Led of the Spirit

Salvation is a costly, priceless thing, for it cost Christ Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, His own life.  If you are born again, your spirit, soul and body have been bought with a price, the Precious Blood of God Incarnate.  This should make us grateful toward God, and cause us to desire to be living in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, and being willingly led by the Spirit of God.  This is what religion will not and cannot reveal to you.  The Spirit of God gives us liberty, spiritual progress, direction, and good Christian character and behavior.  Through the Holy Spirit grace is practiced and demonstrated in our daily lives.  Law means I must do something for God; Grace means that God does something for me.  It is either the flesh and the law, or the Holy Spirit and grace.

We should be serving one another, loving one another through the Spirit of grace.  Carnal religiousness with its dos and don'ts always results in biting, devouring, consuming, provoking and envying.  Rules increase sinful activity; the strength of sin is the law.  The old nature gets stirred up when you tell it to do or not do something.  When you say No!, the old sinful nature says, "Oh yes I will!"  When you say, Don't! the carnal man says, "You can't tell me what to do.  I want what I want when I want it!"

Sin is revived and stirred up by the law.  Sin repudiates, denies, dishonors and defies the righteous and moral standard of God's law. Your sins are offensive and hateful towards God Himself.  Sin is hostility and open rebellion against God.  Sin is when you willingly go the opposite direction that God has commanded.  Sin is not a mistake or accident.  Sin is ignoring God's will and way. Sin demonstrates allegiance to the devil.  The world tries to shun sin and to redefine it, so they won't have to admit they need the Savior.  Sin depreciates the perfect atoning Sacrifice of God Incarnate.  Jesus came to earth to deal with our sins, and to pay for them with His own blood.  Jesus lifted up and bore away our sins at Calvary. Grace divine provided a matchless Savior.

The need of the Savior and the forgiveness of sins is denied by today's self-improved generation.  The glorious solution to your sin problem is the Lamb of God Himself.  Christ died for the ungodly.  God must either punish you or Christ Jesus for your sins.  Who will it be?  Mankind's greatest need was Salvation, so God is sent us the Savior.  The Bible doesn't teach repeated regeneration; you are only saved one time.  Go directly to God through the Mediator, the man Christ Jesus.

Conviction-ites compare each other with each other, they criticize those who are not part of their church.  Religionists are always fighting over who is the most spiritual. They say, "We're more spiritual than anyone else; we're right with God, but they're not." They have a critical, artificial, religious piety that the Pharisees had.  Failing to be all that you want to be is not hypocrisy; but pretending that you have arrived, that is Hypocrisy.  Hypocrites put on an religious act in an attempt to appear more spiritual than they really are.  Now understand - Religious legalism leads to splits, backbiting, fights and confusion. Religion substitutes regulations for a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace is the only way to peace and growth.  The Holy Spirit changes the heart inwardly.  The Law only stirs up and reveals sin; it cannot renew your inner man.  The Holy Spirit helps us to fulfill God's Law, enables us to overcome our sinful human nature, and helps us to produce Christian character and behavior.  The Holy Spirit gives us the urge not to sin.  The new nature wants to avoid sin, because sin is bad.  Become a disciple of Christ, when you looked in the mirror first thing this morning, after you see the disarray, you disciplined your face.  When you look into the mirror of the Scriptures and become aware of your flaws, discipline your soul.

The Law is always external; The Holy Spirit and grace is internal. Passing rules won't work.  Grace gives us freedom to become more and more like Jesus Christ.  The Spirit of God plus the word of God results in the liberty of God.  Stand fast in the liberty where Christ has made us free.  The liberty of maturity is needed.  An immature child with liberty will end up injured or in bondage.  Sin leads to injury and bondage.  Human nature says, "I can't wait until I can leave like I please."  The worst bondage in the world is to live like you please; spiritual liberty according to Grace is to live as God is pleased.  Do you sin in your life and sorrow over it, or do you live and long to sin?  A Christian can sin, and a lost man can do good things, but the born again believer's sin is not charged to him, but his sin has been charged to Christ's account.

Everything that is of God, the devil tries to counterfeit and ruin.  Dirty appetites will lead you to live the way you please.  Grace doesn't give you license to sin, Grace gives you liberty to please God and serve one another.  There are privileges and responsibilities of grace.  A man's maturity is always determined by what he does with privileges; that's shows what he is.  When you have extra money, what do you do with it?  The reason I don't sin is because I don't want to hurt God or those around me.  Love is the fulfillment of the law.  Sin exploits your neighbor; Grace leads you to love your neighbor.

When we were lost all we had is our sinful nature within, but when we receive Jesus into our heart, God gave us the Holy Ghost along with a new divine nature.  The Holy Spirit enters into your human personality and desires to change you.  There is now a conflict going on within every born again believer.  Our sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit desires what is right and pure.  When you are lost you did bad things, but when you are born again, you have an inward conflict with your different sins of selfishness, lust, envy, pride, and the like.

