Cross (Phil. 2:5-8.).

In Ephesians 3:20, Paul writes, “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”  Paul says the unlimited power by which Almighty God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask in prayer is the same power that works in us.  So there is no limit to what God can do in and through you and me.  As God works in us, He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, or could ever conceive, or possibly imagine through you and me!

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Birth, Death And Rebirth
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


St. Peter declares that to obtain eternal life we must be born again, since by nature we were born but to die.

    “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away. But the Word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the Word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (I Pet. 1 :23-25).

Our Lord emphasized this same fact to the Pharisee Nicodemus. “That which is born of the flesh,” He said, “is flesh… Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again” (John 3:6,7).

Nicodemus was devoutly religious, and he even recognized Christ as “a teacher come from God” (John 3:2). But he was not saved. He had not been “born of the Spirit,” and “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” even though it is “religious flesh.” Therefore it must die. Nicodemus, like many sincerely religious people today, needed to be born again — of the Spirit, by faith in the Word, of which the Spirit is the Author.

Some suppose that Paul did not teach the new birth, but they are wrong. He taught it consistently, and nowhere more clearly than in Titus 3:5, where he wrote by divine inspiration:

    “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration [re-birth] and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

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Conversation Peace
by Pastor Ricky Kurth


    “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Phil. 1:27).

Interestingly, whenever Paul uses the phrase “stand fast,” it is always to challenge people to stand fast in an area in which they were not standing fast! For instance, he tells the Corinthians to “stand fast in the faith” (I Cor. 16:13), for they had lost their faith in one of the fundamentals of the faith, the resurrection (I Cor. 15:12-50). He told the Galatians to “stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” (Gal. 5:1) because they were forsaking grace for the law. He told the Thessalonians to “stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught” (II Thes. 2:15), especially the “tradition” of working for a living (3:7-12). The Thessalonians had become so excited about the Rapture that many of them quit their jobs in anticipation of the Lord’s coming!

But here in Philippians 1:27, Paul tells the Philippians to “stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.” This is because two ladies in the church were quarreling (4:2), and some in the church were siding with Euodias and some with Syntyche. “Striving together” is the Greek word sunathleo. The prefix sun means together with, and athleo is the word from which we get athlete and athletics. Athletes are often teammates who must strive together to achieve a common victory, and this is what Paul was calling on the Philippians to do for the cause of Christ.

Notice Paul isn’t talking about faith in the gospel. The faith of the gospel is our faithfulness or fidelity to maintaining the gospel as God gave it, just as old “high-fi” or “high-fidelity” records claimed to be highly faithful to the sound recorded in the studio. We are to strive together to maintain fidelity to the gospel God gave to Paul.

Finally, Paul does not say we should strive with one another for the faith of the gospel. He rather says we should be striving “together” as those who see the fellowship of the mystery with those who don’t. With all the talk about “peace on earth”, how refreshing it would be if we could enjoy the “conversation peace” Paul longed to see in Philippi! (Psa. 133:1; Eph. 4:3).

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He Gave Thanks
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


At the institution of the Lord’s Supper, as He took the bread and the wine, we read that he “gave thanks” (Matt.26: 26,27; Luke 22:19,20).

Surely on this occasion He did not give thanks for food supplied! He was handling the symbols of His broken body and His shed blood. How we would like to know just what He said at this solemn moment; just what He gave thanks for!

This we shall never know in this life, but there are some basic facts we do know.

It was for love for sinful men that He was to die. He was to pay their debt of sin, and He looked forward to the time when, not only redeemed Israel, but the redeemed of every nation and dispensation will rejoice in sins forgiven and all that this entails for them. As He “gave thanks” in view of Calvary, He will then rejoice at the results of Calvary. The overflowing joy that will be the portion of the redeemed will be a greater joy to Him.

Thus Paul’s words in Hebrews 12:2 give us cause to rejoice in true thanksgiving of our Lord’s finished work of redemption on Calvary cross:

    “Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

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What Shall We Do?
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


When John the Baptist appeared as Christ’s forerunner, God’s chosen people had lived under the law of Moses for fifteen hundred years but had not kept it. Hence John’s call to repentance and baptism for the remission of sins (Mark 1:4).

John was in earnest, too, for when the thoughtless multitude came to him to be baptized, he sent them back, saying: “Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:7,8.).

Their lives were to be changed and they were to show it.  When the people asked: “What shall we do, then?” he told them to live for others rather than for self (Luke 3:10,11). When the tax collectors asked: “What shall we do?” he demanded that they stop cheating the tax payers and live honestly (Vers. 12,13). When the soldiers asked: “What shall we do?” he told them to forbear violence, false accusation and bribery (Ver. 14).

Clearly, righteousness was demanded under John’s message. His hearers were to repent, be baptized, and bring forth the fruits of true repentance. When our Lord appeared, He proclaimed the same message as John (Matt. 3:1,2; 4:17). A lawyer asked: “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” and He replied: “What is written in the law?” When the lawyer recited the basic commands of the Law, our Lord answered: “This do and thou shalt live” (Luke 10:25-28.). God was still demanding righteousness. They were all under the Law (Gal. 4:4,5; Matt. 23:1,2; etc.).

