Please make a great effort to personally attend and support every lesson of our gospel meeting. Attendance helps the speaker, our singing, and our attitudes for serving the Lord. Brother Phil has invested some time in preparing these lessons for us. We need these lessons to help us grow and be faithful in the Lord.
What is your cross? The cross is not something pleasant. The cross is something difficult. Our society does not like to think about things that are not pleasant and difficult, but the truth is that life can be unpleasant and difficult at times. How are we going to confront those situations? Will we bravely take up our cross? Will we run away from the cross?
The All in All King lives in 1) An Emptied Heart 2) A Renewed Heart, 3) A Transcended Heart. To learn that Christ is all in all and each of us needs Him. That Each Christian would empty, renew, and transcend their hearts for Christ!
God calls lawlessness and unrighteousness sin (1 John 3:4; 5:17). He doesn’t distinguish right from wrong and righteousness from sin arbitrarily. Because God sees and knows all, He sees how sin ruins and hurts us. He calls wickedness and lawlessness sin, because He loves us and doesn’t want sin to deceive, enslave, and cause us to die spiritually.
The book of Hebrews tells of Christians who are slowing growing dull and falling away from the faith. Some were drifting (Hebrews 2:1-3), some were dull of hearing (5:11), and some had fallen away (6:4-6). They had fallen into the habit of forsaking the assembling. It was not that they missed an “assembly” or part of an assembly; they had abandoned meeting with the saints altogether! They quit going to worship and bible classes.
The LORD is our strength because 1) He Hears, 2) He Protects, 3) He is Trustworthy, 4) He Saves. Each person should be able to understand how to gain strength from the LORD and to encourage each person to get their strength from the LORD.
In our confused, broken, and chaotic world, there are some fundamental things every person needs! Yes, they need each of these things. These things are not to be taken lightly or dismissed as trivial. They are basics of life.
Paul faced many challenges in preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul wrote that when he came to Macedonia, “our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within” (2 Corinthians 7:5). “I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:27-29).
The gospel provides salvation from a lawless world. How? First, by providing forgiveness of man's lawless deeds through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. And second, by providing a law of love (Romans 13:10, Galatians 5:14) by which we can live lawful lives in service to God. The gospel is, therefore, God's perfect law of liberty (James 1:25), the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus that frees us from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).
In 1 John 3:4, the ASV reads, "Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness." That one verse tells us why we live in a lawless world today, because we live in a sinful world today. The world doesn't have to have cattle rustlers, corrupt sheriffs, or saloon bosses to be lawless (though it often does). Sin, in and of itself, does the job. Truth be told, we probably don't think of people's sins as being lawlessness, but they are.
The scriptures give us a somewhat different picture than the Old West. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus says, "And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness'" (ESV). Both the King James Version and the American Standard Version of 1901 translate this word "iniquity." But it is best translated "lawlessness" as the ESV does.
In this psalm, God reveals several sources of courage, 1) Confidence in Salvation, 2) Constant Service, 3) Consistent Seeking, and 4) Certainty of Success. Each listener would be able to understand these four sources of courage as it relates to daily Christian living.
Helpful confrontation is as natural as the confrontation between darkness and light. Do you find it uncomfortable to turn on the light switch? We do it every day so that we can see and not be hindered by darkness. Light confronts darkness (John 1:5). So, also, we should be comfortable in presenting the light of the gospel to others. Are we?
What do we need to do spiritual exercise? 1) Be Ready, 2) Repetition, 3) Resistance, 4) Be Resolute. Each may learn what we need to conduct spiritual exercise. I want to encourage everyone to exercise spiritually.
Paul writes in Romans 12:2,3 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Many Christians want to transform the gospel to satisfy the culture, but that is not what Paul teaches. Radical transformation in action focuses upon moving Christians away from non-Christian culture and the sin within it.
The wrath of the King 1) Mandates a Death Penalty, 2) Avenges Disobedience, 3) Can Be Avoided. Each person will understand that God will execute justice one day, and how we can avoid it.
America's first schools taught Christian values. Our children will learn values somewhere, and the Ten Commandments encapsulate them. Let's pray for our students.
In this lesson, we will look at the two covenants in the Bible, their 1) Contents, 2) Purpose, and 3) Application. Each person will have a better understanding of the two covenants.
Sometimes we talk about behavior being “rude.” This means the opposite of being gracious. First Corinthians 13:5 says that love “does not behave rudely.” This Greek word means “to act unbecomingly.” It is the opposite of behaving graciously toward someone. It has the notion within it of causing offense. Christians do not intentionally seek to offend other people, nor do they intentionally seek to be offended by other people.
There is a proper place for safety, but we must not use it as an excuse not to exercise our God given responsibilities. Remember the excuses given for “safety” in the book of Proverbs. “The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets” (Proverbs 22:13), and “The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets” (Proverbs 26:13). God condemns this kind of thinking as slothful or lazy. “Safety” is not a good reason for not interacting with other people.