Two Minutes With The Bible

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 February 19, 2007

THE KINGDOM REIGN OF CHRIST
by Cornelius R. Stam

    The Kingdom Reign of Christ, often called the Millennium, is, of course, still future, but even this dispensation will commence with a clear indication that our Lord’s beneficent reign will not change the unregenerate heart. Man is still a failure.

    This will be evident from the fact that to put the rebellion down our Lord will have to “break” the nations “with a rod of iron” and “dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psa.2:9). Indeed, He will have to “rule them with a rod of iron” (Rev.2:27). It is not strange, then, that we read in Revelation 20:7-9:

    “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

    “And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

    “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

    This final rebellion is followed by the casting of Satan and all unbelievers into the lake of fire and the bringing in of the new heavens and the new earth in which all the reconciled find their all in Christ (Rev. 20:10-21:1; Eph.1:9,10; Col. 1:19,20). It is interesting and instructive to see in the book of Revelation how the Lamb slain occupies the center of the glory of the universe. Not one saint from any age will ever boast of his own righteousness in that day. All will acknowledge their own unworthiness and proclaim the praises of the One who died that they might live and be justified and gloried. And even the unsaved and all demons and angels will acknowledge Jesus as Lord in that day. Because He humbled Himself and submitted Himself to “even the death of the cross... God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name:

    “THAT AT THE NAME OF JESUS EVERY KNEE SHOULD BOW, OF THINGS IN HEAVEN, AND THINGS IN EARTH, AND THINGS UNDER THE EARTH;

    “AND THAT EVERY TONGUE SHOULD CONFESS THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD, TO THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER” (Phil.2:8-11).

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 February 20, 2007

"DISCIPLES AND APOSTLES"
by Cornelius R. Stam

    "And when it was day, He called unto Him His disciples: and of them He chose twelve, whom also He named apostles" (Luke 6:13).

    Many people fail to distinguish between our Lord's disciples and His apostles. They suppose they are the same. This is incorrect, however, for our Lord had a multitude of disciples while He had only a few apostles. His apostles were chosen from among His disciples, as we learn from the above message from Luke's gospel.

    A disciple is a follower; an apostle is a "sent one". A disciple is a learner; an apostle is a teacher. There is a great lesson here for us all to learn.

    We must come before we can go. We must follow before we can be sent. We must learn before we can teach. We must listen to the Lord before we can speak for the Lord.

    "Thus saith the Lord", was the familiar phrase with which the Old Testament prophets began their messages. But at the head of the long list of Old Testament prophets we find Samuel, a young lad, saying: "SPEAK LORD, FOR THY SERVANT HEARETH" (I Sam.3:9).

    Before we can do or say anything for God, then, we must listen to God. This explains why the reading and study of the Word of God is so important.

    First, salvation itself comes by hearing and believing God's Word, especially about Christ, and His death for our sins. Romans 10:17 says: "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God", and I Peter 1:23: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever". Then, having been saved, we can serve God acceptably only by diligent study of His Word. Perhaps the most important passage in the Bible on this subject is II Timothy 2:15:

    "STUDY TO SHOW THYSELF APPROVED UNTO GOD, A WORKMAN THAT NEEDETH NOT TO BE ASHAMED, RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH."

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 February 21, 2007

BIBLE TEST
by Cornelius R. Stam

    A Bible test was sprung recently on five classes of college-bound 11th and 12th graders in an American public school.

    Some thought Sodom and Gomorrah were lovers; that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luther and John; that Eve was created from an apple; and that the stories which Jesus told were called parodies.

    Eighty to ninety percent of the students could not complete the most familiar quotations from Scripture.

    The teacher, Thayer S. Warshaw, was understandably upset and rightly asked: “Is the student to study mythology and Shakespeare and not the Bible? Is it important for him to learn what it means when a man is called an Adonis or a Romeo, yet unimportant for him to be able to tell a Jonah from a Judas?”

