Jonah 2:9 “Salvation belongs to the LORD!”  God’s dramatic intervention in the life of Jonah is full of hope—not only for those who seek God, but also for those who, like Jonah, have determined to shut him out.  Many people believe God opens the door of salvation and then stands back, leaving it up to us to decide if we want to come in.   But if God made salvation possible and then stepped back, refusing to interfere with our choice, then the entire life of believers would be about us—our believing, our serving, our following, and our choices to live a good life.  In the case of Jonah, imprisoned in the whale’s belly, God was claiming someone who was quite incapable of performing any redeeming work to compensate for his sin. God was not relying on Jonah to save Jonah. The message remains the same for each of us today: if you have trusted God for salvation, he has done more than simply make salvation possible; he has actually saved you. Colin Smith, “Jonah,” in...

"God the Holy Spirit can take the humblest preaching or the feeblest words of our witness to Christ, and transform them by His power into a convicting word in the lives of others. Apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit we would never clearly see the truth of God concerning our sin, or the truth of God about our Savior. I believe this is what Jesus meant in John 6:44: 'No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.' ” Billy Graham, The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 55.

  "Reason quite properly rejects contradiction, but rationalism abhors mystery, which every heresy attempts in its own way to resolve." Michael Horton, Pilgrim Theology: Core Doctrines for Christian Disciples (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 177.

Billy Graham believed in inherited guilt. Jesus Christ was the supreme manifestation of God. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). He was no ordinary man. Several hundred years before He was born, Isaiah, the prophet, said, “Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son” (Isa. 7:14). No other man in all history could say that his mother was a virgin.  The Scriptures teach that He did not have a human father; if He had, He would have inherited the sins and infirmities that all men have, since “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6).  Since He was conceived not by natural means, but by the Holy Spirit, He stands as the one man who came forth pure from the hand of God.  He could stand before His fellow men and ask, “Which of you can truthfully accuse me of one single sin?” (John 8:46, The Living Bible). He was the only man since Adam who could say, “I am pure.” If we honestly probe our minds, we have to admit that there are my...

  During the events leading up to the exodus from Egypt God represented himself as the One who makes man “dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind” (Exod. 4:11).  He also arranged every detail of the exodus event to highlight the great salvific truth that it is he who must take the initiative and save his chosen people if they were to be saved at all, because they were incapable of saving themselves.  During his conversation with Moses before Israel’s exodus from Egypt, God declared that he would harden Pharaoh’s heart throughout the course of the ten plagues precisely in order to (see the לְמַעַן, lema˓an, “in order to,” in Exod. 10:1; 11:9) “multiply” his signs so that he might place his sovereign power in the boldest possible relief, so that both Egypt and Israel would learn that he is God. This repeated demonstration of God’s sovereign power, the text of Exodus 3–14 informs us, God accomplished through the means of his repeatedly hardening Pharaoh’s heart. In order to claim t...

  Neh 8 v 13 (CSB)  13 On the second day, the family heads of all the people, along with the priests and Levites, assembled before the scribe Ezra to study the words of the law.  Notice the feel of the scene.       After that long day in the Word, it appears that the women and children were, understandably, exhausted and urged to stay home on this occasion.   And, among the men, there is a growing interest of “What else are we missing right now as it pertains to obeying God's Word?”.  So clear is the fact that the family heads, the men, came back to get more. The real sense of enthusiasm starts with the men here.  If you were an able-bodied man here, you stayed behind to get instructions so that you might be a good instructor at home. The text says these men came together  to study the words of the law .  That means to  give attention to and ponder.  This is the process of thinking through complex things, resulti...

  Gen 6 v 5-7(CSB) says 5 When the LORD saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, 6 the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved. 7 Then the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” "Sin does not cause God’s plans to fail, but mysteriously fulfills them. Such a statement at the conclusion of Genesis sheds light on the fall of man recounted at the beginning of the book. Therefore, we should interpret God’s repentance in Genesis 6:6–7 to refer not to a change of his plan, but a change in his dealings with man, a change that he had planned from the beginning for his glory in the salvation of his people. As Augustine said, 'Thou … changest Thy ways, leaving unchanged Thy plans.'" Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalle...

