The damning sin of unbelief—Unbelief is the sin of the world from which men must repent to escape eternal damnation. God saves all those who repent (turn) from their unbelief and believe in their hearts the gospel of Jesus Christ (1Corinthians 15:3-4; Romans 10:9; Acts 16:31).
REPENTANCE TO SALVATION
All forms of the word repent appear 112 times in the Holy Bible. In his 1828 dictionary Noah Webster gives the following definition of REPENT: ‘To feel pain, sorrow or regret for something done or spoken…A person repents only of what he himself has done or said…To express sorrow for something past…To change the mind in consequence of the inconvenience or injury done by past conduct.’ Hopefully the next two studies on repentance will settle any controversy, and show clearly that God commands that every sinner must repent to be saved!
FULL MINDED MEDITATION
Prosperous and successful meditation—The LORD, who said, “I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.” (Isaiah 48:17), has established and prescribed a very wonderful and prosperous meditation for his people. All forms of the word ‘meditate’ appear twenty times in fourteen chapters of six books in the entire Holy Bible. However there are at least fifteen different Bible synonyms for the word ‘meditation.’ They are: “muse” (Psalm 143:5), “imagine” (Genesis 6:5), “study” (2Timothy 2:15), “ponder” (Proverbs 4:26, “HIGGAION” (Psalm 9:16), “Selah” (Psalm 3:2), “plot” (Psalm 37:12), “care” (1Samuel 10:2), “commune” (Psalm 4:4), “consider” (Deuteronomy 4:39), “think” (Proverbs 23:6-7), “devise” (1Kings 12:33), “learn” (Proverbs 16:23), “examine” (Psalm 26:2), “weigh” (Isaiah 26:7), and “cogitations.” (Daniel 7:28)
EMPTY MINDED MEDITATION
Vain and dangerous meditations—Everyone should be aware of the vain and dangerous forms of meditation that have been devised by and are practiced by men in the world. The word of God warns: “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2Timothy 3:13); believers are also warned that “the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1Timothy 4:1). This study will repeat some of God’s warnings concerning the world’s counterfeit meditations. The next study, FULL MINDED MEDITATION, will explore the exceedingly excellent meditation that has been ordained by “the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 40:28).
THREE WITNESSES
THREE BEAR RECORD IN HEAVEN “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one” (1John 5:7). Since his glorious resurrection from the dead the Lord Jesus Christ possesses all power “in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). In him “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). He is now sitting at the right hand of his “Father in his throne” (Revelation 3:21) in heaven, till the Father makes his enemies his “footstool” (Psalm 110:1; Mark 12:36). THREE BEAR WITNESS IN EARTH “And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one” (1John 5:7-8). The three which bear witness in earth are unmistakably and precisely identified by the scriptures:
THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS
The LORD is the fountain—The prophet Jeremiah wrote that the idol worshippers were “altogether brutish and foolish…But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation” (Jeremiah 10:7-10). The LORD said through his prophet Ezekiel: “Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water”(Jeremiah 2:12-13; 17:13).
THE BAPTISM THAT SAVES
There are seven baptisms recorded in the word of God, but only “one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5) “doth also now save us” (1Peter 3:21). Writing to the saints at Ephesus about how God called them to “the common salvation” (Jude 1:3), the apostle wrote: “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, ONE BAPTISM, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). The “one baptism” is when the Lord Jesus Christ himself baptizes “with the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 3:11)—when he by “one Spirit” baptizes them “into one body” (1Corinthians 12:13): his “body, the church” (Colossians 1:18).
CHOSEN BY GOD
CHOSEN BY GOD God has always given men the power to choose!—It is essential to the truth of the gospel to understand that God’s “foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23; 1Peter 1:2) certainly does not mean that God controls the men he created in his own image (Genesis 1:26) in the same manner as men control their computerized and programmed electro-mechanical robots.
THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY
PROPHECY is defined as: ‘A foretelling…a declaration of something to come. As God only knows future events with certainty, no being but God or some person informed by him [called a prophet], can utter a real prophecy. The prophecies recorded in Scripture, when fulfilled, afford most convincing evidence of the divine original of the Scriptures, as those who uttered the prophecies could not have foreknown the events predicted without supernatural instruction,’ (Noah Webster, 1828).
The Testimony of Jesus
The entire Holy Bible is "the record that God gave of his Son" (1John 5:10). This study will show the testimony of others about Jesus, and also Jesus' own personal testimony of himself...
