Augustine Comments on "Because of His Call" in Romans 9:11

Augustine wrote,

"No one believes who is not called.  God calls in his mercy and not as rewarding the merits of faith.  The merits of faith follow his calling; they do not precede it...Unless the mercy of God in calling precedes faith, no one can even believe and thus begin to be justified and to receive the power to do good works.  So grace comes before all merit.   Christ died for the ungodly.  The younger received the promise that the elder should serve him from God who called him and not from any meritorious works of his own."  (Bary and Oden, Ancient Christian Commentary On Scripture, New Testament VI, Romans, pg. 251).

We see the truth of the gospel of grace in what Augustine wrote.  May we cherish it as precious in the sight of God in and through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!   We are not saved by any meritorious works but we are called to live godly, upright and holy lives in a pure morality unto faithful repentance.  If we have grace we will be able to do good works because we were preordained to do them (Ephesians 2:10).  The basis for our standing before God is Jesus Christ and His unified merit.  Praise God for His sovereign grace!  Amen.

There Is One Mediator: The Man Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5-6)

"For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time" (1 Timothy 2:5-6).

1. We cannot purchase God's favor through ceremony because we are undeserving.  We cannot purchase God's favor by anything we think, do or say.  All of us should have been cast off and utterly condemned but we have the sacrificial atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ that appeases the wrath of God the Father and removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. 

2. The world is far from God; that is, all of us have deserved banishment from His kingdom.  God chose a particular people to Himself and left the rest of the world into confusion.  We are all separated from God in our original sin and totally depravity.  He governs and maintains them by His virtue and power and goodness.  People are headed to destruction because of sin.  God does not join them to the gospel because He has not chosen too.  However, people respond in faith to the gospel because of God's kindness.  We must pity those who do not know God and call them to repentance.

3. The Bible says there is but one God.  God has made all men and put them under His protection.  There is no brotherhood among the damned.  Those who do not agree with the gospel are far away from us.  God unites us in the gospel.  The image of God is imprinted on everyone; however, that which has caused us division is the gospel but it should bring us together but Jesus brings a sword of division.

4. There is one mediator between God and man and He is Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer.  Unbelievers are poor because they do not have Christ who is rich.  Unbelievers wander and go astray.  We ought to have pity on unbelievers so they may be persuaded to come to a saving knowledge of Christ.  God did not save a few individuals only but seeks to save the whole world.  The world in the Bible has different usages but it may refer here to the Gentiles.  Christ suffered according to the Scriptures for the all the sins of the elect, but He did not merely suffer for the sins in Israel but also for the entire world.

5. He made an atonement for the sins of the whole world.  And He is the mediator between God and man.  He took upon our flesh in the incarnation; that is, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  We ought to submit ourselves to the Lord in all that He requires of us.  Jesus was made like unto us but not unto sin.  He was like us in every respect yet apart from sin.  Jesus has become are advocate and mediator between God and us.  He has provided a way for us to go to God.

6. We ought to have great regard to God's honor and bring our unbelieving neighbors to Him.  They set boundaries for Him so He does not govern the whole world.  To some extent they obscure the extent of the effectiveness of the passion and death of our Lord Christ and seek to lesson the mission given to Jesus by the Father.  We ought to proclaim the Savior's message to the ends of the earth.

7. The mediator is Jesus Christ.   He is a man but not a mere man, but God Incarnate.  Jesus was made like unto us, His brethren.  However, He did not give up His deity but gave up His glory.  He was a merciful and faithful High Priest. He made propitiation for the sins of God’s people.  He was tempted but He is able to help us in our temptation.  We ought to understand the adversity we suffer but if we did not understand it we would not understand those who suffer.  Jesus partook of all of our miseries and He tasted all our affections; however, He did not sin in all of His life.  He did this that when we call on Him He may help us.  He experienced everything we have touching temptation and He is able to go to God for us in our afflictions and temptation.

