THE ABSURDITIES OF FREE-WILL Dr. John Gill Free-will brings with it so many absurdities that it cannot be received. 1. It makes man the cause of his own salvation. 2. It puts grace into man’s power, not man’s will under the power of grace. 3. It robs God of the honour of making one to differ from another, and ascribes it to man. 4. It allows man a liberty of boasting to God, saying, “God, I thank Thee that Thou gavest me power to will (yet Thou gavest that to Judas as well as me), but I thank myself for the act of willingness, since I receive from Thee no more than Judas did.” 5. It exempts the creature from the power of God, as if man, spider-like, could spin a thread out of his own bowels whereon to climb to Heaven. 6. It maketh man the cause why God willeth this or that; so God must attend on the will of man, and not be infallible in His decrees, nor working all things according to the counsel of His own will (Eph 1:11, Ps 115:3). 7. Then the apostle James lied...

Thought Life and Anxiety How often do you take a personal inventory of your thought life? Have you ever noticed the connection between where your mind is focused and the levels of anxiety you feel?  I, like many of you, can see much of my anxiety in mood swings and my reactions to things. However, I do not often stop to reflect on where my thought life has been and how it is affecting my level of anxiety.  Captive Imaginations? One of the primary reasons we can lack peace from so much of our anxieties is because our imaginations have been filled with everything else but God. Let me ask some questions. Do the things you read call you to self-sacrifice or to think about yourself? Do you catch yourself caught up in the greatness of God more often or of yourself?    How long can you go without checking the news or your social media feeds? How many times a day do you think about the prospect of others publicly recognizing your strengths, your abi...

Especially in the light of the straightforward statements of Jesus and the rest of the New Testament, it makes better sense to interpret the thousand years of Revelation 20 as symbolizing the present reign of Christ. In this perspective, the part of John’s vision that we find in Revelation 20 happens in heaven, not on earth, and in the present day, not simply in a future event. The whole book is meant to be read not chronologically but as snapshots of the current age of the church from a heavenly point of view and to provide comfort and assurance to the suffering church by testifying to the final triumph of the Lamb.  With good reason, premillennialists wonder how we could interpret Revelation 20 as occurring now, when it seems obvious to them that Satan is not bound and that he is in fact deceiving the nations. Yet if Satan were not currently bound— if he were free to rule and reign over the earth—there could be no church, much less one that endures through the centuries despi...

Weakness of Contemporary Preaching Where do most people begin when making a presentation of Christian truth, assuming that they even speak of it to others? Where does most of today’s Christian “preaching” begin? Many begin with what is often termed “a felt need,” a lack or a longing that the listener will acknowledge. The need may involve feelings of inadequacy; a recognition of problems in the individual’s personal relationships or work or aspirations; moods; fears; or simply bad habits. The basic issue may be loneliness, or it may be uncontrollable desires. According to this theory, preaching should begin with felt needs, because this alone establishes a point of contact with a listener and wins a hearing.  But does it? Oh, it may establish a contact between the teacher and the listener. But this is not the same thing as establishing contact between the listener and God, which is what preaching is about. Nor is it even necessarily a contact between the listener and the ...

Over the last several years there is one book that I continue to read again and again.  It is Tim Keller's  Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters.  As it pertains to discerning our real issues with money, he calls us to consider more deeply what we genuinely are valuing above God. ----------- Grace and Deep Idols ...There are “deep idols” within the heart beneath the more concrete and visible “surface idols” that we serve. Sin in our hearts affects our basic motivational drives so they become idolatrous, “deep idols.” Some people are strongly motivated by a desire for influence and power, while others are more excited by approval and appreciation. Some want emotional and physical comfort more than anything else, while still others want security, the control of their environment. People with the deep idol of power do not mind being unpopular in order to gain influence. People who are most motivated by appro...

