I hear separation of Church and state over and over and over, but I think it is an excuse for lazy, spineless Christians to escape any political drama or responsibility. The First Amendment is where the separation of Church and state comes from. I agree with it. Look at the Church of England, and the Roman Catholic Church. Jesus is the head of the true Church and He came not to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28). We are not to have people take a knee before the Church, but the Church to take a knee before Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
There are two different extremes on this matter. One is people believe that our country was a "Christian Country" at the beginning, and has lost its way. They believe that our country was at one time a Christendom, and now has turned its back on God. This is simply not true as to seeing that many of our country's founding fathers claimed to be deists, not to mention the First Amendment was so clear on this country not making any law using religion. Our country was found on freedom, of religion, land ownership, and the freedom of trade. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It was found on freedom from the church, and the way they saw best fit was to use morality in the making of the laws. You may say, but the laws were based off of Christian morals. I agree, seeing that God said He has written His law on the hearts of all men (Romans 2:15). That is where morality comes from, whether you be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist, that Holy Law of God is written on the heart of all men, and most screw it up like the pharisees did. Evil men know the Law of God. So to say they made the laws of our land based on Christian morals, it is true, seeing it is the only true morality there is. It is ingrained in every ones hearts. But that does not mean that they are Christians, it means they are moral. It does not mean our country was a Christendom but a moral country.So it comes down to your opinion of what true Christianity is, is it morality, or Faith in Jesus as our savior, as the one who did uphold the law for our sakes, and took the punishment for our sins that we may live. Yet I know that there are some of you who would grasp at any little thing, such as the dating on the constitution, to prove that our for fathers were all Christians and tried to establish a Christian country. I was reading an argument where this Christian lawyer was out to prove that our constitution is a Christian constitution. It blew my mind that one would hold so tightly to a phrase, and twist it so badly to prove a false point. He pointed to the dating of our constitution, seeing as it is the only place in the constitution that mentions "Lord", as the place that proves our constitution to be a Christian Constitution. The exact quote is, "...the ninth day of July in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and seventy eight..." It is a date! That is AD, or Anno Domini, or Year of our Lord. It certainly does not give submission to God or Christianity. Come on, don't be ignorant, look at any date on any documents from that time. Secondly, what do you say about the first amendment? That clearly separates any religion from governing our country. So does the dating of the constitution overthrow the first amendment? It is a contradiction. It must be only a date. Do not throw out all context to prove a false point that does not change anything. You who argue that this country was a Christendom at the beginning only wish to show the depravity of our nation and to have this country become submissive to your values. You seem to have greater concern on morality than true Christianity. If we cleaned up the streets of all drug addicts and stopped abortion and homosexuality, to what avail is it besides your own comfort. You are offended and that is your concern, so you say this was once a Christian Country trying to make the point that by us not being a Christendom we are breaking the Constitution. That is not true, its a lie that has been spread by offended Christians. When you see homosexuals, or adulterers, or drug addicts, you have no concern of their souls, you have great concern of your comfort, and in turn wish condemnation on them, not because they are rejecting God as God, but because your ten year old in the back seat has seen such horrible things as these. Your comfort zone has vanished. So in turn you must believe that our country was once a Christian country and you want to bring it back to its roots of Christian morals, and have the right to throw them in jail for such things. They have offended you, intruded on your perfect lolly pop world, and they must pay. Do you not see their greater need? Moral men burn too. Do not lead them to morality but to Jesus.
