We are located in the Stanly County region of North Carolina. As of right now we are laboring in this area in hopes that God would graciously regenerate souls and establish a church here. At that time we would seek to put in order the biblical mandates of what remains(pastor, elders, deacons, etc.) All of this will be done if the Lord wills.
CHRIST CENTERED EVANGELISM
Biblical Salvation
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3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 1st Peter 1:3
Articles
Written by: Andrew Burgess
Date:10/16/2010
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God's Sovereignty
in the Gospel
The
Gospel is an issue of man's will.
Through out the Bible, we continue to read verses revolving around the
will of man.I will start in
Genesis 6:5 where we read '5Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on
the earth, and that every intent of the
thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually.' This is written before
God floods the earth and after He floods the earth we find an almost identical
statement from the Lord in 8:21 'The
LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, "I
will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth;'
The word heart in the Hebrew is leb. This word can be translated to mean
mind, inner man, will, or heart. Now we see that in the above verses the
thoughts of man's will is only evil continually even from his youth. The will of man is totally and
completely bent towards evil it never ceases to stop producing evil
thoughts.Even man's own attempt
at righteousness is filth before the Lord (Isaiah 64:6). We go further in scripture and read
from the prophet Jeremiah: 17:9 'the heart is more deceitful than all else and is
desperately sick;who
can understand it? '
Here again the same Hebrew word is
used. No one is even able to
understand man's will because of its condition. Here it is even said to be able to deceive.Of course we need to note here that man
and his will are not to be separated.
The will of man is what makes man who he is.It is the control center of the human body it is the
mind.
As
we push forward into the New Testament after hitting only a few passages that
the Old Testament addresses on the subject of mans will let us first note that
what I have covered to this point and will continue to address is the problem
with mans will.Later on we will
discuss how the will got to this state of wickedness and the solution the Lord
provides to this problem.
With
that being said we will now take a look at our first text from the New Testament.
Romans 8:5For those who are according to the flesh set their minds
onthe
things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit,the
things of the Spirit.6For the mind set on the flesh isdeath, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7because the mind set on the flesh ishostile
toward God;
for it does not subject itself
to the law of God, for it is not even
able to do so ,
8and those who arein
the flesh
cannot please God. In
this text the word used in the Greek here literally means mind or mind
set. We know from above that your
mind is the same as your will or heart.All three of these are the same aspect of an individual. We now see that from our text they're
only two types of people.Either
your mind/will/heart is set on the things of the flesh or the things of the
Spirit. There is no in
between.Unregenerate people have
their minds set on the things of the flesh, which produces death. They are hostile towards God.God and unregenerate people are enemies
of each other and they literally hate each other (Psalm 5:5, 11:5, John 3:20,
Romans 1:30). Unregenerate man's
will does not even have the capability to subject itself to the law/word of
God.He cannot do it because he
does not posses the ability to.
The
next text that we will have the privilege to read is Matthew 7:16"You
will know them by their fruits.
Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17"So every good tree bears good fruit, but
the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18"A
good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can
a bad tree produce good fruit. 19"Every
tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20"So
then, you will know them by their
fruits.'What I want you to notice
in this text is the words cannot and can. Can literally means able to and cannot not
able to.If you can imagine these
questions asked by our Lord Jesus Christ; they are pretty self-explaining
statements. Thorn bushes do not
produce grapes and figs do not come from thistles.This defies all laws of logic. They just do not posses the power or ability to do so.In the same way neither do unregenerate
men have the power or ability to produce good fruit. All they yield forth is corrupted bad fruit.
Now
we come to the question of how?How did man's will/mind/heart get this way? God told man in the garden that when he ate of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil that he would surely die (Gen 2:17).When man ate of that tree he did die,
he died spiritually (Eph 2:1, Col 2:13).
Thus with no Spiritual life inside of man it was impossible to please
God.All that man could do now was
sin as we have saw above.
Now
what is the solution?Let me start
by asking another question: 1st "Can a spiritually dead man, who
does not possess any good thoughts at all, who hates God, who can not be
understood, who deceives himself, who does not possess the ability to submit to
God's word, give himself spiritual life or a new will?" The dead cannot raise the dead and in
the same way the patient does not give himself a heart transplant.Then how is anyone saved? We see the answer in the prophet of
Ezekiel when the LORD says 36:26"Moreover, I will give you
a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove
the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.' and from the apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:1And you were dead in your trespasses
and sins,2in which youformerly walked according
to the course ofthis world, according tothe prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now
working inthe sons of disobedience.3Among them we too allformerly lived inthe lusts of our flesh,
indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and wereby naturechildren of wrath,even as the rest.4But God, beingrich in mercy, because ofHis great love with which
He loved us,5even when we weredead in our transgressions,
made us alive togetherwith Christ'(by grace you
have been saved).
Folks if you are in
Christ today it is not by your own doing 'but by His doing you are in Christ Jesus' 1 Corinthians 1:30. We are not saved because we repented
and believed for they are righteous acts and not one is righteous as we have
already saw, but we repent and believe because God has already saved us.Salvation is super natural. Regeneration is the giving of a new
mind… a new heart.Folks if I am
able to come to God on my own I do not need a new heart/mind/will. My old one is good enough.But as we have saw above that is the
whole problem, that man needs a new will and without it he will never repent
and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So as
many of you know this now asserts the doctrine of election. Many accusations are now made.Some of which I would like to take the
time to cover. First one is for all those people who say that God absolutely has no
DELIGHT or Desire to destroy the wicked...
