This Day graces Christians with revelation and holiness.

Galatians 1:11-24

In Being Transformed, Galatians, Galatians 1, Sermon, Verse Synopsis, Vesper Synopsis on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 2:34 pm

“They were glorifying God because of me” (Galatians 1:24).
Audio Sermon: Galatians 1:11-24

To your knowledge, has anyone ever glorified God because of you? What person do you know has so studied your life and found your life to be so God-honoring that he shall praise God throughout all eternity for the life you live? This is a short list, is it not? Nevertheless, why is the register of those glorifying God due to your demonstration of Godlikeness so meager?

Many people have a faith in God but they have never been regenerated – a faith is not the faith Paul expresses in Galatians 2:20. Their faith is the faith of their fathers, or of their church, or a cultural faith, or even a national faith, but it is not true trust in the Christ of the Bible. They may be churchmen or deists, but they are not converted by the Spirit of Christ into the relational religion known as Christianity.

Your nation and perhaps even your church is in need of an awakening from the darkening sleep of licentious liberalism couched in such an acceptable term as moderation. Those who have been brought out of darkness into light know that it is far easier to study, teach and preach Christianity than to practice it. The marrow of one’s inability to live a life affording others the opportunity to glorify God is their desire for their own self-realization which is nothing more than a code word for selfishness, pride, self-importance and navel gazing.

Biblical Christianity, the lifestyle practiced by the Apostle Paul, is the practical daily imitation of Christ. This requires the circumcision of one’s heart by the Holy Spirit so that he has genuinely received the gift of the second birth (Jn. 3:3). In addition, God’s promise to His beloved in Jeremiah 31:33 has taken place so that God’s law is within him because the Spirit of Christ has written it upon his heart. This practitioner of godliness is one who volunteers freely and in holy array to represent his Christ in all matters great and small (Ps. 110:3). He not only wills to be holy, he is so immersed in the manner and ways of the Lord’s Spirit that the Spirit of Christ clothes this disciple with Himself.

What examples would the Lord afford in trying days to allow you to know the walk of those so glorifying God that their onlookers become glorifiers? Perhaps the following description will be the Spirit’s assist for you.

Dr. John L. Girardeau, in the last year of his life, came to hear Dr. Robert L. Dabney preach at Arsenal Hill Church in Columbia, South Carolina. “When the service was over the two came down the aisle together; they were men of imposing presence, each like the son of a king; their faces showed the influence of chastening grace; their foreheads betokened the might of the intellects behind them; venerable men! Dignity, goodness, and greatness sat with ease and naturalness upon them. Dr. Girardeau said: ‘Doctor, that was a glorious sermon this morning.’ Dr. Dabney replied, ‘This has been a sweet service to me, and this singing carries me back to old Tinkling Spring.’ Dr. Girardeau said: ‘But what will it be in heaven?’ The answer of Dr. Dabney was lost in the tramping of the congregation. And so, blind and lame these princes of Israel walked on, talking of the past and future worship of God. A few months after this meeting they both joined the general assembly of the church of the first born in the majestic worship of their God and Savior.”

May this become your blessing to your God in Christ. “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul.  Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation” (I Pe. 2:11f.).

GLORIA  IN  EXCELSIS  DEO!

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Proverbs 5

In Being Transformed, Morning Synopsis, Proverbs, Proverbs 5, Sermon on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 2:33 pm

Proverbs Chapter 5

Pitfalls of Immorality
Audio Sermon: Proverbs 5

1 My son, agive attention to my wisdom,

bIncline your ear to my understanding;

2 That you may aobserve discretion

And your blips may reserve knowledge.

3 For the lips of an 1aadulteress bdrip honey

And csmoother than oil is her 2speech;

4 But in the end she is abitter as wormwood,

bSharp as a two-edged sword.

5 Her feet ago down to death,

Her steps take hold of Sheol.

6 1She does not ponder the apath of life;

Her ways are bunstable, she cdoes not know it.

7 aNow then, my sons, listen to me

And bdo not depart from the words of my mouth.

