To God Be the Glory Here are five truths we believe with all our heart. Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the saints. What these blessed truths of Gods Word do is attribute all the salvation of a sinner to God alone - therefore God gets all the Glory. To tell a sinner that God wants to save him, yet He cant because the sinner wont let him, is to make the sinner have all the power in his own salvation, which makes God powerless. Can this be true? Can a man control the grace of God? Can a sinner make the death of Christ ineffectual, because he wont co-operate with the Holy Spirit? Can the sinner make the blood of Christ powerless because he wont let Christ into his heart? These things are too absurd to be believed. Men can call it a lie, or even call it heresy, but cannot refute it. There have always been, of course, many objections to these five truths. Most of them boil down to two. The first contends that these doctrines are not true, for the reason that God is not totally sovereign. This objection is without foundation, for Scripture repeatedly states that God is sovereign. Which simply means that He acts like God, he does as he pleases (Psalm 115:3). The second objection is founded on the mistaken notion of Mans free will, man is responsible but not free. He is a slave to sin until freed by Christ. Christ said, No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:44). Scripture teaches free grace, not free will. Underlying these objections is the secret (and sometimes open) objection, Thats not fair! This is worst, for it is a direct accusation against God. It mistakenly presupposes that Man has rights, that grace is owed to him. Grace would not be grace if fallen man had a claim upon it. Man, by nature, is a guilty, totally depraved enemy of God. The Doctrine of Gods Grace has a twofold effect. First, they humble the sinner and encourage the saint. They give man his due place. It gives the believer a solid foundation for his faith; he knows that if a sovereign God is for him who can be against him? The second effect is that they give all glory to God. Can we give God too much Glory? God will not give His glory to another. These five blessed truths recognize that Man is Man and God is God. We exist for Gods glory. And so our song shall ever be... To God alone be the Glory. Pastor Don Bell
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 17:37:54 +0000