Rev. Patrick Vincent
“The devil and his agents have been blowing at Scripture light, but could never prevail to blow it out – a clear sign that it was lighted from Heaven.” – Thomas Watson
God’s Word WILL grow mightily and prevail against every attack (Acts 19:20).
It stands today brighter than ever.
Anyone coming against it will be ground to powder (Matt. 21:43).
DO YOU KNOW IT?
ON WHICH SIDE DO YOU STAND?
“Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all.” – John 18:38
Pilate was being sarcastic here. He was saying truth can’t be known. He was inferring that there is no objective truth. Pilate was the first post modernist!
The irony is – truth can be known, truth is objective, and Pilate was face to face with Truth: Jesus Christ!
Yet he, like so many today, reject the truth of Jesus. And often they reject it with smug sarcasm. That doesn’t change the fact that Jesus is the truth (John 14:6).
“What will this babbler say? He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods” – Acts 17:18
When Paul approached the self-aggrandizing, navel-gazing philosophers of Athens, he was met with instant ridicule.
What was so foolish to these Greeks? Basically, the gospel of Jesus, but specifically – the resurrection. It seemed laughable to them. (But some believed!)
Nothing much has changed.
Proclaiming the death and resurrection of a nobody carpenter from a nowhere town who died a criminal’s death in a borrowed tomb… seems laughable today and is met with instant ridicule.
(But some will believe!)
“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Jude 3
Spurgeon said, “I am preaching no new doctrine. Theology hath nothing new in it except that which is false.”
We must know the gospel so well that it is obvious and shocking when we hear a different gospel.
“by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” – 2 Peter 1:4
Knowledge of Jesus Christ comes with built-in promises. These promises are “exceedingly great and precious.”
The fine print of union with the Lord is: comes with partaking of the divine nature and escape of corruption from lust.
These precious promises are freely given to us.
Adrian Rogers writes, “The greatest enemy of the Bible is so-called Christians who simply ignore the Bible or disregard it. He gives it only lip-service. ‘These hath God married and no man shall part; Dust on the Bible and drought in the heart.’”
The Bible is the inspired word of God. To allow it to just collect dust is – to welcome a famine in your heart, a desert in your soul, and a thief in your house.
Ref: What Every Christian Ought To Know, by Adrian Rogers (2005)
“But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.” 2 Peter 1:5-9
This is a trap many Christians fall into: we forget how much sin we have been forgiven of, we misjudge just how sinful we actually are, and we underestimate just how Holy God truly is.
If we are not in a constant state of love and gratitude, we are shortsighted, even to the point of blindness.
“I have lost a world of time! Had I but one more year it should be spent in studying David’s psalms and Paul’s epistles. Mind the world less and God more. “ – Claudius Salmasius (on his deathbed)
Though a highly revered scholar of his day, Salmasius died with a stricken conscience.
If you had but one more year, what would you do with it? I doubt many would answer that question with an enthusiastic: READ MY BIBLE MORE!
However, I have been beside the dying and can attest that this is exactly what is regretted.
Mind the world less and God more.
Heed this advice!
Ref: Faith is Stranger Than Fiction, Steve Halliday (2001).
“Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” – 2 Peter 1:10-11
Wow, what a promise:
An entrance WILL BE SUPPLIED for believers ABUNDANTLY into Heaven.
A Christian’s entrance into Heaven is abundantly supplied through the substitutionary atonement of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I cannot get over the truth of this promise and the security it announces.
Jesus has supplied an abundant entrance into Heaven for anyone who calls on His name.
“My greatest regret is that I could never find time to read the Bible, and now it is too late.” – Patrick Henry (on his deathbed)
Start now, before it’s too late!