8. We surely have nothing to fear because He stands as our mediator.  There is nothing in the entire world to fear because He is with us and intercedes for us.  We can call on God as our Heavenly Father with uplifted hands to His glory and worship.  He receives us as children of God in and through Jesus Christ; that is, it is through the merits of Christ alone.  He makes understand the fruits of our adoption.  We have Christ as our awesome mediator and we can come to God on His terms.  He can made known our griefs, pains, sufferings and torments to Him.  He will relieve us of our pain.  The Romanists want us to believe that the saints are our patrons; that is, that they intercede for us.  They wish us to believe that we are unworthy to appear before our Heavenly Father.  But Jesus makes us able to approach the throne of grace because He is our mediator.  There is only one mediator and there is none else.

9. We ought to understand what is in the law.  People prayed unto God in the Old Testament.  The people stood afar off regarding the court of the temple.   Only the priest was allowed to approach the sanctuary.  And this priest is a figure of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He is indeed our High Priest.  He was clothed in new garments and consecrated to God our Heavenly Father.  The high priest entered the sanctuary, but he carried with him the blood of the sacrifice (as John Calvin says).  We understand through this that no one can find favor with God in and of themselves.  We can only find favor with God through the blood of Jesus Christ our great High Priest who shed His eternal blood on the Cross to save His people.

10. We could not call upon God except this that ceremony unless there was an advocate.  That advocate would make intercession for the whole congregation.  The intercession was based on the sacrifice offered.  Jesus gave Himself as a ransom for all of the elect so that everyone of His people would be saved.  We cannot separate the shed blood and the advocate.  Indeed, Jesus was the advocate of His people.  Jesus took upon Himself the death of the Cross and we have access to His name to God the Father.

11. We must understand that Christ is our only mediator.  Jesus came to reveal the truth.  He came as the substance and perfection of the things prefigured by the law (as Calvin says).  But Satan comes to confuse our minds that Jesus is not the only mediator.  Heretics believe that angels can be advocates.  We ought not to let anyone cheat us out of knowing Christ as our one true Mediator.  We must give honor to Jesus Christ as our one mediator and not the worship of angels.  The worship of angels is false humility.  Jesus intercedes for us as our one true intercessor (besides the Holy Ghost) and must be received as our only Savior.  It is said by the Romanists that Jesus is our only Savior in the context that there is one male Savior but they add Mary as co-redeemerix.  I think this is a violation of the writings of Paul.  Surely, they have gone beyond what is written.

12. We ought to know that Mohammed, Buddha and Confucius are not the Saviors of the world.  Calvin thought that the Romanist would call Mohammed the Savior of the world.  He was not far off because in Catechism 841 of Rome it says they worship the same God.  Somehow Calvin knew then the far off unity that would come in apostasy.  Jesus surely is our mediator and advocate, but people would argue against it.  People who argue with us would call us wrong to argue that Jesus is our only advocate.  We must maintain the certainty that Jesus is our only advocate (as opposed to other advocates besides the Spirit of God), and we must understand He is the only mediator because God designed it this way.  We can only come near to God except through Jesus’ mediatorship.  

I shall write more on this for next week and continue the next part of this sermon.  I hope and pray my notes were of use to you.  Grace and peace.

A Church Father on Justification by Faith Alone

Ambrosiaster wrote on Romans 1:17 the following,

"Paul says this because the righteousness of God is revealed in the one who believes, whether Jew or Greek.  He calls it the righteousness of God because God freely justifies the ungodly by faith, without the works of the law, just as he says elsewhere: That I may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.  He says that this same righteousness is revealed in the gospel when God grants faith to man, through which he may be justified...The truth and righteousness of God are revealed in this, when a man believes and confesses.  The righteousness is of God because what he promised, he gave.  Therefore, whoever believes that he has received what God promised through his prophets proves that God is just and is a witness of his righteousness...Through faith for faith.  What does this mean, except that the faith of God is in him because he promised, and the faith of man is in him because he believes the one who promises, so that through faith of the God who promises the righteousness of God might be revealed in the faith of the man who believes?  For to the believer God appears to be just, but to the unbeliever he appears to be unjust.  Anyone who does not believe that God has given what he promised denies that God is truthful.  This is said against the Jews, who deny that Christ is the one whom God promised...As it is written: "he who through faith is righteous shall live."  Paul now moves over to the example of the prophet Habakkuk in order to declare that in the past it was revealed that a just man lives by faith and not by the law, i.e., that a man is not justified before God by the law but by faith."  (Bray and Oden, Ancient Christian Commentary On Scripture, New Testament VI, Romans, pg. 31).