You cannot give a flower plant-life by reading to the plant out of a gardening book and dictate to the plant on how it should be growing, and neither can you give a soul spiritual-life by dictating to it dos and don'ts.  Only life and give life.  The Spirit of God is life.  The flower is given life by putting it into the light and by nurturing and feeding its soil and roots with life-giving nutrients.  You can't make someone spiritual by beating them over the head with religious rules.  Love, encouragement, nurturing, and prayer gives life.  Only the Holy Spirit can kill the evil desires and urges of human nature.  If you love that which is dirty or worldly, you will go after it.  Whatever you love in your heart, you will do, or you will strive to get.  You need a need clean appetite within; more internal life is needed from the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit produces fruit which is Christian character and behavior.  Your car works but it is not alive; a computer may work but it cannot have life.  You can do good works, and still not have spiritual life within.  The Holy Spirit produces spiritual fruit.  Fruit comes from life; it must be cultivated.  Walk in the light of the words of God, be led of the Spirit, yield to God's way.  When you have the fruit of the Spirit, people will come to you and enjoy the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance) from you that they need.  Growth in spiritual character is needful, that is, living for and loving one another, respecting one another, and encouraging one another.  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God.  If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

Heavenly Help 1

Every man has sinned against God's person and Law.  Each and every one of these transgressions against your Maker must be punished.  Divine justice requires that a man must pay for sin, so God Himself became a human being, the man Christ Jesus.  If you are unconverted, you are now in extreme danger on account of your treatment of God and rejecting of Christ.  Ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand the seriousness of sin and the dread reality of your sinful condition before God. You are an out-and-out enemy to Him; and He will surely visit you in unflinching justice and punish you for your many transgressions.

You are going to die, Judgment is coming, and God has commanded you to take shelter; that is, to trust to His Son's Blood.  In your natural state, you are living at odds with God every day. The audacious sinner yawns in the face of an angry, holy Judge.  The Lamb of God was offered to satisfy the holy, divine justice of God.  God's wrath toward you can only be appeased by your personal trusting to His Son's Blood for your protection; the Blood of Jesus alone can preserve you from the wrath to come.  Fix and anchor your hope and faith on a sinless Person who died for you, and was buried, and three days later He rose from the dead, and who is now alive forever more - His name is above above every name - The Lord Jesus Christ.  Pin your faith to the Cross.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, yes He did.  The Good (Jesus) died for the bad (me). I just can't thank Him enough.  Jesus cared so much for my soul when He bled and died on Golgotha.  I trusted Jesus' blood and mercy, and now I know Him; He is my constant Friend and Helper.  Thanks be unto God, Christ Jesus is the Atoning Sacrifice for me, the perfect Savior my soul needs. The Lord Jesus Christ is my sure Foundation; there are no cracks in Him at all; my soul rests securely on His holy words and atoning blood.  His grace is greater than all my sins.  His goodness and mercy follow me daily, and will endure toward me forever. 

God is just, and every sin you've ever committed against God is recorded in His books.  Your secrets are recorded there till the coming Judgment Day.  Man must make reparation for the injury done to God's perfect justice.  JEHOVAH became a Jewish man to make amends for your human sin and guilt.  Jesus stepped in between you and God, and He suffered the retribution that was due to you, and made amends to the injured justice of God, and then sets you free.  Jesus' Blood is necessary for your protection from God's divine wrath on sin.  Judgment must either fall on you or the Lamb of God. You need to personally flee to the Lamb of God; cast yourself on His atoning, finished work.  Jesus' Propitiation turns God's wrath from us, and His Atonement washes away our sins forever.

Your sins were actually laid on the innocent Lamb of God; He was numbered with the transgressors, and He willingly took the deadly blows of divine justice your sins now deserve.  You must stand before God's bar of divine justice.  Against God your sins have been committed, and in order to blot out the your crimes against divine justice, it is imperative that the penalty be exacted and the criminal should die eternally.  Jesus took the place of a criminal, so you could be freed eternally.  The good God of heaven who was offended took the place of the guilty offender and died a bloody substitutionary death, so that your debt to divine justice could be paid in full.  The merciful Judge bore the penalty, that He could have pronounced upon the culprit.  Divine justice was visited upon Jesus' head because of you.  Jesus vindicated His own Law, and bore all the penalty you had coming.  Jesus rendered a full recompense to divine justice.  There is joy and peace in believing on His Precious Blood.

No man troubles himself about a bill when it is paid in full.  I have not paid a penny for my sins.  I never contributed a red cent toward any of my sin debt.  I am perfectly at ease now under the Blood of Jesus Christ.  Only because He bore all my sins in His own body on the tree.  He took all my debts and paid them in full for me with His own life blood.  My sin debts are gone forever, only because of what Jesus has done for me.  Christ Jesus the Lord suffered instead of me.  I had absolutely nothing to do with paying my sin debts.  My sins are now gone as if I had never had them.  I have nothing to do now but be thankful to Jesus for being so merciful to me.  All my hope is stayed on His Blood Atonement  for human sin.  

