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Forgiveness That Cannot Be Revoked
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


Centuries before Christ, the Psalmist said:

    “If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities… who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee…” (Psa. 130:3,4).

It is doubtful whether the Psalmist understood the basis upon which a just God, through the ages, has so graciously forgiven sins, but this has since been revealed in the Epistles of Paul.

There we read: “God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). But this is only part of the truth, for God forgives sinners, not merely because Christ desires this, but because Christ paid for their sins and purchased their redemption. Thus Eph. 1:7 declares: “In [Christ] we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”

And thus Paul could proclaim to his hearers in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch:

    “Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:

    “And by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38,39).

Obviously such forgiveness can never be rescinded or revoked, for it is based upon the full and complete payment of our whole debt of sin by “the precious blood of Christ.”

Sad to say, many people do not feel they need forgiveness, for they have not seen themselves as they truly are in the sight of a holy God, but those who are conscious of their sins and are willing to say with the prodigal son: “I have sinned,” may experience the peace and joy of sins forgiven by faith in Christ who paid sin’s penalty for us.

Here is forgiveness that can never be revoked because it is based on the “one offering [of Christ at Calvary]” by which our Lord “hath perfected forever them that are sanctified [i.e., set apart as His own]” (Heb. 10:14).

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Let It Get You Down
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


    “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3: 14).

When adversity strikes, the world keeps telling us: “Don’t let it get you down,” but believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have learned that it is good to let troubles and difficulties get them down — down on their knees.

A native evangelist in Africa sat outside his hut discouraged and unhappy. Trouble and disappointment had brought “great coldness” into his heart and he seemed ready to give up. The Lord, he felt, had utterly forsaken him. As he sat there, though, his little girl kept nudging him and saying: “Daddy, go inside and pray .” Finally it worked! The evangelist went inside, poured his heart out to God and arose feeling sure that the Lord would see him through.

It is good for us to get down on our knees before God. There is no attitude more appropriate to the redeemed sinner. And as we pray, often falteringly….

    “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

    “And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

    “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose”
    (Rom. 8:26-28.).

    “Be careful [anxious] for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

    “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6,7).

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Choosing Commissions
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


How foolish and wrong it is for any of us to use “snatch-grab” methods, as Pastor J. C. O’Hair called them, in ascertaining our Lord’s will for us! What right have we to choose some particular segment or segments of our Lord’s instructions to the eleven in the forty days between His resurrection and ascension, and to apply only these to ourselves or to the Church today?

Nothing could be clearer than the fact that our Lord “showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). In those forty days then, one Person, our Lord, spoke to eleven men, and gave instructions as to the program they were to carry out after His ascension. In every single case it is crystal clear that these commands were not directed to others, who were to live at some future date, but to the apostles, who were to commence to carry them out after His departure, when the Holy Spirit had endued them with power.

This is emphasized by the phraseology found in all five records of the so-called “Great Commission”: Matt. 28:19: “Go ye,” Mark 16:15: “Go ye,” Luke 24:48: “Ye are witnesses,” John 20:21: “So send I you,” and Acts 1:8: “Ye shall be witnesses.” How preposterous, then, to argue, as so many hard-pressed theologians have done, that one or more segments of the great commission are to be carried out by another generation at a later time!

By what rule of hermeneutics or logic have we the right to exclude from the interpretation of these commands the very persons to whom our Lord gave them, and if this commission is binding on the Church today, what authority have we to choose which part or parts we shall obey?

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Forgiveness
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


    “WE HAVE REDEMPTION THROUGH [Christ’s] BLOOD, THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS, ACCORDING TO THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE” (Eph. 1:7).

The climax of Paul’s first recorded sermon is reached in Verses 38 and 39 of Acts 13, where he declares:

    “BE IT KNOWN UNTO YOU THEREFORE, MEN AND BRETHREN, THAT THROUGH THIS MAN IS PREACHED UNTO YOU THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS:

    “AND BY HIM ALL THAT BELIEVE ARE JUSTIFIED FROM ALL THINGS, FROM WHICH YE COULD NOT BE JUSTIFIED BY THE LAW OF MOSES.”

Thus God through Christ, forgives and justifies those who believe. Nor is this all that was accomplished for us by the death of Christ at Calvary. There is also reconciliation, baptism by the Spirit into Christ and His Body, a position at God’s right hand in the heavenlies and all spiritual blessings there.

