1 Corinthians (Program #4) – Christ and His Cross the Unique Solution (1 & 2)

The Bible reveals that all believers have been called by God. If we were not for this calling we were never be saved. Salvation is not something we can stumbled into on our own

But what we have been called into? 1 Corinthians chapter 1 tells us  “God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Our calling is into the fellowship of His Son. But 1 Corinthians also tells us that the greatest frustration to that fellowship is division. Division became the problem in the 1st century church. And look today how great this problem is to the fellowship that should be our day by day enjoyment and experience. A fellowship that is in Christ and that should be universal among all the members of His one Body. The fellowship of His Son is our topic today.

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1 Corinthians (Program #3) – Introduction (3)

Many new believers shortly after receiving Christ as their Savior and experiencing a wonderful and dynamic salvation, go through a period of doubting and questioning. It seems that the new life they found in Christ to somehow evaporated. At such a time it’s common to question whether or not we are really saved. But to the Corinthian believers, Paul pointed out that we all receive two initial gifts when we received Christ.  First, we received eternal life, that’s the uncreated divine life of God. And we also received the Holy Spirit.  Based upon the word of God and these two indisputable gifts we have an outward assurance and the inward confirmation that he who has the Son has the life.

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1 Corinthians (Program #2) – Introduction (2)

When you hear the word “saint”, what comes to mind? Well, most of us draw a pretty vivid mental portrait of the genuine saint of God. But you know in the Bible the word saint is used to describe every single member of the Lord’s Body, the church.

Yes, even the smallest most seemingly insignificant of the believers is a saint in the Father’s eyes. We find this in 1 Corinthians 1:2 “To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the called saints, with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, who is theirs and ours:”

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1 Corinthians (Program #1) – Introduction (1)

Every detail of the Bible is under the sovereign arrangement of God. Not only the words themselves have God as their source even the arrangement of the Bible is significant.

Romans for example gives us a full and complete sketch of both the Christians life and the church life. Then immediately following Romans we  1 Corinthians. What we have is the illustration of the same church life in the Christians life. What Romans reveals 1 Corinthians illustrates.

As we begin the life study of 1 Corinthians, a book that on the surface seems to be mainly focus on the problems of this 1st century gentile church in the city of Corinth but actually we will come to appreciate there is a very positive message in this book that is critical in God’s economy.

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Romans (Program #39) – Life and Death in Romans Five through Eight

The book of Romans chapter 8:10 says “…if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness”. Two parts of the tripartite man are mentioned here with two conditions – the body is dead, the spirit is life.

Our life study today is one of those that presents the Bible in such a marvelous fashion that it has definitely the effect of strengthening our faith in God’s word. The Bible has such a consistent thought and revelation once we have the keys to open it up. We’ll see in this current message how that our natural way of trying to understand the word of God by the principle of right and wrong doesn’t work. Today we are going to see two keys given that really show us the way to get into the Bible in a living way so that it supplies us with life.

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Romans (Program #10) – The Result of Justification – The Full Enjoyment of God In Christ

There is nothing more welcome to a sinner’s ears than to hear that he has been forgiven of his sins and is justified before God. Today, you will hear some further marvelous results of justification.

In chapter 4 of Romans, there is this graphic example of justification made clear through the experience of Abraham.  Chapters 3 & 4 of Romans show us two aspects of justification.   Chapter 3 deals with an objective and positional justification which was accomplished by the death of Christ.   more…

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Romans (Program#9) – The Subjective Experience of Justification (2)

The matter of justification should bring us all the way back to God’s eternal purpose to enjoying the Tree of Life and fulfilling the desire God had for man.

There’s a wonderful realization about Romans that Paul seems to be gazing at many of the major items of the Old Testament as he composed the book of Romans. We have the blessing of having a book written by a man who was very knowledgeable concerning the Old Testament through his experience in Judaism and his much learning – he certainly knew the Old Testament. Then as he wrote this letter to the Romans, he brought those images, those illusions, and even examples to enrich the teaching that he was doing with the truth from the Old Testament. And it makes it very rich and very clear and we have said here many times that what is said in plain words in the New Testament is often said in pictures, examples, stories in the Old Testament which help us to know in more details what those plain words refer to. This is certainly the case in the matter of Abraham.

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Romans (Program #8) – The Subjective Experience of Justification (1)

Faith is not separated from Christ.  It is actually Christ Himself transfusing Himself into us and producing a reaction within us.  And this is our believing, our saving faith.

What is faith?  We know we are saved by it.  Oh how elusive it becomes when we look for it in the wrong place.  Today’s life study is from Roman chapter 4.  We come to a study that has the potential to be a life-changing revelation for many of the Lord’s children regarding faith.  We will see today faith is probably not what most of us supposed.

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Romans (Program #7) – The Example of Justification

In this broadcast we see the wonderful God in whom Abraham believed.  He’s the God who gives life to the dead and calls things not being as being. Abraham is the example of justification.

Paul was fully in the view of Genesis as he wrote the epistles to the Romans. In Genesis, the Holy Spirit gives us a crystal clear picture of justification. Apparently, we’re touching doctrinal matters, such as justification, but actually Paul is writing this book based on experience. The proof of this is that he gives us not just merely a doctrinal dissertation related to justification, but he gives us a living model, pattern and example in the person of Abraham. more…

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Genesis (Program #48) – The Motive and Strength of Being Called

Today we are going to look at the God of glory appearing to Abraham.   When you consider Abraham’s entire life, when you look at him in his entire history.  You’re looking at a person just like us.  He is called the father of faith.  There seems to be quite an impression from the Word that he is really a person of faith.  But when you look at the details of his living, he was a person just like us and actually very unbelieving.  If it weren’t for the appearing of God, he would just be in his unbelief.  But the very appearing of God infused him to the uttermost.   In principle, I would say, what kind of person was he?  He was really like a kind of unbeliever; the Lord would say something, he would say yes but then actually he just live out the opposite.  Really what was required, what was needed for God, the God of glory to appear to him over and over and over again and it’s just like us.  I am so grateful that the Lord came to me again and again and again so that we can be infused with Him as the unique faith in this universe.  Abraham is called the father of faith but actually he did not have one drop of faith.  All of his faith came from the appearing of the God of glory, infusing him with Himself as the very believing element.  This is the kind of person he was, apart from the God of glory, he had no faith.  He was not a believing person.  But Hallelujah, the God of glory appear to him over and over and over again, so he has been infused with this dear person as the very believing element.

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