  Billy Graham believed in man's inability.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Holy Spirit of God plays two important roles. First, He convicts men of sin: “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8). This is why before we come to Christ we must acknowledge our sin. We must renounce our sins. The Holy Spirit makes us feel uncomfortable and pricks our consciences. He makes us acknowledge and admit to ourselves and to God that we are sinners, and then He gives us the strength and the power to turn from our sins. The second role of the Holy Spirit is as a teacher, a guide into all truth. After we have committed our lives to Christ, the Holy Spirit helps us understand the written Word of God. He is our instructor. He is also our comforter in times of trouble and sorrow. That is why the natural man does not understand the things of the spirit (1 Corinthians 21:4), why the u...

  Billy Graham on inheriting a sinful nature and guilt- "The history of the human race from that day (of Adam's fall) to this has been the story of man’s futile effort to gain back the position that was lost by Adam’s fall and, failing that, to reverse the curse. “But this is unfair!” you may say. “Why should we suffer today because the first man sinned way back in the furthest reaches of time? Why hasn’t mankind recovered during the intervening years? Why should we go on being punished every day of our lives?” There is a thought current today that it is possible to improve man by improving his environment. Isn’t it strange to recognize that the first sin was committed in the perfect environment? Let us turn again to the story of the river—the cold, dark river that runs at the bottom of the deep, dreary gorge. Why doesn’t this river make its way back up to the warm, pleasant fields that lie above it? Why doesn’t it leave its mournful route and become the happy, bubbling stream...

  Billy Graham believed in "inherited guilt."  Since that fatal moment the human race has been trying to get back into that Garden without success. Try as we might, its happiness and perfection elude us. The reason is because we too are fallen creatures, living in a fallen world. Adam and Eve’s sin affected not only their lives, but ours as well. The consequences of their rebellion against God have come down to us, and we share in their guilt and shame. Some people have a hard time accepting this. Why, they ask, am I responsible for what Adam did? It’s a logical question; after all, if your great-grandfather committed a crime a century ago, no one would think of taking you into court and charging you with his crime today. But Adam was different, for he was the fountainhead of the whole human race. I remember as a boy on my father’s dairy farm finding one of his cows dead beside a creek running through our property. We discovered that a textile mill some distance upstream was ...

  A biblical theodicy assumes not that man in his fallenness has the ability to obey God but rather that fallen humans in their corrupted nature choose only what serves their own pleasure and power. The following biblical principles explain how all this can be true:           1.      God predetermines all events (Eph. 1:11).           2.      The fall resulted in physical difficulties and catastrophes (Isa. 45:7; Rom. 8:20–22).           3.      God predetermines sin but makes man accountable for his sin (Acts 2:23; 4:27–28; 14:16).           4.      God hardens sinners in sin (Rom. 9:18).           5.      God never tempts people to sin (James 1:13).           6.      God is never blamed in Scripture for sin or portrayed as enjoying the sin he ...

  Some people are fond of debating whether or not we have free will. The Bible’s answer is that it depends on what you mean by “free.” If by “free” you mean that we do what we want to do, that nothing forces us to believe or to act against our will, then the Bible’s answer is “yes.” Our will is always free to act in accord with its nature. But if by “free” you mean that somehow our will is morally neutral and above the fray, able to choose between good and evil on its own merits, independent of predisposition or motive, then the answer is a clear and unequivocal “no.” Our nature is corrupted and, as Paul says, we are sold as slaves to sin. We can no more choose not to be sinners than a fish can choose not to be a swimmer. It’s our nature. Michael Lawrence, Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church: A Guide for Ministry, 9Marks (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 136.

  Revival is God’s work. If we think we can produce it by this or any other mechanical means, we are actually being manipulative, as many Christian orators have tried to be. But although revival does not follow mechanically upon faithful exposition of the Bible, God nevertheless does bless exposition. Characteristically, it is through such Bible preaching that times of renewal and reformation have come. James Montgomery Boice, Nehemiah: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: BakerBooks, 2005), 93.