“The forgiveness of sins” must come first, however, and the above passage assures us that in Christ we have this — not barely, but “ACCORDING TO THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE”. Indeed, the next verse continues: “WHEREIN HE HATH ABOUNDED TOWARD US…”

Thus Ephesians 2:2-7 declares that though we were once “the children of disobedience”, and therefore “by nature the children of wrath”, “God, WHO IS RICH IN MERCY, for His GREAT LOVE wherewith He loved us”, has given us life and raised us from the dead, exalting us to “heavenly places in Christ…”

His purpose in all this? “THAT IN THE AGES TO COME HE MIGHT SHOW THE EXCEEDING RICHES OF HIS GRACE IN HIS KINDNESS TOWARD US THROUGH CHRIST JESUS” (Verse 7).

When God forgives us He no longer sees us in our poor selves, BUT IN CHRIST, who took our place, dying for our sins on Calvary’s cross. There He hung in our place that we might now stand in His — “COMPLETE IN HIM” (Col. 2:10).

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Columbus The Believer
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


Everybody knows that Columbus discovered America, but few people know Columbus the sincere believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, who braved the dangers of the ocean vastness mainly because it was his deep desire to bring the gospel to the Indies. His perseverance in the face of almost insurmountable odds should be a lesson to God’s people. Centuries before Columbus, Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers:

    “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (I Cor. 15:58.).

This stirring appeal of Paul to Christians everywhere (I Cor. 1:2), implies that there is a tendency to abandon the work of the Lord through discouragement or carelessness, for he pleads with us to be “steadfast,” and “unmovable” — not easily shaken, reminding us that our “labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

How we need the exhortation!

We do not soon abandon our businesses or our homes. We work on in spite of difficulties and obstacles, and when the outlook is darkest we often toil the hardest. Sometimes our bodies suffer for it, but we do not immediately give up.

If this is so where our own affairs are concerned, how much more should it be so where the things of God and the needy multitudes about us are concerned! If it is so where temporal matters are concerned, how much more should it be so where eternity is involved!

Christians, let us awake! Let us “buy up the time!” Life is too short to fritter away the precious moments. Let us rather neglect our own affairs than to neglect the work of the Lord and the perishing souls about us.

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Dead Works
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


Twice in Paul’s epistles he refers to “dead works”. In Hebrews 6:1 he writes about “repentance from dead works”, while in Hebrews 9:14 he declares that the blood of Christ avails to “purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God”.

Mark well, these references are not to wicked works but to dead works. These “dead works” are the so-called “good works” (whether moral or ceremonial) which men did — and still do — to make themselves acceptable to God. They are “dead” because they are not the product of regeneration or spiritual life, but the mere attempt on the part of unregenerate sinners to justify themselves before God.

Paul himself, once zealously religious, but wholly unsaved, had to repudiate his “dead works” and count them “loss” to find salvation in Christ, through whom alone he could produce good works which God could accept. (See Philippians 3:4-9).

This is why he later declared by divine inspiration: “For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works…” (Eph. 2:8-10).

“Dead works” are not only unacceptable to God, but an evil substitute for the faith He desires, “for without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). But “he that believeth on the Son of God hath life” and this life is bound to bear fruit— the good works with which God is truly pleased.

The difference between the “good works” of the unregenerate man and the “good works” of a true believer, then, is that the former are “dead works” while the latter are the precious fruit of life possessed.

No man can please God while he denies the truth of His Word or rejects His Son, so graciously given to die on the cross as our Saviour. To try to win His favor by “good works” while rejecting Christ is like sending a gift to a man whose beloved son you spurn and despise.

“The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hands. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:35,36).

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A Coffin For The Law
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


God had barely given the Law to Moses when He ordered that it be put in a coffin. That’s right — a coffin. The reason for this is that the Mosaic covenant clearly stipulated:

    “Now therefore, IF YE WILL OBEY MY VOICE INDEED, and keep My covenant, THEN ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people, for all the earth is Mine” (Ex. 19:5).