    This writer’s heart is with that teacher and all who are awake enough to see that the Bible is disappearing more and more from American life. How can we expect anything but juvenile delinquency, the rapid general rise in the crime rate, the growing divorce rate, increasing dishonesty at every level of business and social life -— how can we expect anything but these conditions when the Bible is flaunted and despised? This departure from the Word of God is bound to get us deeper and deeper into trouble.

    But whatever the conditions about you, you may have the joy and peace and light that comes from that Blessed Book. The Bible tells us frankly that “all have sinned” (Rom.3:23) and that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23) since a just God must deal with sin. Ah, but it tells us also that “Christ died for our sins” (ICor.15:3), and that the believer may have “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom.5:1).

    Read the Bible, especially the Epistles of Paul, who was raised up to proclaim “the gospel [good news] of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). You will never cease to thank God for having given your attention to this wonderful Book.

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 February 22, 2007

A CLEAR CONSCIENCE
by Cornelius R. Stam

    With the knowledge of good and evil man came into the possession of conscience. A sense of blameworthiness smote him when he committed, or even contemplated committing, evil. This has been so ever since. The Bible tells us that even the most ungodly and benighted heathen "show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another" (Rom. 2:15).

    It is true that man’s conscience can be violated so often that it becomes calloused or, as St. Paul puts it: "seared with a hot iron" (I Tim. 4:2), but events or incidents can take place which suddenly awaken the conscience and make it sensitive again. Many a person has indulged in "the pleasures of sin" more and more freely until, suddenly, his sin has found him out and his conscience has caught up with him to condemn him day and night and make life itself unbearable.

    The Bible teaches that all men outside of Christ are, to some degree, troubled by guilty consciences and certainly most are "through fear of death... all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2:15). But it also teaches that "Christ died for our sins" so that, our penalty having been paid, we might be delivered from a guilty conscience.

    The works and ceremonies of the Mosaic Law could never accomplish this, but sincere and intelligent believers in Christ, having been "once purged," have "no more conscience of sins" (Heb. 9:14; 10:1,2). They are, to be sure, conscious of their sins, but they are no longer tortured by a forever-condemning conscience, for they know that the penalty for all their sins, from the cradle to the coffin, was fully met by Christ at Calvary.

    This is not to imply that even a sincere believer may not be troubled about offending the One who paid for his sins, but he knows that the judgment for these sins is past. Thus he earnestly seeks, like Paul, "to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man" (Acts 24:16).

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 February 23, 2007

THE ONE TRUE CHURCH AND HOW TO JOIN IT
by Cornelius R. Stam

    Many people have been saved and have truly come to know Christ after having been sincere, religious “church members” for years. Though faithful supporters of some earthly church organization they had never experienced the truth of II Cor. 5:17: “If any man [be] in Christ there is a new creation.” It is possible to be a member in good standing of a church organization, yet be outside the one true Church of which the Bible speaks.

    This is because the true Bible Church is not an organization, much less a political state. It is a living organism, a spiritual body, with a living Head and living members. Again and again St. Paul, by divine inspiration, calls the Church, the Body of Christ (Rom. 12:5; I Cor. 12:27; Eph. 5:30).

    It should be observed too, that the true Bible Church has one Head — not a man on earth, but the glorified Christ in heaven (Eph. 1:22; 4:4,5; 5:23; Col. 1:18). Nowhere in Scripture do we read that any man is to act as His earthly representative as Head of the Body.

    How, then, do we become members of this one true Bible Church, the Body of Christ? First, we must acknowledge ourselves to be sinners in God’s sight, for Ephesians 2:16 relates how Christ died for sinful men “that He might RECONCILE both [Jew and Gentile] to God in one Body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” Thus, when believing sinners are RECONCILED to God by faith in Christ, they are REGENERATED, given a new life, by the Spirit, and by the Spirit are BAPTIZED into the Church, the Body of Christ.

    Titus 3:5: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of REGENERATION, and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

    I Corinthians 12:13: “For BY ONE SPIRIT ARE WE ALL BAPTIZED INTO ONE BODY”.

