Your wrath lies hard upon me, and You have afflicted me with all Your waves. (Psalm 88:7)

I have often marveled at the strange comfort persons offer you when they say, “Ah, there are others who suffer more than you do.” Am I a demon, then? Am I expected to rejoice at the news of other people’s miseries? Far otherwise! I am pained to think there should be sharper smarts than mine, and my sympathy increases my own woe! I can conceive of a fiend in torment finding solace in the belief that others are tortured with a yet fiercer flame, but surely such diabolical comfort should not be offered to Christians!

It shows our deep depravity of heart, that we can extract comfort out of the miseries of others, and yet I am afraid we rightly judge human nature when we offer it water from that putrid well! There is, however, a form of comfort akin to it, but of far more legitimate origin—a consolation honorable and Divine. There was ONE upon whom God’s Wrath pressed very sorely. There was ONE who was, in truth, afflicted with all God’s waves! That One is our Brother, a Man like ourselves, the dearest lover of our souls, and because He has known and suffered all this, He can sympathize with us this morning, in whatever tribulation may beat upon us!   View article →

4 “I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. Luke 12:4-7 (NASB) 

We are told not to fear earthly things or other people no matter how evil or violent they are. However, we are told to fear God. Much of the fear Christians have, however, is not based in their fear of God, but in the fear of their own failures being exposed or their own spiritual deficiencies being exploited by the devil’s seed. Of course some of that fear comes from the spirit of fear that dominates some Christians. When we are obedient in telling the truth in the face of those who hate the truth and love the darkness, our enemy attacks us with things like fear. God creates these points of contention and everyone who reads what we write or hears what we preach or teach are brought to that point. How they respond to these truths is of eternal consequence. Many respond in anger and unbelief. Many respond in repentance and faith by obeying the truth. How should we respond when the fear grows and we see that our obedience will certainly bring conflict? View article →

14 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14 (NASB) 

Are we to accept the profession of faith from everyone who claims to be a Christian? This is a hot button issue in our time. I know of several people who once fellowshipped here at Possessing The Treasure who no longer do because they are convinced that it is wrong to rebuke and contend with those who profess faith in Christ, but whose fruit shows otherwise. What about this fruit? Is it an indication of the veracity of one’s faith? According to Hebrews 12:14 we see that only those who possess holiness will see the Lord. This is a way of saying that those who will see the Lord, those who are truly saved, will possess some degree of personal holiness. View article →

14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 (NASB) 

Contrary to what most believe about Christianity, what one’s own framework is of their conception of salvation and having fellowship with Jesus Christ is irrelevant. Unless this ‘understanding’ is totally submitted to the Word of God and the authority of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit then it will be according to the counsel of the individual’s own conscience. This counsel is according to the value system of the individual not according to what God has revealed. It creates its own image of God and holds that image accountable to the individual’s value system. View article →

What R.C. Sproul discusses in the following video has been heavy on my heart over that last several months. I have Facebook friends who really need to grasp what he says here. For the rest of us, rejoice!

Soli Deo Gloria!

10 For we are His masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for Good works, which God prepared previously that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 (translated from the NA28 Greek text)

For those who believe they are in Christ because of their own efforts or their own actions or their own worth, I’m sorry. That concept does not stand up to what the Word of God tells us.  In the passage above we are told two things. The first is that we are His masterpiece (ποίημα).  That means that as new creations in Christ it was God’s work entirely.  In this post we will look at the second word that speaks about this in this passage, κτισθέντες, which, literally could be translated as, “having been created.” My brethren, if you are truly in Christ you have been created in Him. View article →

4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. John 15:4-6 (NASB) 

