An Advance On Eternity.

 Advanced Payment- how many of us have had advanced payments at some point in our lives? Not necessarily just monetary, but in other ways too. Has someone ever given you an advance of something with the expectation of your eventually seeing more? Try a few samples, there are more where that came from. Here's part of your order, the rest is on the way. An advance on a paycheck may be given by someone who expects something in return for give that advance to you, but not always. Sometimes people will give you an advance on your expected future work without making you pay for the advance. You've heard of singers and actors, as well as authors getting advances from the people they are working for, with the expectation of getting payment in full upon completion of their concerts, movies, etc. Authors will often get advances on expected income from future sales.  Why am I going on and on about Advanced Payments?  Because we are given an advanced payment on our inheritance in Christ! We are!

Right now we can get an advance on eternal life, our inheritance, I'm not making this up, this is God's word, His truth! What a marvelous truth it is that we can study and pray on. We are told to pray for this Advanced Payment as well…

Luk 11:13  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? 

Yes, the Holy Spirit is our Advance Payment on our Eternal Life, right now! The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance until we are redeemed! 

Read the following enlightening excerpt, and may God bless us all with the Holy Spirit of promise, right now!

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'The Saint's Inheritance

We will now consider the saints' inheritance and see if in that we cannot also preach Christ and Him crucified. 

There was an inheritance promised to Abraham and his seed. It was promised to him and to his seed that they should be heirs to the world. That seed is Christ and all who are in Christ. The earnest, the pledge, of that inheritance is the Spirit of God. 

"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:13, 14.

The Spirit of God is the advance payment on our inheritance, and then Paul prays that "the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead."

The whole gospel has reference to the inheritance of the saints. That inheritance is obtained, not by the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. 

If we are Christ's then are we heirs according to the promise. What is there in the preaching of the saints' inheritance, if we do not carry with it Christ, as the one through whom that inheritance is obtained? He is the One "in whom we have obtained an inheritance." The promise to Abraham was that in him should all the nations of the earth be blessed. In making that promise to Abraham, Paul says that God preached the gospel unto him. See Galatians 3:8.

Gal 3:8  And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. 

Can we preach Christ in the resurrection? The resurrection goes with the promise of the inheritance. When God gave the promise to Abraham, he staggered not at it, but was fully persuaded that what God had promised He was able to perform. He had faith in God to raise the dead and that faith was shown in perfection when he offered Isaac on the altar. So his belief in the promise was based on his belief in Christ as the resurrection and the life. In Christ is the law and the Sabbath; in Him is the inheritance. Christ crucified and risen again is the means by which we can obtain that glorious home.'

Excerpt EJ Waggoner

Living By the Power of God.

 Satan has hidden the importance of keeping God's seventh day Sabbath holy. Satan has corrupted the minds of mankind so thoroughly that the majority have completely forgotten why the seventh-day Sabbath is truly so incredibly important. God has done all He could do to bring the importance of this day to everyone, but the blind insist on remaining blind.

The Sabbath commandment was given so man would NEVER forget the POWER of our GOD.  The creative power and the redemptive power of GOD. 

Our eternal lives depend upon the creative and redemptive power of God. Without God's power we do not exist. Without God's power we will not exist in eternity. Created and redeemed! This is the power of the Sabbath day, the reason for the blessing and holiness of this day. We need this entire day so we can truly comprehend the blessings given to us. Is it any wonder we are told this--

"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord." Isaiah 58:13, 14.

When we honor the Sabbath this way we are comprehending it is SOLELY the power of God to save us! We do NOT and CANNOT save ourselves! If we keep this day for ourselves and ignore God, we are claiming to have the power in ourselves to redeem, which is a lie Satan wants everyone to believe. Satan deceives! He won't let anyone catch on to the truth if he can help it. He loves when people disobey God's commandment, whether they know they are doing it or not. He revels in the breaking of the fourth royal law. He does not want anyone to believe that keeping the Sabbath is the recognition- the FULL recognition of God's power over all! We are to give up ALL our own power, any power we even remotely think we possess and wholly live in God's power!  

May God bless us in this!

Excerpt- E.J. Waggoner-

'In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, Paul brings to view the power of faith to work righteousness, but you will notice that the opening thought expressed is, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God."

Then by directing the minds of the young to the power of God in creating the universe, they will understand it by faith, and their minds will grasp the thought that the same One who made all they see is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

How plain it is why Satan has massed all his forces against that fourth commandment, because it is the one above all others that brings to view the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan is antichrist and he does not do anything in this world that is not directed against Christ. That is why he has covered up that fourth commandment--that he may take the minds of men from God in Christ as Creator, because just so far as men lose sight of the creative power that there is vested in Christ, so will they lose sight of His power to redeem. So preach the Sabbath more and more, yet in so doing be sure that you preach Christ and Him crucified as the Saviour from sin.

"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord." Isaiah 58:13, 14. Then the keeping of the Sabbath perfectly, as God wants it kept, is to delight ourselves in the Lord but this we cannot do, if we do not know Christ, and make Him our joy.

