DISCIPLE

1. I was made to wash as a child. 2. People who wash are hypocrites – they reckon they’re cleaner than other people. 3. There are so many different kinds of soap, I could never decide which one is right. 4. I used to wash, but it got boring so I stopped. 5. I still wash on special occasions like Christmas and Easter. 6. None of my friends wash. 7. I’m still young. When I’m older and have gotten a bit dirtier I might start washing. 8. I really don’t have time. 9. The bathroom’s never warm enough. 10. People who make soap are only after your money. Don’t be daft! We all need to wash, and we know it. There’s no argument! And we all need to be washed, cleansed from our sins, because, face it, our hearts and lives are contaminated with it. Christ said in Mark 7:20-23, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pri...

        These are three popular current concerns, even obsessions, and their impact (no pun intended) is far reaching. People everywhere wonder if they will die, or if all life on earth will be snuffed out by these things. The news media obsess and stir up great clouds of worry, even panic, which keeps people tuned in, but provides no solution. Instead of letting the media tell you what to be concerned about, consider what God, the Creator, has to say. Coronavirus      We indeed sympathize with all who are suffering from Coronavirus, pray for them, and encourage everyone to take prudent and timely precautions. It is a difficult time, that should remind all humanity of its fragility and the shortness of life.  Through the tireless efforts of science and medicine they cure one disease, and we applaud them, but then another pops up, more difficult to treat. There are two things you should know.     Fi...

by William MacDonald Like every other good thing, grace can be abused. Fire and water can be great blessings, but they can be used wrongly. People can twist the sovereignty of God to teach fatalism: what is going to be is going to be, and there's nothing you can do about it. The doctrine of election is sometimes perverted to suggest that evangelizing is a waste of time and effort.     Sad to say, it is possible to use the grace of God as an excuse for careless living, for believers to use their freedom as a pretext for launching into all kinds of indulgence. This does not mean that the doctrine is faulty. It simply means that some people are desperate to justify ungodly behavior, and if they can do it by using Scripture, so much the better, or so they think.     It is true that believers are not under law but under grace. But that does not mean that they have a right to be lawless. They are not under the law, with all the penalty and condemnation that is...

"Ah, I will ease Me of Mine adversaries, and avenge Me of Mine enemies!" (Isa. 1:24).  Human justice is to be meted out by juries of men and by judges, uncolored by personal feelings. Not so with God! As is not the case in human courts, it is the Judge Himself who has been wronged. It is His light that has been refused for darkness.  It is His salvation , and that by His Son's blood , that has been despised.  And it will not be justice merely, but the infliction of penalty by an outraged Being whose Name is Love, now aroused to righteous fury commensurate with the measureless guilt of the hideous haters of His holiness, the despisers of His mercy – it will be by the Hand of the Judge of all, Himself , that wrath will fall upon the guilty.      As for the "great" pulpiteers of Christendom, the favorites of the rapidly apostatizing denominations of this day, the men who, by their ecclesiastical politics or personal ability, of so-called "scholarship,...

Chapter 12 of  THIS WORLD: PLAYGROUND OR BATTLEGROUND? by A. W. Tozer Books and Moral Standards     The late Jimmy Walker, playboy mayor of New York during the roaring 20s, was widely quoted for a quip viewed as the distilled essence of gospel truth by those who wanted to believe it. "I never heard," said Jimmy, "of anyone who has ruined by a book."     These profound words were tossed off, as near as we can remember, during an official inquiry into the effect of certain questionable literature upon the morals of the reading public. Now, we can offer no proof that Mr. Walker had ever heard of anyone who had been ruined by a book, but that could only mean that the man's knowledge of the subject was vastly small or that his idea of what it meant to be "ruined" was not the same as that of the more conscientious persons within our population who still feel bothered about the effect of bad reading upon the collective public mind. Whatever t...

Newell, commenting on Romans 1:22, writes: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" - rejecting the light of God's knowledge in their consciences, men now arrogated to themselves wisdom, and became - what? "Fools."  "The fear of the Lord is the beginning" - of both knowledge and wisdom (Prov. 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Ps. 111:10; Job 28:28).   "They sit at the feet of 'professors' whose breath is spiritual cyanide.  They idolize the hog-sty doctrines of a rotten Freud*, and count themselves 'wise!' They say, 'God is not a person; men evolved from monkeys; morals are mere old habits; self-enjoyment, self-expression, indulgence of all desires - this is the path of wisdom.'  It is the path of those who go quickly down to the pit and on to judgment!  The very morals of Sodom, as our Lord foretold, are rushing fast upon us, and God will bring again the awful doom of Sodom (Luke 17:28-31)."     "Now if ...

"The Bible declares, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' After the creation of all else, God said, 'Let us make man in our image...So God mad man in his image.' He then created Eve, a wife for Adam, and gave them the easiest command possible: of the innumerable trees of delicious fruit He had planted in the Garden paradise, there was only one of which they were not to eat: 'the tree of knowledge of good and evil' (Gn. 2:9). It could have borne any variety of fruit. There was no spiritual power in the fruit of this tree any more than in any other fruit just like it. The command not to eat of that particular tree was a test of His creatures' obedience. Disobedience even in such a simple thing would be rebellion for which they would be cut off from God, the giver of life, resulting in physical and spiritual death and expulsion from His presence forever. Critics find it incredibly cruel that eating forbidden fruit should r...