Some suppose this was all changed after Calvary by the so-called “great commission.” This is not so. When, at Pentecost, Peter’s hearers were convicted of their sins and asked “What shall we do?” Peter commanded them to “repent and be baptized… for the remission of sins” just as John had done (Mark 1:4; cf. Acts 2:38.). He did not tell them that Christ had died for their sins.

Paul was the first to say: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested… [We] declare His righteousness for the remission of sins” (Rom. 3:21-26). When the Gentile jailor fell on his knees and asked: “What must I do to be saved?” Paul replied: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:30,31). This is God’s message for sinners today, for “we have redemption through [Christ's] blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7).

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Redeemed
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


    “We have redemption through His blood…” (Eph. 1 :7).

Our English word “redeem” is actually a translation of three beautiful Greek words:

Agarazo: to buy at the market.

Ex-agarazo: to buy out of the market.

Lutro: to set free (upon receipt or payment of the ransom
price.)

It is the last of these that is used in Eph. 1:7. The believer in Christ has liberty — purchased liberty — through Christ’s shed blood.

First we were “bought with a price” and “redeemed to God” (I Cor. 6:20; Rev. 5:9). Further, we were “redeemed from the curse of the law” (Gal. 3:13). And now, best of all, we have been set gloriously free (Eph. 1:7; Gal. 5:1).

Why not turn in your Bible to Ephesians 1:6-8 and read this brief passage thoughtfully to see the boundless generosity of God’s dealings with those who put their trust in Christ as their Savior.

“To the praise of the glory of His grace” God “hath made us accepted [or, hath engraced us] in the Beloved One, ” in whom we have, “redemption” and “the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath abounded toward us…”

Redeemed! Purchased out of the slave market of sin and the law — and set gloriously free! Does this foster loose, careless conduct? By no means! When our Lord had given a blind man his sight, He said to him: “Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole,” but the record hastens to add that he “followed Jesus in the way” (Mark 10:52).

Could anything be more natural? And could anything be more natural than a redeemed, liberated sinner longing to please and serve his divine Benefactor? The Apostle Paul expressed this well when he wrote, in II Cor. 5:14: “The love of Christ constraineth us.”

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Paul, the Pattern -- His Conversion
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


No conversion in sacred history is given so much attention as that of St. Paul. Besides the many references to it, we find three detailed accounts of it in the book of Acts. As Saul of Tarsus, the learned Pharisee, he had led his nation and the world in rebellion against God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

St. Luke says: “As for Saul, he made havock of the church” (Acts 8:3). The believers at Damascus feared Saul’s presence among them, saying: “Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem?” (Acts 9:21). Paul himself later testified: “Many of the saints did I shut up in prison…and when they were put to death, I gave my voice [vote] against them” (Acts 26:10). “…beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it [laid it waste]” (Gal. 1:13).

There must have been an important reason why God saved this rebel leader. Clearly it was that He might make Paul, not only the herald, but the living example of “the exceeding riches of His grace” to sinners. Paul himself said:

    “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord…for…putting me into the ministry; who was before A BLASPHEMER, AND A PERSECUTOR, AND INJURIOUS: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. AND THE GRACE OF OUR LORD WAS EXCEEDING ABUNDANT….This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that CHRIST JESUS CAME INTO THE WORLD TO SAVE SINNERS, OF WHOM I AM CHIEF. HOWBEIT FOR THIS CAUSE I OBTAINED MERCY, THAT IN ME FIRST JESUS CHRIST MIGHT SHOW FORTH ALL LONGSUFFERING, FOR A PATTERN TO THEM WHICH SHOULD HEREAFTER BELIEVE ON HIM TO LIFE EVERLASTING” (I Tim. 1:12-16).

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The Mystery
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


In Eph. 3:1-3 “the dispensation of the grace of God” is specifically called “the mystery” (i.e., secret). It is thus designated for two reasons:

1.  It had been “kept secret since the world began, but now,” through Paul, had been “made manifest” (Rom. 16:25). “In other ages” it was “not made known” (Eph. 3:5). Rather, “from the beginning of the world” it had been “hid in God” (Ver. 9), “hid from ages and from generations, but now… made manifest to His saints” (Col. 1:26).

2.  It was at the same time the explanation, the key, to all God’s good news, including that which had been proclaimed in ages past. It explained how it was that Abel could be declared righteous by bringing an animal sacrifice, “God testifying of his gifts” (Heb. 11:4), how Noah could become “an heir of… righteousness” by building an ark (Heb. 11:7), how anyone could be saved under the dispensation of the Law, and how it is that we can be saved today by grace through faith alone.

Thus we have in Paul’s epistles, not only the gospel [good news] of “the secret” (Eph. 3:1-3), but at the same time, “the secret of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19,20).

This great secret, revealed to and through Paul, has rightly been called the capstone of divine revelation, for it concerns God’s eternal purpose in Christ. Through Paul, the chief of sinners saved by grace, God has now made this glorious secret known to us (Eph. 1:9) that we, in turn, might make it known to others (Eph. 3:9).

