Topic Archives: Salvation

Genesis 15:7-21: He also said to him, ‘I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.’ But Abram said, ‘O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I shall gain possession of it?’ So the LORD said to him, ‘Bring me […]

2 Corinthians 13:5: ‘Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realise that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test?’ It is much easier and it is certainly more pleasant to judge other people than ourselves. The so-called ‘super-apostles’ were demanding proof […]

I hope never to forget the night the Lord brought my soul out of bondage into the glorious liberty of the gospel. It was on a Lord’s Day evening. I went in the morning to the house of God in a very distressed state of mind, and remained so all day. The preaching only tended […]

The translator’s ‘Introduction’ to Faith Unfeigned – Four Sermons concerning Matters Most Useful for the Present Time with A Brief Exposition of Psalm 871 by John Calvin. The last half-century has seen a steady growth of interest in Calvin’s work as preacher. The Reformer’s sermons place us at the centre of his pastoral and theological […]

It was about four o’clock one October morning. I had been sleeping well, but was awakened by the sound of a wind such as I had never heard in my life before. From the rooftop of my house, tiles were being blown about and seemed to make a most frightening noise as they came crashing […]

They whom God hath accepted in his Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace; but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved. Westminster Confession of Faith God sovereignly decrees that none of his elect shall perish. As a […]

At the age of twelve, I joined a local church of one of the large denominations. Previous to this I had received a lapel pin for memorizing the Ten Commandments and the books of the Bible. These things never completely left my mind, but neither did they save me. I can honestly say that I […]

It is easy to see that the world is in a terrible state – with war, civil disobedience and crime affecting, in varying degrees, people across the globe. But, more fundamentally, we must recognise the terrible spiritual state of every individual human being, for frictions between nations and problems within individual countries and communities only […]

In 1821 a young clergyman’s son matriculated at Worcester College, Oxford. Amongst the cleverest of his generation, he knew nothing of the wisdom which can only be imparted by the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. Just previously, another young man, of similar academic capabilities, had graduated with an unexpectedly low third-class degree. […]

In Biblical terms, conversion (from the Latin convertere = ‘to turn’) means to turn from sin to God; conversion is the act of turning. Both the Hebrew words sub and niham and the Greek words epistrepho and metanoeo bear this meaning. When translated into English, they indicate returning or turning back to God through a […]

John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan once said of F. W. Robertson of Brighton: ‘Robertson believed that Christ did something or other, which, somehow or other, had some connection or other with salvation.’ This vague ‘mystification’ covers all the heretical and erroneous views of the atonement being mooted today. Indeed, F. W. Dillistone tells us enthusiastically: ‘there has […]

Renew our days as of old. (Lamentations 5:21) John Girardeau, the Old School Presbyterian1 minister from Charleston, SC, in 1851 turned down the opportunity to pastor a large Presbyterian church in order to begin a church with African slaves, out of Second Presbyterian Church, Charleston. Girardeau’s methodology was to hold a weekly prayer meeting, to […]

Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God.’ (James 1:13) Charles Templeton, a newspaper reporter from Toronto, after a night of carousing and drunkenness, says that he had a conversion experience. By 1945 he was preaching with Billy Graham at Youth for Christ rallies around the U.S. and Europe. […]

I recently had the opportunity to share with an unbeliever how I was converted to Christ. Some have enjoyed the privilege of having been raised by Christian parents and cannot recall a time in their lives when they did not trust Christ for their salvation. I have had the privilege of experiencing the saving grace […]

Luke 11:24-26 When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits […]

Satan makes great efforts to keep sinners in his kingdom. His evil hope is that they will continue to dishonour God for the rest of their lives and spend eternity still under his power. Thus Paul refers to the evil work of ‘the god of this world’: he ‘hath blinded the minds of them which […]

The first section of this paper, given at the Theological Conference of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 2008, dealt with ‘James Fraser, the Man’, and can be found here. The third and final part – ‘James Fraser as preacher and on Preaching’ – can be found here.1 2. His Magnum Opus The great […]

. . . but let him ask in faith without any doubting. (James 1:6) James, the brother of Jesus, the one who calls himself the slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, commands us to consider all things joy. You can never do this without perfect endurance, and without perfect endurance you will not make it […]

It was a perfect world, and a perfect universe, that God made. The whole work of creation was a clear demonstration of his greatness – in particular, of his infinite power and his infinite wisdom. As soon as the angels were created they could look at what God had done and at once discern a […]

I am amazed at some of the things that have been said and written in recent years about the gospel. I fear that in many circles a different message is replacing the good news of salvation. I’m not talking about the attacks on the gospel from liberal religion or the theology of the cults, but […]

If you want to know why the Christian church today is so weak compared with that of previous generations you will find one of the answers in reading this book, first published in 1826. Our Christian forefathers took the subject of repentance seriously. They expounded the subject thoroughly and deeply. In eight carefully argued chapters, […]

This is the testimony of a young man from a Christian home recently baptised and received into church membership in London. Having grown up in a Christian family, I have always been taken to church and to children’s clubs. I don’t think there has ever been a time in my life when I didn’t believe […]

. . . we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). Don and Carol Richardson had come, with their infant son, to the Sawi people of southwestern New Guinea for the purpose of bringing the good news of the gospel to them. After building a house Don set about the task […]

Oh that they had such a heart in them that would fear me (Deuteronomy 5:29). On October 23, 1740, after preaching the previous weekend in Northampton with Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, the great eighteenth century evangelist, made his way south along the Connecticut River to Hartford, then Wethersfield, and finally to Middletown. Nathan Cole, a […]

Sin entered into the world through one man (Romans 5:12). I delight in the doctrine of justification by faith – the marvellous truth that God declares the unrighteous sinner (bound for hell due to his guilt) as righteous, putting him into the category of being righteous through the person and work of Christ. Even the […]