Place all your confidence on Christ Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, who has made Atonement for all your sins with the shedding of His Precious Blood.  The Precious Blood shelters me from the wrath of God.  Whosoever believeth on Jesus shall not perish, but have everlasting life.  I do trust in Him now, and rest my soul alone on Him.  You are saved freely by entirely rejecting your own righteousness, and then receiving Christ's Righteousness.  The Atoning Blood of the Son of God redeems us from the avenging justice of God. Jesus' bloody death has forever rendered compensation and satisfaction to injured divine justice.  The Law can ask no more for Christ has paid to the Law all that unbending divine justice could demand.  

Jesus' death for your sins was most terrible.  He was condemned to a criminal's cross.  He was crucified amid a mob of jesters; He bore the gaze of malice and glances of scorn; He was hooted through the streets, and jeered by a vulgar throng while being nailed to the cruel tree; He endured all their cruel taunts and vicious blasphemies.  He was nailed in your place and hung up to die naked for your sake - bleeding, wounded, thirsty, forsaken, sweating, suffering in agony a most deadly death because of your sins.  

Jesus loved His enemies who offended His laws and grieved His holiness.  A sense of your sin and guilt is a painful but blessed thing that comes from the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart and soul.  Every man's self-righteousness must be broken down by the Holy Spirit before the Law and Divine Justice of the Most High God.  Jesus will never wash you until you acknowledge you are filthy with sin.  He will never clothe you with His Robe of Righteousness until you admit you are naked in His sight, with no righteousness of your own.  He will never give you His eternal life until you recognize you are dead in your sins.  Human religions flatter human goodness and ability, but the Gospel reveals your sins, inability, danger and misery.  No sins can ever condemn a believer in Jesus Christ, for Jesus has paid that person's sins in full.  

You are an immortal soul that inhabits a temporal body.  The forever part of you is your soul.  Your soul must be born again. You are not a body which has a soul; you are a soul has a body.  God Himself came to down to earth and inhabited flesh, so His Blood could be shed to pay the price for your sins against God's justice.  Jesus suffered what was due to you for sinning against God, and made perfect Atonement to divine vengeance on your behalf.  Jesus fully satisfied God's holy and perfect justice and turns away God's wrath from those who believe on Him with His atoning work on the Cross.  The only answer for your sin problem is the cleansing blood of Christ. *I John 1:7*

Jesus, the Son of God, was made a curse for you, and put to an accursed death, by being nailed upon the Cross, and all because human sin wherever it may be is hateful to God.  All of your sins were laid on Jesus, and He took God's indignation toward sin in your place - that is Substitution.  The full load of divine wrath fell directly upon the Lamb of God, and He was utterly consumed with anguish, and finally said when He gave up the ghost, "It is finished!"  This is the only way sin can be put away from your soul.  

Your sins were laid upon Another, and that sinless Substitute was made to suffer as if your sins belonged to Him.  Sin cannot be in two places at one time, and the same sins cannot be punished twice.  The offender becomes clear of his sins; he is pardoned and accepted, because his Substitute has been punished instead of him, the criminal.  It pleased God the Father to bruise Jesus, He put Jesus to grief for your sake.  

God made Jesus' soul a sacrifice for sin; the thunderbolts of divine justice fell upon the Victim, and now the Sacrifice is finished, and Christ was made the accepted Atonement for all your sins.  For your transgressions, the Savior bore the wrath of God. A man can give mental assent to facts of Jesus and never receive Him inwardly as his personal Sin-Bearer and Substitute.  Now come up close and listen - Jesus is the true blood Sacrifice for your sins, trust only to Him now.  

The Penniless Hand

If you will only provide the sinner, God will provide the Savior. Jesus gave Himself for your sins, not your merits. Your character is as bad as it can be. Plead God's mercy, not human merit. You are in awful need today, you need Righteousness, a new heart, a right spirit, and a total radical change within. You have failed to do right in so many ways. You need Everything, for you are nothing but sin and misery within. Faith is the penniless hand reaching out to the King of Heaven for Heavenly Alms.

Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfill Thy Law's demands:
All for sin could not atone;
Jesus must save, and Him alone:
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy Cross I cling.
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, else I die.
Helpless, I look to Thee for grace;
Falling flat at the Cross on my face.

Now understand - King David spared Mephibosheth only for Jonathan's sake (II Samuel 9:7; 21:7; Ephesians 4:32). God Almighty will only spare your guilty soul for Jesus' sake.  Inward poverty drives us to the Cross for His divine charity. An inheritance never comes to you by works. A wise man is more afraid of his own righteousness than his unrighteousness. God will only bless you according to the Atonement of Christ Jesus. The best gift a man can ever receive is God's fear (See Jeremiah 32:40).