Israel, of course, did not obey God’s voice indeed, but broke the Law before Moses even got down from Sinai. It was because of this that God, in grace, commanded: “And they shall make an ark…” (Ex. 25:10). This word “ark” is rendered “coffin” in the last verse of Genesis and that is its simple meaning. But why did God order a coffin as the very first article of furniture for the tabernacle? The answer is: To put the Law in. Read it for yourself:

    “And thou shalt put into the COFFIN the testimony [the Law] which I shall give thee… and thou shalt put the MERCY SEAT above upon the coffin…” (Vers. 16,21).

If God had not put the covenant of the Law in a coffin and met His people from a “mercy seat” none of them ever would have been saved.

This Old Testament type has a lesson for us today, for if God dealt with us according to our works none of us would ever be saved, but “Christ died for our sins,” meeting for us the just demands of a broken Law, so that we might be saved by grace through faith in His redemptive work.

Col. 2:14 says concerning this “handwriting of decrees, that was against us,” that our Lord, in death, “took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross,” and Rom. 7:6 explains:

    “But now we are DELIVERED FROM THE LAW, that being DEAD wherein we were held; THAT WE SHOULD SERVE IN NEWNESS OF SPIRIT, and not in the oldness of the letter.”

Thus believers in Christ are saved “by grace… through faith… not of works” but “unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8-10).

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Two Anxious Mothers
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


Some time ago, in Chicago, a little baby was kidnapped right out of her mother’s arms in a hospital room, while another mother left her baby in a cardboard box on top of a garbage can.

We have the feeling that in all probability the woman who abandoned her baby — and it probably was a woman — was just as much beside herself as the one who had her baby stolen from her arms.

A Registered Nurse told us some time ago that the proportion of mothers who do not want their babies is becoming alarming. We do not believe that these women wouldn’t want their babies under normal circumstances. Everybody loves a baby! But in such cases sin has come in to bring trouble and shame and misery. Some of these mothers are unwed and have been disgraced; others are separated or divorced from their husbands or would have to bring their babies home to nothing but bickering and trouble. Still others have passed diseases on to their babies and wish that they had never been born.

This is how sin wrecks lives and homes, but it is wonderful to know that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” as we read in I Tim. 1:15. How does He save sinners? First He bore the penalty of sin for us: “Christ died for our sins” (I Cor. 15:3). But He will save us from sin’s control too, if we let Him. Rom. 6:14 says to believers in Christ: “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace,” and millions have proved this to be true.

Salvation is more than a religious term, or a feeling or sentiment, it is actual deliverance from the penalty and power of sin, through the redemptive work of Christ on Calvary, where He “put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” for every one who simply but sincerely trusts Him as Lord and Savior.

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It Didn't Add Up!
by Pastor Ricky Kurth


In Daniel 9:25, the prophet Daniel was told that from the going forth of the commandment to restore Jerusalem “unto the Messiah” would be 69 weeks of years (cf. Gen. 29:27; Lev. 25:8.). Frankly, this very specific prophecy baffled Bible students for many years, for the predicted time of 483 years (69×7) “unto the Messiah” did not match up with the time of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then, in his book The Coming Prince, a Bible teacher named Sir Robert Anderson realized the problem lay in the different ways Jews and Gentiles mark time. We number our years using a solar calendar wherein each year has 365¼ days, but the Jews used a 360-day lunar calendar, with each year consisting of 12 months of 30 days each.

Evidence of this is found in Genesis 7:11, where we read that the deluge began “in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month,” yet exactly “an hundred and fifty days” later (v. 24), “the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month” (8:3,4). The only way an exact period of five equal months can end 150 days later on the same day of the month is if each of those months has 30 days. Further evidence of this is seen when we remember that the last half of Daniel’s seventieth week is sometimes said to last “forty and two months” (Rev. 11:2), and sometimes it is said to last “a thousand two hundred and threescore days” (v. 3). The only way 42 equal months can work out to 1260 days is if each of those months has 30 days.

Once Sir Robert recalculated the prophecy using lunar years, he found that the 69 weeks “unto the Messiah” worked out to the very day the Lord Jesus rode the colt into Jerusalem and made an official presentation of Himself to Israel. No wonder the Lord lamented later that day, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!” (Luke 19:42).

The point? When you are asked why men should trust the God of the Bible, why not give the reason God Himself gives—fulfilled prophecy! (Isa. 42:8,9; 44:7,8 cf. John 13:19). To those who would tout the gods of the world’s other religions, God says, “Produce your cause…bring forth your strong reasons…let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen…shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods” (Isa. 41:21-24).