    Every one of us should ask himself: “Have I been baptized by the Spirit into the Body of Christ?” Those who have not, do not belong to the one Church which God recognizes. But membership in the true Church is still open. Simply, but sincerely, trust Christ as your Savior. He is the Head of the Church. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). Then associate yourself with some local assembly where Christ is honored and the Bible taught, rightly divided. We will be glad to suggest such a place of worship.

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 February 24, 2007

THE FATHER OF BELIEVERS
by Cornelius R. Stam

    "Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:3).

    Has it ever occurred to you that the most loved, the most honored, the most respected person of all history is -- not Christ, but Abraham. Christ ought to be most loved, honored and respected, but Abraham is. Besides the millions of professing Christians there are untold millions of Jews and Mohammedans who speak with reverance of "our father Abraham."

    Clearly this is why God used this man to show how to be saved and justified before a holy God. As Paul is God’s great example of grace, so Abraham is God’s great example of faith -- saving faith.

    "If Abraham were justified by works," says Rom. 4:2, he has something to boast about -- but not before God, who sees and knows all. But Abraham was justified. How? "What saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness" (Ver. 3).

    God, of course, had planned salvation through the redemptive work of Christ and has always saved anyone who simply trusts Him and takes Him at His Word. Since Abraham, of course, more of God’s Word has been revealed and we know the details of Christ’s death for sinners. If we now take God at His Word and simply trust Christ as Savior we are completely justified, for salvation is not; cannot be, by works:

    "But to him that worketh not but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4:5).

    "...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).

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 February 25, 2007

"THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST"
by Russell S. Miller

    The men that the Lord has raised up, and divinely inspired to write the books of the Bible, have spoken about the many judgments of God. Some of the more prominent judgments are:

    1) When the Lord returns "with power and great glory" to resume His royal rights to this earth (Matt.24:27-31);

    2) The Judgment of the Nations, often called "the sheep and goat judgment" where those nations who have blessed His people will be rewarded, but the wicked shall be cast into "everlasting fire" (Matt.25:31-46);

    3) The Great Tribulation when the seven seals, and the seven trumpets, and the seven vials, shall mark the end of Satan’s global power in this world-system (Matt.24:15-26; Rev.4:1—16:21; 20:1-10); and

    4) The Great White Throne Judgment of the unsaved dead of all the ages (Rev.20:11-15).

    But none of these passages speak about "the Judgment Seat of Christ" (IICor.5:10) because this is distinctly Pauline. This judgment deals with the service that each believer has rendered to God, in this dispensation of grace, since the day of his conversion to Christ. In several of Paul’s epistles he declares that "we shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ" (Rom.14:10). This will be an awesome day, though a great day of rejoicing, for some, more so, than for others.

    In I Corinthians 3:9-15 Paul speaks about those who build upon the foundation that he laid, and warns, "Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

    "FOR OTHER FOUNDATION CAN NO MAN LAY THAN THAT IS LAID, WHICH IS JESUS CHRIST" (ICor.3:10,11).

    Many have built upon Christ with "wood, hay, and stubble", when they should have "built upon this foundation [with] gold, silver, [and] precious stones".

    "Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the Day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is..." (ICor.3:13-15).

    In regards to "the Revelation of the Mystery" of Romans 16:25, Paul points out the paramount importance that "stewards" are to be "found faithful" in the Lord’s service:

    "Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God" (ICor. 4:5).

    So this Judgment Seat occurs when "THE LORD COMES" for His Church, for us, the members of the Body of Christ. It will be seen then, how vital it was, to have "walked worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of Christ" (Col.1:10). Paul’s words in Galatians 5:16 have not been spoken for naught. Yes, you’re eternally secure in Christ and, no, God does not change His mind when you "sin against Christ", but walking in the "flesh" affects your service for Christ, "so that ye cannot do the things that ye would" (Gal.5:17).

    "SO THEN EVERY ONE OF US SHALL GIVE ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF TO GOD" (Rom. 14:12).

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 February 26, 2007

THE FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY AND THE APOSTLE TO THE NATIONS
by Cornelius R. Stam

    Millions highly honor George Washington as "the father of our country," but how few know about Paul, God’s apostle to the nations!