As I sat down to put this post together I became convinced that I should write about the number one marker that reveals the authenticity of Christians. That is that genuine believers in our Lord Jesus Christ abide in Him and do not fall away. Carefully read the passage I placed at the top of this post. The word “abide” is translated from the Greek word μενη. It and its forms such as μεινατε and μενητε are used in the Bible to refer to the subject of the sentence remaining or staying in the emphasized condition it is in. The “Abide” in v4 is a command. It is in aorist tense, imperative mood, and active voice. This command tells us that we are to abide in Christ as He abides in us. Will Christ abide in an unbeliever? Will He abide in a professing Christian who is not regenerate? No! He abides only in His children and they, in turn, abide in Him. They remain. They do not fall away. Those who abide in Christ are analogous to branches abiding in the vine. Those who abide in the vine live and produce fruit while those who do not abide in it, but look like they actually do, do not fool the vinedresser. He gathers those who wither, because they are not abiding in the vine, and throws them into the fire to be burned.  Those who do not abide in Christ, that is, they fall away, are unbelievers. They do not have a personal faith in Christ. View article →

2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2 (NASB) 

Truth is not relative. Truth is not found through some synthesis process through which one concept of the truth is ‘synthesized’ with that which opposes it until some sort of compromise can be reached. That process is called the Hegelian Dialectic which states that truth is not found in the thesis nor the antithesis, but the synthesis of the two. This synthesis process may take countless evolutions, but the theory is that eventually change will occur and that is the real goal. This is not biblical transformation. It is not what God does in Christians when He transforms them from flesh driven, prideful, self-oriented people to spirit-led, humble, God-focused servants of the Most-High. View article →

11 I am the Good Shepherd. The good one lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:11 (translated from the NA28 Greek text)

In our last post, Jesus Christ is the Son of Man and the Good Shepherd, we looked closely at John 9 and the Lord’s healing of the man born blind. This caused a large confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders who could not refute the healing, but refused to believe that Jesus was from God because He healed the man on the Sabbath. Jesus absolutely refused to conform to their religious expectations in any way. There was not one iota of compromise in His method of ministry in order to be as “inclusive” as possible. No, after the fact, after these men had cast the man whom Jesus had healed out of the Synagogue, Jesus found him and as we see in John 9:35-41,  this man believed and worshiped our Lord, but those who refused to believe, our Lord confronted further saying that they had no excuse for their unbelief since they claimed to believe the Law and the Prophets, which our Lord was fulfilling with His life and ministry. Then in John 10:1-6 He makes it very clear that all leaders like them are false shepherds of the people. He makes it clear that the true sheep hear the voice of the true shepherd and follow Him, referring to Himself. Now we come to John 10:7-21. View article →

35 Jesus heard that they threw him out and having found him said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 The man answered and said, “And who is He Sir, that I may believe in Him?” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen Him and you and He is the One speaking with you.” 38 And he said, “I believe Lord.” And he worshiped Him. 39 And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world that the ones who do not see may see and the ones who see may become blind.” John 9:35-39 (translated from the NA28 Greek text)

In the Word of God, light is associated with God’s way, His truth, what is right, et cetera. Darkness is the antithesis of light in this sense. While those who walk in God’s light walk in His truth, those who walk in darkness, walk in ignorance of His truth, of His ways. Those who are of God’s light are growing in the knowledge of Christ while those who walk in darkness continue in their ignorance. In John 1:4-5 , the Apostle John said, “ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων· καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.” Or, “In Him was life and the life was the light of men; and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” Jesus as the “light” brings to the dark world true knowledge, moral purity, and the light that shows the very presence of God. The darkness of this fallen world cannot comprehend, grasp, or overcome the light of our Lord. View article →

13 But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ Luke 18:13 (NASB) 

In our day it is not unusual to hear a man-centered version of the Gospel message that has everything turned around backward and is presented in such a way that is meant to appeal emotionally to unbelievers with a statement such as, “Christ’s crucifixion is proof of our worth to God!” The appeal is meant to show that if Christ was willing to go to the Cross to save sinners like us then that proves we are of value to God. I have even heard one version of this that says that Jesus would have gone to that Cross even if it was for just one unrepentant sinner. Is that found anywhere in God’s Word? I have never found it. Instead, what I see clearly presented there is that all of us are undeserving sinners and even dead (Ephesians 2:1-3). Until God regenerates us, we are spiritual corpses, that is, without spiritual life. Therefore, grace that is not all grace is no grace. Grace that saves means that God has done everything; if He does not do everything, then it is not grace. View article →

1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1 (NASB) 

