Saved by Chad Hudson
The Power of the Gospel
When Paul and Silas brought the gospel to the Jews in Berea, “they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). The Bereans examined the Scriptures daily to know whether Jesus was indeed the Christ.
R.C. Sproul • The Power of the Gospel
Many times, if not most times, the sin we commit is a punishment for sin. When we sin, we are actually working out God’s punishment for our sin. God gives us over to our sinful impulses. We become slaves to the things that we want to do.
R.C. Sproul • The Power of the Gospel
This is a different perspective I haven’t considered previously. When we sin, yes we sin against God, but against nature also. Sinning is also the punishment of sin. When we sin or act outside of the will of God, there are always consequences and they are never good. Think, for example, of going out partying. It is such a good time in the moment, but over indulgence leads to a following tough day, if not more severe immediate outcomes like results of drunk driving. This is one of many possible examples. We live in a broken world as a result of the original sin, the result is sinning which is a punishment from the original sin because of existing in the broken reality. I hadn’t considered sin as the punishment for sin before, but it makes so much sense. We cannot live perfect, sin-free lives which is why we need Jesus - the reversal and redemption of sin.
Salvation is by faith alone. But even our faith isn’t ground for boasting. Our faith is in someone else’s righteousness: Christ’s righteousness. His righteousness is given to us as a gift, and our entire salvation rests on it from first to last. If you are trusting in Christ and in Christ alone, you stand, right now and forever, justified before Go
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God gives pastors a remarkable responsibility: to keep watch over our souls. And for this, they must give an account (Heb. 13:17). One of the ways that you can encourage your pastor is by listening to him, not only when he encourages you from God’s Word but also when he does the hard work of calling you to repentance from God’s Word.
R.C. Sproul • The Power of the Gospel
In Old Testament times, the Jews greeted one another the same way they do today: Shalom aleichem, “Peace be unto you.” The response to the greeting was Aleichem shalom, “Peace also to you.”
R.C. Sproul • The Power of the Gospel
In the New Testament, the title “lord” or kurios is used in three ways. There is a simple, common usage, where calling someone kurios is like addressing him as “sir,” a polite form of address. The supreme use of kurios refers to the sovereign God, who rules all things.
R.C. Sproul • The Power of the Gospel
As we will see later in Romans 1, Paul labors the point that God has manifested Himself so clearly to every human being that nobody has an excuse for denying Him. When Jesus is declared to be God’s Son through the power of the resurrection, that declaration may be all that we ever get. We might be like Thomas and say, “Unless I see in His hands the
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Sigmund Freud asked why it is that people are so incurably religious. He claimed that we have invented God to deal with things in nature that we find frightening. This is where Freud missed the point. If people are going to invent religion to protect them from the fear of nature, why would they invent a god who is more terrifying than nature itself
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God used the Apostle Paul mightily, and he is a lesson of God’s grace. Paul himself reminds us, “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy” (1 Tim. 1:13). This was the Paul whom God had set apart. Just like Paul, we have been delivered from our former sins in Christ, and God calls us into His service for t
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