The second group is the ones who say there is separation of Church and state so they stay away from all political issues all together. They sit back in their homes and hide from the reality that their neighbors are hell bound. These are the ones who put a basket over their light ( Matthew 5:14-16). We are to fight for what is right and Holy. Do not be fooled. We do not just hide away, but we live and fight for what is right that others may see the "Light", believe and be saved. There are political issues like abortion, and homosexual marriages that are worth fighting against. Its not a question of what do we fight, but why do we fight? We must fight that those who are in sin may see the light of Jesus shining forth through you and be saved. We do not fight that our children have morals, or a perfect world to grow up in. Where is your love for the lost? Jesus loved us and died for us even when we were still sinners and and hated Him (Romans 5:8). Who are you to not love them when they are still sinners. You may have it all but without love you have nothing (1 Corinthians 3:13). We do not fight against each other to make a perfect world, but we fight against the devils over the souls of men and women(Ephesians 6:12). Do not hide when there is a war for eternal souls being waged. Do not be a coward! Fight for souls, care about others enough to be offended and wronged by them and practice true love and grace that they may see Jesus shinning through you and be saved. Christianity is not hiding from the world but being engaged in a battle that has been going on since the fall of man. Sitting at home with your children hiding away from crime and the realities sin is not Christian living. Going to church every Sunday and having fellowship is not the only thing we are called to, the greater call is to go therefor and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). You hide from the world because it offends you, and you try to make that perfect lolly pop world at home and Church and ignore your call, all in the name of comfort. Do not ignore the lost, through Jesus, they may be found. Your comfort on earth is of little to no importance compared to the call of witnessing.
There is a perfect balance between these two extremes. It is the concern of your heart. Do you want comfort or men and women and children to be saved from the wrath of God. If you truly want them to be saved, you understand morality is of no avail, and that your comfort is of no value. Pray, preach, live amongst the sinners that they may see the Light. The constitution will bring no one to Jesus, and neither will your hiding. Only the Gospel, the Light shining through you, and in order for them to see it you must be amongst them, with a heart that cares for their eternal state and your own comfort is but rubbish. Their souls is of more importance than your own comfort!!! Your comfort is temporal, but there soul is eternal. The call is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40). So if you love your enemies, neighbors, brothers as yourself, you will wish the same for their soul as you do for your own. That is what we fight for ultimately, and the only reason why we fight. God is not pleased with morality, but only with us seeing our sin, confessing, asking for forgiveness and repenting. That pleases God, when you are saved and washed clean by faith in His sacrifice, not when you are moral or fight for morality, or hide away from sin. If Christians would only spend half the time praying for the lost and telling them the true Gospel as we do fighting for morality or hiding from the world, then we might start becoming the salt of the earth. You are not the salt of the earth because you have morals, but because you have love (John 13:35). You display Jesus by your love, not your morality, neither does your morality bring you closer to Jesus, but your love for Jesus and others does. You must abide in His love, He is the vine, you are the branches and you can do nothing without Him, you cannot bear fruit without Him, so Abide in His love (John 15: 1-27).
So should we fight for what is right in political America? Yes, so that others may see Jesus, not our morality, and not to make a moral country. To save, not correct behavior, or provide a Church called America that our children can grow up in and not be corrupted by sin. The world does not corrupt your children, your children are corrupt and need the true Gospel just like your neighbors ,friends ,relatives, yourselves and everyone born of man. Morality shall not save them, only faith in Jesus as their savior. The world does not corrupt us, but we have corrupted the world. Only Jesus provides the world with what it truly needs, not your wisdom, nor your morals, only Jesus. The only true way to show the lost Jesus, is to demonstrate His love, the only way to demonstrate His love is to Love Him and each other, and the only way to do this is to abide in Him and His love. The best way to demonstrate our love is to care for the things of most impotance, and that is the souls of men, women, and children, by preaching the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Pray, Read, Study, Be Diligent.
"Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. They do not pray; the do not read, they do not search the Scripture.... The call is: watch, study, attend to reading. In truth you cannot read too much in Scripture; and what you read you cannot read too carefully, and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live too well.... The devil...the world...and our flesh are raging and raving against us. Therefore, dear sirs and brothers, pastors and preachers, pray, read, study, be diligent.....This evil, shameful time is not the season for being lazy, for sleeping and snoring." -Martin Luther-
Friday, March 12, 2010
Come and Die
"When Christ calls a man He bids him come and die." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
And died Bonhoeffer did. He was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who participated in the German Resistance against Nazism. His efforts in Abwehr (German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler led to his arrest and his death by hanging in April 1943.