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The Revelation of Jesus Christ
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


The last great book of the Bible opens with the words: “The revelation of Jesus Christ,” and from these words it derives its title: “The Revelation.” In this book St. John deals largely with the return of Christ in glory to judge and reign.

II Thes. 1:7,8 tells us that one day “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven… in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that… obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is what the book of the Revelation is basically about. But this phraseology is also used in Paul’s epistles, for in Gal. 1:11,12 he says:

    “I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Surely this is not the same “revelation of Jesus Christ” of which John wrote. St. Paul refers not to “the revelation of Jesus Christ” in glory, but to “the revelation of Jesus Christ” in grace while He delays the judgment; not His revelation to the world in person, but His revelation to the world through Paul the chief of sinners, saved by grace. In Verses 15,16 of Gal. 1, the Apostle says: “…it pleased God… to reveal His Son in Me.” What a revelation of grace to a sin-cursed world when God saved Saul, His bitter, blaspheming enemy! He tells about it in I Tim. 1:13-16, where he says:

    “ was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious… Howbeit, FOR THIS CAUSE I OBTAINED MERCY, THAT IN ME FIRST JESUS CHRIST MIGHT SHOW FORTH ALL LONGSUFFERING, FOR A PATTERN TO THEM WHICH SHOULD HEREAFTER BELIEVE ON HIM TO LIFE EVERLASTING.”

This is why Paul says: “…it pleased God… to reveal His Son in Me.” By saving the chief of sinners (as Paul calls himself in I Tim. 1:15), God would show us that He is willing to save any sinner, “for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13).

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Looking Up
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


How many people, even Christian people, live in fear these days! They consider how we have gone from atom bombs to hydrogen bombs to nitrogen bombs, with megatons of explosive power. They read about all the deadly weapons being perfected by countries all over the world, and they fear that frightful destruction may at any time overtake them.

It does indeed appear that this world is headed toward the prophesied destruction, but true believers should understand that God has clearly predicted that He will recall His ambassadors before giving the world up in judgment.  Paul, the apostle of grace, made it clear that no one can tell how long the dispensation of grace will last, but he did declare that this age would close with the coming of our Lord for His own.

    “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

    “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

    “Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (I Thes. 4:16-18.).

In the next chapter, we have the prediction of the pouring out of God’s wrath on the world but the believer in Christ will escape this.

Thus Paul reminded the Thessalonians how they had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven…” (I Thes. 1:9,10). Thus too he reminded the Philippians: “Our conversation [citizenship] is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). And thus, finally, he  instructed Titus to be looking for that blessed hope, and the appearing in glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

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The Dispensation of Grace
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


Many people have a mistaken notion that a dispensation is a period of time. This is not so, however, for the word “dispense” means simply “to deal out”. The word “dispensation”, then, means “the act of dispensing or dealing out”, or “that which is dispensed or dealt out”.

There are medical dispensaries, for example, where medicines are dispensed to the poor. Sometimes these dispensations are conducted on a particular day of each week. Such a dispensation of medicine may take a full twelve hours each week, but it does not follow from this that a dispensation is a period of twelve hours! It is rather the act of dispensing or that which is dispensed.

The word “dispensation” is used many times in the Bible, although it is not always translated the same way. In Ephesians 3:2, Paul writes of “the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you-ward”. God had committed to him wonderful message of grace to dispense to others. Thus we read in Acts 20:24 his stirring words, spoken in the face of persecution and death:

    “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, AND THE MINISTRY WHICH I HAVE RECEIVED OF THE LORD JESUS, TO TESTIFY THE GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD.”

The “gospel” or “good news” of the grace of God: This was the dispensation committed to Paul for us by the risen, ascended Lord. This is always Paul’s message.

    “Where sin abounded GRACE did much more abound…the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His GRACE… justified freely by His GRACE, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…by GRACE are ye saved, through faith” (Rom. 5:20; Eph. 1:7; Rom. 3:24; Eph. 2:8,9).

[nChrist]

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Sin Kills -- Christ Saves
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


The Bible clearly states that “as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law” (Rom. 2:12).

Some people overlook or forget the fact that entirely apart from the Law, sin kills. This is evident on every hand. Envy, hate, vice and profligate living dissipate the human frame and destroy it.

This is why so many in pagan lands barely live out half their lives. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” entirely apart from law and judgment.

But Rom. 2:12 goes on to say that “as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.” Let’s think this through too.

Here, let’s say, is a man who begins to take narcotics. He gets deeper and deeper into drug addiction, and has to cheat and steal to get the money to buy more. Soon his life is ruined; he’s a human wreck — entirely apart from the law.

But now the law catches up with him and there is a new situation. He is taken to court and found guilty and sent to jail. This is the legal penalty for his crime, a crime which was destroying him anyway. So the Law is of no help to sinners; it only adds the just condemnation of sin to the natural — and deplorable — results of sin.

How wonderful, then, to know that the death of Christ is so complete a solution to man’s twofold problem! Romans 5 explains how Christ, at Calvary, came to our rescue, both in our helplessness and in the condemnation that spelled our doom.

    Ver. 6: “When we were yet without strength… Christ died for the ungodly.”

    Ver. 8: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”