IS ELECTION NECESSARY?

Is election necessary to the preaching of the gospel? Absolutely it is! There can’t be any good news for dead sinners unless God chose to save us according to His will not ours. Our will is dead and we will never choose God unless God chose us first and gives us a new nature. There can’t be any good news for guilty sinners unless God chose us in Christ and not because of anything we did or did not do. The only thing we can do is sin, which deserves hell. There can’t be any good news for sinners unless God loved us simply because God has the capacity to love sinners. We certainly would not love God unless He loved us first. Thank God for the truth of His electing love!

Pastor

Does Worship Cost Anything?

“Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing.” (II Samuel 24:24)


These were the words of David to Araunah when he had attempted to give David what was necessary for the sacrifice. This statement has a wide variety of applications. I would like for us to consider one of these applications. There is an element of sacrifice involved in public worship. There are some things you forego, and some things you actually have to do to prepare yourself for public worship. There is an effort involved in preparing yourself both physically and spiritually. There is nothing casual about worshipping God. The idea of adapting any aspect of worship for convenience is an abomination. If worship costs us nothing, you can be sure it will not be true worship. We must say with David, “I will not offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing.

Pastor Todd Nibert

A young man told me one day that he had a friend who “loved the Lord dearly, but knew nothing about sovereign, free grace.” I have a little trouble with statements like that. I would as soon expect to find a man who claimed to love the rain, but didn’t know anything about water! It seems to me that if a man ever sees God, then he knows something about holiness and purity, righteousness and justice; and if he ever sees himself in that Light, then he knows something about his sin and guilt, unworthiness and inability.

Assuming (and I do) that if such a man has found reconciliation, rest and peace in the Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, then we might further assume (I assert!) that from the very spontaneity of his new-born soul he will prefix all of his thoughts of God’s dealings with him with the word GRACE! He was redeemed by grace, spared by grace, called by grace, justified by grace, and is kept by grace. With the apostle Paul he says, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Perhaps he never heard the word Calvinist, but one thing is certain – he IS a GRACE MAN! That is, he believes in God’s sovereign, free, invincible GRACE! – and loves God for it! He sings “Amazing Grace” with “understanding,” “from his heart!”

Maurice Montgomery

True Worship

Spurgeon once said, “Depend on it, the nearer we get back to THE NAKEDNESS OF WORSHIP, the nearer we get to its truth and worship; and it is because man has fallen that his body wants clothing, so he is always dressing up his religion.”

Why the special garb for the preacher, the robes for the choir, the crosses, the candles, the processions and special effects when God looks only on the heart? I’m sure the answer will return from some quarters, “We know God is spirit and is worshipped only in spirit and truth. We do not use these visual aids for God but for men, that they may be influenced to FEEL MORE RELIGIOUS AND REVERENT.”

My friend, what a solemn and serious charge to bring against your congregation! That you can, with carnal means, do what the Spirit of God cannot do for them; namely, to give them a heart to love, adore, worship, and thank God! Mr. Spurgeon is quite right in saying, “The nearer we get back to THE NAKEDNESS OF WORSHIP, the nearer we get to its truth and worship.”