The God of the Bible alone is God!

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When The Lord Asked Why
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


There are two occasions when the Lord asked “Why?” that stand out from all the rest.

Once it was to God He cried it and once to Saul of Tarsus. Once to the Holy One and once to the chief of sinners. Once He cried it from the shameful cross and once from His glory in heaven. In each case the name was repeated.

In Matt. 27:46 we find the first anguished “Why?” as He cried: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” The other is found in Acts 9:4, where He called from His exile in heaven: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?”

These two questions represent the greatest riddles of history and yet strangely, one of them is the simple solution to the other! Why did God forsake His Son? You will find the answer when you ask why mankind, represented by Saul, forsook and even persecuted God’s Son. God’s action, in giving Christ up to die, was the antidote to man’s. Christ’s death was the remedy — the only possible remedy — for man’s sin. It was because of the utter unreasonableness of man’s sin that God, to save him, had to be more than reasonable.

Saul had led his nation and the world in rebellion against Christ, but this is just why, in infinite love, God chose him to become the great apostle of grace, telling the world that “Christ died for our sins.”

Hear him tell how he had been “a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious” but how “the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant” (1 Tim. 1:13,14). Hear him say:

    “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 long suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting” (Vers. 15, 16).

Since the “chief of sinners” is now in heaven, there is hope for us all if we but trust in the Christ who died for us.

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Creation and Christ
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


When we believing Christians hear some “scientist” speak of “our ancestors” roaming this earth, say, 40,000,000 years ago, we become upset, and exclaim: “What nonsense!”

Why? The answer is that we know that the speaker is not stating scientific facts; he is propagating the long-disproven theory of evolution. Worse than that, the speaker has denied God’s own account of creation by disseminating a theory far more difficult to believe.

Yet, when the believer hears a scientist refer to some planet, say, 460,000,000 miles away he rejoices and exclaims: “How great is our God!” Why the difference? Ah, because astronomy, unlike evolution, is basically a science.

Granted, some astronomers may go far afield when they speculate on the origin of the universe; they may even make many errors in their calculations, but astronomy proper is nevertheless a science, based mainly on mathematics and physics. This has proved to be true as men from earth have orbited the earth and the moon and have landed on the moon, returning back to earth again. Indeed, it is only a few months since two soft landings (of instruments) were made on the planet Venus, about 67,000,000 miles away, and all the above with the earth, the moon and Venus, not only travelling through space at incredible speeds, but with each all the while revolving on its own individual axis!

The Lord Jesus Christ dwelt in glory “far above all heavens” in eternity past and came to earth to subject Himself to humiliation and death only that He might pay the penalty for our sins and redeem us to Himself:

    “That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7).

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Heaven Is Better Than This
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


A large percentage of the people of the world wake up every morning with some kind of ache or pain. If you are one of the many victims, with some infirmity of the flesh, perhaps you will agree with the little chorus which says: “Heaven is better than this.”

The Scriptures tell us that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Rom. 8:22). Note the expression: “the whole creation.” This takes in the whole world; no one is excluded. Indeed, the very next verse goes on to say to Christian believers:

    “And not only they, but ourselves also… even we ourselves groan within ourselves… waiting for… the redemption of our body.”

No doubt many of us feel like crying out with the Psalmist David, “Look upon mine affliction and my pain” (Psa. 25:18.). In spite of all sorrow, trouble and pain which the child of God must endure, however, he can be assured with the Apostle Paul that: “our light affliction, which is but for a moment [comparatively], worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (II Cor. 4:17). When we go to be with the Lord we will no longer be living in “this earthly tabernacle,” but will have “a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (II Cor. 5:1). Paul even adds that as Christians we earnestly desire “to be clothed upon with our house [our new body] which is from heaven” (II Cor. 5:2).

Finally, St. Paul declared that “to depart, and to be with Christ… is far better” (Phil. 1:23); far better, not only than all earth’s sorrow and trouble and pain, but far better even than earth’s greatest joys and its dearest treasures. How wonderful it is to know that “Christ died for our sins,” to have a light beyond the grave, a hope beyond the tomb! Surely “heaven is better than this!”