    Not Matthew, or Mark or Luke; not Peter or James or John, but Paul alone wrote:

    "FOR I SPEAK TO YOU GENTILES (or, YOU OF THE NATIONS] INASMUCH AS I AM THE APOSTLE OF THE GENTILES [NATIONS]: I MAGNIFY MINE OFFICE" (Rom. 11:13).

    And remember, Paul wrote this by divine inspiration. But note well that Paul did not magnify himself, but his office, to which he had been appointed by the glorified Lord. In defending his apostleship before the Galatians, he wrote:

    "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

    "For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:11,12).

    In many other passages the Apostle claims to speak as a direct representative of Christ (See I Cor. 11:23; 15:3; Eph. 3:2,3; I Thes. 4:15; etc.). To Timothy Paul wrote in I Tim. 6:3-5 concerning his own writings:

    "If any man teach OTHERWISE, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing..."

    This could not demonstrate more emphatically Paul’s claim that his words were "the words of our Lord Jesus Christ," received from Him by direct revelation. To the Corinthians, who questioned this, the Apostle wrote:

    "...IF I COME AGAIN I WILL NOT SPARE, SINCE YE SEEK A PROOF OF CHRIST SPEAKING IN ME" (II Cor. 13:2,3).

    The proof of this claim? This was overwhelming indeed, for Paul was used more than any other apostle to found churches and lead men into the knowledge and joy of salvation. To the Corinthian believers he wrote what he could have written to many thousands of others: "The seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord" (I Cor. 9:2).

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 February 27, 2007

CHRIST AND POLITICS
by Cornelius R. Stam

    Astronaut John Glenn in politics -- running for the U. S. Senate! It seems odd to think of him in a political role, but evidently he feels he can serve his country best in politics.

    But did you ever think of Christ’s relation to politics? He came into this world, remember, as a King. The very opening words of the New Testament are: "Jesus Christ, the Son of David..." (Matt. 1:1). This emphasizes the fact that He came from the royal line. John the Baptist had gone forth as the King’s herald, to prepare His way, and the twelve apostles proclaimed His royal rights as they preached "the gospel of the kingdom." This was all in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy:

    "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David..." (Isa. 9:6,7).

    Instead of crowning Him King, however, they nailed Him to a cross and wrote over His head His "accusation": "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."

    Actually our Lord had come especially, this first time, to be rejected and crucified for the sins of men. Psalm 22, Isaiah 53 and other Old Testament passages had predicted that at His first coming He would be despised and rejected. Matt. 20:28 says of this coming: "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many."

    Our Lord did not die an untimely death; the cross was not a useless sacrifice. He knew that man’s greatest need is moral and spiritual -- that his sins must be paid for if he is not to be condemned forever before the court of eternal Justice. So in love He came to be rejected and suffer and die "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (I Pet. 3:18).

    He will come again to judge and reign as all prophecy indicates, but for the present He deals with mankind in grace. Eph. 1:7 says that "in [Him] we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace" and Rom. 3:24 declares that believers are "justified freely by [God’s] grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

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 February 28, 2007

WASHED, SANCTIFIED AND JUSTIFIED
by Cornelius R. Stam

    "And such  were  some  of  you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (I Cor. 6:11).

    The preceding verses of I Cor. 6 contain a long list of vile sins and vices into which men have fallen, and the Apostle adds:

    "And such were some of you." God’s Church is not made up of "good people" who have never fallen into sin. It is rather made up of sinners, saved by grace, through the infinite payment made for sin by Christ on Calvary’s cross.

    "And such were some of you." Had the Apostle included the more "refined" sins, such as pride, self-righteousness, etc., he would have had to say: "And such were all of you."

    Note further, however, that the Apostle says: "And such  were  some  of  you ." Thank God, he goes on to say of those who had been thus stained with sin: "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."

    How beautiful these three phrases: "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified"! The word "but" appearing before each phrase indicates that each should be considered separately. Such vile creatures were some of you, "but ye are washed," cleansed from the sins that contaminated you. "But ye are sanctified." Having been cleansed you are now set apart as sacred for His glory. "But ye are justified." When God justifies us, who can condemn?

