SALVATION, what does it mean to you? series1

TO OUR VIEWERS, WE WILL LIKE TO WELCOME YOU TO ANOTHER SERIES, BUT THIS TIME AROUND, WE WOULD BE POSTING ON "SALVATION". DO VIEW OUR POSTS TILL THE END OF THE SERIES AS YOU WOULD BE SURELY BLESSED..THANKS.

SALVATION FROM THE PLEASURE OF SIN

It is here that God begins His actual application of salvation unto His elect. God saves us from the pleasure or love of sin before He delivers us from the penalty or punishment of sin. Necessarily so, for it would be neither an act of holiness nor of righteousness were He to grant full pardon to one who was still a rebel against Him, loving that which He hates. God is a God of order throughout, and nothing ever more evidences the perfections of His works than the orderliness of them. And how does God save His people from the pleasure of sin? The answer is, By imparting to them a nature which hates evil and loves holiness. This takes place when they are born again, so that actual salvation begins with regeneration. Of course it does: where else could it commence? Fallen man can never perceive his desperate need of salvation nor come to Christ for it, till he has been renewed by the Holy Spirit.

"He hath made everything beautiful in his time" (Ecc_3:11), and much of the beauty of God’s spiritual handiwork is lost upon us unless

we duly observe their "time." Has not the Spirit Himself emphasized this in the express enumeration He has given us in "For whom he did foreknow, he did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified" (Rom_8:29-30). Rom_8:29 announces the Divine foreordination; Rom_8:30 states the manner of its actualization. It seems passing strange that with this Divinely defined method before them, so many preachers begin with our justification, instead of with that effectual call (from death unto life, our regeneration) which precedes it. Surely it is most obvious that regeneration must first take place in order to lay a foundation for our justification. Justification is by faith (Act. 13:39; Rom_5:1; Gal_3:8), and the sinner must be Divinely quickened before he is capable of believing savingly.

Does not the last statement made throw light upon and explain what we have said is so "passing strange"? Preachers today are so thoroughly imbued with free-willism that they have departed almost wholly from that sound evangelism which marked our forefathers. The radical difference between Arminianism and Calvinism is that the system of the former revolves about the creature, whereas the system of the latter has the Creator for its centre of orbit. The Arminian allots to man the first place, the Calvinist gives God that position of honor. Thus the Arminian begins his discussion of salvation with justification, for the sinner must believe before he can be forgiven; further back he will not go, for he is unwilling that man should be made nothing of But the instructed Calvinist begins with election, descends to regeneration, and then shows that being born again (by the sovereign act of God, in which the creature has no part) the sinner is made capable of savingly believing the Gospel.

Saved from the pleasure and love of sin. What multitudes of people would strongly resent being told that they delighted in evil! They would indignantly ask if we supposed them to be moral perverts. No indeed: a person may be thoroughly chaste and yet delight in evil. It may be that some of our own readers repudiate the charge that they have ever taken pleasure in sin, and would claim, on the contrary, that from earliest recollection they have detested wickedness in all its forms. Nor would we dare to call into question their sincerity; instead we point out that it only affords another exemplification of the solemn fact that "the heart is deceitful above all things" (Jer_17:9). But this is a matter that is not open to argument: the plain teaching of God’s Word decides the point once and for all, and beyond its verdict there is no appeal. What, then, say the Scriptures?

So far from God’s Word denying that there is any delight to be found therein, it expressly speaks of "the pleasures of sin," it immediately warns that those pleasures are but "for a season" (Heb_11:25), for the aftermath is painful and not pleasant; yea, unless God intervenes in His sovereign grace, they entail eternal torment. So too the Word refers to those who are "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God" (2Ti_3:4). It is indeed striking to observe how often this discordant note is struck in Scripture. It mentions those who "love vanity" (Psa_4:2); "him that loveth violence" (Psa_11:5); "thou lovest evil more than good" (Psa_52:3); "he loved lies" (Pro_1:22); "they which delight in their abominations" (Isa_66:3); "their abominations were according as they loved" (Hos_9:10); who hated the good and loved the evil" (Mic_3:2); "if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1Jo. Rom_2:15). To love sin is far worse than to commit it, for a man may be suddenly tripped up or commit it through frailty.

The fact is, my reader, that we are not only born into this world with an evil nature, but with hearts that are thoroughly in love with sin. Sin is our native element. We are wedded to our lusts, and of ourselves are no more able to alter the bent of our corrupt nature than the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots. But what is impossible with man, is possible with God, and when He takes us in hand this is where He begins — by saving us from the pleasure or love of sin. This is the great miracle of grace, for the Almighty stoops down and picks up a loathsome leper from the dunghill and makes him a new creature m Christ, so that the things he once hated he now loves. God commences by saving us from ourselves. He does not save us from the penalty until He has delivered us from the love of sin.