God gave a law to the Jews. The law highlighted sin, making them more conscious of God’s will (Rom. 2:17-20). However, it did not cleanse them from sin; instead, the commands of the law showed how far short man falls from God’s mark (Rom. 7:11-13). The Gentile world without the law was filled with inexcusable wickedness (Romans 1:18-32). The Jews, though they had the law, did not perfectly keep the law, so they were no better than the Gentiles (Romans 2:23-25). Thus, all people, Jews and Gentiles, are guilty of sin before God (Rom. 3:10-12, 23).

Thankfully, God has provided a way through Jesus Christ for us to be saved from our sins and the death we deserve (Rom. 6:23). The Gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s power to salvation; those who respond in faith can be made righteous before God (Rom. 1:16-17; Gal. 2:16). The law could not do this, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ can. God does not owe us salvation. Our works do not merit salvation (Eph. 2:8-9). We cannot stand on our own merits, we must appeal to God’s good grace. God’s grace is extended to all, Jews and Gentiles: “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Rom. 10:12-13). To appeal to God’s grace in faith is the only means by which we can be saved. Faith that saves is faith that puts the Lord on in baptism (Gal. 3:26-27).

Peter preached to Jews on Pentecost day who were guilty before God (Acts 2:36). He quoted Joel 2:32 in his description of what was happening that day in order to point the way to salvation, “that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). What did this mean? When the receptive crowd—convinced of their guilt—asked what they should do in Acts 2:37, Peter responded, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). Calling on the Lord was not saying a prayer, but rather was believing the Gospel message, turning from sins, and being baptized to receive remission of sins.

When Paul had seen Lord on the road to Damascus, Jesus told him to go into the city and he would be told what to do (Acts 22:10). Ananias, the preacher commissioned by the Lord (Acts 9:10-16), came to Paul and said, “And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). Paul had been praying (Acts 9:11). Yet, he still needed to arise and be baptized to have his sins washed away (Acts 9:18; 22:16). This is what it means to call on the name of the Lord.

The Jews trusted in circumcision as their mark of being God’s people. But Christians today have been spiritually circumcised by the Lord. The Lord operates and cuts off the sins of the flesh at baptism (Col. 2:11). Those who respond in faith to this operation of God are united with Christ in burial and resurrection (Col. 2:12; Rom. 6:3-4). It is in this identifying with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection in baptism that baptism saves us (Rom. 6:3-7; 17-18; 1 Pet. 3:21). Disciples of Jesus are those who have submitted to the Lordship of Jesus by believing and being baptized (Mt. 28:19; Mk. 16:16). Baptism is an essential part of God’s plan for justification.

-Mark Day

By Phil Sanders

I know there are brethren who are weak, foolish, selfish, legalistic, progressive, lazy, rude, and given to fleshly lusts. I know there are some slow to forgive and quick to divide the church. I know there are some who have remained immature and have caused harm in the church. I know there are wolves in sheep’s clothing, people who have taken advantage of the church, and I also know the Lord loves every faithful member of the body of Christ and every member who is trying to walk worthy of his calling. I know Christ does not want any brother or sister to perish but for all to come to repentance.

If the Lord could love a person as weak as me, could willingly forgive me, could see something good in me, and is willing to mold me into the man I ought to be, I reckon I should be able to see something lovely and worthwhile in my brethren. I know there are some who need to grow in Christ, but I also see my own shortcomings. I need to extend grace to others, just as the Lord extended grace to me. I believe it is high time we loved each other and loved the brotherhood. What is right with the church…

1. The church of Christ has the right LORD.
2. The church of Christ rightly belongs to the LORD Jesus and not to man.
3. The church of Christ believes the one, true Gospel (Gal. 1:6-9).
4. The church of Christ expects people to believe in Jesus, repent of their sins and to love the LORD. We expect people upon the confession of their faith to be immersed in water for the forgiveness of their sins.
5. The church of Christ worships in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). It observes the instructions of the New Testament concerning giving, communing, praying, singing, and in hearing God’s Word. It has not gotten lost in the present culture.
6. The church of Christ is still made up of autonomous congregations led by Biblically qualified elders and served by faithful deacons.
7. The church of Christ has not forgotten the Great Commission. Flavil Yeakley says we are still the sixth fastest growing religious group in America. Our congregations in India and Africa are booming.
8. Studies indicate that churches of Christ ranks first in these areas:

• Our people attend better than any religious group in America.
• We have the fourth most congregations of any religious group in America. We are the best distributed for our size.
• Barna found that churches of Christ gave at a greater rate than any religious group in America.
• org found in the 2008 US Religious Landscape Survey that churches of Christ have 22 percent of its adult members ages 18-29. This is two percent above the national average and the highest of any major religious group in America.

