Solus Christus Reformed Baptist Church

Lord, will You listen to us while we confess before You how unworthy we have been of all Your goodness; for we are a sinful generation, even as our fathers were? We have sinned, times without number.

Grant that our speech, our thoughts, our actions, may all be holiness, and "holiness unto the Lord." We know that there be some that seek after moral virtue apart from God. Let us not be of their kind; but may our desire be that everything should be done as unto the Lord, for You have said, "Walk before Me, and be you perfect." Help us so to do, to have no master but our God, no law but His will, no delight but Himself. Oh, take these hearts, most glorious Lord, and keep them, for "out of them are the issues of life;" and let us be the instruments in Your hand, by daily vigilance, of keeping our hearts, lest in heart we go astray from the Lord our God. Until life's latest hour may we keep the sacred pledges of our early youth. We do remember when we were baptized into the sacred Name

We trusted in You with regard to our innumerable sins, and You have cast them behind Your back. We trusted in You, yes, we trusted in You when many evils compassed us about, and we were sore beset with temptation, and You brought us out into a wealthy place: You did set our feet upon a rock and establish our goings.

There is provision in the covenant of grace against peace-ruining, soul-perplexing sins, is not, as to the administration of it, absolute. There are covenant commands and exhortations, on the attendance whereunto the administration of much covenant grace doth depend. To watch, pray, improve faith, to stand on our guard continually, to mortify sin, to fight against temptations, with steadfastness, diligence, constancy, are everywhere prescribed unto us; and that in order unto the insurance of the grace mentioned.

Religious Affections - Part 2 - Negative Sign 1

Under the Old Testament none loved God more than David; none was loved of God more than he. The paths of faith and love wherein he walked are unto the most of us like the way of an eagle in the air, —too high and hard for us. Yet to this very day do the cries of this man after God's own heart sound in our ears. Sometimes he complains of broken bones, sometimes of drowning depths, sometimes of waves and water-spouts, sometimes of wounds and diseases, sometimes of wrath and the sorrows of hell; everywhere of his sins, the burden and trouble of them.

It is said that indwelling sin leads the soul captive "to the law of sin"—not to this or that sin, particular sin, or actual sin, but to the "law of sin." God, for the most part, orders things and gives out such supplies of grace to believers so that they shall not be made a prey to this or that particular sin. He ensures that sin should not prevail in them and compel them to serve it in its lusts. He ensures that sin should not have dominion over them, so that they should be captives and slaves to it.

It will thus be evident that far from fallen man being an object of pity because of his moral impotence, he is justly to be blamed for the course which he pursues. We do not condemn a legless man because he is unable to walk, but rightly commiserate with him. We do not censure a sightless man for not admiring the beauties of nature; rather our compassion goes out to him. But how different is the case of the natural man in connection with his firm obligations to serve and glorify his rightful Lord!

They who condemn high affections in others, are certainly not likely to have high affections themselves. And let it be considered, that they who have but little religious affection, have certainly but little religion. And they who condemn others for their religious affections, and have none themselves, have no religion.

The affections and passions are frequently spoken of as the same; and yet, in the more common use of speech, there is in some respect a difference. Affection is a word, that, in its ordinary signification, seems to be something more extensive than passion, being used for all vigorous lively actings of the will or inclination; but passion is used for those that are more sudden, and whose effects on the animal spirits are more violent, the mind being more overpowered, and less in its own command.

If we be not in good earnest in religion, and our wills and inclinations be not strongly exercised, we are nothing. The things of religion are so great, that there can be no suitableness in the exercises of our hearts, to their nature and importance, unless they be lively and powerful. In nothing is vigour in the actings of our inclinations so requisite, as in religion; and in nothing is lukewarmness so odious.

Indwelling sin's persistence and urgency seem to be noted in this expression of its "warring." Enemies in war are restless, pressing, and persistent; so is the law of sin. Does it set upon the soul? Cast off its motions, and it returns again. Rebuke them by the power of grace. They withdraw for a while, and return again. Set before them the cross of Christ. They do as those that came to take Him: at the sight of Him, they went backwards and fell to the ground, but they arose again and laid hands on Him (Joh 18:6-13). Sin gives place for a season, but returns and presses on the soul again.

There is in sin an aversion to God and everything of God, as we have in part discovered in handling the enmity itself, and so shall not need much to insist upon it again. All indisposition to duty in which communion with God is to be obtained; all weariness of duty; all carnality or formality to duty—it all springs from this root.

In the text, the apostle observes how true religion operated in these Christians under their persecutions, whereby these benefits appeared in them; or what manner of operation it was, whereby their religion, under persecution, was manifested to be true religion in its genuine beauty and amiableness, and also appeared to be increased and purified, and so was like to be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

Whatever is opposite to anything, as such, is opposite to all of it. Sin is enmity to God as God, and therefore to all of God. Not His goodness, not His holiness, not His mercy, not His grace, not His promises—there is not anything of Him that sin does not make head against. Nor is there any duty, private or public, in the heart or in external works, that sin does not oppose.

Has anyone the perfect measure of his own light and darkness? Upon the proposal of an endless variety of objects for its exercise, can anyone know what acts of choosing or turning away his will will bring forth? Can anyone traverse the various changes in his affections? Do the secret springs of acting and refusing in the soul lie before the eyes of any man?

If such a law of sin in believers, it is doubtless their duty to find it out, to find it so to be. The more they are aware of its power, the less they will feel its effects. It will not at all advantage a man to have a wasting fever and not to discover it, or a fire lying secretly in his house and not to know it. So much as men find of this law in them, so much they will abhor it and themselves, and no more. Proportional also to their discovery of it will be their earnestness for grace, nor will it rise higher.