Creation and Redemption Power

 

Memorial For All Time.

 The Sabbath - created by God as a memorial for all time - even if we had NOT sinned. The Sabbath was created before mankind sinned. Think about that for a moment, a long moment. The Sabbath was to forever be recognition of creation, and by that a recognition of our Creator. Our Creator MADE the heavens, our Creator made the earth, our Creator made all of Creation that surrounds us, and when He originally made it- nothing was made with any deadly attributes, not a single thing. Sin's evil degraded so many, many things. The instantaneous result of sin was felt through the entire earth, nothing was left untouched by sin's evil, nothing. When people point out the evil results of sin and blame God they ignore the fact completely that Satan instigated the evil into the world and that altered everything. We don't think about the sheer reality of sins evil. When we lost our covering of Christ's righteousness, the light of His glory our very clothing, we realized our nakedness. All creation lost its covering of Christ's righteousness and all of creation was suddenly naked in sin's result. The lion was never to have the teeth of a predator, to rip and tear flesh from other animals. Those teeth of death were the result of sin. The poison in the venom of bees, snakes, frogs and so on-- did NOT exist before sin. Do you understand the reality of sin's evil? 

The Sabbath given before man sinned, continued after man sinned. The Sabbath was instituted into the royal law- the ten commandments because it is truly so important we are NEVER to forget it, never.  

Read the following excerpt and by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit, by the righteousness and love of our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, may we comprehend the truth of our need for the Sabbath forever!

EXCERPT EJ Waggoner-

'Since the Sabbath is a memorial of God's wonderful work of creation, and is given that we may know that He is God, therefore the Sabbath is given that we may know God as a rewarder, for He is not anything else but a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. this is conclusively proved in Ezekiel 20:12. "Moreover I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them."

Then the object of giving the Sabbath to man was that he might know that that God who gave it was a God that sanctifies him. That idea of sanctification is the one we want to make prominent in this connection.

It may be objected that the Sabbath was given before the fall of man, so that at the time it was given he was sanctified and therefore did not need Christ to save him from sin. Adam was placed in the garden of Eden by the Lord. He lived in spotless purity, but he could keep that purity only by faith in God. It was the power of God that kept him. Adam did not live in himself. Yes, he did at last--and he fell. But just so long as he was kept from falling, it was by the power of God and the Word of God. Then he needed the power of God to keep him from falling, as he did afterwards, when he had fallen, to save him from the sins which he had committed and to keep him from committing others.

We make the same mistake regarding the time after probation is closed. We think that because there will be no mediator then, that we stand in our own strength. There will come a time when there will be no mediator, but those who stand at that time will not stand in their own strength, but in the power of Christ that will keep us at that time, because we will be without sin, we shall need no mediator, but we shall need a Saviour every moment. Christ is the one "who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 1:8.

 Adam had never fallen, the Sabbath would have been there, as the memorial of the power of God to keep him from falling from the position and place in which God had made him.

 That is just exactly what the Sabbath is for now. It is to prove to us that God is our sanctification and that He puts His righteousness on us and in us by the same word by which He made the heavens and the earth.

Then the Sabbath is for the purpose that we may meditate upon the power of God and to remember that that same power which made the earth is the power that keeps us from sin unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

We May Know God.

 

The Power of the Word of God.

 The power of God's word.  Do we think about it enough? Seriously. 

God's word spoke all we know into existence, only it was all we know unmarred when He spoke it into existence. Sin's degradation of all He created is obvious all around us. When we strip away sin's touch we can truly comprehend a bit of what God intended for us to see, to know. So much beauty is marred by the deadliness it can become. A beautiful stream can claim the lives of anyone through drowning. A mountain beautiful beyond imagining, deadly for the one falling. I don't have to go into the numerous ways that the beautiful is also deadly. Sin has put its mark of everything. Still, we mustn't neglect to comprehend the wonder of God's word which spoke into existence all around us and even, us. This is our God, this is the power of our God, the power of God's word and we have to think about the power of our awesome God so we don't become complacent in our existence as if we had a hand in our own creation, or the creation of the world and the things of the world. 

Excerpt  -  EJ Waggoner

'The Sabbath

The particular truth that must be held up in these last days is the Sabbath. We cannot believe it or preach it too strongly. It is there that the great breach has been made in the law of God. Have you ever stopped to consider why it is that Satan has concentrated all his forces on that fourth commandment? The root of the whole matter is found in Hebrews 1:10. In speaking to the Son, God the Father says, "And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands."

Then when we read, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork," we know that they simply manifest the power that there is in Christ. 

John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." John 1:1-3. Everything that is made is made by Christ.

In Psalm 111:2-4, I read, "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is honorable and glorious, and his righteousness endureth forever. He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: the Lord is gracious and full of compassion. 

Literally, and according to the Jewish rendering of the Hebrew, the first part of verse 4 would be, "He hath made a memorial for his wonderful work." What is His work? The heavens are His works and He laid the foundations of the earth. 