A Short Teaching on the Dogma of the Holy Trinity

How do we explain the Blessed Trinity?  The name is ‘Trinity’ is very important in explaining the Trinity.  I suggest to you that the Trinity is one eternal being of God and it is indivisible and infinite.   The one true being of God is shared by three persons, the Father, Son and Spirit.  The three persons are co-equal and co-eternal.  We must understand the distinction between “being” and “person.”  God is surely not one person, but He is three distinct persons in one essence, being or unity. 

We must understand that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the basis for the Christian faith.  It consists of redemption, predestination, creation.  We must understand what God is like and how He speaks about Himself.  We must understand how we ought to obey Him.  We must understand how to explain the ‘Trinity’ and a basic definition has been given.  God is one and yet three.  How is that possible?  We describe God as one ‘what’ and three ‘whose.’  I learned this at Liberty University when I attended their class on the Trinity through distance education.  But we must ask if the Trinity is a contradiction.  It can only be a contradiction if it is said there was three persons in one person, or that there was one essence with three essences.  We, therefore, say that there is one God revealed in three persons.  The Father is God, the Son is God and the Spirit is God.  However, there are not three Gods but one God.   This is because there is one essence of God, or being of God, or unity of God that share the three persons in the Triune Godhead.  We could wonder if Jesus prayed to the Father, how can He be God?  We must understand that Jesus was fully man because this is one of His natures.  We must make a distinction between the two natures of Christ but not separate them.  Jesus prayed to God touching His humanity and the economic distinction within the Godhead.  That is, the Father is the First Person, the Son is the Second Person and the Spirit is the Third Person.  Each member of the Trinity is fully divine and self-existent.  That is, the Trinity is from everlasting to everlasting and it means He always existed as God.  Moreover, we must understand that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, nor the Father and Son the Spirit.

Free Abounding Grace, Pt 3

25. The love with which God loves is fit for the most extreme case.  It is the power of Christ and the Spirit’s power.  Sin is no barrier because God forgives all kinds of men their sins who come to Him with their whole hearts and ask for forgiveness through the blood of Jesus which cleanses from all defilement.  The blood of Christ can take away every possible sin in anyway whatsoever.  We shall be made as wool and washed whiter than snow.  Does man’s hard-heartedness stand in the way of God’s grace?  We ought not to limit God’s favor among men.  There is nothing too hard for the Holy One of Israel.  Unbelief is not a bar because God the Spirit can make the unbelieving believe!  We must believe because this is the answer Paul gives to the jailor who asked, “What must I do to be saved?”  Man is not that master over God but God is the master over man.  There is nothing stopping God to make the blackest and foulest of people saints.  No one can stay His hand.  If necessary He can work against man and above man to save souls.  In Arab lands people have reported Jesus in their dreams.  He summons them to believe.  There is omnipotent love which no human hand or demonic foe can stop.  The means is the blood of Christ for cleansing and it has the power to take away sin as far as the east is from the west.  The Spirit has the power to renew the inner man.  Again, there is nothing in man that can conquer divine and sacred love.

26. The practical understanding of this is that the mercy gate is wide open for sinners.  God can forgive if he comes to Him on His terms.  I mean to say that God saves the worst of sinners and he can save that man as well.  He is able to save any who come to Him with a contrite heart.  There is no bar for God’s love to man. God does not love us because of something good in us.   If God wills it He cannot stop loving you.  Come just as you are and rid your soul of the darkness, because His blood can cleanse the foulest rebel.  The Lamb of God is able to forgive and cleanse the evilest of sinners. 

27. If you can trust the love of God in Christ Jesus, there is no doubt that you are saved.  All your past is blotted out and forgotten and forgiven if you trust Christ.  He casts our sin in the depths of the sea and forgives us as far as the east is from the west.  If we hear this sermon this morning, we would dance for joy because Jesus forgives people.  It is my joy to preach this sermon because it is the opening for the prisoner to be set free.  Jesus did not die so righteous people can be born again but He died for sinners. He gives us His unified righteousness and gives us a new heart.  Born again righteous!  The doctrine of righteousness shook Rome to her knees.  It is in this doctrine that sinner’s prosper unto holiness under Christ.  None but the sick see the value in the medicine.  The Spirit of God convicts sin and makes us willing to believe.  He will convince us of our deadness in sin.  I believe when I first was under construction by the Spirit of God, He showed me my deadness in sin.  I could sense it and feel it.  I had no ability to believe because I was totally unable.  But God gives us the medicine of His grace to make us whole. 