In this post we will look at Paul’s “therefore” he placed in the passage above. In other words, in Romans 8:1 Paul begins an important summary and conclusion which is related to his preceding arguments. We normally find that argument in the passages directly preceding the “therefore.” However, this “therefore” introduces the staggering results of all Paul’s teachings in the first seven chapters of Romans, which would include justification by faith alone on the basis of God’s overwhelming grace. View article →

This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. – John 21:24-25

Jesus Christ is Savior, the Giver of Eternal Life to those who Believe:

Jesus Christ is Life (1:4) and it is only through Him that man can be saved. The way (John 14:6) is exclusive, that is, there is no other name under heaven by which man can be saved from sin and death (Acts 4:12). This salvation from sin and from death was the very purpose for which Jesus came, the very reason that the Father sent Jesus (3:16-19, 36) was because He loved the world so much. John identified Jesus as the ‘Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world” (1:36) which is a description of the prophetic fulfillment of the Passover- one of the Jewish festivals that foreshadowed God’s promise of salvation to the world. Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, was sent to take away our sins, and to save us from death. Indeed, Jesus Christ was slain from the foundation of the world, showing that God’s eternal purpose was to save His people from their sins.

View article →

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:20-23 (NASB) 

If you have ever listened to or read the teachings of any of the emergents or “liberal christians,” then you probably have noticed the similarities in their reasonings for how they arrived at their theology of unbelief.  Most of them are confessed refugees from some form of pietistic or American Evangelicalism that leaned heavily towards semi-pelagianism and legalism. That mix in whatever proportions is intellectually veneer thin. When the leadership within those groups move at all away from being centered on God’s Word and His grace then all that is left is the legalism that only leads those in unbelief to despair for without the preaching of the Good News according to the Free Grace of God, all that is left is simply manmade religiosity. The emergents  and liberals who fled from that now look at all who they view as dogmatic in any way about their theology as simply “fundamentalist” even though there is a vast difference between what we preach and teach from what they fled from. I have always resisted that label of “fundamentalist” for that very reason. No, I am most definitely not a Christian liberal like the emergents, but neither am I mired in spiritually dead legalism. No, I work very hard at being Biblically centered. That means that it is God’s Word, which He gave us that gives us the hard answers and God’s very doctrines, which we must learn and follow. However, as we have been learning, this is not in any way legalism, but is only possible for those who have been baptized into Christ by God. They have the Holy Spirit and by God’s grace they can obey Him and live for Him. They believe and obey God. I heard one well known emergent say in one of his sermons that the only way to grow spiritually is to get rid of belief and move into doubt. So, the theology of the “emergent church” and the “christian liberals” is actually founded on the sand of unbelief. These emergents are refugees from bad theological systems, which they fled from in despair, but have created something that is probably just as bad, if not worse. In the latter part of Romans 7 Paul gives a window of what this despair can look like. We will look at that and what the right solution is to it. View article →

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Romans 6:1-2 (NASB) 

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? Romans 6:15-16 (NASB) 

As I stated in yesterday’s post, if the Gospel is preached correctly, that is, with justification by faith alone being central with absolutely no merit or work by the believer having any bearing on it, then the two rhetorical questions Paul raised in the two passages above should be on the forefront of the minds of all hearing it. Justification by faith as a gift from God, not by our doing in any part (Ephesians 2:8,9) leaves us open bare before God. We have no religiosity to hide behind. We have no steps to perform. We have no decisional thing we can perform that we can point back to that is our lynchpin that we can claim as “our decision for Christ.” No, Justification as Paul preached it is foreign to all of that. So, from where does all that come? It comes from people confusing justification with sanctification. View article →

6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Romans 5:6-11 (NASB) 

Much of the apostasy we are witnessing in our time is rooted in a history of generations of ministries in which preachers, because they feared men more than God, preached in such a way that they talked about God or they talked about His Word rather than actually preaching what God’s Word says. In this, they have created their own “god” in their own image who is inoffensive, all love, all grace, and just wants everyone to have a great day. The only ones this “god” ever gets peeved at are those guys who are serious about their theology and preaching what God’s Word says as if it is to be obeyed and believed. God’s truth is eternal. It is the truth regardless of whether these people believe it or not. View article →