He Restores My Soul - Video Devotion

The Lord is my shepherd and He restores my soul.


God Bless,

Doug

The Power of Praise

5. I will speak of the glorious honor of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. 6. And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and I will declare thy greatness. Psalm 145:5-6

There is power in our praise, and the primary reason has to do with the fact that it is the Lord who has worked in our hearts to produce that praise. We being sinful men do not naturally praise God, but when His Holy Spirit does His regenerating work, our spiritually dead souls are resurrected, our blind eyes begin to see, and our spiritually mute mouths begin to speak of the greatness of our God. With this in mind it is not hard to see why there is power in our praise, because God Himself is at work.

The Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Truth, is constantly bearing witness of Christ, so it is only natural for a person who has been born of the Spirit to desire to exalt the name of Jesus also. When we begin to extol our Lord, God is working, and when God works, we should take notice of the effects. In Psalm 145 we see an interesting accumulation of praise that can take place when we begin to exalt the Lord. In verse 5 we hear David say, I will speak of God’s wondrous works, then, because of it, we see in verse 6 that others will speak of his awesome deeds resulting in David once again declaring the greatness of our God.

When we begin to praise the Lord, others, within whom the Spirit is working, will hear our praise and begin to join in. As we hear their praise, we become more abundant in our own praise because we see our Lord working in others as well. Then once again as we are praising our God with a more abundant heart, others will see us praising Him and they too will join in which will lift our praise to even greater heights.

Wherever you are and with whatever measure of faith you have at this moment, rejoice in the Lord, for He is great and worthy of our praise. Speak of His glorious honor and majesty, and tell of His wondrous works, for when you do, you do so by the power of the Spirit. Then once you have done so, praise Him again for He has opened your lips. Then continue to bless His name, for we have the gracious privilege of continuing for all eternity. Then look for others to join in and watch as the Lord strengthens your voice. And who knows what the Lord may do with one short moment of exalting God. It may go further than you will ever know in this life. After all, He is still using David’s praise in Psalm 145 to cause others to glorify His name.

I will exalt You my God and King!

Doug Eaton

Regeneration - C.H. Spurgeon

“Of his own will begat he us.”

Regeneration and all consequent blessings come to us entirely through the absolute but gracious will of God. He is not bound to give; he may, if he wills, withhold. We have no claim upon God, except the claim of justice; and what would that involve but that he should punish us for our sin? We are felons against the Majesty of heaven. We have forfeited all the rights we ever had under the divine government. The right to punishment is the only right we can now claim upon the footing of justice. Henceforth we are simply in the hands of God awaiting his sentence. He may, if he wills, save the entire human race; if it pleaseth him, he may save none. If so he wills, he may make this man a monument of mercy, and leave his neighbor to reap the due reward of his works. This is what God has a right to do, and he claims his sovereign prerogative. Are not his own words heard through Scripture like peals of thunder, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion; so then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy”? There are some who, in their blindness, grow wrathful at this doctrine, as if it were ungracious to mention a fact which it is impossible to disguise; they will almost froth at the mouth when the subject is broached. Well, let them do so, it still standeth firm as a rock and fast as the eternal hills. Jehovah giveth no account of his matters. He doeth as he wills among the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of this lower earth. So,-

“Mortals, be dumb; what creature dares
Dispute his awful will?
Ask no account of his affairs,
But tremble, and be still.”

Brethren, you and I, to whom this sovereignty has looked forth through the lattice of grace, can gladly appreciate it. We bless that wonderful, discriminating love which fixed upon us, whilst others were let to go their downward course and perish. The only motive God had to stir up his mercy, was his own will. To us therefore it is precious.

Before we ever prayed, before we ever sought his face, his own will, acting spontaneously, brought to us the bounty of his lovingkindness. Now mostly, men who are generous need to have their generosity excited. They will need to be waited upon; appeals must be laid before them; they must sometimes be pressed; an example must lead them on. But “of his own will” God did to us all that has been done, without any incentive or prompting, moved only by himself, because he delighteth in mercy; because his name and his nature are love because evermore, like the sun, it is natural to him to distribute the beams of his eternal grace. “Of his own will begat he us.” Come, my brethren, let us magnify the Lord who loved us when we were dead in trespasses and sins. Let us extol the freeness of that mercy, the goings-forth of which were of old, from everlasting, while we recollect that we deserved it not; that we set ourselves against it; that, when we did know it, we despised it; that, when it was presented to us, we defied it, resisted it, stood out against it many a long year. Oh! when we think of this, I say, let us bow humbly before the throne of the Infinite Majesty, and bless him whose mercy endureth for ever, and whose lovingkindness, like himself, owes nothing to any incentive beyond itself, but is causeless, uncommunicated, existing full and free in the mind of God himself. Because he willed, and according to the dictate of his own good pleasure, did he have compassion upon us.

