I'll Be Honest

"Do you think I am self-righteous?" said he."I know you are. That is your grand difficulty. You have been trying to save yourself. You are trying now. When you tried to repent, your heart aimed after repentance, as something to recommend you to God, and constitute a reason why he should forgive and save you. It was just an operation of a self-righteous spirit. It was just an attempt to save yourself, to have your religion save you, instead of relying by faith upon Jesus Christ, to be saved from wrath through him." - Ichabod Spencer

In Mark 1:24 the demons said to Christ, "Have you come to destroy us?" and as 1 John 3:8 says, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." Yet what work of the devil is this referring to? The devil's work to get men to practice sin and to sin against God. Christ has appeared to destroy the practice of sin in a person's life. His power alone can destroy such a practice; as 1 John 3:9 says, "No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God."

You are very unwise to let your thoughts dwell upon the faults of Christians at all; and when you do so, you hunt up a few professors of religion, who are not by any means a fair specimen of our church-members, and you take them as samples of all the rest. That is unfair. I am sorry you have run into this way of thinking. It will only lead you into error, and call all your attention from the eternal interests of your own soul. The fault of others cannot save you. I beg of you to think less about other people's sins, and more about your own.

Isaiah 40:27-31 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"? 28- Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29- He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. 30- Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31- but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Sadly a lot of carnality in the church can hide in the shadow of great preachers. Though some at Corinth said "I follow Paul", yet practically they had jealousy and strife among them. It is fearful to think of Paul addressing us as he did them when he said he "could not address you as spiritual people". In this sermon Ryan reconsiders what the Bible teaches us on what has been commonly called the 'carnal Christian'.

What is a true Christian? Someone who has been brought to the end of himself in repentance; and if someone is genuinely looking to Christ this shows that they have repented of their sins. The true Christian forsakes any confidence he has in the flesh, in himself, and in anything he can do to produce something to save himself. He trusts that Christ's finished sacrifice is the only way to God and his only hope.

The Bible says we are those who "through faith and patience inherit the promises." We must remember that the Bible is full of promises made by God who cannot lie. Not only this, but God has all the power to keep these promises He has made. Now here is the question: Why have we not entered in to more of these promises? God Himself says, "Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass." So may we by faith and patience be those who are inheriting the promises that God has given to us.

Charles Leiter pastors in Kirksville, Missouri at Lake Road Chapel

As the disciples spoke, God came in power, and they were called by the crowds as those who "turned the world upside down". Things that were one way were turned another way entirely. Men who were slaves of their sin were now set free. The early church we read about in the book of Acts was in the same place we are today. A place where we must pray for God to come down in order for things to be turned upside down.

How do we explain what happened in the book of Acts? Or in the biographies of those from the past like George Whitefield? Think about how things were turned upside down. You had men and women going to hell and now they are headed to eternal life. You have people who are slaves of sin now in love with Christ. What explanation is there for men turning the world upside down? The Spirit of God came in power!

The Bible calls us to testify of the facts of Jesus Christ, who is the eternal Word of God, who took on flesh, and in His ministry healed men to show us that He can heal us of our sins. He died in our place to pay for our sins and then rose from the dead and ever lives in heaven to receive those who come to Him.