    "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?"

    All this is done for the believing sinner, as our verse says, "in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."

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 March 1, 2007

THE SON OF A VIRGIN
by Cornelius R. Stam

    "Behold, a virgin shall be with child" (Matt. 1:23).

    Mary was highly honored that she should be chosen to be the virgin mother of Messiah. This was a distinction for which every Jewish woman had hoped and prayed. But -- now that she had heard the glad news from the angel Gabriel, she was to find herself in the most embarrassing position of an unmarried maiden with child. Little wonder that Mary hastened to the hill country to visit Elisabeth, the mother-to-be of miraculously-born John, later called John the Baptist. Who, in such a case, would better understand, or be better fitted to give sympathetic advice to Mary?

    Mary remained with Elisabeth for about three months, or until the birth of John the Baptist (Luke 1:36,56), but now the real test lay ahead, for she must return to her home in Nazareth to face her relatives and acquaintances -- and Joseph, her lover. What would they say? And above all, what would he say? How could they be expected to believe her story? An angel had appeared to her, indeed!

    In the record of Joseph’s reactions we are given light as to the extreme embarrassment in which Mary now found herself. Consider Joseph’s position. Mary was his "espoused wife." Why had she gone away -- and stayed so long? And now, what is this? She is found with child -- not by him. Her explanation, if indeed she offered it to him, must have seemed most unsatisfactory. He could have charged her with adultery and had her stoned, but "being a just [Lit., "fair-minded"] man" he "was minded to put her away privily" (Matt. 1:19).

    But "while he thought on these things," with a heavy heart, "the angel of the Lord appeared unto him" and Joseph learned the truth; that she was indeed to be the honored mother of the Messiah of Israel, the Redeemer of sinners.

    It was because our Lord was the Son of God, born into the world by a virgin and not partaking of Adam’s sinful nature, that He could go to Calvary and pay the full penalty for our sins. He "suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (I Pet. 3:18).

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 March 2, 2007

THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH
by Cornelius R. Stam

    In II Thes. 2:10 St. Paul declares that the apostates of the coming age will "perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they may be saved." This is something worth considering very seriously.

    God calls this present dispensation "the dispensation of the grace of God" (Eph. 3:2). During this dispensation faithful Christians are proclaiming "the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24). This is the message of God’s grace and love in giving Christ to die for our sins so that we might be saved from its penalty and power.

    All, however, do not believe this glorious message or accept God’s grace in Christ. These, the Apostle declares, will be left behind when our Lord comes, at the close of this dispensation, to receive His own to Himself. Because they rejected the truth, and the love it proclaimed, God will give them up "that they might believe a lie," and put their faith in Antichrist, "that they all might be damned who believed not the truth" (II Thes. 2:8-12).

    It was infinite love that brought Christ to Calvary to suffer shame and disgrace for our sins, and this love is being proclaimed in this dispensation of grace. But this dispensation may be brought to a close at any time and bring in the day of God’s wrath. How important then to accept God’s love, and trust His Son without delay!

    "Behold, now is the accepted time... Behold now is the day of salvation" (II Cor. 6:2).

    If you do not trust Christ as your Lord and Savior now and you are caught unawares and lost for all eternity, you will never be able to say, "It was because God did not choose to save me." Whatever all the reasons involved in His electing grace, He does not accept the responsibility for your rejection of Christ. He says that the unsaved will perish "because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." Don’t gamble with the future. Receive God’s gift of salvation now through faith in Christ.

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 March 3, 2007

THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL
by Cornelius R. Stam

    Twice in Galatians 2 Paul speaks of "the truth of the gospel." In both cases the Apostle had been forced to speak out to defend the purity of "the gospel of the grace of God."

    In Verses 4,5 he refers to his contest with those at Jerusalem who would have brought the Gentile believers under the law of Moses. Among them were "false brethren," he says, "unawares brought in... to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage: to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you."