Although He may have not died for preaching the Gospel, he died for living the Gospel. He stood for the things that are right and holy. He did not waver nor forsake the calling of the Gospel. He stood strong and deeply rooted in the truth. He let his convictions lead him, ultimately to his own death.
It is hard to grasp where one would get the idea that the Bible teaches a prosperity Gospel. Where is it? Answer me this, Why did Jesus die? Did He die that you may have money, cars, a nice house, good health, or good self esteem? Is that what my Saviors death means to you? Did He not have the right to give that to whom He pleased before the cross. Did it take the cross for Him to earn the right to bless those whom He saw fit. Was there no rich, no healthy, and none of good esteem, before the cross? Must you receive earthly things to give God praise? Oh you of little conviction. Do you not see your greater need? Salvation? Is that not enough? It is not enough for you because you don't see your sin, you don't see eternal damnation and most of all you don't see God. What you see is momentary, temporary, things that you have experienced a little joy in and you will pursue them above your Creator because you have not seen your need of grace and mercy, you have never had the joy that is in God alone. You have not experienced Gods love, joy, peace, or forgiveness, because you see your need for temporal earthly pleasures as more important than forgiveness. You do not see your sin the way God does. Therefor that is the only pleasure you have, and your only hope is only for more of that pleasure, so you corrupt the cross with your wicked doctrines and theology, for your temporal gain. You are of the most ignorant of men if you actually believe that you will have temporal gain if you simply attribute earthly blessings to God, or if you "worship" God because of these blessings. God does not purchase your worship little man, it is not something He desires but does not deserve regardless of your physical state. He deserves your worship and adoration whether you sleep on the streets or in a beach house, whether you have a million dollars or are in debt for a million dollars. Oh you prosperity preachers! What will you do when people find your fraud and burn your books, and stop attending you false church's. What will you have when all your money is gone and your congregations have learned the truth and left you to rot with your philosophy. When someone, from your congregation, is sick with cancer on their death bed with the most repulsive sickness and most burdensome pain, where is your promise? You liar, you speak not of God, but of the devil! When will you tell your congregations the truth? Do you not care that they die and burn, you heartless wolves! How many more shall die without Christ before you become compassionate enough to tell them they need Jesus. How many more wallets of the distressed do you have to empty before you are satisfied? You are like buzzards preying on the dead.Do you have no spine? Where is your bravery, or courage? Are you scared that your congregation might leave you, along with your paycheck because you stand for truth?
Yes Jesus said that, " The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I come that they may have life and have it abundantly." You were dead, He came to make you alive, and alive you are through Him and Him alone. The life He gives you is the most abundant life you can have, there is nothing more freeing than the forgiveness of sin, and eternal life without sin, forever in the presence of God. If you think abundance is an abundance of things, you are very shallow and deny that God is all that you need, or desire. Psalms 73:12 "Behold the wicked, always at ease, they increase in riches." Psalm 73:25-26, "Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." What is your version of an abundant life? So I say to you Joel Osteen, and and any other prosperity teachers, NO YOU ARE WRONG!! Stop and think about what you are doing!
Here is a verse for this situation.
2 Timothy 4:2-5
"Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, ENDURE AFFLICTIONS, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."
And died Bonhoeffer did. He was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who participated in the German Resistance against Nazism. His efforts in Abwehr (German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler led to his arrest and his death by hanging in April 1943.
Although He may have not died for preaching the Gospel, he died for living the Gospel. He stood for the things that are right and holy. He did not waver nor forsake the calling of the Gospel. He stood strong and deeply rooted in the truth. He let his convictions lead him, ultimately to his own death.