Many men live in the dark to themselves all their days; whatever else they know, they know not themselves. They know their outward estates, how rich they are. And they are careful to examine the condition of their bodies as to health and sickness. But as to their inward man and their principles as to God and eternity, they know little or nothing of themselves. Indeed, few labor to grow wise in this matter; few study themselves as they ought.

The state and condition of the soul therein represented, with his deportment in and under that state and condition, in verses 1, 2: II. His inquiry after relief And therein are two things that present themselves unto him; the one whereof, which first offers the consideration of itself to him in his distress, he deprecates, verse 3:

I feel so glad that I had an opportunity of opening my mouth for God in a Sunday-school, because it helped me to begin preaching; and I have no doubt that many of our pulpits have been filled by those whose first training in speaking for Christ was received in a Sunday-school, where they were asked to address the children.

Published in 1827 Human nature has undergone no change since the fall. In its unrenewed state it is still captivated in the same chains of sin; and, when renewed, it is under the influence of the same Spirit of grace. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." The modern believer, therefore, when employed in tracing the records of Patriarchal or Mosaic experience, will mark in the infirmities of the ancient people of God a picture of his own heart, "answering, as in water face answers to face;" and in comparing their gracious exercises with his own, he will be ready to acknowledge—"All these works that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will

As his way is, so is his "walk", "in the law of the Lord." He is "strengthened in the Lord, and he walks up and down in His name;" his "ears hearing a word behind him, saying, This is the way—walk in it"—when he is "turning to the right hand or to the left." And if the pardon of sin, imputation of righteousness, the communion of saints, and a sense of acceptance with God; if protection in providence and grace; and—finally and forever, the beatific vision, are the sealed privileges of His upright people, then there can be no doubt, that "blessed are the undefiled in the way."

To Lady Jane Harrington - this book was published in 1618

The Doctrine of Man's Impotence

it so happens that, if we would be prepared to die, thatpreparation will not in the least degree interfere with the duties of this life; but our best preparation for the life that now is will be that which prepares us for the life that is to come. If we were to be immortal on earth, and never see death, the very best thing that we could do in order to live a happy, useful, successful life would be, first of all, to be reconciled to God, and to receive from Him a new heart, and a right spirit, by which we should be enabled to live in a way which we should be acceptable with Him.

My eye does not see itself; I cannot see my own eye unless I stand before a looking-glass. There are some people who are always wanting to see their own faith, but that is not the right thing to look at or to look for; you might as well desire to take out your eyes to examine their structure and uses. No, no, the object on which yourfaith rests and relies, that upon which your salvation depends, is not your faith, but what your faith sees.

Many things seem to render the handling of indwelling sin at this season necessary. We see the effects and fruits of it in the apostasies and backslidings of many, the scandalous sins and errors of some, and the course and lives of the most. This seems to call for a due consideration of it.

When I am preaching to sinners, I feel inclined always to beg every one of them to put the golden apple in his pocket, for this choice fruit of the tree of life may belong to millions, and yet the whole of it will remain for millions more. There is not a sinner in the world who is to be told that he may not come to Jesus, and receive the whole of the blessings of the Gospel. What a blessing to have afree salvation to preach as well as a full salvation! At least, I feel it to be so. Everyone must speak according to his light; but while I see clearly the doctrines of distinguishing grace, I see also the universality of the Gospel command.

Are you empty, brothers, to-night? Then Christ's fulness isprecisely what you want, and your emptiness is precisely what Christ is looking for; and when the two meet, then, as our brother just now said in his prayer, the right things are in the right place. Where could your emptiness be in a more suitable place than where Christ fills it? Where could Christ's fulness be more useful than in filling up the emptiness of a poor guilty sinner?

The treatise is founded on Romans 6:14, and three facts are presupposed in the discussion that follows: — that sin dwells in believers; seeks to renew its dominion over them; and endeavors to accomplish this object by deceit and force, chap. I. Three leading inquiries are proposed: — I. Into the nature of this dominion; II. evidence by which we ascertain whether it exists in us; and III. The reason or ground of the assurance that it shall not have dominion over believers. I. As to the nature of this dominion, — 1. It is evil and perverse,

And then the Lord adds, "and I will give thee rest." The most important thing to a Christian worker, as it was to Moses, is to have rest. "I do not expect any rest," says one, "while I am here." Do you not? Then you will not do much work for the Lord. They who work most must rest most; and if they work with their mind, they cannot do it well, indeed they cannot do it at all, unless they have plenty ofrest.

Total Inability Chapter 6 - The Problem. Mentioned in this chapter are the writings of J C Philpot

Recorded before a live audience, Hawesville, KY

The transaction of which this ever-memorable garden now becomes the scene is, with the exception of our Lord's actual crucifixion, perhaps the most awful and solemnizing which even the Scriptures of God contain. How can we approach the consideration of it with sufficient reverence? How can we be deeply enough affected with the insight which it gives us into the sorrow of the blessed Redeemer's soul? Shall we not feel and own our utter helplessness to speak or think of this scene in a manner befitting its amazing and affecting disclosures?

In the first place, then, we are to consider their sin. While their Lord, their Friend, their Savior was wrestling in an agony of sorrow and of prayer, they slumbered and slept. "When He came to the disciples, He found them sleeping." But in this as in most similar cases, the chief matter of interest and especially, of general practical.application, lies, not singly in the sin itself, but very much in thecircumstances by which it was committed, and the aggravations bywhich it was characterized.