Faith is trusting wholly upon the person, blood, merits, and promises of the Son of God. You can rest assured on the finished work of Jesus Christ. By grace ye are saved. The best and safest thing for any sinner to do is to trust alone to the merits and sufferings of the Lamb of God. *John 1:27* Evolution is a dangerous and damning lie. To trample upon the bleeding love of God is a deadly thing. Never put your doings in the place of Christ's atoning blood.  Leave your sins, quit self, and trust in Christ's blood alone - this is the old path and good way. Trusting, depending, and leaning upon Jesus Himself - that is all. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Only troubled, broke sinners ever pay the Heavenly Banker a visit.

When your sins begin to bother and burden you, only then will you come to Jesus. Human goodness is a vile odor in the nostrils of God.  Your best doings are all tainted and stained with your sins - pride, self-preservation, vain glory. Give up all hope of being saved by your own merit or strength. Give up all ideas of appearing before God in your own righteousness. Repose your restless soul in Jesus Christ's atoning Blood. Prayer is the pleading of a poverty-stricken heart to a rich and merciful God. The reason you don't pray is that you don't feel that you need anything from God, so you don't ask Him, you are in need of nothing. A needy man cries out of his heart to God for what he needs.  Nothing I do counts for anything in knowing Christ. 

Sinners are invited to the Cross only because they are evil and hopeless. The Gospel Message is full of grace, because it is directed toward those whose only claim is their need. The morally sick need the Savior's healing. We must receive everything by faith, and nothing by human merit. Trust in the merit of Christ, be sure your soul is clothed with His Righteousness from head to toe. Our own righteousness is as unacceptable to God as our unrighteousness. All our attempts to merit acceptance with God only increases our unworthiness. You deserve no good thing, but you can use Christ's good name at the Bank of Heaven freely. What self-righteous men call merit is utterly despicable to God.

From "A to Z" in the Gospel Alphabet everything is of grace alone, of free favor, of pure mercy, and nothing of human merit. You are broken in spirit, crippled by sin, have no claim to mercy, and are an undeserving enemy of God. *Colossians 1:21* You have nothing to offer God, and are totally incapable of pleasing God while you are in your evil natural state.  There is not a speck of God within you until you receive the Lord Jesus Christ into your heart by Faith in His Precious Blood. God makes a covenant of love and faithfulness with His enemies at the Cross for Jesus' sake. A miserable mendicant's only plea is for mercy through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Beggars must not be choosers, therefore simply trust what Christ Jesus has done for you on Calvary's Cross.

You cannot find acceptance with God by your own doings. A sinner is only blessed by God on account of the worthiness of His Son who died for the ungodly. Complete reliance upon the merits of Christ is the sure way. God hates the very notion of human merit, because it attempts to usurp His Son's merit. A dead thing only goes with the stream of sin, but a living thing will struggle against the downward current of sin. Come to the Cross penniless and bankrupt and receive the exceeding riches of Christ's grace. Jesus only forgives bankrupt sinners freely.

When you have nothing to pay, Christ will then frankly forgive all your sins. Come now in all your poverty, empty-handed as a destitute beggar, come and be made rich by Christ Jesus. We are rich at first in our own righteousness, but then the Spirit of God moves, the commandment comes, and the work of the Law reduces us to absolute beggars spiritually, making us poor in spirit. *Romans 7:9* *Matthew 5:3* Jesus has a quick eye for importunate beggars. Disown your own righteousness as eagerly as you disown your sins.

A penniless man will take Christ's money. The self-righteous carnal mind has no taste for the Gospel of the Grace of God. Self-righteousness kicks at the idea that human works cannot help save from the wrath of God. The most moral and excellent gentleman needs Jesus Christ just as much as the most depraved and debauched wretch. The self-righteous man cannot endure the fact that we all must be saved merely by free grace through simple faith in Jesus' atoning blood. Faith is simply the needy hand that takes from God. When the beggar takes alms from someone, he doesn't thank the hand that took the alms, but he thanks the Hand that gave to him. Even so the sinner doesn't praise his faith that receives from Christ, but the good God who gives eternal life through His Son. Now understand - Only the penniless hand gets filled at the Cross.

Be nothing, be nobody, only trust Him. Never trust yourself, simply believe in Jesus. Go now to Jesus for everything. Your best works are nothing but filthy rags in God's sight. Never mix anything with Christ's blood and merits. The best and safest thing to do is to trust altogether to the blood and merits of Jesus Christ at once. The penniless hand can have Everything for nothing. Lord Jesus, give me mercy, grant me free forgiveness, pardon all my transgressions against You. The short cut to the Cross is just to cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner, for Jesus' sake!"