Deuteronomy 28:63"And as the Lord took DELIGHT in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will DELIGHT in bringing
ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that
you are entering to take possession of it.'Ezekiel 5:13 "Thus shall my anger spend itself, and I will vent
My fury upon them and SATISFY Myself. And they shall know that I am the Lord___that I
have spoken in My jealousy___ when I spend My fury upon them."Revelation
18:20 "REJOICE over her, O Heaven, and you saints and apostles and
prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!" Romans 9:22 "What
if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known,
endured with much PATIENCE vessels of wrath PREPARED for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the
riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for His
glory."
God's wrath is not something that He demonstrates with hesitation because it is so disheartening for Him to do. He is glorified in it and it pleases Him to do so. For those who deny this I would appeal you to look 2000 years ago to the cross when His only Son hung naked bearing the sins of His people...and I quote Isaiah 53:10) 'But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief.' However 2 Peter 3:9 , 1 Timothy 2:4 , Ezekiel 18:32 does not contradict what is said above......one just needs to properly understand who the Lord is patient with for salvation and who the Lord is patient with for wrath(see above reference Rom 9)
These are hard doctrines for the one who is humanistically minded and even some genuine believers, but beloved these truths are vital to our understanding of God, the Gospel, and to have a correct understanding of scripture as well. It is ultimately not about us.... it is all about Him. Another objection is God just foreknew who would repent and believe so that is why He chose us. To this I will respond with the fact that God is omnipresent and is not confound by time (Isaiah 46:9-10). God is everywhere at once.Nothing restrains Him; not even time. He exists from eternity past (no starting point) to eternity future (no ending point). When He looks at us He sees all of history at once (past, present, and future.) In order to foreknow something you must exist before the event occurs. Knowing this and that God is omnipresent, God does not have foreknowledge as it is commonly defined.Instead when the Bible speaks of foreknowledge, what it is referring to is the fact that God knows His elect intimately, almost in the same way a husband knows his wife. We see this in Matthew 7 when Jesus says, "I never knew you depart from me…." We know that Jesus knows everyone because He made everyone and is omniscient so what He is speaking of here is this type of intimate knowing. If you have some time study the word know and where it is used and how it is used throughout the Bible. When Fore is added to know it simply means that He has known His elect this way forever (from eternity past). I'd like to end with this question: How can a man (that's anyone of us), that we know from scripture loves himself, this world, his flesh, is hostile to God, hates God, every thought that he has is evil continually even from his youth, even his righteous deeds are as filth (Gen 6:5, 8:21 Isaiah 64:6 Romans ch.s 1,3,5,8... deny himself, lose hislife, forsake all and follow Jesus? Not only that, but do this and it not be burdensome but joyful? Answer: Regeneration: A super natural work of God, where man is passive and God gives the sinful mass of flesh a new mind, that now loves God and joyfully obeys and worships Him. It has now become the very desire of his heart to do so. (Ezekiel 36:21-29 John 3:3 Titus 3:5 John 1:13 2 Cor 5:17 Jer 31:31-34 32:38-42)
God's wrath is not something that He demonstrates with hesitation because it is so disheartening for Him to do. He is glorified in it and it pleases Him to do so. For those who deny this I would appeal you to look 2000 years ago to the cross when His only Son hung naked bearing the sins of His people...and I quote Isaiah 53:10) 'But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief.' However 2 Peter 3:9 , 1 Timothy 2:4 , Ezekiel 18:32 does not contradict what is said above......one just needs to properly understand who the Lord is patient with for salvation and who the Lord is patient with for wrath(see above reference Rom 9)
These are hard doctrines for the one who is humanistically minded and even some genuine believers, but beloved these truths are vital to our understanding of God, the Gospel, and to have a correct understanding of scripture as well. It is ultimately not about us.... it is all about Him. Another objection is God just foreknew who would repent and believe so that is why He chose us. To this I will respond with the fact that God is omnipresent and is not confound by time (Isaiah 46:9-10). God is everywhere at once.Nothing restrains Him; not even time. He exists from eternity past (no starting point) to eternity future (no ending point). When He looks at us He sees all of history at once (past, present, and future.) In order to foreknow something you must exist before the event occurs. Knowing this and that God is omnipresent, God does not have foreknowledge as it is commonly defined.Instead when the Bible speaks of foreknowledge, what it is referring to is the fact that God knows His elect intimately, almost in the same way a husband knows his wife. We see this in Matthew 7 when Jesus says, "I never knew you depart from me…." We know that Jesus knows everyone because He made everyone and is omniscient so what He is speaking of here is this type of intimate knowing. If you have some time study the word know and where it is used and how it is used throughout the Bible. When Fore is added to know it simply means that He has known His elect this way forever (from eternity past). I'd like to end with this question: How can a man (that's anyone of us), that we know from scripture loves himself, this world, his flesh, is hostile to God, hates God, every thought that he has is evil continually even from his youth, even his righteous deeds are as filth (Gen 6:5, 8:21 Isaiah 64:6 Romans ch.s 1,3,5,8... deny himself, lose hislife, forsake all and follow Jesus? Not only that, but do this and it not be burdensome but joyful? Answer: Regeneration: A super natural work of God, where man is passive and God gives the sinful mass of flesh a new mind, that now loves God and joyfully obeys and worships Him. It has now become the very desire of his heart to do so. (Ezekiel 36:21-29 John 3:3 Titus 3:5 John 1:13 2 Cor 5:17 Jer 31:31-34 32:38-42)