8 aKeep your way far from her

And do not go near the bdoor of her house,

9 Or you will give your vigor to others

And your years to the cruel one;

10 And strangers will be filled with your strength

And your hard-earned goods will go to the house of an alien;

11 And you groan at your 1final end,

When your flesh and your body are consumed;

12 And you say, “How I have ahated instruction!

And my heart bspurned reproof!

13 “I have not listened to the voice of my ateachers,

Nor inclined my ear to my instructors!

14 “I was almost in utter ruin

In the midst of the assembly and congregation.”

15 Drink water from your own cistern

And 1fresh water from your own well.

16 Should your asprings be dispersed abroad,

Streams of water in the streets?

17 Let them be yours alone

And not for strangers with you.

18 Let your afountain be blessed,

And brejoice in the cwife of your youth.

19 As a loving ahind and a graceful doe,

Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;

Be 1exhilarated always with her love.

20 For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an 1aadulteress

And embrace the bosom of a bforeigner?

21 For the aways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord,

And He bwatches all his paths.

22 His aown iniquities will capture the wicked,

And he will be held with the cords of his sin.

23 He will adie for lack of instruction,

And in the greatness of his folly he will go astray.

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John 10:11-13

In Being Transformed, John, John 10, Sermon, Verse Synopsis, Vesper Synopsis on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 2:12 pm

“He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them, and scatters them” (John 10:12).
Audio Sermon: John 10:11-13

Why do we have hirelings as preachers, teachers and professors in seminaries? God says, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths” (II Ti. 4:3f.). The time Paul refers to in the above passage is upon your land today.  Though some continue to hunger for sound doctrine, their numbers are lessening in proportion to the population and of those migrating toward less doctrinal teaching.

God says many churchmen are transferring to less biblical churches because they want their ears tickled.  They seek what agrees with their own lusts and have come to hate the only medicine that will cure their true disabilities.  The church is populated with fickle hearers whose selfish blindness itches their perverted tastes. God said through the prophet Jeremiah, “An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so!” (Jer. 5:31).

God’s warning to His bride is that they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires rather than His desires.  The hearer makes himself the measure of who should teach and what teaching is acceptable rather than looking to God’s word.  Perhaps Christendom is in need of an angel from heaven to come down and trouble the pool of Christendom so people will want to be plunged afresh into the waters of the true church.  Many preachers and teachers motor through the Lord’s parish clothed in the wool of the lamb, but they do not feed the flock.  These preachers and teachers may be well-intending, but they are actually turning aside the ears of those lambs under their care from the word of truth.

God’s biblical truth requires the proclamation of sin, judgment, damnation and hell as well as the hopeful rainbows of heaven. Numerous preachers and teachers have been deceived into believing that they can accommodate the church and the word of God to the world.  Those so attempting this vice have unchurched and unholied many because they attempt to nullify the distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous.

Both the beauty and success of a church is measured in the depth of transformed lives, the holiness of its members, the nearness of her doctrine to Scripture and the glory she offers to the Trinity. The true church is being strengthened by the present storms, fires and floods of mal-teaching because God the Spirit shall bring His bride nearer to godliness and the accompanying worldly criticism in order to purge out of her the profaneness of her membership.  Difficulties within Christ’s church remove earthly dust from her pulpits, teaching stations and offices so that her loveliness can be seen. When she is sifted by others claiming Christianity, the barnacles of this perishing ocean of sin are scrapped away.

Many saints are discouraged by what they witness in God’s church and amongst those professing loyalty to Him.  You should be concerned and you should be battling the malpractice of Christianity you witness in the church as well as your church.  Nonetheless, remember Jesus’ promise: “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (Mt. 16:18). The bride, the wife of the Lamb, shall be presented to the Holy One most perfect in the heavens, and all of the powers and thrones and dominions of this world shall discover themselves without any value for their purpose in the building of Christ’s kingdom shall have been served.

GLORIA  IN  EXCELSIS  DEO!

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