Romans 1 v 8 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. This is a faith that God himself brought into being and not something that welled up unaided in the heart of mere human beings. This is why Paul begins by thanking God for these Christians and not by praising them for their commitment. If faith were a human achievement, then Paul should have praised the Roman Christians. He should have said, “First, I thank you for believing in Jesus Christ” or “I praise you for your faith.” But Paul does not do this. Faith is worked in us by God as a result of the new birth. Therefore, Paul praises God, not man, for the Roman Christians. Robert Haldane wrote that in thanking God for the faith of those to whom he is writing “Paul … thus acknowledges God as the author of the Gospel, not only on account of his causing it to be preached to them, but because he had actually given them grace to believe.” Calvin s...

We are commanded to turn from our sinful disobedience to God and instead obey him by believing in and following the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. This is the way Paul himself preached the gospel, though we frequently overlook it because of our own weak methods. Do you remember how Paul concluded his great sermon to the Athenians? “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed …” (Acts 17:30–31, italics mine). In God’s name, Paul commanded the Greeks to repent of their sin and turn to Jesus. It is the same in Romans. In Romans 6:17 Paul summarizes the response of the Roman Christians to the gospel by saying, “Thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted” (italics mine, here and in the subsequent citations). In Romans 10 he argues that the Jews “did not...

In recent years it has become customary in some parts of the evangelical world to distinguish between the lordship and the saviorhood of Christ in such a way that one is supposed to be able to have Jesus as Savior without having him as Lord. This is the view, for example, of Charles C. Ryrie, former Dean of Doctoral Studies and Professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary.  Reacting to statements by Arthur W. Pink, J. I. Packer and John R. W. Stott in a variety of publications, Ryrie argues that any attempt to link “Jesus as Lord” to “Jesus as Savior” is the equivalent of adding “commitment” to “faith” in salvation. And since “the message of faith only and the message of faith plus commitment of life cannot both be the gospel … one of them is a false gospel and comes under the curse of perverting the gospel or preaching another gospel (Gal. 1:6–9).” There are two serious mistakes at this point. One involves the meaning of faith, which Ryrie seems to detach fr...

The NT does not contain a detailed code of rules for the Christian. Codes of rules, as Paul explains elsewhere, are suited to the period of immaturity when the children of God are still under guardians; but children who have come to years of responsibility know their father’s will without having to be provided with a long list of “Do’s” and “Don’t’s.” What the NT does provide is those basic principles of Christian living which may be applied to varying situations of life as they arise. So, after answering the Corinthian Christians’ question about the eating of food that has been offered to idols, Paul sums up his advice in the words: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Phrases current in worship, like “to the glory of God” or (as here) “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” were given a practical relevance by being applied to the concerns of ordinary life. Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the...

But Scripture is clear about the extent of our depravity: “The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it” (Isa. 1:5–6).  The word total in the expression “total depravity” refers to the fact that sin has so thoroughly infected us that no part of our being—mind, affections, or will—is free from the taint of sin. We’re totally dead spiritually.  Like an array of corpses ranging from freshly dead to thoroughly decomposed, some may be in a more advanced state of putrefaction than others, but all are equally dead. Our inability is total, too, because there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn our salvation.  If we are to be awakened from that death and redeemed from our sin, God must do it, and God alone. MacArthur, J. (2009). The Sinner Neither Willing nor Able. In Proclaiming a cross-centered theology (p. 93). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

Sin is a disease which pervades and runs through every part of our moral constitution and every faculty of our minds. The understanding, the affections, the reasoning powers, the will, are all more or less infected. Even the conscience is so blinded that it cannot be depended on as a sure guide, and is as likely to lead men wrong as right, unless it is enlightened by the Holy Ghost. In short, “from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness” about us. (Isa. 1:6.)  The disease may be veiled under a thin covering of courtesy, politeness, good manners, and outward decorum; but it lies deep down in the constitution. Ryle, J. C. (1889). Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots (p. 5). London: William Hunt and Company.