DISCIPLE

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...

  By A.W. Tozer   T HINGS ARE FOR US NOT ONLY what they are – they are what we hold them to be. That is to say, our attitude toward things is likely in the long run to be more important than the things themselves. This is a common coin of knowledge, like an old dime wo rn smooth by use, yet it bears upon it the stamp of truth and must not be rejected simp ly because it is familiar.       It is strange how a fact may remain fixed, while our interpreta tion of the fact changes with th e generations and the years. One such fact is the world in which we live. It is here and has been here through the centuries. It is a stable fact, quite unchanged by the passage of time, but how different is modern man's view of it from the view our fathers held! Here we see plainly how great is the power o f interpretation. The world is for all of us not only what it is – it is what we believe it to be. And a tremendous load of woe o r weal rides on the soundness...

Just as there are no special priviliges, advantages, opportunities and pleasures for prisoners in this world, so it is infinitely worse in Hell.   1. There is no Peace. The Devil, demons and the wicked rejecters of God are hateful and hate each other.  2. There is no Good. No Bibles, Churches, gospel tracts, preachers, missionaries, and none to help, advise, comfort, even prayer cannot help them.  3. There is no Hope, no Grace, and no Mercy. All chances to be saved there, are gone forever. JesusChrist saves here, but He can't in Hell, for He only died for man in this world. Just as demons in Hell cannot be saved, so man cannot be saved there.   4. There is no rest from the torment of a guilty conscience. 5. There is no end, no relief, no annihilation.  The torment is eternal. Newton Parker, adapted

“You cannot put one little star in motion; You cannot shape one single forest leaf; Nor fling a mountain up, nor sink an ocean; Presumptuous pygmy, large with unbelief! You cannot bring one dawn of regal splendor; Nor bid the day to shadowy twilight fall; Nor send the pale moon forth with radiance  tender; And dare you doubt the One Who’s done it all?” A. W. Pink

  What would you think if I told you I had a way of making you a millionaire in a month? How about if I knew a way you could lose 25 pounds in one month or a way to make you look younger in one week? If you have any discernment at all you would be skeptical of such promises.     There is, however, one easy way that we can increase our spiritual growth in sanctification and service. It is a rather simple method eliminate excuses! We have all made excuses in our lives. Society around us is filled with them, many of them ridiculous. For example, in New Zealand a woman who drove for 25 years without a license explained to the judge who fined her, “I only drive on roads that have very little traffic. And none of those roads lead to an office where I could apply for a driver’s license.”     The Bible tells of those who made excuses for not accepting the Gospel. Felix waited for a “more convenient season” (Acts 24:25). Those invited to the great supper had...

by William Yuille Generations of Christians from the first century onwards have lived in the expectation that the Lord was coming soon. But here we are in the year 2012* [*date of this article] and He hasn’t come yet.  Why not?  Peter speaks to this in 2 Peter 3.     God doesn’t estimate time the way we do. “Do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (v. 8). Some Christians, all the way back to post apostolic times, have interpreted this as a sort of formula and have applied it to human history over a period of one week or 7,000 years.     According to Archbishop Ussher’s calculations, Adam was created around 4,000 BC, so there  were four days before the coming of Christ; another two days take us to 2,000 AD, at which time the seventh day, the millennial age, should arrive. Now that we are in the year 2012*, that theory doesn’t look too likely. In any case, if Peter ...

Beloved friends, it becomes to the believer the prevailing character of his life to please God. That is a beautiful testimony that is borne concerning Enoch: "Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God" (Heb. 11:5). Many have not yet even thought of doing such a thing as this, and there are some who may have thought of it who perhaps have not yet attained to it. But what a blessed thing it is for a man to be brought so to trust in the Lord Jesus, so to seek the glory of the Savior, so to yield his will to God's will, and so to feel that God is his all and in all, that he comes to please God! You know what it is to be pleased with your child and pleased with what he has done. it is not perfect. From your standpoint you can see many imperfections, but still it is most acceptable as coming from your child. He has done it with all his heart, and you are well pleased with him. Well now, that should be the prevailing character, and it is the prevail...