EMPTY PROFESSORS

“Every bird that hath fine feathers hath not sweet flesh; all that shine with the golden feathers of profession are not saints.  How devout were the Pharisees” Thomas Watson (ref#48, “The Counterfeits of the New Creature”)!

 “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord! Will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter” (Matt 7:21 NLT).

“Our blessed Lord foresaw and forewarned men of the danger that an outward profession of the gospel may exist though the heart be yet a stranger to its power….There may be a deep and clear knowledge of divine truth, a strongly enlightened judgment, and a sound and scriptural creed.  There may be a strong attachment to and zealous maintenance of some of the distinguishing doctrines of grace—even a desire to hear of Christ and an ability to judge between sound and unsound preaching. And all the while, the heart is encased in the hardness of impenitence and unbelief, a stranger to the regenerating influence of the Spirit of God” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, June 9^th).

“…for a man to get out of the carnal life into the spiritual life…is when a man utterly breaks with the flesh, when he gives up the flesh into the crucifixion death of Christ, when he sees that everything about it is accursed and that he cannot deliver himself from it, and then claims the slaying power of Christ’s cross within him” Andrew Murray (ref#272, p21).

“According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 35), sanctification is ‘the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness’” The Reformation Study Bible(ref#56, p1650).

FATHER, in 1 John 5:15 You say you will give me what I ask for and then follow it with: “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life…” (1 John 5:16 ESV).  I do not know where the names of the people on my prayer list are in their spiritual life, because I only see the outward signs, but, I pray for their spiritual welfare with all “hope and expectation of success” Matthew Poole (ref#21, p941, [1 John 5:16]).