Text 162, 153 rader
Skriven 2005-01-23 06:57:16 av Bob Hoffman (8:8/2)
Ärende: A Completed Sacrifice
=============================
From: "Bob Hoffman" <bhoffman@fmlynet.org>

      Faith's Checkbook - Powered by InJesus
      Sunday 01-23 / A Completed Sacrifice
      Robert Prodoehl
      Jan 22, 2005


A Completed Sacrifice

"And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering: and it shall be
accepted for him to make atonement for him" (Leviticus 1:4).

If by that laying on of his hand the bullock became the offerer's sacrifice,
how much more shall Jesus become ours by the laying on of the hand of faith? My
faith doth lay her hand On that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I
stand, And there confess my sin. If a bullock could be accepted for him to make
atonement for him, how much more shall the LORD Jesus be our full and
all-sufficient propitiation? Some quarrel with the great truth of substitution;
but as for us, it is our hope, our joy, our boast, our all. Jesus is accepted
for us to make atonement for us, and we are "accepted in the Beloved." Let the
reader take care at once to lay his hand on the LORD's completed sacrifice,
that by accepting it he may obtain the benefit of it. If he has done so once,
let him do it again. If he has never done so, let him put out his hand without
a moment's delay. Jesus is yours now if you will have Him. Lean on Him -- lean
hard on Him -- and He is yours beyond all question; you are reconciled to God,
your sins are blotted out, and you are the LORD's.

======================================================================
continuation ....God's Part and Man's Part in Salvation by John G. Reisinger

http://www.soundofgrace.com/aug97/godsp1.htm
======================================================================
SIX: The Scriptures clearly show that faith and repentance are the evidences
and not the cause of regeneration. Suppose a man who had been dead for twenty
years greeted you on the street one day. Would you conclude that the man had
gotten tired of being dead and decided to ask a great doctor to perform a
miracle and give him life? I'm sure you would, instead, exclaim in amazement,
"Man, what happened to you? Who brought you back to life?" You would see he was
alive because he was walking and breathing, but you would know these were
evidences of a miracle having been performed on him from without and not the
results of his own power or will. Just so when a spiritually dead man begins to
perform spiritual acts such as repentance and faith; these spiritual fruits
show that the miracle of the new birth has taken place.

Let me illustrate this with a biblical example. Acts 16:14 is a clear proof of
the above. By the way, as far as I know, this is the only place in the New
Testament that uses the phrase opened heart, and the Bible gives the whole
credit for this opening to God's power and not to man's will. Modern evangelism
does the exact opposite and credits the opening of the heart to the power of
man's free will. Remember that we are not discussing whether man must be
willing to open his heart. We settled that under points One, Two, and Three. We
are now looking for the source of power that enabled man to perform that
spiritual act. Arminianism insists that man's free will must furnish the
willingness or power, and the Bible says that the Holy Spirit of God furnishes
that power or ability in the new birth.

Let us examine the one text in Scripture that uses the phrase "opened heart"
and see if it agrees with our previous points:

And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira,
which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended
unto the things which were spoken of Paul. (Acts 16:14)

The NIV says:

The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.

First of all we note that Lydia did indeed attend or listen to the words of
Paul. She gladly heard and willingly believed his message. As we have already
shown, she had to do this in order to benefit from the gospel and be saved.
Lydia's attending, or hearing and believing, illustrates points One, Two, and
Three above, and refutes Hyper-Calvinism (which says the elect will be saved
regardless of whether they hear and believe the gospel or not). Lydia did
indeed choose to believe, and she did it only because she wholeheartedly wanted
to. She did not do it unwillingly nor did God hear and believe for her. It was
her own response and it was a most willing response.

Next, we notice exactly what God did. We see here demonstrated what God must do
before Lydia can be saved. (l) He provided a salvation of "by grace through
faith" that could be preached. Obviously the things spoken by Paul were the
gospel facts concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and surely this Lamb is God's gracious provision. (2) God also brought
the message of His provision to Lydia. He sent a preacher to tell her about
this great plan of salvation. God went to a lot of trouble to provide such a
gospel - He gave His only begotten Son. He went to great ends to provide such a
preacher as Paul - read about it in Paul's testimony in Act 22.

It is at this point that Arminianism departs from the Bible and proceeds to
apply human logic to the above truths. They tragically fail to look at the rest
of the biblical text and see that God must do something else. (3) God must open
Lydia's heart (or give her spiritual life) so she will be able to believe. Her
natural mind is blind, her natural heart is averse to God, and her will is in
bondage to sin and spiritual death. Only the power of God can free her from
this graveyard of spiritual depravity. The giving of this life and power is
solely the work of God. Notice that the Bible explicitly gives God alone the
credit for Lydia's heart being opened. If you do not see that in this text then
you simply cannot read:

....whose heart the LORD OPENED...

Notice also how clearly the Holy Spirit teaches us the relationship between the
cause and the effect in the conversion of Lydia. God was the One Who opened
Lydia's heart, that is the cause, and He did so in order that she might be able
to attend to the truths that Paul preached, that is the effect. Now that is
what the Word of God says! Do not bluster about dead theology or throw Calvin's
name around in derision, just read the words themselves in the Bible. If you
try to deny that the one single reason that Lydia understood and believed the
gospel was because God deliberately opened her heart and enabled her to
believe, you are fighting God's Word. If you try to get man's free will as the
one determining factor into this text, you are consciously corrupting the Word
of God.

God's grace not only provides salvation, but His power also gives us the
ability to both desire and receive it. He works in us both to will and to do.
His working in us to will is the new birth, and, I say again, this work of
regeneration is totally the work of the Holy Spirit.

The moment we lose sight of this distinction between being saved by faith (the
act of man) and being born again by the Holy Spirit (the act of God), we are
heading for confusion and trouble. We will be convinced that man is able to do
what the Bible emphatically states he is unable to do. The necessity of the
Holy Spirit's work being thus theologically denied, it will not be long before
it is ignored in actual practice. This is the plight of modern day evangelism.
Since they are convinced that the new birth is within the power and ability of
man's will, their man made methodology has become far more important than the
theology of the Bible. Organization and advertising become the absolute
essentials to success while the necessary work of the Holy Ghost is all but
forgotten. It is true that lip service is given to the need to "Pray for the
Holy Spirit's guidance," and cards asking people to promise to pray every day
are always sent out months in advance of the big campaign. However, some people
are not sure if the promise to pray or the other pledge (to give money) which
is always included (only your gifts can make this great campaign possible) is
the most important to the success of the campaign.

But that's another subject for another day.
======================================================================




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
      Visit My InJesus to manage your subscriptions, change your profile, or
check out thousands of other great ministry groups.
      If you do not have access to the web, you can use these addresses to
unsubscribe or subscribe:
      Unsubscribe: Faith-s-Checkbook-unsubscribe@MyInJesus.com
      Subscribe: Faith-s-Checkbook-subscribe@MyInJesus.com

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5
 # Origin: FamilyNet Sponsored by http://www.christian-wellness.net (8:8/2)
 * Origin: BBS Networks @ www.bbsnets.com 808-839-6036 (1:10/345)