BY GRACE ... ALONE

I must relate a recent happening, hot of the press !
A friend of ours is the guardian of a youth, from a difficult childhood.
Recently he acted foolishly and was charged with a very serious crime, that carried a hefty jail sentence. After several adjourned court appearances, he was thinking of pleading Guilty. Then last week he phoned me, to say that his lawyer had just called him and told him that the police had advised him 'ALL CHARGES DROPPED'
He was free, he only has to appear to hear the judge tell him that officially, that he is FREE TO GO What jubilation ...to be FREE, the relief, no jail term at all

My mind immediately turned to the spiritual application !
We are all GUILTY of whatever deeds and sins , our response must needs be truly GUILTY AS CHARGED
Then the GOOD NEWS comes ... a redeemer has intervened, paid the required penalty, 'ALL CHARGES DROPPED' we are free to go !

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:8.9

'SOLA'... ALONE as Martin Luther wrote in his Bible alonsgide Romans 1:17
and so applicable here also
NOT OF WORKS, but A GIFT, by FAITH ... A L O N E
NOT OF WORKS either BEFORE or AFTER SALVATION

This verse that I have quoted to so many seekers of salvation when they had responded to a Gospel appeal.
And now after so many years quickened and brought alive to me ... again !

NO CONDEMNATION after Salvation declares Romans 8:1
the verse that I had claimed so many times over my early years, only to return to a MIXED LAW & GRACE ministry where the message was to seek 'holiness, without which no man shall see God' Hebrews ????
All the time knowing and believing that Holiness is IMPUTED ... granted ... a gift
but then being told to "work out our own salvation " "with fear and trembling" added, for our entire Christian pilgrimage ... which completely eroded dependence on the gift of grace solely, alone,
Such is the stress, and energy and vibrancy and joy sapping effect of a MIXED LAW & GRACE ministry, that countless sincere hearers have to contend with, and are under.

The realisation that came to me last year after reading just a few paragraphs of 'Destined to Reign' by Joseph Prince ... the 'penny dropped', the lights went on, the lift went to the top floor, etc.

Something that I had never heard or read before ...
That ALL MY SINS, PAST, PRESENT AND F U T U R E
PAST Yes I had of course realised that
PRESENT the daily cleansing I had been told should happen
but also FUTURE were ALL COVERED by CALVARY

OH the release from striving, from trying to attain HOLINESS and some measure of perfection. And the wondrous release from the condemnation when I failed yet again at trying to attain a measure of supposed 'holiness'

YIPPPPEEEEEE ... FREEEE at last

'ALL CHARGES DROPPED ' ... all past present and future charges at that.

NOW ….. the abundant life of John 10:10 in practical daily experience !

Matthew 11 : 28 experienced fully at last, Jesus words ...
"Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls

But, why do so few sincere and dedicated Christians and Church attenders actually experience this for themselves? Why are the pews filled with immature even infantile believers ?

I have come to realise that, as Joseph Prince heard "Son, you are not preaching grace ... every time you preach grace, you preach it with a mixture of law. You attempt to balance grace with the law like many other preachers, and the moment you balance grace, you neutralize it. You cannot put new wine into old wineskins. You cannot put grace and law together"

Then, my wife provided the key missing ingredient.
She had been pondering the same question ... why do so few believers walk in pure and abundant Grace and victory ?
In the middle of the night recently, she prayed and was answered, a verse quickened ... 1 Corinthians 2:14 the natural man recives not the things of God ... spiritual insight
The natural man is legally minded !
We would all sooner have a set of rules to live by than to be Spirit led in all things

Scofields note written 100 years ago says ...
Paul divides men into three classes:
psuchikos "of the senses" or "natural" i.e. the Adamic man, un-renewed through the new birth
pneumatikos "spiritual' i.e. the renewed man as Spirit filled and walking in the Spirit in full communion with God, and
sarkikos "carnal" "fleshly," i.e. the renewed man who walking "after the flesh," remains a babe in Christ. (1 Cor. 3. 1-4).
The natural man may be learned. gentle. eloquent, fascinating, but the spiritual content of Scripture is absolutely hidden from him; and the fleshly, or carnal, Christian is able to comprehend only its simplcst. truths, "milk" (1 Cor. 3. 2).

Its so simple once you 'see' it

The Grace that we receive at and for salvation ... is to KEEP us on the journey thereafter, continually ... its a lifetime experience, free from any further condemnation and guilt HIS GRACE is sufficient for our daily walk ...
WOW
as we have received Jesus so walk in Him Colossians 2:6
As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons (children) of God
Romans 8:14

As Pauls experience of his conflicts and defeats of Romans 6 & 7
now transcended into the victory of Romans 8 experience

In the previous chapters of Romans 1 – 7 the Holy Spirit is mentioned but once
In Romans 8 the Holy Spirit is mentioned 19 times !

Such is a Spirit led life of by GRACE ALONE ... SOLA thankyou Martin Luther

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones leading Westminster Chapel in London for some 30 years ..
puts it like this ...
The apostle Paul is asserting that if we are Christians, your sins and mine - past sins, present sins and future sins - have already been dealt with once and forever! Had you realized that? Most of our troubles are due to our failure to realize the truth of this verse. 'There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus' is so often understood to mean nothing more than that past sins have been dealt with. Of course it means that; but it also means your present sins; even more, it means that any sin you may ever chance to commit has already been dealt with.
You will never, you cannot ever, come under condemnation. This is what the apostle is saying - nothing can ever bring the Christian again into a position of condemnation ...

The Christian can never be lost, the Christian can never come under condemnation. 'No condemnation' is an absolute word, and we must not detract from it. To do so is to contradict and to deny the Scriptures...
But why does the apostle say this, and on what grounds does he say it? Is it not a dangerous thing to say? Will it not incite people to sin? If we tell Christians that their past sins, their present, and their future sins have already been put away by God, are we not more or less telling them that they are free to go out and sin? If you react in that way to my statements I am most happy, for I am obviously a good and true interpreter of the apostle Paul.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon the 'prince of preachers' said in the early 1900's ...
No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who have called it "a licentious doctrine" did not know anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own vile stuff was the most licentious doctrine under heaven. If they knew the grace of God in truth, they would soon. see that there was no preservative from lying like a knowledge that we are elect of God from the foundation of the world. There is nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and the immutability of my Father's affection, which can keep me near to Him from a motive of simple gratitude.

Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth. A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe the one thing naturally begets the other.
Of all men, those have the most disinterested piety, the sublimest reverence, the most ardent devotion, who believe that they are saved by grace, without works, through faith, and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Christians should take heed, and see that it always is so, lest by any means Christ should be crucified afresh, and put to an open shame