Bible Study

27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

28 for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'  - Acts 17:27-28

9 Why should you be like a man confused, like a mighty warrior who cannot save? Yet you, O LORD, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not leave us." 

10 Thus says the LORD concerning this people: "They have loved to wander thus; they have not restrained their feet; therefore the LORD does not accept them; now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins."  - Jeremiah 14:9-10

7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." 

8 Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! 

9 All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this, and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, It is true. 

10 "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. 

11 I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. 

12 I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and I am God.  - Isaiah 43:7-12

14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name.

15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,

16 "'After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, 

17 that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things 

18 known from of old.'

19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, - Acts 15:14-19

Are You Playing Marbles with Diamonds?

BIBLE MEDITATION

“Therefore. a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24

 

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT

You’ve heard of the famous South African diamond mines. It is said they were discovered when a man saw some little boys playing on the ground with shiny rocks. He watched how they splashed in the sunlight. He stopped, stooped down, picked up one of them, and found out it was a diamond.

Here were little boys playing marbles with diamonds! I'm afraid that's what people today are doing when it comes to sexual purity. God has given something so beautiful, so wonderful to us, yet we misuse it and transgress every protection He placed around this sacred gift.

Since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden, man has trampled on this treasure. In modern times, things began to spin out of control with the moral and sexual revolution of the 1960s. We were told that the parameters found in the Word of God concerning the physical relationship between a man and woman are no longer applicable. Truths and commandments revealed to us in Holy Scripture were labeled ridiculous and out of date.

What has been the result of our grasping this valuable treasure and playing with it in the dirt like marbles? Children at a younger and younger age are stripped of their innocence. Our homes are coming apart at the seams. We’re witnessing the slaughter of millions of precious unborn babies who are being put to death, depression has skyrocketed. As the family unit falls apart, more young people are taking their own lives, and our nation is in chaos.

ACTION POINT

This is the reason the Bible says, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14).

God was saying, “Don't adulterate, don’t contaminate, something so precious and lovely.” Marriage, as God created it, is to be honored and protected. Value purity. Treasure it as a rare diamond.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Our Good Is His Glory

“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)

One common objection to Christian Hedonism is that it puts the interests of man above the glory of God — that it puts my happiness above God’s honor. But Christian Hedonism most emphatically does not do this.

To be sure, we Christian Hedonists endeavor to pursue our interest and our happiness with all our might. We endorse the resolution of the young Jonathan Edwards: “Resolved: To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.”

But we have learned from the Bible (and from Edwards!) that God’s interest is to magnify the fullness of his glory by spilling over in mercy to us — to us sinners, who desperately need him.

Therefore, the pursuit of our interest and our happiness, even if it costs us our lives, is never above God’s interest and God’s happiness and God’s glory, but always in God’s. One of the most precious truths in the Bible is that God’s greatest interest is to glorify the wealth of his grace by making sinners happy in him — in him!

When we humble ourselves like little children and put on no airs of self-sufficiency, but run happily into the joy of our Father’s embrace, the glory of his grace is magnified and the longing of our soul is satisfied. Our interest and his glory become one.

When Jesus promises in Matthew 6:6, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you,” this is a reward he wants us to seek. He does not lure us with joy we shouldn’t have! But this reward — this joy — is the overflow of turning away from human praise, and going into our closet to seek God.

Therefore, Christian Hedonists do not put their happiness above God’s glory. They put their happiness in God himself and discover the glorious truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

John Piper 

Bible Study

9 And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 

10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth."  - Revelation 5:9-10

18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,

19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you

21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. - 1 Peter 1:18-21

1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.

3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; - 2 Peter 2:1-4

13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

15 So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. - 2 Corinthians 11:13-15

Are You on the Brink?

BIBLE MEDITATION

“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.”

Hebrews 6:4-6

 

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT

Have you ever been to the supermarket and over near the deli, they’re giving away little samples of cheese? It tastes so good! You love it and say, “Give me 3 pounds of that.” You carry it to the register, and the checker says, “That’ll be $30, please. It’s imported from lower Mongolia…very rare.” You say, “Well, just put it back. I know what it is and how it tastes, but I’m not going to pay that high a price.”

Our passage from Hebrews chapter 6 is very interesting. It talks about something that’s impossible. It’s totally 100% impossible for some people to be renewed to repentance and get right with God.

Who is this talking about? Those who at one time were enlightened, their eyes were opened. They’ve tasted the power of the Word of God.

These aren’t saved people who’ve lost their salvation, but people who come up to the brink of salvation. After they know the truth and have nibbled at it, with eyes wide open they say “No” to God, refuse Christ, trampled beneath their feet His precious blood, and as it were, crucify Jesus again. In so doing, they commit a greater sin than those who nailed Jesus to the cross at Calvary.

ACTION POINT

Here’s the good news: If you want to be saved, that means the Holy Spirit is working in you. Anyone who wants to be saved can be. Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. Believe in your heart God has raised Him from the dead. You will be saved (Romans 10:9). Who may come? “Whoever” (Revelation 22:17). You can come and take the water of life freely. Come to Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Power of a Superior Promise

I shall walk in freedom, for I have sought your precepts. (Psalm 119:45, my translation)

An essential element of joy is freedom. None of us would be happy if we were not free from what we hate and free for what we love.

And where do we find true freedom? Psalm 119:45 says, “I shall walk in freedom, for I have sought your precepts.”

The picture is one of open spaces. The word frees us from smallness of mind. “God gave Solomon . . . breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore” (1 Kings 4:29). The word frees us from threatening confinements. “He brought me out into a broad place” (Psalm 18:19).

Jesus says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The freedom he has in mind is freedom from the slavery of sin (John 8:34). Or, to put it positively, it is freedom for holiness.

The promises of God’s grace provide the power that makes the demands of God’s holiness an experience of freedom rather than fear and confinement. Peter described the freeing power of God’s promises like this: “Through [his precious and very great promises] you become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:4).

In other words, when we trust the promises of God, we sever the root of corruption and sinful desire by the power of a superior promise.

How crucial is the word that breaks the power of counterfeit pleasures! And how vigilant we should be to light our paths and load our hearts with the word of God!

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11).

John Piper 

Bible Study

18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.

19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,

20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,

21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. - Acts 3:18-21

12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,

14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. - Colossians 2:12-15

4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. - Romans 7:4-6

24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,

26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. - Galatians 3:24-29