28. There are people in this world that are lost and have no hope, but Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost.  If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are saved.  We ought to come as we are.  God will accept you as you are.  God loves us freely without anything we can do.  There is no preparation worthy enough to come.  There is no ability of man that can make us come.  We can’t prepare to come to Christ because we are dead in sins and transgressions and iniquities.  You ought to receive this grace that God willingly and freely gives.  May our great and good Lord love you freely unto abundant graciousness and mercy and love!  Amen.

This is the completion of my sermon “Free Abounding Grace.”  I hope you enjoyed the study and now I hope to write on the dogma of the Trinity.  Grace and peace.

A Basic and Historical Presentation on Mormon Doctrine on the Doctrine of God

Let us pay close attention to what Mormons profess to believe.  If we learn what they teach, we can effectively evangelize them for the glorious gospel of grace and peace.  May we learn what they teach so we can proclaim the good news to them in love.  Amen.

The Mormons teach that there are many gods,

"How many Gods there are, I do not know.  But there never was a time when there were not Gods" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 7:333).

The Mormons teach that the Trinity is three separate gods,

"Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are only one God!  I say that is a strange God anyhow--three in one and one in three...It would make the biggest God in all the world.  He would be a wonderfully big God--he would be a giant or a monster" (Joseph Smith Jr., History of the Church, 6:476).

"I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods"  (Joseph Smith Jr., History of the Church, 6:474).

The Mormons teach that the Father is an exalted man,

"God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man...I say, if you were to him today, you would see him like a man in a form--like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 1973 ed., p. 345).

"The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also" (D & C 130:22).

 Mormons teach that no one is omnipresent in the Godhead,

"The Holy Ghost as a personage of Spirit can no more be omnipresent in person than can the Father or the Son" (Mormon Doctrine, 1977 ed., p. 752).

Mormons teach that God the Father also had a father,

 "The Prophet also taught...that there is 'a god above the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'...if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that he had a Father also?"  (Mormon Doctrine, 1977 ed., p. 577).

The Father became God in learning truth, entering the pursuit of Godhead and being faithful to the gospel,

 "God undoubtedly took advantage of every opportunity to learn the laws of truth and as He became acquainted with each new verity He righteously obeyed it...As He gained more knowledge through persistent effort and continuous industry, as well as through absolute obedience, His understanding of the universal laws continued to become more complete...until He attained the status of Godhood...He became God by absolute obedience to all the eternal laws of the Gospel" (The Gospel Through the Ages, pp. 114-15).

Mormons teach that God the Father has a wife and has spirit children,

"Implicit in the Christian verity that all men are the spirit children of an Eternal Father  is the usually unspoken truth that they are also the offspring of an Eternal Mother.  An exalted and glorified Man of Holiness (Moses 6:57) could not be a Father unless a Woman of like glory, perfection and holiness was associated with him as a Mother" (Mormon Doctrine, 1977 ed., p. 516).

Mormon teach God is not an eternal being, the spirit are self-existent and matter became organized.  Then the spirit is born to human parents on earth.  God took this way and became God.

 "...spirit element has always existed: it is co-eternal with God...It is also called intelligence...portions of the self-existent spirit element are born as spirit children, or in others...is organized into intelligences" (Mormon Doctrine, 1977 ed., p. 751).

 "Abraham used the name intelligences to apply to the spirit children of the Eternal Father...Use of this name designates both the primal element from which the spirit offspring were created and also their inherited capacity to grow in grace...until such intelligences...become like their Father, the Supreme Intelligence" (Mormon Doctrine, 1977 ed., p. 387; see additionally also D & C 93:29, 33; Abraham 3:18-23).

Mormons teach that if His support stopped He would stop being God,

 "...the universe is filled with vast numbers of intelligences...Elohim is God simply because all of these intelligences honor and sustain Him as such...if He [God] should ever do anything to violate the confidence or 'sense of justice' of these intelligences, they would promptly withdraw their support, and the 'power' of God would disintegrate" (Former BYU Prof. W. Cleon Skousen, The First 2000 Years, p. 355).