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Failing Christian Leaders
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


Have you been disappointed in your pastor or the officers of your church or perhaps in Christian leaders in general? Have you placed great faith in some spiritual leader only to be disillusioned and to find out that your faith has been misplaced? Have you observed the growing popularity of some evangelist or Bible teacher whom you “know” to be insincere, while noting that another, whose fidelity and sincerity are beyond question, seems to get nowhere?

How it helps, in such situations, to be able to “rightly divide the Word of truth,” and to enjoy “the full assurance of understanding” that comes with “the full knowledge [Gr., epignosis] of the mystery”! (Col. 2:2).

In “this present evil age” we are living under “the dispensation of the grace of God.”

God is not saving good people today, nor even people who will repent and “do works meet for repentance.” Rather, He is saving poor sinners who will come to Him with all their sin. This is God’s gracious response to man’s rejection of the King and the kingdom as offered at Pentecost.

Look at the way believers lived together in love and harmony during the Pentecostal era and you are apt to exclaim: “Why can’t we live that way today? Let’s get back to Pentecost.” But look at the way believers lived together after the raising up of Paul, even among his beloved Philippians, and you will say: “It is no different today.” This is because the believers at Pentecost were all filled with the Spirit in fulfillment of a prophetic promise, while today He has in grace committed His message to failing men and women, who indeed possess the Spirit, but often grieve Him.

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Two In The Field And Two At The Mill
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


    “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour you Lord doth come” (Matt.24:40-42).

How often the above passage has been interpreted to apply to our Lord’s coming for the members of His Body! At the rapture of the Church, it is said, two will be working in the field, when one will be taken to heaven and the other left to go through the day of God’s wrath, and so also with two women who may be grinding side by side at the mill: one will be caught up to be with the Lord and the other left behind.

But actually this passage cannot have anything to do with the rapture of the Body to be with Christ.

First, the truth of our Lord’s coming for the members of His Body was a secret first revealed by the glorified Lord through Paul (I Cor. 15:51-58; I Thes. 4:15-18.).

But from Matthew 24 itself it is still more evident that the passage cannot refer to the rapture.

True, the passage says: “The one shall be taken, and the other left”, but where and how will the one be taken, and what will be the lot of the one who is left behind?

From the verses immediately preceding, it is evident that the coming of Christ to earth to judge and reign is in view. This coming is likened to what happened in the days of Noah. The people ate and drank, married and gave away again in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, “and knew not until the flood came and took them all away“. These people were not “taken away” to glory; they were “taken away” in judgment.

Since verses 40 and 41 are a continuation of this illustration, it is evident that the two “taken away” are taken away in judgment at our Lord’s return to reign, while the two who are “left” are left to enter into His millennial reign. This interpretation alone is consistent with the whole context in which we find this passage.

How much confusion would be avoided if the truth of the rapture of the Body to be with Christ were recognized to be what it is: a divine secret first revealed to Paul concerning the Church of this present dispensation, the Body of Christ.

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The Triumphal Entry -- Past Or Future?
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam


Did our Lord actually ride in triumph into Jerusalem to become King of the Church? Or is His true triumph still to come?

True, the townspeople cried: “Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord” (John 12:12,13). But Jesus responded by entering the city, riding “an ass’s colt” (Verses 14,15). Surely this was not a very regal sight! Once before, when He knew that they “would come and take Him by force to make Him a King, He departed…into a mountain Himself alone” (John 6:15).

He knew that it was not yet time for Him to reign. First must come the cross, then the throne. Zechariah had prophesied of this entry into Jerusalem, saying: “Behold thy King!” Look at Him! and then he describes His entrance: “Lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass” (Zech. 9:9).

At this entry, “When He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it” (Luke 19:41). At this entry He entered into the temple, looked about and went out again (Mark 11:11). It was His Father’s house, but He could not worship there. It had become a den of thieves. No, this was no triumphal entry. Look at Him, meek, lowly, riding on an ass’s colt, and then see Him coming again as Revelation 19:11-16 describes it. How different the symbolism!

Once meek, lowly, and “having salvation.” Now, “in righteousness doth He judge and make war.” Once, riding “an ass’s colt.” Now, “Behold! a white horse!” And those eyes, once filled with tears are now “as a flame of fire.”

Our Lord’s true triumphal entry is still future. According to prophecy He will come again, put down all rebellion against Himself, and reign in glory and power. Thank God He has not yet done so! In love He still points to Calvary, where He died for our sins and offers us the riches of His grace.

    “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).