9:15 a.m.
Title: David called to be king
1. Saul rejected
2. David chosen
3. More than David
Psalter 187:1-4
Samuel 16:1-13 (13)
Psalter 4:1-5
Psalter 303:1-3
Psalter 422:6-7
6:00 p.m.
Title: The Word is a light in a dark place
Psalter 60:1-5
2 Peter 1:1-21 (19) HC LD35 qa98
Psalter 40:1-6
Psalter 215:1-6
Psalter 428:8-9
Elissa Vander Boon 21 Max Webster St. Brantford ON N3P 1G5
Anna Vander Boon 1045 Mary St Louisville KY 40204
“Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” 2 Timothy 1:9.
Brethren, let the man receive these truths, let them be written in his heart by the Holy Spirit, and they will make him look up. He will say, “God has saved me!” and he will walk with a constant eye to God. He will not forget to see the hand of God in nature and in providence, he will, on the contrary, discern the Lord working in all places, and will humbly adore Him. He will not give to laws of nature or schemes of state the glory due to the Most High, but will have respect unto the unseen Ruler. “What the Lord says to me that will I do,” is the believer’s language. “What is His will that will I follow; what is His Word, that will I believe; what is His promise, on that I will live.” It is a blessed habit to teach a man to look up, look up to God in all things.
At the same time, this doctrine makes a man look down upon himself. “Ah,” he says, “I am nothing, there is nothing in me to merit esteem. I have no goodness of my own. If saved, I cannot praise myself, I cannot in any way ascribe to myself honor, God has done it, God has done it.” Nothing makes the man so humble, but nothing makes him so glad, nothing lays him so low at the mercy seat, but nothing makes him so brave to look his fellow man in the face. It is a grand truth, would to God you all knew its mighty power!
Lastly, this precious truth is full of comfort to the sinner, and that is why I love it. As it has been preached by some it has been exaggerated and made into a bugaboo. Why, there are some who preach the doctrine of election as though it were a line of sharp spikes to keep a sinner from coming to Christ, as though it were a sharp, glittering spear to be pushed into the breast of a coming sinner to keep him from mercy. Now it is not so. Sinner, whoever you may be, wherever you may be, your greatest comfort should be to know that salvation is by grace. Why man, if it were by merit, what would become of you? Suppose that God saved men on account of their merits, where would you drunkards be? where would you swearers be? you who have been unclean and unchaste, and you whose hearts have cursed God, and who even now do not love Him, where would you be?
But when it is all of grace, why then all your past life, however black and filthy it may be, need not keep you from coming to Jesus. Christ receives sinners, God has elected sinners, He has elected some of the blackest of sinners—why not you? He receives every one that comes to Him. He will not cast you out. There have been some who have hated Him, insulted Him to His face, that have burned His servants alive, and have persecuted Him in His members, but as soon as they have cried, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” He has given them mercy at once, and He will give it to you if you are led to seek it.
If I had to tell you that you were to work out your own salvation apart from His grace it were a sad look-out for you, but when it comes to you thus, black, there is washing for you! dead! there is life for you! naked! there is raiment for you! All undone and ruined! here is a complete salvation for you! O soul, may you have grace to lay hold of it, and then you and I together will sing to the praise of the glory of divine grace.
CH Spurgeon
9:15 a.m.
Title: Building and praying
1. Building together
2. Attacked by enemies
3. Persisting in the work
Psalter 359:1-4
Nehemiah 4:1-23 (9)
Psalter 249:1-6
Psalter 238:1-3
Psalter 422:7-8
6:00 p.m.
Title: The sin of worshipping images
Psalter 32:1-4
Exodus 32:1-20 (20) HC LD35 qa97
Psalter 290:6-11
Psalter 302:1-3
Psalter 421:3-4
“Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” 2 Timothy 1:9.
The purpose is not founded on foreseen merit, but upon grace alone. It is grace, all grace, nothing but grace from first to last. Man stands shivering outside, a condemned criminal, and God sitting upon His throne, sends the herald to tell him that He is willing to receive sinners and to pardon them. The sinner replies, “Well, I am willing to be pardoned if I am permitted to do something in order to earn pardon. If I can stand before the King and claim that I have done something to win His favor, I am quite willing to come.” But the herald replies, “No, if you are pardoned, you must understand it is entirely and wholly as an act of grace on God’s part. He sees nothing good in you, He knows that there is nothing good in you, He is willing to take you just as you are, black, and bad, and wicked, and undeserving, He is willing to give you graciously what He would not sell to you, and what He knows you cannot earn of Him. Will you have it?” and naturally every man says, “No, I will not be saved in that style.” Well, then, soul, remember that you will never be saved at all, for God’s way is salvation by grace.
You will have to confess, if ever you are saved, my dear hearer, that you never deserved one single blessing from the God of grace, you will have to give all the glory to His holy name if ever you get to heaven. And mark you, even in the matter of the acceptance of this offered mercy, you will never accept it unless He makes you willing. He does freely present it to every one of you, and He honestly bids you come to Christ and live, but come you never will, I know, except the effectual grace which first provided mercy shall make you willing to accept that mercy. So the text tells us it is His own purpose and grace.
