Grace & Peace PGH

"When the wicked are successful and their misdeeds go unrequited, men tend to imagine that God is asleep... but His slumber and apparent inactivity should not be misunderstood... The verdict has already been pronounced on them, and the doom which will surely overtake them has been set in motion from of old..." —J.N.D. Kelley

Today's sermon from guest speaker David Augustine, of Reformed University Fellowship at IUP, on 1 Kings.

"We do not dishonor God if we struggle honestly with questions about how we are to best understand his self-revelation. It is not insulting to him if we sincerely express our puzzlement and frustrations in his presence. But because we also know that he is sovereign—and that he does not have to justify his ways to us—we must eventually get around to the praise songs." —Richard J. Mouw

"God acts through his words, the Word is 'alive and active' (Heb 4:12), and therefore the way to have God dynamically active in our lives is through the Bible. To understand the Scripture is not simply to get information about God. If attended to with trust and faith, the Bible is the way to actually hear God speaking and also to meet God himself..." —Timothy Keller

"They are blind in that they fail to see what they should see. They have become so shortsighted that they have forgotten the most important reality of all. Peter observed that those who are not practicing these virtues have forgotten their baptism and their forgiveness of sins. In other words, they are not living as forgiven sinners. They are behaving like unconverted people. If members of the church are living immoral lives, they bear witness that forgiveness means little to them. Those who treasure being forgiven live in a way that pleases God." —Thomas R. Schreiner

"When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers! Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." —1 Corinthians 6:1-11

"The delicate balance between the indicative and imperative is preserved here. Grace has grasped every believer in Jesus Christ, and believers have been begotten by God's grace (1:3). Still, they must stand in the grace that has secured them. Grace does not cancel out the imperative but establishes it." —Thomas R. Schreiner

"...Christians resist the devil by standing firm in the faith... What Peter is talking about is not putting strength into believing but drawing strength from what we believe." —I. Howard Marshall

"What does the picture [of a shepherd] convey? As developed in the various biblical passages, it brings out the desperate need of sheep for a shepherd: to keep them from wandering away in their stupidity; to protect them from dangers from wild animals and thieves; to feed them; to find them, even at personal risk, when they are lost; to prevent one animal from taking advantage of others; to maintain unity within the flock; and to exercise individual care. Many of these applications were made exclusively with reference to Jesus, but they apply by extension also to those who are his under shepherds in the church." —I. Howard Marshall