I wish you to note that those three words--righteousness, gracious, and compassion, are grouped together by the psalmist with these thoughts on the creation of the world. 

We shall see why, presently.

What is the memorial of God? "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." Genesis 2:1-3. 

What then is the memorial? The seventh day, which is the Sabbath. It is the crowning day of the week, a memorial of creation completed--a creation in which the power of God's word was manifested, "for he spake and it was; He commanded and it stood fast."

If you will just keep the word of God and the power of the word of God before your minds, it seems that you cannot fail to see why it is that David groups grace, compassion, and righteousness all together with the works of God's hands.

It is the word of God that created the heavens and the earth. The Sabbath is the memorial which is given that we might commemorate and meditate upon the power of God's word.' 

The Law - Christ's Righteousness

 

Christ Jesus our savior lived a sinless life. Another way to put that is- Christ Jesus our savior kept the ten commandments- the royal law, perfectly.

Christ Jesus could do no less than keep the law perfectly- He gave the law.

We hear the word law and we immediately think of strictures placed upon a person's actions. When a government enacts a law we like to imagine it is for the good of all people, a law all people can agree upon. The stricture placed upon a person for their own good and the good of all mankind. Not all laws mankind enacts are done so for this purpose. Opinions on what is good for all mankind begin to vary and the variances have to be dealt with. As soon as a majority opinion rules over another- and the law is enacted, it becomes a law not agreed upon by all mankind, but a law of popular opinion.

God's law, the royal law, the ten commandments that He held to be so vital above all other civil laws and such, that He had them placed in the ark of the covenant and put in the most holy place of His sanctuary- no other law occupied that position- not one.

The royal law embodied all that Christ stands for, all that He is, the truth. Every single law kept unbroken by the lawgiver is a law we are to keep- through Him. He died to offer us His righteousness, His ability to keep the royal law perfectly, and we must keep HIM in our lives because only then through Him in us are we keeping the law perfectly.  

Read more on this from E.J. Waggoner's excerpt-- May God help us to ever have Christ in us, Christ and His righteousness.

Excerpt - E.J. Waggoner- 

We will now take up a few of the different lines of doctrine that we preach and see how we may preach them and at the same time preach only Christ and Him crucified.

And first, as to the doctrine of the Bible. The Bible is all doctrine. "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself." John 7:17. 

The word doctrine means "teaching." Sometimes we get afraid of doctrine. We talk of doctrinal and practical sermons. But doctrine means teaching, and if any man do the will of God, he shall know the teaching. But teaching must be practical, or it is useless; then, brethren, the teaching of the Bible is all practical.

Now if we do not know the doctrine of the Bible, we do not know how to practice what it teaches. If a thing is not practical, it is impractical. But we will not say the teaching of the Bible is impractical, something that cannot be practiced. So perhaps we can throw aside that distinction of doctrinal and practical sermons. A servant of God ought never to preach anything but practical sermons; but as all the teaching or doctrine of the Bible is practical, it is evident that in preaching really practical sermons, we must preach nothing but doctrine, and that doctrine must be the doctrine of Christ.

 

 

The Law

Now as to the specific lines of doctrine in Christ. We will first consider the law. I have only to call your attention to the fact that Christ is in the law and the law is in Christ and that you cannot separate one from the other to prove that the two go together and that preaching the law without Christ in it will have no power or effect on the hearts of men. Our study of the book of Romans has brought this plainly before your minds. We do not make void the law by faith, but it is only by faith in Christ that we establish the law in our hearts.

The law condemns the sinner and therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight. 

But it is by the obedience of one that many shall be made righteous, and that obedience can be made ours by faith in the word of God and by making Christ ours. 

To make Christ ours is to bring Him into our lives and to have Him in our lives is to have life eternal. Christ is the truth, and the law is in Him in its perfection, and if we keep Christ in our hearts day by day, we have the law in our hearts in its perfection, so long as we do not waver.

If we have Christ, He is our salvation, but we must have Him every moment of our lives. One act of faith will not suffice for all time; "the just shall live by faith." But we can live only one moment at a time; and since faith is our salvation, it is evident that we are saved moment by moment. 

There is no power in the law apart from Christ, and the preaching of the law without Christ in it is simply preaching damnation to men and not hope. 

But Christ has sent men as His ambassadors to proclaim liberty to the captives, to tell them that they are prisoners of hope. Then we are preaching the preaching of Christ; are we carrying out His commission, if we preach the law, which only condemns, without Christ? No. We are to preach "hope."

While the law is held over the sinner with all the terrors of Sinai, he is to have his mind directed to, not simply the law, but to the giver of the law, who has grace as well as truth in Himself. Truth and grace are in His hand, and when that truth condemns men, the grace that is held out by the same hand converts from sin.

When men have Christ, they have His righteousness, which is the righteousness which the law demands. But the righteousness of Christ carries everything else with it, for He has said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:33. That is the one thing needful, and if we have it, we have the whole gospel, for it is Christ and His righteousness, and He is our righteousness, our salvation, and our life, both here and hereafter.