The Spiritual ABC's

Here are some timeless and precious truths from the New England Primer:

A - A wise son [daughter] makes a glad father, but a foolish son [daughter] is the heaviness of his mother.
B - Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and trouble therewith.
C - Come unto Christ all ye that labor are heavy laden, and He will give you rest.
D - Do not the abominable thing which I hate, saith the Lord.
E - Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
F - Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him.
G - Grieve not the Holy Spirit.
H - Holiness becomes God's house forever.
I - It is good for me to draw near unto God.
J - Just as you are, with all your sin, come on to Jesus now.
K - Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
L - Liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.
M - Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all.
N - Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.
O - Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
P - Pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which sees in secret, shall reward thee openly.
Q - Quit you like men, be strong, stand fast in the faith.
R - Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
S - Salvation belongeth to the Lord.
T - Trust in God at all times ye people, pour out your hearts before Him.
U - Upon the wicked God shall rain an horrible tempest.
W - Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him.
X - Exhort one another daily while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
Y - Young men ye have overcome the wicked one.
Z - Zeal hath consumed me, because thy enemies have forgotten the words of God.

Two good verses for the wall of any Christian home:  And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. And My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. *Isaiah 32:17-18*

I have sinned against God and deserve hell, but Jesus came and bled for me and took all my Hell; a guilty sinner, I went to Jesus and "exchanged" all my sins for His Righteousness, now all that is left for me is Heaven.  The Lord Jesus saved me to the uttermost, and He will love me to the very end and forever.  Lord Jesus, help when I faint, and seek me when I go astray, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

Good children must,
Fear God all day, Love Christ alway,
Parents obey, In Secret Pray,
No false thing say, Mind little play,
By no Sin Stray,
Make no delay, In doing Good.

Have communion with few,
Be intimate with ONE.
Deal truly and kindly with all,
Speak Evil of none.

The Ten Commandments
1 - Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. We should worship the only true God, and no other besides Him.
2 - Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image. We should worship the only true God, with true worship, such as He has ordained, not such as man hath invented in his own mind.
3 - Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. The name of God is God himself and the good things of God, whereby He is known as a man is by his name. God's name includes His attributes, worship, word, and works. We should always make use of God and the good things of God to His glory, and our own good, not vainly, not irreverently, and not unprofitably.
4 - Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day. We should rest from labor, and much more from play on the Lord's day, that we may draw nigh to God in holy duties.
5 - Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. This includes all our superiors whether in family, school, church and government. The honor due unto them is reverence, obedience, and (when you are able) recompence and requitement.
6 - Thou shalt not kill. We should not hate or shorten the life or health of ourselves or others, but preserve both.
7 - Thou shalt not commit adultery. We are not to defile ourselves or others with unclean lusts. We should in purity possess our bodies in holiness and honor to God.
8 - Thou shalt not steal. We should not take away another man's goods without his permission, or spend our own without benefit to ourselves or others. We are to get our goods honestly, to keep them safely, and spend them thriftily.
9 - Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. We are not to lie falsely, to think or speak untruly of ourselves or others.
10 - Thou shalt not covet. We are not to lust after the things of other men; we are to be content with our own.

All men are sinners. The wages of sin against God is eternal death and damnation. A sinner can only be saved by looking only to blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, is the eternal Son of God, who for our sakes became a Man that He might redeem and save us from the deadly penalty of sin. Christ redeems and saves sinners that trust Him by His righteous life, bitter bloody death, and glorious resurrection to life again. We can only be saved by the power of Christ's blood, word and Spirit, which bring us to Him, and keep us in Him.

The word of God is the holy scriptures of the prophets and apostles, the old and new testaments, the law and gospel. The law brings you to Christ by bringing you to know your sin, and the wrath of God that abides on you for the sins you have committed, and for your rejection Christ. The law of God makes you feel your sin-cursed condition and your need of a Saviour.

The Gospel helps you in your sin-cursed condition by humbling you yet more, and then the Gospel of the Grace of God can then raise out of your dreadful condition. The Gospel humbles you more by revealing the grace of the Lord Jesus in dying to save sinners, and then convinces you or your sin of not believing on Him, and of your utter inability to save yourself or to come to Him in your own strength, and makes you feel utterly lost. The Gospel can then raise you up out of your lost estate and give you power to come to Christ. The Spirit of God will give you repentance and faith to receive Christ, prayer to call upon Him, and new obedience to serve Him.

Faith is the grace of the Spirit, whereby I deny myself, and believe on Christ for righteousness and salvation.

Prayer is calling upon God in the name of Christ by the help of the Holy Ghost, according to the will of God.

Repentance is a grace of the Spirit, whereby I loathe my sins, and myself for them and confess them before the Lord, and mourn after Christ for the pardon of them, and for grace to serve Him in newness of life.

The newness of life, or new obedience is a grace of the Spirit, whereby I forsake my former lust & vain company, and walk before the Lord in the light of his word, and in the communion of saints.

The church is a congregation of saints joined together by the word of God, to worship the Lord, and to edify one another and to glorify God.

At the last day, the born again children of God shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to give an account of our works, and receive our reward according to them.

Are You Allergic to Sin?

If you are allergic to peanuts, you avoid peanuts, you read labels and menus very closely to ensure you don't ingest them. Likewise, real born-again Christians that have received and trusted Christ Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, have a sin allergy, and they disdain their sins. Genuine salvation creates an allergy within our soul that causes us to beware of and abhor sin. But the natural man chooses to cherish, love, long for, and insanely practice their secret lusts. They love to wave sin under other people's noses, and offer sin to others. But if you really love the God of the Bible, you will confess your sins, be grieved over them, flee from and hate your sin. It is either Christ Jesus, or your sin, which will it be for you? Your sins grieve God's heart, and they made Jesus Christ bleed and die on Calvary's Cross.

