Free Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis

Christ certainly spoke with power - so much so that the ones sent to arrest Him found themselves arrested by His words and had to confess to the Pharisees who sent them - -Never man spake like this man.- -7-46-. If Christ spoke unlike any other man spoke then we do well-1. To Listen to Him with Our Utmost Attention2. To Land on the Right Side of the Divide3. To Live by the Words He spoke.

John 7-24 contains the first command given by Christ in this chapter. It's a command that comes through the corridors of time right up to this present hour. It's the command to judge not merely on the basis of surface appearances, but to judge righteous judgment. This command calls on the Christian to discern the things around him not from a worldly perspective but in the light of God's truth.

In this continuation of our study in -Gospel Basics- we consider that since salvation is based on the character of God, justice had to be satisfied before grace and mercy could be administered. Justice is satisfied through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus and through Christ being the propitiation for our sins.

In our last study we considered the universal need for the Gospel which is found in the universal sinfulness of man. In this study we continue the series on Gospel Basics by considering The Nature of the Gospel. By its nature it is righteous and by its nature the Gospel is revealed to be by faith rather than works. It becomes very important for the Christian to recognize faith as the means to salvation but never the grounds for salvation. In this study an emphasis is placed on that distinction.

This section of Romans 3 contains the most concise but comprehensive description of the Gospel. Based on Charles Hodge's commentary on Romans this series contains 4 points from Hodge's analysis with an added point of my own. Those points are as follows- 1. The Universal Need of the Gospel- 2. The Nature of the Gospel- 3. The Grounds of the Gospel- 4. The Purpose of the Gospel- 5. The Results of the Gospel. We begin the series with the universal need of the gospel. The gospel is needed by all because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God -3-23-.

You wouldn't have thought that the Pharaoh's chief butler would have forgotten Joseph after the way Joseph had served him with kindness and compassion. And yet as followers of Christ we have the same propensity to forget the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. The communion table, therefore, becomes a very effective remedy to right the wrong of forgetting Christ. In this study we consider the faultiness of such a sin as well as its causes and remedy.

The chief advantage of the Jews was that they possessed the word of God. Not only did they possess the word but they searched the word. They devoted themselves to the study of the word, and yet they completely misunderstood the word because they failed to see that the Word of God point to Christ. In this study we consider how there's a right way and a wrong way to study the Word of God.

Following the healing of the lame man, you would have thought that the Jews would have rejoiced with the man who had been healed especially since he had been in his crippled condition for 38 years. But the Jews were more concerned for the fact that the healed paralytic was carrying his bed on the Sabbath day. And so they contended with Christ and the more they contended the more Christ affirmed His deity to them. In this study we consider how a man cannot honor God without honoring Christ.