It is hard to grasp where one would get the idea that the Bible teaches a prosperity Gospel. Where is it? Answer me this, Why did Jesus die? Did He die that you may have money, cars, a nice house, good health, or good self esteem? Is that what my Saviors death means to you? Did He not have the right to give that to whom He pleased before the cross. Did it take the cross for Him to earn the right to bless those whom He saw fit. Was there no rich, no healthy, and none of good esteem, before the cross? Must you receive earthly things to give God praise? Oh you of little conviction. Do you not see your greater need? Salvation? Is that not enough? It is not enough for you because you don't see your sin, you don't see eternal damnation and most of all you don't see God. What you see is momentary, temporary, things that you have experienced a little joy in and you will pursue them above your Creator because you have not seen your need of grace and mercy, you have never had the joy that is in God alone. You have not experienced Gods love, joy, peace, or forgiveness, because you see your need for temporal earthly pleasures as more important than forgiveness. You do not see your sin the way God does. Therefor that is the only pleasure you have, and your only hope is only for more of that pleasure, so you corrupt the cross with your wicked doctrines and theology, for your temporal gain. You are of the most ignorant of men if you actually believe that you will have temporal gain if you simply attribute earthly blessings to God, or if you "worship" God because of these blessings. God does not purchase your worship little man, it is not something He desires but does not deserve regardless of your physical state. He deserves your worship and adoration whether you sleep on the streets or in a beach house, whether you have a million dollars or are in debt for a million dollars. Oh you prosperity preachers! What will you do when people find your fraud and burn your books, and stop attending you false church's. What will you have when all your money is gone and your congregations have learned the truth and left you to rot with your philosophy. When someone, from your congregation, is sick with cancer on their death bed with the most repulsive sickness and most burdensome pain, where is your promise? You liar, you speak not of God, but of the devil! When will you tell your congregations the truth? Do you not care that they die and burn, you heartless wolves! How many more shall die without Christ before you become compassionate enough to tell them they need Jesus. How many more wallets of the distressed do you have to empty before you are satisfied? You are like buzzards preying on the dead.Do you have no spine? Where is your bravery, or courage? Are you scared that your congregation might leave you, along with your paycheck because you stand for truth?
Yes Jesus said that, " The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I come that they may have life and have it abundantly." You were dead, He came to make you alive, and alive you are through Him and Him alone. The life He gives you is the most abundant life you can have, there is nothing more freeing than the forgiveness of sin, and eternal life without sin, forever in the presence of God. If you think abundance is an abundance of things, you are very shallow and deny that God is all that you need, or desire. Psalms 73:12 "Behold the wicked, always at ease, they increase in riches." Psalm 73:25-26, "Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." What is your version of an abundant life? So I say to you Joel Osteen, and and any other prosperity teachers, NO YOU ARE WRONG!! Stop and think about what you are doing!
Here is a verse for this situation.
2 Timothy 4:2-5
"Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, ENDURE AFFLICTIONS, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."
Monday, March 1, 2010
John Bunyan and his struggle for joy and assurance.
I have been reading a small book by John Piper called, "When the Darkness will not Lift". It is a small book only about 70 something pages, and at this point I have only read the introduction because I just picked it up around 10:00 last night. I am at home sick today so I will probably read the rest later today, but for right now I just wanted to show you this little glimpse into John Bunyans struggle for joy, and knowing without assurance of our salvation, we are living in terror and fear. If you want to torment my soul and torture my heart and cause the utmost terror one can feel, take away my hope of salvation. Tell me Jesus did not die for me or that His grace is not sufficient for me. If you want to know the truth, you dont have to do it because satan and his demons do it constantly already. So here is a small look at John Bunyan and his struggle, that is verry similar to my own. This will be taken directly out of John Pipers book, "When the Darkness will not Lift".
"This was John Bunyan's experience and he tells his story to encourage us to rejoice in the doctrine of justification-that there is a perfect, objective, external righteousness imputed to us that is not our own but Christ's. Bunyan is the one who wrote Pigrims Progress, which has sold more copies in English than any book besides the Bible. He was a pastor in the seventeenth century who spent over twelve years in prison because he refused to stop preaching the the word of the cross. The greates Puritan theologian and contemporary of Bunyan, John Owen, when asked by King Charles why he went to hear an uneducated tinker preach, said, "I would willingly exchange my learning for the tinker's power of touching men's hearts."
