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February 14 - April 20, 2019
A spiritual and saving knowledge of God is the greatest need of every human creature.
An unknown God can neither be trusted, served, nor worshipped.
God is only truly known in the soul as we yield ourselves to Him, submit to His authority, and regulate all the details of our lives by His holy precepts and commandments.
but, to entertain anything approaching an adequate conception of His being, His nature, and His attributes, as these are revealed in Holy Scripture, is something which very, very few people in these degenerate times have attained unto.
During eternity past, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied; in need of nothing.
The creating of them when He did, added nothing to God essentially.
That He did create was simply for His manifestative glory.
God is no gainer even from our worship.
It was, as Ephesians 1:5 tells us, “according to the good pleasure of His will.”
The force of this is, it is impossible to bring the Almighty under obligations to the creature;
God gains nothing from us.
who is all-blessed in Himself.
our obedience has profited God nothing.
Jesus Christ added nothing to God in His essential being and glory, either by what He did or suffered.
It is perfectly true that God is both honored and dishonored by men; not in His essential being, but in His official character.
All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
He is solitary in His majesty, unique in His excellency, peerless in His perfections. He sustains all, but is Himself independent of all. He gives to all, but is enriched by none.
“God is Spirit” (Joh 4:24), and therefore can only be known spiritually.
But fallen man is not spiritual; he is carnal.
The principal prayer and aim of Christians should be that we “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col 1:10).
The word “decree” is found in Psalm 2:7. In Ephesians 3:11 we read of His “eternal purpose.” In Acts 2:23 of His “determinate counsel and foreknowledge.” In Ephesians 1:9 of the mystery of His “will.” In Romans 8:29 that He also did “predestinate.” In Ephesians 1:9 of His “good pleasure.”
God’s decrees are called His “counsel” to signify they are consummately wise. They are called God’s “will” to show He was under no control, but acted according to His own pleasure.
God’s decrees are said to be “the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11).
God’s decree is as comprehensive as His government, extending to all creatures and all events.
The care of Providence reaches to the most insignificant creatures, and the most minute events—the death of a sparrow, and the fall of a hair.
First, they are eternal.
No man who believes that the divine understanding is infinite, comprehending the past, the present, and the future, will ever assent to the erroneous doctrine of temporal decrees.
In like manner we should satisfy our minds as to God’s works when doubts obtrude themselves upon us, and repel any objections that may be suggested by something that we cannot reconcile to our notions of what is good and wise.
God was alone when He made His decrees, and His determinations were influenced by no external cause.
Side by side with the immutability and invincibility of God’s decrees, Scripture plainly teaches that man is a responsible creature and answerable for his actions.
God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be.
If it were true that God had elected certain ones to be saved because in due time they would believe, then that would make believing a meritorious act, and in that event the saved sinner would have ground for “boasting,” which Scripture emphatically denies (Eph 2:9).
Human responsibility is based upon divine sovereignty.
The Apostle’s confidence in the absolute security of believers was founded not on the strength of their resolutions or ability to persevere, but on the veracity of Him that cannot lie.
Neither in the Old Testament nor in the New is the grace of God ever mentioned in connection with mankind generally, still less with the lower orders of His creatures.
Grace is the sole source from which flows the goodwill, love, and salvation of God unto His chosen people.
it is important to note that the mercies which God bestows on the wicked are solely of a temporal nature; that is to say, they are confined strictly to this present life.
Christ died not in order to make God love us, but because He did love His people.
Christ was beloved of the Father, yet He was not exempted from poverty, disgrace, and persecution. He hungered and thirsted. Thus, it was not incompatible with God’s love for Christ when He permitted men to spit upon and smite Him. Then let no Christian call into question God’s love when he is brought under painful afflictions and trials.