    In the second case he refers to a controversy with Peter who, having enjoyed blessed fellowship with Gentile Christians, had been intimidated by some of his Jewish brethren into separating himself from the Gentiles. Concerning this, Paul writes: "But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed" (Ver. 11). Why was Peter to be blamed? Verse 14 answers: Because he "walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel," i.e., "the gospel of the grace of God," in which believing Jews and Gentiles are "one body in Christ."

    How we should all thank God for Paul’s vigorous defense of the gospel of grace, under which all who trust in Christ as Savior are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the one true Bible Church (I Cor. 12:13).

    Doubtless Paul’s stand for "the gospel of the grace of God" stemmed from the fact that he himself had experienced the truth of this blessed message. As the chief of sinners he had been gloriously saved. All his power and prestige as a Pharisee, all his intellectual achievement, all his rigid Law observance meant nothing now, as in the presence of the glorified Lord he saw himself a sinner, the chief of sinners, and was saved by the matchless grace of God.

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 March 4, 2007

THREE BILLION WILLS
by Cornelius R. Stam

    As long as man remained obedient to the will of God, his Maker, all was well with him. His life was perfectly balanced because it was centered in God. As soon as he listened to Satan, however, and set his will against God’s, all began to go wrong. His life was now off center and out of balance. It was no longer subject to the one central will. Alienated from God, man now reaped the fruit of his rebellion, not only in his banishment from Paradise, but in the self-will of his offspring.

    Of the first two children born into the world, one bludgeoned the other to death, and this was but the beginning. Whereas God had originally created man in His own "image" and "likeness" (Gen. 1:26,27), we read later that Adam begat Seth "in his own likeness, after his image" (Gen. 5:3). And so parents down through the ages have begotten children like themselves, with fallen natures and wills of their own, until now we have some three billion wills operating in the world instead of the one central will of God.

    This does not mean, however, that God has abdicated, or that the future of the world is now subject to the wills of three billion fallen creatures. Nor was God forced to formulate new plans because of the fall of man. Far from it, for despite man’s rebellion -- even through it -- God has been carrying out His plan and every true believer rejoices that God "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:11). While He does not rule directly in the affairs of men, He very definitely overrules, and as a result "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28).

    All glory to that blessed One of whom it is written:

    "Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the Book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God" (Heb. 10:7).

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 March 5, 2007

WHAT GOD IS DOING TODAY
by Russell S. Miller

    "...For to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace" (Eph.2:15).

    It is a shame that so many in the Body of Christ do not see what it is that God is doing today, in this dispensation of His grace committed to Paul. The error of some is a failure to come unto perfection in the Pauline revelation, for they labor under the so-called Great Commission. Others go to extremes with agendas that are used of the devil to cause "divisions" in the Church and "blind [even] the minds" (IICor.4:4) of believers from knowing the truth. Consequently such teachings are used by Satan to deceive both saint and sinner alike. Thus men walk in darkness. When lies are substituted for truth, the devil gets a foothold in the Church to wreak "havoc".

    God, however, will not be mocked of men, for "the Judgment Seat of Christ" (IICor.5:10) awaits those who make merchandise of "the Word of God" (IICor.2:14-17; Tit.3:10) and there shall be a great loss of rewards (ICor.3:15). And when the devil "blinds the minds of them that believe not", souls that could have been saved will be cast into hell and the Lake of Fire at the "great white throne" judgment (Rev.20:11-15).

    In this endeavor to discover what it is that God is doing today, several passages of Scripture come to mind. Along with Romans 16:25 and I Corinthians 12:13 are two very similar verses in Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians:

    "Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace" (Eph.2:15).

    "And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ" (Eph.3:9).

    God is in the business of building the Body of Christ today, and He is looking for "faithful" men and women in the ministry of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (ICor.4:1,2). He appointed Paul, "the Apostle of the Gentiles" (Rom.11:13), giving him the blueprints (ICor.3:9-15) for the Church today. Paul and Timothy were faithful in proclaiming "this Mystery among the Gentiles" (ICor.4:15-17). Will you "follow" in their footsteps or be drawn into an extreme teaching?

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