9. The church is keeping 67 percent of its young people. At age 30 they are still attending faithfully (according to a study by Flavil Yeakley).
10. God is still in charge of the church. He still prunes us to make us grow. He still loves us. The Lord Jesus is preparing a home for us.

Daniel 2:44, “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” Fulfilled in the 1^st century, recorded in Acts 2, existing today.

–submitted by Jerry Sturgill

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” 2 Peter 3:3-4

By inspiration Peter foretold that scoffers (mockers) would come in the last time. These would poke fun at Jesus’ promise to come again, citing the long-standing constancy of the created order as purportedly proving the possibility of a final day as ridiculous.  However, it is evident that the universe had a starting point, when the eternal Creator brought it into existence; there is no excuse for failing to recognize this truth from creation (Romans 1:20).  Just as the universe had a starting point, it will have an ending point.  Observation is all that is required to see that the physical world is wearing out, or winding down from its original state of creation.  Unlike God, the world has an expiration date, “And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail” (Hebrews 1:10-12).

Peter goes on to tell us the attitude we ought to have based on this truth:  “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” (2 Peter 3:11-12). Instead of mocking, as those described in verse 3 do, we ought to take serious stock of our lives and prepare for the final day.

It is difficult to get some people to be sober-minded about anything. While there is time for joking, eternal spiritual matters are of great importance. Because these scoffers deny the Lord’s coming, they walk in lusts. They indulge the flesh because they do not consider the judgment of God a serious matter.  The devil wants us to dismiss the seriousness of the judgment. This is why people can recognize what the Bible teaches on how they are to live and turn from it — they focus on what they want now rather than preparing for later (2 Peter 2:21-22). But the dismissal or ridicule of the plain truths of the Bible will not make them go away. In chapter 2 of his second epistle, Peter had reminded his audience that God punishes sin. The angels that were not content to stay in their place were cast down to hell (2 Peter 2:4). The ungodly in Noah’s day were drowned in the flood (2 Peter 2:5). The ungodly practices of Sodom and Gomorrah, which are so glorified among many in our day, were the cause of their destruction by God (2 Peter 2:6). Because those cities would not repent of their fornication —going after “strange flesh” (Jude 7) — they were turned into ashes and stand as an example of God’s judgment on the ungodly.  We should take God’s attitude toward sin seriously and live right before it is too late!

-Mark Day

Naturalism—the belief that only natural processes are and have always been at work in our universe—has serious implications in regard to free will. Dr. Sam Harris has a PhD in neuroscience and is an outspoken naturalist; in his 2012 book Free Will, Harris emphatically declares, “Free will is an illusion.”[1] Instead of regarding man as an immortal soul housed in a physical body, whose will is challenged, but not entirely overridden, by physical constraints, Harris only sees the physical constraints. As a proponent of naturalism, he must reduce every “decision” to a material cause, regarding measurements of neural activity as the key to determining what decision an individual will make. He says, “Consider what it would take to actually have free will. You would need to be aware of all the factors that determine your thoughts and actions, and you would need to have complete control over those factors.”[2] Herein lies the problem with Harris’ thinking, somehow because one does not have complete control over physical factors relating to actions, one does not have any control over one’s thoughts and decisions. One cannot make a decision above those influences for good or bad. However, C.S. Lewis points out the flaw in this thinking:

But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses. You probably want to be safe much more than you want to help the man who is drowning: but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same. And surely it often tells us to try to make the right impulse stronger than it naturally is?….The thing that says to you, ‘Your herd instinct is asleep. Wake it up,’ cannot itself be the herd instinct. The thing that tells you which note needs to be played louder cannot itself be that note.[3]

In fact, people do have the capacity to choose what to believe and what to do. If not, then right and wrong are emptied of meaning. Morals have no significance if man is unable to choose differently from the course of action he pursues. The universal sense of justice—that we should be fair to fellow human beings—requires that when individuals are unfair they could have chosen to be fair. Instead of a might-makes-right worldview, we desire the scales to be balanced. The Bible’s teaching that beliefs and decisions having a bearing on this life and an afterlife gives life, morals, and justice meaning (Matthew 25:31-46; Acts 17:30-31; 24:25).

Naturalism is missing something. With its lack of free will, lack of foundation for right and wrong, and lack of an afterlife, naturalism ultimately leads to nihilism. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon considers what is the ultimate meaning in all that is done “under the sun”; thus, limiting his scope to just this life with no final judgment, he concludes, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun” (2:11). His only recourse from this despair was realizing man’s duty to God, the judge of the good and evil, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). This weekend, in our seminar with Dr. Jeff Miller, you have heard the evidence for God creating the universe and having a purpose for your life. Which will you choose?

-Mark Day

[1] Harris, Sam. Free Will. New York: Free Press, 2012. p. 5.

[2] Ibid. 13.

[3] C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. p. 10.