But Bunyan was not always so bold and full of gospel power. In his twenties there were terrible struggles. "A whole flood of blasphemies, both against God, Christ, and the Scriptures were poured upon my spirit, to my great confusion and astonishment.... My heart was at times exeeding hard. If I would have given a thousand pounds for a tear, I could not shed one.... Oh, the desperateness of mans heart.... I feared that this wicked sin of mine might be that sin unpadonable.... Oh, no one knows the terrors of those days but myself."
Then came the decisive moment of triumph over despair and joylesness. It was an awakening to the magnificent truth of the imputation of Christs righteousness.
"One day as I was passing into a field... this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And.... I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousess was Jesus Christ himself, "The same yeaterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). Now did my chains fall off my legsindeed. I was loosed from my afflictionsand irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from those dreadful scripyures of God {about the unforgivable sin} left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God."
This here is a huge help for me, my righteousness is not of me but is Jesus Christ at the right hand of God. I have had a past that haunts and terrorizes my heart soul and mind almost everyday. I ,like John Bunyan, have blasphemed God in everyway possible, I hated God, and put it on display for Him to see. I remember screaming and yelling aloud, and telling God that I choose hell and the demons. I had such a hatred one could not explain. Romans 8:7 "the carnal mind is at enmity with God..." Oh, how I felt that in the depest sense possible. Enmity basically means a deep hatred, hostile, an intense feeling of dislike. WOW, that describes it, and I was in my carnal mind, not yet tasted the true taste of God. Oh how blinded I was just a short time ago. Eph. 2 :1-3, says we were all natural born children of wrath, God haters, who walked according to the passions of the flesh. We all were, and I displayed it maybe more than others, but had the same evil, wicked God hating heart as everyone else ever born since Adam. Martin Lloyd Jones said ever so wisely in the book of his sermons on the cross, "We are all natrually God haters, and if you have not realized that, you have not known these things very deeply. Do not come and tell me you have always loved God. You have not. You were born in sin, shapen in iniquity. And if you think you have always believed in God, it is because you have had a God of your own creation, not the God of the Bible." Wow, so what I felt was my natural heart hating God, something I never want to feel again. Oh the darkness, and the hatred ran so very deep. God allowed me to display my natural heart, and it is a scary and wicked thing, but my righteousness is in heaven at the right hand of God. It is not of me, I cannot make it better, nor blemish it. MY RIGHTEOUSNESS IS JESUS CHRIST!!!
Some might say, "Johnny, you gave your soul to satan, how can you be saved." Tell me, before you were saved, to whom did your soul belong, to whom was your total loyalty, and to whom did you love? That is right, the devil, and to say anything less is to contradict scripture and decieve yourself of the utter wickedness of the human heart and the unexplainable victory, and love of Jesus on the cross. If you are naturally born a child of wrath, completely controlled by the devil himself, resisting God at all cost, which includes everyone ever born, tell me what power you have over your soul? NONE! You can neither give your soul to satan, nor can you give your soul to God. We are all naturally born a slave to the devil, and in no way looking for freedom. We were all once unciouse victims cradled in the arms of the devil on the brink of the pit of eternal destruction. We all rejected God.Romans 3:12, "All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;... none seek God, Romans 3:11 "....none seeks for God." none understands, Romans 3:11 ".... none understands..."and are slaves to sin John 8:34, "..., Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits a sin is a slave to sin." and all have sinned, Romans 3:23, " For all have sinned... and it is by Gods grace that we have been sved through faith,"Eph 2:8"For it is by grace that you have been through faith", you did not choose God, but He chose you, John 15:16 "You did not choose me, but I chose you..."John 6:65 ".... no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father." John 6:44, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." and if you are saved by the grace and mercy of God through Jesus, nothing can stand in the way, Romans 8:31-35 "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring charge against God's elect? Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall seperate us from the love of Christ?..." Romans 8:38-39 "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to seperate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."
