Pastor Charles Pennington

PERSEVERANCE AND PRESERVATION

And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. (Jer. 32:40). Believers do continue to abide faithful to the gospel (1 John 2:28), to the Lord Jesus and to the work of the ministry where the Lord has placed them, because they love the Lord Jesus Christ (1Cor. 13:13) and they are kept by His power (1Peter 1:5). There are two sides to this blessed truth, like that of faith and repentance where you find one you find the other. Along with perseverance of the saints, we see the dynamic, sovereign and vigorous power of God’s keeping grace, we call that reservation. God keeps them sealed until the day of final glory (Eph. 1:13-14). His sheep shall never perish (John 10:27-30).

Pastor Tom Harding

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RIGHTEOUSNESS IMPUTED

Every son and daughter of Adam is born a sinner. We didn’t become a sinner the first time we told a lie or the first time we took something that didn’t belong to us. All men are already sinners when we are born, because we became sinners in Adam. When Adam sinned, his guilt was imputed to (or charged to) everyone who would ever come from his loins. Guilt was not even charged to Eve when she ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve’s eyes were not opened to sin, guilt, and shame until Adam disobeyed God and ate the fruit that God had commanded him not to eat.

Every believer is made righteous the same way we were made sinners – through imputation. No believer is made righteous because we kept the law. Just like we didn’t do anything to make ourselves guilty, we don’t do anything to make ourselves righteous. All of God’s elect became righteous in Christ. When the Lord Jesus Christ lived a perfectly righteous life as a man, His righteousness was imputed to (or charged to) everyone in Him. Righteousness cannot come through a sinner’s obedience to the law. Righteousness can only be imputed to a sinner through faith in Christ. “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed” (Rom 4:16). This is the best news a sinner, who can do nothing but entirely depend on Christ to save, ever heard!

THE HOPE OF TRUE PREACHING

I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, "You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself." My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will. (Rom.9:16).