Now we see what Mormons teach on the doctrine of God.  Oh! how essential it is for us to get this doctrine right before God and man.  I suggest to you that the doctrine of God issue is of the utmost and eternal importance, for if someone is wrong on this doctrine they are wrong in eternity.  Let us pray for the Mormons that they may change this doctrine and embrace the one true God of the Bible. 

Free Abounding Grace, Pt 2

13. The love of God and the fruit of love is a gift from God.  The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.  God does not bargain with us and say "if" because it would not be free.   It is a free gift of God in Christ.  There is no recompense afterwards to be given.  If this is the case, the gift is pure and free and so we can rightly say "I will love them freely."  There is no doubt that the pure gift of God is eternal life or life eternal.  If we get this gift, it is a free gift of God.  It is by no means wages which we have earned but it is truly and simply free.  The poor earnings bring death and are not free.  We must know that only God's gift can bring us life.

14. The Bible speaks everywhere about God's true love and it is wonderfully stated.  Our ways are not His ways and it is like saying as high as the heavens are above the earth so is His ways and our ways.  God does not love men because of loveliness in them.  There would be nothing wonderful about it if God loved us because we were good.  We hope we can love someone who is moral.  We easily love so-called "good people" but it is hard to love "bad people."  If we do not love a good man it is a fault of ourselves.  If there was something good in man it would be no wonder that God should love him.  It would be unjust of God not to love a good man.  Jesus was the only good Man that ever walked the earth.  This is why the Father said "This is my well-beloved Son; listen to Him."  He could not say that about anyone else.  God loves us when there is no trace of goodness in man.  There is only cause to hate such a man because in man is radical corruption.  Rocks break their silence and hills break forth into music.

15. Let us understand the practical use of these things.  We ought not to trust in establishing our own righteousness because it is not at the level of righteousness of Christ alone and His unified merit.  No one should trust there works or carnal trustings.  No, no!  God will not love you according to personal merit.  He loves in and through the merit of Christ alone.  "God will love you freely."  Do not labor for the food that perishes but that which endures to eternal life.  God accepts the worst of men that come by faith.  He never casts any out but He receives them into His heavenly kingdom.  It is His promise.  He welcomes the foulest sinners and accepts both small and great alike.  We must rely on Jesus and His righteousness!  Come to Him as you are without works or satisfaction!  God will love you freely and no other way.  Self-righteousness will only take you to hell but the unified righteousness of Christ will take you to heaven.

16.  This dogma offers comfort to everyone who feels unfit to come to Christ.  The text "I will love them freely" is a death-blow to the works of satisfaction towards men.  If we rely on our performance to get saved it will fail us but if we rely on Christ's life to merit and earn heaven it will be faithful and true.  Do not add anything to the freeness of God's grace.  God's grace is free, "I will love them freely."  We may cry out to God that our hearts are so hard but He loves us freely.  We may not feel the need of Christ as we would like to because we have sinful hearts that would take us away from God.  We do not feel the softening grace of Christ in our hearts and it would seem to take Jesus away from us.  The covenant of grace has no conditionality whatsoever.  The covenant of grace is unconditional touching the sure mercies of David.  We have the promise of Christ without the meritorious works of this wicked world.  God does not want our works like He told David He did not want sacrifice of bulls and goats in Psalm 51ff.  He love us freely!  This is truly an awesome truth of Christ and there are blind people who do not see it.  There is a lot of rubbish in our world that would say we need to add to the free love of Christ.  The good news is free.  It requires no preparation, money or price!

17. The practical use of our doctrine does not end here.  We wonder how we can be saved or that God will bless us when we feel so unworthy.  But God says I love them freely.  Doesn't this meet your case?  If you had become the foulest of all sinners, God would still say "I love them freely."  If there is no reason for the love of God in you there is no need for the love of God in anyone.  The grace of God can come to the best of men or any man, because God will save the small and great.  God is found of them that did not seek Him.

