If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefields besides, is mere fight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
Martin Luther
Grace Bible Church
Gbible.org
Pastor-Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday,
December 14, 2022
The Doctrine of
Grace, Part 4.
- A fisherman must have a desire to fish.
Our desire to fish is 2CO 5:17 Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
- A fisherman must be equipped to fish. You cannot fish without some sort of equipment. To be a fisher of men you must know pertinent doctrine.
2TI 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
2TI 3:17 that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
- A fisherman has to go where the fish are located.
AMO 3:5 Does a bird fall into a trap on the ground when there is no bait in it? Does a trap spring up from the earth when it captures nothing at all?
- A fisherman must know how to bait a hook.
There are many ways to approach people with the gospel.
- A fisherman has to keep out of sight. If he doesn’t, he frightens the fish.
Casting a shadow over the water can frighten the fish.
The principal s that the issue must be the gospel, not our personality.
- A fisherman will be rewarded.
2JO 1:8 Watch yourselves, that you might not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.
REV 22:12 "Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.
- A good fisherman is patient, he never gives up.
PSA 37:7 Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
The importance of the three witnesses.
- The first witness is our Lord Jesus Christ; REV 1:4-6.
Notice that He is the first witness, but He also gave us the opportunity to be witnesses ourselves.
- The Lord Jesus Christ.
- The Church-age believer
- Christian marriage with the right-man-right woman analogy.
For the second and third witnesses which means that God knows best.
Because of His perfect sovereignty, God is able to pick the right time, place, and conditions of your death.
Love (personal love between right man and right woman) is stronger than death, SOS 8:7.
SOL 8:7 "Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it; If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, it would be utterly despised.
Love is a motivation and is stronger than any fear of death.
This is also true of category one love for God the Father and occupation with Christ.
It is also true in the right-man-right woman relationship, especially when it comes to the third witness in the Angelic Conflict.
The third witness is Christian marriage or the “right man-right woman” relationship.
One is the Lord Jesus Christ is called the faithful witness.
The second is the believer who fulfills the plan of God for his or her life.
A third witness is not necessarily needed in a Jewish trial but there is a third witness in the Angelic Conflict (i.e., the witness of Christian marriage).
Notice the word for assigned is the Greek word “meros” which means to be assigned, appointed, chosen, arranged,
This principle of love and then the three witnesses in Christian marriage definitely needs some concentration and requires an understanding of the importance of comparing scripture with scripture.
The Bible states that only two witnesses are needed concerning a legal dispute or proof for evidence.
“On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death.” Deu 17:6.
A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed.
Just as the Lord Jesus Christ and the winner believer are tested and interrogated separately, so too will Christian marriage be tested and interrogated separately.
The individual witness or invisible hero is of great importance as the second witness, but a good Christian marriage carries a strong message to Satan and the fallen angels as well.
Because in the Christian marriage Christ loves the Church as husbands are to love their wives.
“shall cleave” has to do with both the spiritual and the sexual, the spiritual is the husband thinking with the mind of Christ and loving his wife as Christ loves the church.
Most scholars believe that this is story about Solomon and Shulamite woman having a great relationship with each other and nothing could be further from the truth.
After going back and forth with the truth of who the Shulamite woman wants to marry, a man with all the riches in world or the poor little shepherd boy we read in SOL 8:7.
In verse 7, the shepherd lover continues: the durability of category #2 love when it says “Many waters cannot quench love.”
This is love between the right man and the right woman relationship.
‘Many waters’ means the pressures, the disasters, the difficulties, the misunderstandings, nothing is going to put out the fire.
ISA 43:2 "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.
The pressures, the disasters, the difficulties, the misunderstandings, nothing is going to put out the fire of those who honor and respect God.
5 times he received 39 lashes form Jews.
Three times I was beaten with rods.
Once I was stoned to death.
Three times I was shipwrecked.
A night and a day I have spent in the deep.
Dangers from rivers,
Dangers from robbers,
Dangers from my countrymen,
Dangers from the Gentiles,
Dangers in the city.
Dangers in the wilderness,
Dangers on the sea,
Dangers among false brethren;
I have been in labor and hardship,
Through many sleepless nights.
In hunger and thirst,
Often without food,
In cold and exposure.
There was the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches.
I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and so escaped his hands.
He figured that the silence of God was there because the Lord already had taught him and given him the answer in precious doctrinal teaching.
2CO 12:9 And He had said to me years ago "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
When you pour water on this fire it just becomes strong, there is no way you can put it out.
We have the Hebrew word “hophal” meaning to seduce, quench,’ which is in the passive stem in the Hebrew meaning that “many waters are not able to extinguish this type of love out.
EPH 4:30 Do not griever the Holy Spirit.
1TH 5:19 Do not quench the Spirit;
When you do, you may allow the intensity of attempts to produce a pressure that often becomes too intense to destroy it.
The word for love should be translated ‘the love that the right man, right woman relationship has, which is designed or assigned by God.
1CO 7:17 Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And thus I direct in all the churches.
You can distort it, you can run from it, you can destroy capacity, you can knock out the happiness connected with it, but you can’t change it.
If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, he would utterly be despised.
The word for ‘give’ means he would give all of his substance says Qal imperfect of the Hebrew verb “Nathan” which means he would make payments.
If it was in the perfect tense, he would pay it all at once, but the qal imperfect means he would keep on giving for the rest of his life just to buy this love.
To try to buy it, “it would be utterly contemned,” = the verb “buzh” and the word means to despise.
Prin: You cannot buy category #2 love.
Second prin: You cannot buy what God has designed.
Death means a new home, JOH 14:1-3.
Death means realization of eternal life, JOH 10:28; 11:13; 1JO 5:11-12.
All of a sudden, a friend of the family of Lazarus, named Mary and Martha, apparently sent word that Lazarus was sick and he died.
- Martha = blamed the Lord from not being there in time.
- While Mary said, “even now the Lord would hear your prayer because you are the resurrection and the life; and he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies; JOH 11:25.
Mary said something to the effect that even now God would grant the Lord whatever He asks heart, including bring Lazarus back from the dead.
Because of His perfect sovereignty, God is able to pick the right time, place, and conditions of your death.