Sin and sacrilege interests, excites and makes lost men laugh. Sin captures the child of disobedience's emotions. But the Bible, Christ Jesus, and the Cross upset them. They are interested in the gutter and rejoice in iniquity. They enjoy sinful actions in others - they love watching hell-avision. The natural man's conscience is jaded and blunted by his love of sin. They love to watch, listen to, and read things that exalt sexual immorality, things that exalt man, money, and materialism. Godless people love to be entertained by things that promote sin and rejoice in unrighteousness and the secret shameful deeds of darkness. The lost man automatically approves of what God disapproves of, and he delights in repeating his favorite sins. They love to hear the misfortune, faults, and failures of others, because it makes them feel superior to others.  The worldling loves and enjoys his sins, but sin pesters and annoys the Christian.

Thoughtless sinners love the 'god' they make, but not the GOD that made them. But remember - Death is the great leveller of all men. Only a fool would believe in mindless evolution. Dirty water (evolution) will never wash your soul clean. Fools make a mock at sin *Proverbs 14:9*, and be sure your SIN will find you out in your addictions, misery, wretchedness, and a Christ-less Eternity. Lost sinners laugh at sinful actions, their own and others.  They make light of vile things, jest at them, they call evil good, and good evil. The carnal mind takes delight in the sinful actions of others and applauds and approves of them. They take pleasure in doing sin themselves, and in those that do sin. They mock and scoff at those that rebuke their sinful death-styles.

The natural carnal mind is more interested and captivated by the forbidden and the dark side of life.  When you delight in and justify your sin, you offend your Maker, dishonor Christ, and grieve the Holy Spirit. The open approval of sin is the final evidence of the sinner's inward corruption; they insanely follow after lies (evolution, worldly religions) that will let them enjoy their sin.  If you sow the thorns of sin, they will not yield the corn of peace and joy within. Sow a filthy thought, reap an impure act; sow an impure act, reap a vile habit; sow a vile habit, reap an evil addiction; sow an evil addiction, reap a godless character; sow a godless character, reap a Christ-less Eternity.

You must come to the Cross with all the rest of us bankrupt, ungodly crooks, or you cannot be saved from your love of sin. What did Jesus Christ ever do to you to make you blaspheme His name and hate Him so?  Your personal sin that you commit every day deserves a terrible punishment - the everlasting Lake of Fire. Christ was punished for your sins; please don't keep messing around and die in your sins, and suffer for your sins for all Eternity, when you don't have to. Every lost man is afraid of physical pain - burns, breaks, aches, and bruises, but for some reason, they are not afraid of eternal pain. Trust Christ Jesus alone, not yourself.

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to *depart from evil* is understanding. Fear the Lord, and depart from evil.  Stop loving your sins and rejecting Christ.  A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident. By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. But the man that sinneth against God wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate Jesus Christ love death.

*GLAD TIDINGS* 5

The Cross of Calvary is the only place where a thrice Holy God will meet with a guilty sinner. Be double careful with your immortal soul, give it over to Jesus before you lose it.  Your most precious possession is your soul.  Men and women today want to save the planet or a pet, but they could care less about their soul.  They want their bodies to be gluten-free, fat-free and sugar-free, but they don't want their bodies to be alcohol-free and drug-free, and they definitely don't want their souls to be sin-free. You have broken God's Law and neglected and rejected God's Son.  You are very guilty in the sight of God.  It is inevitable that God must punish someone for all your sinning; His eternal divine justice demands it. You are a slave to sin, and under the just sentence of divine justice and condemnation.  You are up to your nose in sin; you have defiled your soul by evil thinking, speaking, and doing.  By nature every man and woman is utterly, hopelessly lost in their sins until the Gospel via the Holy Ghost intervenes in their life.

Jesus Himself was the Lamb of God, the sinless Blood Sacrifice for sin.  His body was the altar, His soul was the offering; He was the Hight Priest and the Victim in one Person.  Turn your attention and focus to the Cross where God Incarnate died to pay for your sins.  On Calvary's tree, Jesus offered up Himself as the Substitute for human guilt, and He bore the crushing weight of JEHOVAH'S wrath in His own body on your behalf.  He was numbered with the transgressors, on Him were your sins laid.  Jesus suffered what was due to divine justice, and made Atonement to divine vengeance.  Bible faith has Jesus Himself as its object and home.  Any works of yours are needless and useless when it comes to your deliverance from sin. Faith is the open hand of the needy soul which receives God's gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.  You must consciously and deliberately receive and rest on Jesus. *John 1:12* *Matthew 11:28*

There is no remedy on earth for the sinful disease which rages within your being. You need Heavenly Help as soon as possible.  I was brought low; and He helped me. Only the Holy Ghost can reveal to you a true sense of sin and guilt, a realization of divine justice, your inability to help save yourself, and your need of free forgiveness of sin through the Blood of the crucified Creator, the Christ of God.  God Himself became the Son of man, so we could become the sons of God.  Jesus came to Earth on purpose to save the likes of you.  Christ Jesus became Sin itself, and absorbed the wrath of God due to you on the Cross. The one thing that is needful is that the Precious Blood of Jesus be applied to your sinful soul by the Holy Spirit. If you are pining for full and free forgiveness, come to the feet of Jesus with all your guilt.  The eye of Faith looks only to the Blood of Jesus for mercy.