Again, in order to shut out everything like boasting, the whole is spoken of as a gift. Do notice that, lest (for we are such straying sheep in this matter)—lest we should still slip out of the field, it is added, “purpose and grace which he gave us”—not “which He sold us,” “offered us,” but “which he gave us.” He must have a word here which shall be a death-blow to all merit—“which he gave us”—it was given, and what can be freer than a gift, and what more evidently of grace?
But the gift is bestowed through a medium which glorifies Christ. It is written, “which was given us in Christ Jesus.” We ask to have mercy from the well-head of grace, but we ask not even to make the bucket in which it is to be brought to us, Christ is to be the sacred vessel in which the grace of God is to
be presented to our thirsty lips. Now where is boasting? Why surely there it sits at the foot of the cross and sings, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Is it not grace and grace alone?
Yet further, a period is mentioned and added—“before the world began.” Those last words seem to me forever to lay prostrate all idea of anything of our own merits in saving ourselves, because it is here witnessed that God gave us grace “before the world began.” Where were you then? What hand had you in it “before the world began”? Why, fly back if you can in imagination to the ancient years when those venerable mountains, that elder birth of nature, were not yet formed, when world, and sun, and moon, and stars, were all in embryo in God’s great mind, when the unnavigated sea of space had never been disturbed by wing of seraph, and the awful silence of eternity had never been startled by the song of cherubim—when God dwelt alone. If you can conceive that time before all time, that vast eternity—it was then He gave us grace in Christ Jesus. What, O soul, had you to do with that? Where were your merits then? Where were you yourself? O you small dust of the balance, you insect of a day, where were you? See how JEHOVAH reigned, dispensing mercy as He would, and ordaining unto eternal life without taking counsel of man or angel, for neither man or angel then had an existence. That it might be all of grace He gave us grace before the world began.
I have honestly read out the doctrine of the text, and nothing more. If you do not like the doctrine why I cannot help it. I did not make the text; it is in my Master’s Word, and I pray you to receive what He says whatever you may do with what I say. CH Spurgeon
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CEF $ 1,624.00
Building $ 2,452.00
Faculte de Theologie $ 2,281.00
Evangelique
I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.. 1 John 2:12.
Little children This is still a general declaration, for he does not address those only of a tender age, but by little children he means men of all ages, as in the first verse, and also hereafter. I say this, because interpreters have incorrectly applied the term to children. But John, when he speaks of children, calls them παιδία, a word expressive of age; but here, as a spiritual father, he calls the old as well as the young, τεκνία He will, indeed, presently address special words to different ages; yet they are mistaken who think that he begins to do so here. But, on the contrary, lest the preceding exhortation should obscure the free remission of sins, he again inculcates the doctrine which peculiarly belongs to faith, in order that the foundation may with certainty be always retained, that salvation is laid up for us in Christ alone.
Holiness of life ought indeed to be urged, the fear of God ought to be carefully enjoined, men ought to be sharply goaded to repentance, newness of life, together with its fruits, ought to be commended; but still we ought ever to take heed, lest the doctrine of faith be smothered, — that doctrine which teaches that Christ is the only author of salvation and of all blessings; on the contrary, such moderation ought to be presented, that faith may ever retain its own primacy. This is the rule prescribed to us by John: having faithfully spoken of good works, lest he should seem to give them more importance than he ought to have done, he carefully calls us back to contemplate the grace of Christ.
Your sins are forgiven you Without this assurance, religion would not be otherwise than fading and shadowy; nay, they who pass by the free remission of sins, and dwell on other things, build without a foundation. John in the meantime intimates, that nothing is more suitable to stimulate men to fear God than when they are rightly taught what blessing Christ has brought to them, as Paul does, when he beseeches by the bowels of God’s mercies. (Philippians 2:1.)
It hence appears how wicked is the calumny of the Papists, who pretend that the desire of doing what is right is frozen, when that is extolled which alone renders us obedient children to God. For the Apostle takes this as the ground of his exhortation, that we know that God is so benevolent to us as not to impute to us our sins.
For his name’s sake The material cause is mentioned, lest we should seek other means to reconcile us to God. For it would not be sufficient to know that God forgives us our sins, except we came directly to Christ, and to that price which he paid on the cross for us. And this ought the more to be observed, because we see that by the craft of Satan, and by the wicked fictions of men, this way is obstructed; for foolish men attempt to pacify God by various satisfactions, and devise innumerable kinds of expiations for the purpose of redeeming themselves. For as many means of deserving pardon we intrude on God, by so many obstacles are we prevented from approaching him. Hence John, not satisfied with stating simply the doctrine, that God remits to us our sins, expressly adds, that he is propitious to us from a regard to Christ, in order that he might exclude all other reasons. We also, that we may enjoy this blessing, must pass by and forget all other names, and rely only on the name of Christ. John Calvin