Subtopic: Will You Answer The Call

Text: Isaiah 1:18-20 "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.(vs19)If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: (vs20) But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

Revelation 3: 20-22  (To The Lukewarm Self-Satisfied Laodicean Church) "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. (vs21) To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (vs22) He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

The Septuagint(Hebrew OT into Greek)by Charles Thompson translates Isa.1:18 as "then come---(let our controversy be brought to issue, saith the Lord) and though your sins be as a purple stain: I will make you white as snow--- though they be as a stain of scarlet: I will make you white as wool"

PREMISE

The Pulpit Commentary, Vol.10, Page 23, a comment on Isa 1: 18 "THE MAGNITUDE OF DIVINE MERCY. In estimating the fullness of God's grace to mankind, we must include: 1.His patience toward all men, both penitent and impenitent. From the beginning of sin until the present hour God has been forbearing to inflict penalty." He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities."(Psa. 103:10) The times of long- continued ignorance God overlooked, or did not interpose with special penalty or redemption (Acts 17:30).

Subtopic:" Now" What Are We Going to Do?

Text Romans 13:11-14 " And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.(vs12) The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.(vs13) Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. (vs14) But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof".

2 Cor.6:2 "(For he saith,(Isa.49:8) I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

PREMISE

The Pulpit Commentary Vol.18 Pages 394-395 concerning Romans 13:11-14 says "This is not the time to indulge mere sentiment, whether of retrospect or of anticipation. The living present demands all our energy.(1) "It is time to awake out of sleep", to arouse ourselves from indifference to concern, from half-belief to earnest faith, from inactivity to zeal. (2) To "cast off the works of darkness". By the clothing, the impediments thus designated, we understand the negligences, the sins, which are inconsistent with true spirituality. (3) To "put on the armour of light". Holiness and diligence, patience and devotedness-- these are the spiritual exercises appropriate to those who have a hope so glorious and promises so sure as ours. Let the solider see to his weapons, the servant to his work, the steward to his trust!"

The Pulpit Commentary, Vol.19, Page 161 a comment on 2 Cor.6:2 INDICATIONS OF OPPORTUNITY "The favorable day for spiritual life is not so easily recognized as that of worldly advantage. In external aspect it is as other days. A preacher may speak to you whom you have often heard and not heeded. The view of truth which is to carry you captive may be one which has often been pressed on you to little purpose. But somehow you are moved; you catch the urgency of now; and you listen and believe as you never listened or believed before. So that common day becomes a beginning of days and a spiritual "period of time" to you. There are, however, indications or hints of a critical time which watchful spirits may perceive. Often it is preceded by sickness, sorrow, or disappointment, making one more thoughtful and more wistful about the things unseen. Or there springs up, one hardly knows how, a sense of inward  weariness and want. Conscience is uneasy, and the heart cannot rest. Then some word in season falls on the ear, or looks out of a book or a friend's letter. These things indicate opportunity. Miss it not. Embrace the gospel at once. receive not the grace of God in vain."

Subtopic: "Accept What God Allows"

Text St. Mark 14:32-36 "And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray.(vs33) and he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; (vs34) And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. (vs35) And he went forward a little , and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. (vs36) And he said, Abba Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt."

PREMISE

The Pulpit Commentary, Vol.16, pages 271-272, a comment on St. Mark 14:32-36  1."Thy Will Be Done!" Is To Be the Abiding Desire Of Our Hearts. The habitual contemplation of the Divine  will is likely to lead us to desire its fulfillment. We shall see, if faintly, the wisdom, the goodness, the pure purpose, which that will expresses. It is a desire for the Divine Father to do and carry out his own will in his own house on earth, "as it is in heaven." Seeing God in all things, and having entire confidence in the unsullied wisdom and unfailing goodness of the Father on high, it desires both that he should do his own will in all things, and that by all that will should be sought as the supreme law. It knows no good outside of the operation of that will. Within its sphere all is life, and health, and truth, and goodness; without is darkness and the region of the shadow of death.