So there we have it, nothing but God can loose the grip of the devil that is firmly on mans heart, and nothing can loose the grip that God has on our hearts. If God graciously snatches us from the grip of the devil nothing can snatch us out of His hands, John 10 28-30 "... and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is Greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Fathers hand. I and the Father are one." You are saved if you call upon the Lord, Romans 10:13, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
I have called upon the Lord Jesus, aknowledging my sin and damnation seeking forgivness and grace and now my righteousness is in heaven at the right hand of God the Father. Amazing Grace!!!!
I wrote this for everyone who struggles with the assurance of salvation. I do believe that the devil will torment your soul with doubt. Here are a couple quotes from Jonathan Edwards that has had a huge impact on my own struggles with assurance of my salvation.
"Let contempt be ever so geat, yet is so honorable a person as Christ undertakes to be a Mediator for the offender, and in the mediation suffer in his stead, it fully repairs the the injury done to the majesty of heaven by the greatest sinner."
"Christ suffered enough for the punishmentof the greatest sinner that ever lived."
"God can save the greatest sinner without giving the least countenance to sin. If he saves one, who for a long time has stood out under the calls of the gospel, and has sinned under dreadful aggrivations; if He saves one who, against light, who has been a pirate or blasphemer, He may do itwithout giving any countenence to their wickedness; because His abhorence of it and displeasure against it have been already sufficiently manifested in the sufferings of Christ."
"Christ by His obedience, by that obedience which He undertook for our sakes, has honored God aboundantly more than the sins of us have dishonored Him, how many soever, and how great soever."
"This was John Bunyan's experience and he tells his story to encourage us to rejoice in the doctrine of justification-that there is a perfect, objective, external righteousness imputed to us that is not our own but Christ's. Bunyan is the one who wrote Pigrims Progress, which has sold more copies in English than any book besides the Bible. He was a pastor in the seventeenth century who spent over twelve years in prison because he refused to stop preaching the the word of the cross. The greates Puritan theologian and contemporary of Bunyan, John Owen, when asked by King Charles why he went to hear an uneducated tinker preach, said, "I would willingly exchange my learning for the tinker's power of touching men's hearts."
But Bunyan was not always so bold and full of gospel power. In his twenties there were terrible struggles. "A whole flood of blasphemies, both against God, Christ, and the Scriptures were poured upon my spirit, to my great confusion and astonishment.... My heart was at times exeeding hard. If I would have given a thousand pounds for a tear, I could not shed one.... Oh, the desperateness of mans heart.... I feared that this wicked sin of mine might be that sin unpadonable.... Oh, no one knows the terrors of those days but myself."
Then came the decisive moment of triumph over despair and joylesness. It was an awakening to the magnificent truth of the imputation of Christs righteousness.
"One day as I was passing into a field... this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And.... I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousess was Jesus Christ himself, "The same yeaterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). Now did my chains fall off my legsindeed. I was loosed from my afflictionsand irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from those dreadful scripyures of God {about the unforgivable sin} left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God."
