"How Shall I Go To God" By Horatius Bonar

"How Shall I Go to God?" It is with our sins that we go to God—for we have nothing else to go with that we can call our own. This is one of the lessons that we are so slow to learn; yet without learning this—we cannot take one right step in that which we call a Christian life.

To look up some good thing in our past life, or to get some good thing now, if we find that our past does not contain any such thing—is our first thought when we begin to inquire after God, that we may get the great question settled between Him and us, as to the forgiveness of our sins.

"In His favor is life"; and to be without this favor is to be unhappy here, and to be shut out from joy hereafter. There is no life worthy of the name of life except that which flows from His assured friendship. Without that friendship, our life here is a burden and a weariness; but with that friendship we fear no evil, and all sorrow is turned into joy.

"How shall I be happy?" was the question of a weary soul who had tried a hundred different ways of happiness, and had always failed.

"Secure the favor of God," was the prompt answer, by one who had himself tasted that the "Lord is gracious."

"Is there no other way of being happy?"

"None, none," was the quick and decided reply. "Man has been trying other ways for six thousand years, and has utterly failed—and are you likely to succeed?"

"No, not likely; and I don't want to go on trying. But this favor of God seems such a shadowy thing, and God Himself so far off—that I know not which way to turn."

Are You A Good Person?

"The Great Commission Given" From "The Fourfold Gospel" by J. W. McGarvey and Philip Y. Pendleton

8-9. THE GREAT COMMISSION GIVEN.
(Time and place same as last section.)
^a MATT. 28:18-20; ^b MARK 16:15-18; ^c LUKE 24:46, 47.

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      ^a 18 And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth.

  ^b 15 And he said unto them, Go ye ^a therefore, ^b into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. ^a and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:

  20 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you:

  ^b 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.

^c Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day;

  47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. [The verses from Luke are taken from a later conversation, which will be handled in our next section. They are inserted here because they are an indicative statement of the commission which Matthew and Mark give in the imperative, and a section professing to embrace the commission would be imperfect without them. The first word of the commission is significant, and should be remembered. We have no right to wait for sinners to come and hear the gospel; we must carry it to them. The "therefore" with which it opens shows that Jesus rests this command nor the word "authority" adequately translated Christ's word. It means all the right of absolute authority, and all the force of absolute power. It is a most transcendent claim which Jesus utters here. All authority in heaven! Paul's qualification of these words, or their counterpart in ICorxv 1:1 Psalms 8:6 (ICor. xv. 27, 28) Psalms 27,28 , magnifies instead of detracting from their wonderful import, for he deems its necessary to state that the Father himself is not subject to the Son. Surely in connection with this marvelous celestial power, his dominion over out tiny earth would not need to be mentioned if it were not that we, its inhabitants, are very limited in our conception of things, and require exceedingly plain statements. The command calls for the Christianizing of all nations. If we realized better that authority with which Christ prefaces his commission, the conquest of the nations in his name would seem to us a small matter indeed, and we should set about it expecting to witness its speedy accomplishment. The structure of the sentence in the original Greek shows that it is the disciples and not the nations who are to be baptized; according to the commission, therefore, one must be made a disciple before he can be baptized. Baptism brings us into divine relation to God. Being a part of the process of adoption, it is called a birth ( John 3:5 ). The baptized Christian bears the name into which he is baptized (Romans 2:24 ; James 2:7 ). Luke sums up the whole commission by recording the words of Christ, wherein he states that he suffered that it might be preached to all nations that if men would repent, God could now forgive ( Romans 3:26 ). From Luke's record we also learn that the preaching of these glad tidings was to begin at Jerusalem.]

  ^b 17 And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues;

  18 they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. [The Book of Acts gives examples of each one of these except the fourth, and though we have no there is little doubt that in the many persecutions such cases did occur.] ^a and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. [This is a promise not of bare companionship, but of full sympathy and support ( Isaiah 43:2 ; Exodus 33:15 ; Joshua 1:5 ). The duration of this promise shows that it is intended for all disciples.]

Written in 1914 and published by Standard Publishing Company in Cincinnati, Oh (my neck of the woods) this book is a complete chronology of the life of Christ, divided into titled sections and sub-divisions, with comments injected in the text.  Well worth the read if you can find it in book form, if not here is a site you can read it online.  Be Blessed Brothers and Sisters, Be Blessed!   http://www.ccel.org/m/mcgarvey/ffg/FFG000A.HTM

The Fourfold Gospel in the public domain and may be freely used and distributed.