Subtopic: "It's God's Way Or No Way"

Text: Psa. 127:1 "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

Eccl.3:14 "I know that, whatsoever God doeth , it shall be  for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it : and God doeth it, that men should fear before him."

Premise

The Pulpit Commentary Volumes 8 &9 , Pages 62-63 &227-228 , comments on Psa.127:1 and Eccl. 3:14 . "UNBLESSED LABOUR 1. We can do nothing at all without the Divine co-operation. We constantly depend on the presence of his material, on the action of his laws, on the activity of the forces he keeps in play. We all recognize this in agriculture; that it is vain for the husbandman to sow his seed, unless God sends his rain and wind and sunshine ect. It is also true of our other occupations. The sailor and the builder depend on the constancy and regularity of Divine laws and forces. We are always assuming their existence, though we may think nothing of their Author. 2. We can effect nothing without divine permission. If God means that the guilty city shall fall, the watchman will wake and the soldier will fight in vain. If God intends to humble a man whose pride needs to be brought down, his utmost exertions in his trade or in his profession will not bring success. Many a man has found, as he at first thought to his cost, but afterwards knew to his advantage, that when God's wise and faithful providence is against his prosperity, he wakes early and works hard in vain. But how much more is blessed is he in a corrective adversity, than he would be in a hardened prosperity! We do well to ask that God's blessing may wait upon and crown all our activities; we do well, also; to remember that it may happen that, for our own sake, God will not grant us our desire in the form of temporal success. 3. We find no blessedness in a prosperity which is not hallowed by devotion. It is a vain thing for a man to strive hard and to attain the immediate object of his pursuit , if he is not making his life a life of holy service. Even if the bread he eats is not "bread of sorrows" in the sense that it is scanty, yet it will be such in the sense that it yields no abiding joy; for it is abundantly clear that a life of even prosperous labour , apart from the service and without the friendship of God, selfish and earthbound, is a life of dissatisfaction and practical defeat. The springs of pure and lasting joy do not rise on that lower ground."

A comment on Eccl.3:14 says "Behind man's free action and volition (the act of willing) stands the will of God, which orders events with a view to eternity, and that man can alter nothing of the providential arrangement. We cannot hasten or retard god's designs; we cannot add to or curtail his plans. There is a moral purpose in this disposal of events. Men feel this uniformity and unchangeableness in the working of Providence, and thence  learn to cherish a reverential awe for the righteous government of which they are the subjects."

Subtopic: The Happiness Of God's People

Sermon Notes By Pastor Arthur H. Coleman Sr. For Sunday November 4, 2013

Text: 2 Tim. 1:12 "For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. 

PREMISE

The Pulpit Commentary, Vol.21, Page 16, A Comment on 2 Tim.1:12 "HIS PERSONAL ASSURANCE-- IT'S STRENGTH. "For I know him whom I have believed." As he is here speaking of his being a prisoner, we naturally take the reference to be to him whose prisoner in the eighth verse he declared himself to be which was the Lord's. He had lived a life of faith on Christ; and he could speak confidently, from his own experience of him. Not I think I know him, but, as one would speak of a friend whom he has long and intimately lived with, I know him. Without experience we cannot have the assurance that excludes doubt. Only when we have tried Christ, and found him sufficient for us in all positions of life, can we rise above the language of hesitation."

"And I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day." What is guarded is literally my deposit, But, as the guardian is also naturally the holder, we naturally think of something committed by Paul to Christ; and what was that but his interest, his stake in the future world, dependent on his faithfulness in this? How did Paul know that it would not turn out a blank, or be much diminished by future failure? The explanation was that he had put it into Christ's hands, and he trusted in him being able to guard it for him against that day, which was the day of judgment , when it would become irreversibly, gloriously, his, being as it were handed back to him by Christ."