True faith is reliance on Jesus for all of your Salvation.  Faith means to believe, to trust, to confide in, to entrust your spiritual wellbeing to Christ Jesus.  Reliance upon the crucified and living Savior is the only way of Salvation for a sinner like you.  Faith is His blood *Romans 3:25* is the sure way to Heaven. God makes Himself know to man through His words, and His words are conveyed to us by the Holy Ghost.

The only Remedy is from above - the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit.  In mercy Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners from the wrath to come.  Christ stood in the sinner's place with their sins upon Him, and was punished with the sinner's punishment, and bore the divine wrath of God for sinners, that means you.  Jesus is God, and He is the Atonement for human sin.  You are guilty, come now and trust to Him.  Trust your soul with Jesus, and your soul will be saved, and your sins will be forgiven and cease to be.  

God the Father devised the wondrous plan of Salvation of transference of my sins to Christ, and by the punishment of Christ as my Substitute, instead of me, and the transference of Christ's Righteousness to my soul through Faith in His atoning blood.  God the aggrieved party is now satisfied for Christ has finished the work on Calvary, and now God can justly forgive the ungodly sinner, for Jesus' sake, because Jesus accomplished all that was required for our Salvation.  The special message of the Gospel is *II Corinthians 5:21*, and the special command of the Gospel is *Acts 16:31*.  

Seek Jesus now, and trust to Him alone; find peace with God in His Precious Blood.  Jesus says to you, "Come unto Me, and take what I freely give - the forgiveness of sins and eternal life."  Build all your hope on Jesus' bleeding love.  Closely to Him cling.  Come now and trust your defenseless soul on Jesus' Atonement, and cast all your fears on the Savior.  With all your heart, receive Jesus as the Atonement for your sins.  Self-righteous, Christ-rejecting human nature says, "But surely I must do something to help save myself."  You must have done with your doings, and only trust to Christ's doings.  Jesus came only to save the vile.  Now understand - God's mercy is only for the guilty.

You *must* be born again from above.  Human sin and misery is real.  God Himself was Incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus spent His whole life as a servant.  He was unwelcome and unrecognized.  Christ Jesus rendered to divine justice a satisfaction for my sins with His own life blood.  The arrows of divine vengeance found their target in the Lamb of God on Calvary.  Jesus bore the punishment that should have fallen on you.  By simple faith come to the Savior.  

The Blood Atonement of Christ is the Propitiation (eternal satisfaction) for human sin.  Propitiation means that Jesus quenched God's fury toward my sins with His own life and blood.  Because of Jesus alone, I am rescued from the punishment due to me from the wrath of God.  God will only forgive the guilty through the merits of His Son's blood.  Bypass all of men's religions and go straight to Jesus, the God-man, the Mediator, the Redeemer, the Atonement, the Ransom, the Propitiation for human guilt.  If your guilty soul needs Rest, come straight to Christ immediately.  You must come to repentance, that is, to turn from your love for sinning, renounce your own righteousness, and then trust implicitly to the Blood of Jesus Christ, or you will die in your sinful, natural state and go straight to Hell. 

All sin has to be punished. If you remain in your sins, you will have to go to Hell for punishment.  A man hates his idea of God that the world, religion, and his own vain thoughts have helped him contrive. A man is afraid of God, and attempts to avoid God, because he knows he has sinned, and he loves his sins.  God will only save you by His mercy for His blood's sake. You are not worthy to be forgiven of your sins; but Christ is worthy to forgive all your sins, because He is God, and He died for all your sins.  Come now and rest under the shadow of God's wings of protection at the Cross.  

There are three births:  human birth, the virgin birth, and the new birth.  One birth for you is not enough.  The two parents of the New Birth are the Word of God and the Spirit of God. The word of God and Spirit of God must plant the incorruptible seed and conceive the new man by Faith within your heart.  The New Birth gives you a new nature within that loves God and His Son.  Being born again is getting Jesus into the heart of man by Faith in His blood.  You must be twice born in order to safely enter Heaven.  Here are some traits of the twice born - they love the Lord Jesus Christ, they abhor their sins, they have a desire for purity, they wish to glorify God, and they want to help win souls to Christ Jesus, the Incarnate Creator.  