"What is a Covenant?" By Meredith G. Kline

Because the subject of biblical covenants and ancient treaties has been under intensive investigation and lively dispute, some introductory observations are in order here about the nature of those biblical arrangements we call "covenants." Our chief interest in these comments is in those covenantal arrangements in which God was one party.

Of the biblical words usually rendered "covenant" the primary one in the Old Testament is the Hebrew berith, for which the Greek diathekewas the translation choice of the New Testament writers. What is it that constitutes the peculiar berith-character of that which is so denominated?

Repeatedly we read of a berith being "made." The berith-making is accomplished through a solemn process of ratification. Characteristically this transaction centers in the swearing of an oath, with its sanctioning curse. Clearly a berith is a legal kind of arrangement, a formal disposition of a binding nature. At the heart of a berith is an act of commitment and the customary oath-form of this commitment reveals the religious nature of the transaction. The berith arrangement is no mere secular contract but rather belongs to the sacred sphere of divine witness and enforcement.

"Calvinism in America" By Loraine Boettner

Chapter Seven: Calvinism in America, Taken From "Calvinism in History"

When we come to study the influence of Calvinism as a political force in the history of the United States we come to one of the brightest pages of all Calvinistic history. Calvinism came to America in the Mayflower, and Bancroft, the greatest of American historians, pronounces the Pilgrim Fathers "Calvinists in their faith according to the straightest system."¹ John Endicott, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; John Winthrop, the second governor of that Colony; Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut; John Davenport, the founder of the New Haven Colony; and Roger Williams, the founder of the Rhode Island Colony, were all Calvinists. William Penn was a disciple of the Huguenots. It is estimated that of the 3,000,000 Americans at the time of the American Revolution, 900,000 were of Scotch or Scotch-Irish origin, 600,000 were Puritan English, and 400,000 were German or Dutch Reformed. In addition to this the Episcopalians had a Calvinistic confession in their Thirty-nine Articles; and many French Huguenots also had come to this western world. Thus we see that about two-thirds of the colonial population had been trained in the school of Calvin. Never in the world's history had a nation been founded by such people as these. Furthermore these people came to America not primarily for commercial gain or advantage, but because of deep religious convictions. It seems that the religious persecutions in various European countries had been providentially used to select out the most progressive and enlightened people for the colonization of America. At any rate it is quite generally admitted that the English, Scotch, Germans, and Dutch have been the most masterful people of Europe. Let it be especially remembered that the Puritans, who formed the great bulk of the settlers in New England, brought with them a Calvinistic Protestantism, that they were truly devoted to the doctrines of the great Reformers, that they had an aversion for formalism and oppression whether in the Church or in the State, and that in New England Calvinism remained the ruling theology throughout the entire Colonial period.

"ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST" By John Calvin

"Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach." Hebrews xiii., 13. 

All the exhortations which can be given us to suffer patiently for the name of Jesus Christ, and in defense of the gospel, will have no effect if we do not feel assured of the cause for which we fight. For when we are called to part with life, it is absolutely necessary to know on what grounds. The firmness necessary we can not possess, unless it be founded on certainty of faith. 

It is true that persons may be found who will foolishly expose themselves to death in maintaining some absurd opinions and dreams conceived by their own brain, but such impetuosity is more to be regarded as frenzy than as Christian zeal; and, in fact, there is neither firmness nor sound sense in those who thus, at a kind of haphazard, cast themselves away. But, however this may be, it is in a good cause only that God can acknowledge us as His martyrs. Death is common to all, and the children of God are condemned to ignominy and tortures as criminals are; but God makes the distinction between them, inasmuch as He can not deny His truth. On our part, then, it is requisite that we have sure and infallible evidence of the doctrine which we maintain; and hence, as I have said, we can not be rationally imprest by any exhortations which we receive to suffer persecution for the gospel, if no true certainty of faith has been imprinted in our hearts. For to hazard our life upon a peradventure is not natural, and tho we were to do it, it would only be rashness, not Christian courage. In a word, nothing that we do will be approved of God if we are not thoroughly persuaded that it is for Him and His cause we suffer persecution, and the world is our enemy.