This here is a huge help for me, my righteousness is not of me but is Jesus Christ at the right hand of God. I have had a past that haunts and terrorizes my heart soul and mind almost everyday. I ,like John Bunyan, have blasphemed God in everyway possible, I hated God, and put it on display for Him to see. I remember screaming and yelling aloud, and telling God that I choose hell and the demons. I had such a hatred one could not explain. Romans 8:7 "the carnal mind is at enmity with God..." Oh, how I felt that in the depest sense possible. Enmity basically means a deep hatred, hostile, an intense feeling of dislike. WOW, that describes it, and I was in my carnal mind, not yet tasted the true taste of God. Oh how blinded I was just a short time ago. Eph. 2 :1-3, says we were all natural born children of wrath, God haters, who walked according to the passions of the flesh. We all were, and I displayed it maybe more than others, but had the same evil, wicked God hating heart as everyone else ever born since Adam. Martin Lloyd Jones said ever so wisely in the book of his sermons on the cross, "We are all natrually God haters, and if you have not realized that, you have not known these things very deeply. Do not come and tell me you have always loved God. You have not. You were born in sin, shapen in iniquity. And if you think you have always believed in God, it is because you have had a God of your own creation, not the God of the Bible." Wow, so what I felt was my natural heart hating God, something I never want to feel again. Oh the darkness, and the hatred ran so very deep. God allowed me to display my natural heart, and it is a scary and wicked thing, but my righteousness is in heaven at the right hand of God. It is not of me, I cannot make it better, nor blemish it. MY RIGHTEOUSNESS IS JESUS CHRIST!!!
Some might say, "Johnny, you gave your soul to satan, how can you be saved." Tell me, before you were saved, to whom did your soul belong, to whom was your total loyalty, and to whom did you love? That is right, the devil, and to say anything less is to contradict scripture and decieve yourself of the utter wickedness of the human heart and the unexplainable victory, and love of Jesus on the cross. If you are naturally born a child of wrath, completely controlled by the devil himself, resisting God at all cost, which includes everyone ever born, tell me what power you have over your soul? NONE! You can neither give your soul to satan, nor can you give your soul to God. We are all naturally born a slave to the devil, and in no way looking for freedom. We were all once unciouse victims cradled in the arms of the devil on the brink of the pit of eternal destruction. We all rejected God.Romans 3:12, "All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;... none seek God, Romans 3:11 "....none seeks for God." none understands, Romans 3:11 ".... none understands..."and are slaves to sin John 8:34, "..., Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits a sin is a slave to sin." and all have sinned, Romans 3:23, " For all have sinned... and it is by Gods grace that we have been sved through faith,"Eph 2:8"For it is by grace that you have been through faith", you did not choose God, but He chose you, John 15:16 "You did not choose me, but I chose you..."John 6:65 ".... no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father." John 6:44, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." and if you are saved by the grace and mercy of God through Jesus, nothing can stand in the way, Romans 8:31-35 "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring charge against God's elect? Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall seperate us from the love of Christ?..." Romans 8:38-39 "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to seperate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."
So there we have it, nothing but God can loose the grip of the devil that is firmly on mans heart, and nothing can loose the grip that God has on our hearts. If God graciously snatches us from the grip of the devil nothing can snatch us out of His hands, John 10 28-30 "... and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is Greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Fathers hand. I and the Father are one." You are saved if you call upon the Lord, Romans 10:13, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
I have called upon the Lord Jesus, aknowledging my sin and damnation seeking forgivness and grace and now my righteousness is in heaven at the right hand of God the Father. Amazing Grace!!!!
I wrote this for everyone who struggles with the assurance of salvation. I do believe that the devil will torment your soul with doubt. Here are a couple quotes from Jonathan Edwards that has had a huge impact on my own struggles with assurance of my salvation.
"Let contempt be ever so geat, yet is so honorable a person as Christ undertakes to be a Mediator for the offender, and in the mediation suffer in his stead, it fully repairs the the injury done to the majesty of heaven by the greatest sinner."
"Christ suffered enough for the punishmentof the greatest sinner that ever lived."
"God can save the greatest sinner without giving the least countenance to sin. If he saves one, who for a long time has stood out under the calls of the gospel, and has sinned under dreadful aggrivations; if He saves one who, against light, who has been a pirate or blasphemer, He may do itwithout giving any countenence to their wickedness; because His abhorence of it and displeasure against it have been already sufficiently manifested in the sufferings of Christ."
"Christ by His obedience, by that obedience which He undertook for our sakes, has honored God aboundantly more than the sins of us have dishonored Him, how many soever, and how great soever."
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