"Branded for Christ" By Leonard Ravenhill

In a certain sense, all men are strangers to one another. Even friends do not really know each other. To know a man, one must know all the influences of heredity and environment, as well as his countless moral choices that have fashioned him into what he is.

Though we do not really know one another, tracing the course of a man’s life sometimes offers rich reward, particularly when we see the great driving forces which have motivated him.

For instance, how greatly your life and mine would be benefited if we could experience the same surge of Christ-life that moved Saul of Tarsus (later called Paul) and plumb even a little the hidden depths of the meaning in his words, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Gal. 6:17).

One thing is sure about these words: they were an acknowledgment of Christ’s ownership. Paul belonged to the Lord Jesus -- spirit, soul, and body. He was branded for Christ.

When Paul claimed to bear in his body the wounds of the Lord, he was claiming no "stigmata," as did Saint Francis of Assisi in 1224 A.D. It is not a bodily identification by outward crucifixion. He had been "crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20).

THE ‘WORLD’ OF JOHN 3:16 DOES NOT MEAN ‘ALL MEN WITHOUT EXCEPTION’ by Rev. David J. Engelsma

It is now common among Reformed people that, when one confesses God’s election of some persons to salvation, God’s particular love for the elect, and God’s exclusive desire to save the elect, his confession is immediately contested by an appeal to John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Indeed, this is almost the rule. The one who thus appeals to John 3:16 intends to assert that God loves all men without exception and that God desires to save all men without exception. The basic assumption underlying this appeal to John 3:16, as an argument against election, is that the word, world, in John 3:16 means ‘all men without exception.

"The Vain Self-Flatteries of the Sinner" by Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

"For he flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity be found to be hateful." [Psalm 36:2]

In the foregoing verse, David says, that the transgression of the wicked said within his heart, "that there is no fear of God before his eyes;" that is, when he saw that the wicked went on in sin, in an allowed way of wickedness, it convinced him, that he was not afraid of those terrible judgments, and of that wrath with which God hath threatened sinners If he were afraid of these he could never go on so securely in sin, as he doth.
In our text he gives the reason why the wicked did not fear. It was a strange thing that men, who enjoyed such light as they did in the land of Israel, who read and heard those many awful threatenings which were written in the book of the law, should not be afraid to go on in sin. But saith the Psalmist, They flatter themseIves in their own eyes: They have something or other which they make a foundation of encouragement, whereby they persuade themselves that they shall escape those judgments; and that makes them put far away the evil day.

"The Art of Preaching" By J.C. Philpot

We are overrun with a shallow, superficial ministry,  which is destitute of all life, savor, and power. A dry,  dead-letter scheme of doctrine, as mathematically 
correct as the squares of a chess-board, prevails, where what is called "truth" is preached. And to move Bible texts on the squares as pawns, is called  "the art of preaching".
How simple is truth!  Man's misery--God's mercy.

The aboundings of sin--the super-aboundings of grace.