The benefit we have thus received is described in the next words, “Of his own will begat he us: “ that is to say, we have by divine power been born again. Our first birth was to us our sensitive creation; our second birth, our regeneration, is our second creation. We were made once, and God made us. These bodies are the wonderful fabrics of his skill, and these souls are the emanations of his power. Father of spirits thou art, O God, and we are his offspring, and his alone! But our being made again is as great a work of God, and quite as solely a work of God, quite as entirely the handiwork of God, as our first creation. Of his own will he gave us a new life, and made: us new creatures. Beloved, are we conscious to-night that we are new creatures? Some, perhaps, have doubts about it sometimes, but a man cannot be a new creature and not be conscious of some sort of change; and there must be times, with the most doubtful of the saints, when they are certain and assumed that they are no longer what they were, but have passed from death unto life. Search your own hearts, dear friends; let the prayer that was offered just now to the great Searcher of hearts, and Trier of the reins of the children of man, come from your lips and your hearts, “Search us, O God, and try us! “

Verily, verily, I say unto you, if you have not something more than nature gave you, you will perish. If you are not something higher than mere morality, the most exact discipline, and the most consistent moral behavior can make you, you will never enter into the kingdom of heaven.

“Ye must be born again.” This declaration stands like a sentry at the gate of heaven, thrusting the bayonet in the way to show that, however amiable, moral, upright, and excellent those may be who seek to enter there, they must be born again. Ye must be born again.” Ye dignitaries of the church, ye senators of the nation, ye who wear imperial crowns, and ye who don your coronets, ye must be born again. Ye who have been brought up and dandled upon the knees of piety, ye who have not only offended against the law, ye who have been in your houses a joy and in the world a delight, ye must be born again. Ye must be passed out of the flesh into the spirit, and this must be the work of God himself, or it is nothing worth. It must be a supernatural change, above and beyond all the strugglings and the strivings of the creature. It must be the display of the eternal power of the Holy Spirit, or else where God is you cannot come. Happy should you be, my brethren and sisters, who trust that you have a share in this unutterably precious privilege! “ Of his own will begat he you.” You are twice born. You are God’s children with an emphasis which belongs most to other men. You, though you were dead, are now alive. Though you were carnal you have been spiritualized. Though you were far off, you have been brought nigh; and this is due to the sovereign will of God alone. Bless him, bless him, and humble your hearts before him.

The instrumentality through which this singular change has been wrought in us is clearly stated, “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth.” Men are not usually saved without the immediate agency of the gospel. Some have said that the Spirit of God always works through the truth, and that the truth is sure to work conviction. The truth, however, is preached, and faithfully preached, to tens of thousands, to whom it conveys not a blessing at all, but is the savor of death unto death. Others have said that the Spirit of God regenerates men apart from the Word of God but this is not told us in Scripture, and is not therefore to be received. But evermore the Word and the Spirit are put together. Scripture does not talk of the Word of God as a dead letter; it says, “The Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.”

On the other hand, Scripture does not speak of the Holy Spirit as though the Word would work apart from him, but the two are put together, and “ what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” My dear brethren and sisters, you who have been begotten again unto a lively hope, was it not through the hearing of the Word, or the reading of it, or the remembrance of some hallowed text which you had almost forgotten? You know it was. Good McCheyne used to say, “Depend on it, it is God’s Word that saves souls, and not our comment upon God’s Word;” and so I believe it is. It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.

C.H. Spurgeon, Jan. 5th, 1868

On Fearing Hell and Receiving Christ

"There is a great deal of difference between a willingness not to be damned, and a being willing to receive Christ for your Savior. You have the former; there is no doubt of that: nobody supposes that you love misery so as to choose an eternity of it; and so doubtless you are willing to be saved from eternal misery. But that is a very different thing from being willing to come to Christ: persons very commonly mistake the one for the other, but they are quite two things. You may love the deliverance, but hate the deliverer. You tell of a willingness; but consider what is the object of that willingness. It does not respect Christ; the way of salvation by him is not at all the object of it; but it is wholly terminated on your escape from misery. The inclination of your will goes no further than self, it never reaches Christ. You are willing not to be miserable; that is, you love yourself, and there your will and choice terminate. And it is but a vain pretence and delusion to say or think, that you are willing to accept of Christ.

-Jonathan Edwards-

Video on Godtube.com

Okay, so I've been playing around on www.godtube.com and decided to post a response to a non-Christian who was, in a gracious manner, seeking to dialogue with some Christians. This is my response to two of his questions.

God Bless,

Doug

P.S. Yes it is recorded in my garage. Hey the family was sleeping and I didn't want to wake them up :-)