When you are born again, your name is written in Heaven in the Lamb's book of life, and the pen that writes in the book of life doesn't have an eraser.  The moment you trust Jesus, your sins are cast away by God as far as east is from the west, and there is no east pole or west pole.  You can't grow up and then be born.  Put your faith where God put your sins, on the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.  Whatever your past life may have been, look now to the atoning sacrifice on Calvary's bloody tree, and find an instant, eternal, free pardon for your many sins.  The only thing that real Faith needs is Jesus Christ.  You don't need luck; you need the LORD'S blessing.

Your natural birth is deficient and damning.  By human nature, you are a child of wrath.  By divine nature, you can be a child of God.  You feel within your conscience and mind that you have sinned, and that God must punish your sins.  A guilty criminal says, "But judge, look at the laws I haven't broken, I won't do it again, have mercy on me."  But justice knows no mercy.  The dirty well is your sin nature; and the dirty water are the sins you commit in thought, word, and deed.  

Stop scrubbing a dirty floor that you cannot get clean.  Religion and reformation cannot remove one sin from your soul.  You have been born into this natural world, you are bound to this sinful world, and you are blinded to the spiritual world.  You can be intellectually bright and still be ignorantly walking in darkness spiritually.  You have have 20/20 vision, and still be spiritually blind.  A blind man would be a fool that there is no such thing as light just because he cannot see it.  You need light and sight from God. Here is the Gospel in a nutshell - Trust to the Incarnate God's Atoning Blood.

Divine justice was satisfied, and now your sins can be freely pardoned.  Lost man is willfully blind; he doesn't want to see; because he loves his sinful lifestyle; he loves darkness rather than light.  Believe on Jesus now, and escape from your condemnation and guilt.  The way of salvation for a sinner is simply this - I am a sinner, and I do now put my trust in Christ Jesus, the Substitute for sinners.  God has set forth His crucified Son as the accepted Propitiation (satisfaction) for human sin.  Jesus is the Atonement for my sins, in which I place my sole reliance.  Jesus has lifted the yoke of sin from my shoulders, and now I rest from the burden of my guilt.  Salvation comes to me through faith in His Substitution for me on Calvary.  Divine justice was completely vindicated on my behalf by the Lamb of God.  Let His perfect and full Blood Atonement give rest to your guilty soul and troubled spirit.  God help you to trust to Jesus' Blood now.

Vance Havner Quotes 1

* We have a story to tell to the nations, but we must first tell the Gospel to our neighbors.  Some people will send men across the sea to witness, but they won't even cross the street to witness to their neighbor.
* God's people must do God's work God's way.
* You can have all your I's dotted and all your T's crossed and still misspell the word, think that over.
* You can play the notes of Christianity and still not play the music.  You can have all the theology and still not have a song in your heart.
* If you're not right in your Jesus-ology, you'll be mixed up on all the rest of your theology.
* The forgotten beatitude is this - Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Jesus.
* There are three kinds of worship:  idol worship, idle worship, and then there's ideal worship, and that worship is in spirit and in truth.
* You go to Heaven heart first, not head first.
* There are three kinds of lies:  white lies, black lies, and statistics.
* The lowest ebb is the turning of the tide.
* The religious experts of Jesus' day planned his crucifixion.
* Be a sword with one point, not a broom with straws pointed in every direction.
* The sun is old-fashioned, but without it you grope in darkness; air is old-fashioned, without it you gasp and die; water is old-fashioned, no satisfactory substitute has ever been discovered; the plain Gospel is old-fashioned:  Sin's as black as ever, Hell's as hot as ever, Judgment is certain, Salvation is free, and Eternity is forever.
* The world is living in gross darkness today.  Mammoth Cave is not limited to Kentucky; it is universal.
* We must make room on our schedule for the unscheduled visit of God.
* Man's brain today lives in unprecedented brilliance, but his heart dwells in unmitigated darkness.
* Nothing is going to happen unless God moves on the scene.
* Man calls it broadmindedness, but he's really only stretching his conscience.
* Men want to know how much sin they can enjoy and still be a Christian and get to Heaven.
* Tragedy has become comedy in America.  We are laughing at things today that we ought to cry about.
* Nothing is definite, everything is fuzzy today.  Black and white have become smudged into an indefinite gray.
* The real problem is sin, and science has no answer for sin.
* It's hard to find an old-fashioned sinner anymore; they are scarcer than whooping cranes.
* Many have a sermon on how to preach so as to convert nobody.  They are experts at the art of almost saying something.  They preach on sin, but they never mention any of the particular sins of the congregation.
* The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for the saints.
* When the Lord's sheep are a dirty gray, all the black sheep are more comfortable.
* I want to be shipwrecked on God, and stranded on omnipotence.
* Here's a pretty good way to test your Christianity:  Do you want all the light you can get?
* Redeem the time; spend time with the Redeemer.
* Jesus came not to brush away the cobwebs but to kill the spider.
* We spend more money for dog food and chewing gum today than we do for world missions.
* The devil has a thousand devices to get you used to the dark.