18. This doctrine calls backsliders to return to Christ and His family.  The text, "I will love them freely" is meant for backsliders.  Someone goes on a rebellious run in their lives.  They abuse all privileges and destroy their lives.   But God invites them back saying "Return to me.  I will forgive you all.  I will love you freely."  The summons back had no condition; that is, if you promise or behave then I will love you.  "I love them freely" means that He will love without condition or promise or behaving.  This kindness makes us melt.   If Jesus loved us He still does.  If you were a child of God you are still a child of God.  The backslider will return through free grace and mercy and kindness.  The awakened sinner is loved no matter what He does.  This may appear like an Antinomian doctrine but while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

19. God loves us freely, but it is nothing in man that makes Him love us.  There is nothing in man that can cause God to love us.  There is nothing in man that can harm God’s love or prevent God’s love to us.  There is no bar to God’s grace or effectual hindrance to any of the human race.  We all were in the lions of Adam.   There was no bar in Adam.  There was no block to the human race in Adam.  There is no hindrance of God’s grace coming to man because there was no hindrance in grace coming to Adam.  There is nothing in man that God should not show man His awesome and sovereign grace.

20. There was no block or bar of God’s grace to us because He has saved the worst of sinners and they were undoubtedly saved.  There are many evil and low sins that men have committed but yet they were saved.  David was guilty of adultery and murder, but God did not delay His love to David.  God’s love cannot be prevented in coming to you.  God does not love because there is excellence.  He does not refuse to show love to those who are in sin.   Manasseh was guilty of murder, idolatry, and sacrifice of children to a false god but God’s love laid hold upon him.  We were as vile as the lost in hell but God showed His mercy upon us in Christ. 

21. It is impossible that anything can be in you that God cannot love.  The sins of the chief of sinners cannot stop God’s forgiveness.   Paul was the chief of sinners and he truly was a great sinner.  The greatest and the greatest sinners have been saved.  That leaves room for me and for you.  For if the chief of sinners were saved, how much more us?  If we exceeded Paul in being the greatest sinners, how that would not prevent God’s love!  God’s act of love is an act of infinite goodness.  We should not say sins are small but every sin is a great offense against God.  Sins are loathsome and hellish.  Spurgeon said of God’s grace “but the grace, the love, and the pity of God, Oh! these are infinite, eternal, everlasting, boundless, matchless, quenchless, unconquerable, and therefore the grace of God can overcome and prove itself mightier than your guilt and sin” (CH Spurgeon, Abounding Grace).  There is no bar that can prevent God’s grace or we would have seen it in others.  Nothing can take us away from God’s grace. 

22. Do you suppose there is a sinner out there that is too great of a sinner for God to reach?  Would the devils parade around with a trophy of hell that God could not reach?  Is there more than a match for God no matter what sin it is?  Would God say this sin was too great for God’s grace?  Would someone dare to say it?  Doesn’t the Apostle say that where sin abounds grace much more abounds?  Does condemnation abound?  No, no!  Does hopeless despair abound?  No, no!  But where sin abounds graces did much more abound.   Man makes a mountain of sin but God matches it.  God tops it with hundred times more grace to overtop the sin in our lives.  If there are mountains of sin, it is no match for the abundant grace of God. 

23. Man is a totally depraved worm, but God shows mercy on him.  We ought to repent of our total depravity for everyday of our lives.  We should also repent of our original sin.  We need to find a calendar for all the days of our lives and repent for our depravity for that day and continue on.  You will notice a great load and weight will come off of you.   There is no doubt that God’s grace is enough and more than enough to overtop your sins.  God covers us in the unified merit of His only-beloved Son.

24. Wouldn’t it disprove the goodness of the gospel if a man could be found to make the gospel stop working and to have its way?  If the gospel which is worthy of all acceptation could not meet certain cases, it would be limited to its effectiveness but the gospel is able to conquer any rebel lust.  If this would be the case, we would stop glorifying in the cross.  The Apostle gloried in the cross, but we would have to stop if salvation could not be met for anyone.  The point is, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation and it has the power to win anyone over to it.  The gospel is sufficient for every case.  There is no sin so great and no sinner so great as to render the gospel impotent.  We ought to labor for the most hopeless and help the most helpless. 

This week I will finish up with this sermon.  My notes came from Spurgeon’s sermon Abounding Grace and I hope to write a little more on this issue of “free abounding grace.”  You know, there is no Savior like Jesus.  Amen.