If you are a Christian, you surely know of God’s wonderful revelation of himself in Christ as recorded in the New Testament. Yet if you ignore the Old Testament, you ignore the basis and foundation of the New .  The context for understanding the person and work of Christ is the Old Testament. God’s work of creation, humanity’s rebellion against him, sin’s consequence in death, God’s election of a particular people, his revelation of sin through the law, the history of his people, his work among other peoples—I could go on and on—all these form the setting for Christ’s coming. Christ came in history at a particular point in the storyline.  So the parables taught by Jesus often refer back to the storyline begun in Genesis. His verbal battles with the Pharisees are rooted in differences over the meaning of the law. And the Epistles build upon the Old Testament again and again. Understanding God’s purpose in history, understanding the storyline, requires us to begin at the beginni...

I believe that God’s choice is not conditioned on anything in the sinner—but that his calling produces a human response that is an essential part of the salvation process. I agree with the CSB's note on Eph 1v 4 The verse says- Eph 1 v  4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.  CSB note reads : The meaning of election is best understood as God’s sovereign initiative in bringing persons to faith in Christ, resulting in a special covenant relationship with him. This theme serves as a foundation to the entire opening section of Ephesians, which includes the phrases God “chose us” (v. 4); “predestined us” (v. 5); and “predestined according to the plan” (v. 11).  Paul’s focus on the Christ-centered character of election is vitally important. God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. This indicates the centrality of the gospel in God’s plan for history. We are chosen to be holy and blamele...

 At the Last Supper, “the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,” and before the supper was ended, “Satan entered into him” (John 13:2, 27). As the time approached when Judas would betray him, Jesus said, “The ruler of this world is coming” (John 14:30). If evil spirits possess such mind-controlling influence, why does it seem an incredible thing that the Holy Spirit of the living God possesses and exerts mind-controlling influence? Since the Evil Spirit can blind us, surely the Holy Spirit can give us sight. If the devil can put it into a man’s heart to betray Jesus, surely the Holy Spirit can put it into a man’s heart to receive Jesus. Jim Scott Orrick, Mere Calvinism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2019), 150.

When a lost sinner is truly under conviction, he will see the folly and evil of unbelief; he will confess that he does not measure up to the righteousness of Christ; and he will realize that he is under condemnation because he belongs to the world and the devil (Eph. 2:1–3). Th ere can be no conversion without conviction, and there can be no conviction apart from the Spirit of God using the Word of God and the witness of the child of God. Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 362.

Those of us who can remember hearing the late Martyn Lloyd-Jones preach can never forget the sense of occasion it produced. One particular sermon, on Psalm 8, stands out in my memory almost forty years later. Lloyd-Jones had a way of preaching that made it feel as though God himself were speaking.  Shivers run down my back even now as I think of him, slowly building up to an overwhelming climax . Was it his distinctive voice? Was it the inevitable sense of logical progression in his train of thought? Was it his ability to quote verses of Scripture from memory?  Whatever the human characteristics that Lloyd-Jones demonstrated, when he preached it felt as though God was present. He could have asked us to do anything, and most of us listening to him would have done it; such was the sense of divine authority behind the words we heard.  -Derek Thomas

  Genesis 6:2 sons of God. These have been identified as Sethites (the traditional Christian interpretation), as angels (the earliest Jewish interpretation; cf. Job 1:6), and as royal tyrannical successors to Lamech who gathered harems (proposed by rabbis of the second century A.D.).  All three interpretations can be defended linguistically.  The first interpretation best fits the immediate preceding context (a contrast of the curse-laden line of Cain with the godly line of Seth).  If “sons of God” denotes Seth’s line, then “daughters of man” probably refers specifically to Cainite women. The intermarriage of the two lines easily explains why Noah is the sole righteous offspring of Seth after nine generations.  Luke’s genealogy of Jesus provides a basis for understanding how Seth’s lineage may be viewed as “sons of God” (Luke 3:36–38).  The second view has ancient support, but seems to contradict Jesus’ statement that angels do not marry (Mark 12:25) and d...