Milton Vincent

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MAGNITUDE OF FORGIVENESS

“Such an awareness of my sinfulness does not drag me down, but actually serves to lift me up by magnifying my appreciation of God’s forgiving grace in my life. And the more I appreciate the magnitude of God’s forgiveness of my sins, the more I love Him and delight to show Him love through heart-felt expressions of worship” Milton Vincent (ref#60, p33).

“It is when we come to the end of self and are utterly undone and then realise what God has done for us that we begin to realise that the love of God is in us. In other words, mere abstract thoughts upon God as love will never do it” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p524-525).

“Repentance is one of the Christian’s highest privileges. A repentant Christian focuses on God’s mercy and God’s grace. Any moment in our lives when we bask in God’s mercy and grace is our highest moment” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p27).

“He isn’t like you. Even the most intense of human love is but the faintest echo of heaven’s cascading abundance. His heartful thoughts for you outstrip what you can conceive. He intends to restore you into the radiant resplendence for which you were created. And that is dependent not on you keeping yourself clean but on you taking your mess to him” Dane Ortland (ref#382, p160).

“[S]ince we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom 5:1-2 ESV).

“The gospel encourages me to rest in my righteous standing with God, a standing which Christ Himself has accomplished and always maintains for me. I never have to do a moment’s labor to gain or maintain my justified status before God! Freed from the burden of such a task, I now can put my energies into enjoying God, pursuing holiness, and ministering God’s amazing grace to others” Milton Vincent (ref#60, p20).

“For the love which Christ has [for me] presses on me from all sides, holding me to one end and prohibiting me from considering any other, wrapping itself around me in tenderness, giving me an impelling motive” (2 Cor 5:14 Wuest).

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UNDER THE DOMINION AND POWER OF SATAN

“A gruesome death like the one that Christ endured for me would only be required for one who is exceedingly sinful and unable to appease a holy God” Milton Vincent (ref#60, p33).

“[T]he awful condition of the unconverted. [They are] under the dominion and power of Satan, led captive by him at his will (2 Tim 2:26)” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p46).

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—“ (Eph 2:1-2 ESV).

“[T]o live under the dominion of sin connotes a settled course of life” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p71).

“[I]t is a faithful portrait of you, if you are yet not born again of the Spirit. The strong man armed, who is the devil, has still the full possession of your soul and will remain in undisputed, and willing occupation until a stronger than he enters, spoils him of his goods, and casts him out. It is his aim and policy to keep your soul in carnal security, in false peace, in the stillness and insensibility of spiritual death. Mistake not rash confidence for humble faith, groundless expectation for assured hope! Satan is a great counterfeiter! He not only can quote Scripture, but he can imitate grace” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p46).

“As long as you are in the position of trying to justify yourself, you have not repented” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 29th).

“If you have quit being defensive and are now willingly and humbly approachable, you know that transforming grace has visited you. Sin makes us all shockingly self-righteous. It makes us all committed self-excusers. Because accepting blame is not natural, it takes rescuing, transforming grace to produce a humble, willing, broken, self-examining, help-seeking heart” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Apr 26th).

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SIN’S POWER

“[O]ur sin is a burden that afflicts us rather than a pleasure that delights us” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p72).

“The Devil knows that if he can keep me tormented by sin’s guilt, he can dominate me with sin’s power” Milton Vincent (ref#60, p19).

“Sin is not primarily an activity of man’s will so much as a captivity which man suffers, as an alien power grips his soul. [W]hile the presence of sin can never be abolished in this life, nor the influence of sin altered (its tendency is always the same), its dominion can, indeed, must be destroyed if a man is to be a Christian” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p71).

“[S]in will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:14 ESV).

“There is a hard unyielding self, which stands up for itself and resists others, that will have to be broken, if we are to be willing for the disposition of the Lamb, and if the precious Blood is to reach us in cleansing power. We may pray long to be cleansed from some sin and for peace to be restored to our hearts, but unless we are willing to be broken on the point in question and be made a partaker of the Lamb’s humility there, nothing will happen. Every sin we ever commit is the result of the hard unbroken self taking up some attitude of pride, and we shall not find peace through the Blood until we are willing to see the source of each sin and reverse the wrong attitude that caused it by a specific repentance, which will always be humbling. This does not mean that we need to try and make ourselves feel the humility of Jesus; for we have only to walk in the light and be willing for God to reveal any sin that may be in our lives, and we shall find ourselves asked by the Lord to perform all sorts of costly acts of repentance and surrender, often over what we term small and trivial matters” Roy Hession (ref#97, p96-97).

“There is no such thing as salvation from sin’s penalty without an accompanying deliverance from sin’s dominion. This obviously does not mean we no longer sin, but that sin no longer reigns in our lives” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p70).

“How can we who died to sin still live in it” (Rom 6:2 ESV)?

“The death of Christ secured for us not only freedom from the penalty of sin, but also deliverance from the dominion of sin in our lives” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p61).

SABBATH

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MY REST

The Sabbath rest is to remind myself that GOD rested after He ceased the work of creation, and JESUS rested after He ceased the work of redemption. These two facts should be the subjects I attend to on Sundays. But the “rest” the Hebrew’s writer speaks of is a daily rest.

“For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His” (Heb 4:10 NASB).

Since I believe CHRIST JESUS has given what GOD requires from me, I enter into rest (ref#15, [Heb 4:10]). My experience of rest is ceasing from my own works of righteousness, and from the burdensome works of the law (ref#18, [Heb 4:10]).

Since CHRIST impresses the FATHER I don’t have to impress the FATHER. Resting in CHRIST is a state of happiness. My salvation does not depend on my continuing work of being righteous!

“Externally, that meant ceasing from his ordinary tasks in order to meet with God. Internally, it involved ceasing from all self-sufficiency in order to rest in God’s grace” Sinclair Ferguson (ref#193).

Yet, I need to keep myself abreast of situations that threaten my rest. Situations continually rise to steal what GOD freely gives me through CHRIST. Happiness disappears when I lose fellowship with my LORD and default back to trying in my own strength to be righteous.

Impress upon me that if I don’t rehearse the Gospel I will fall back into burdensome works and be void of rest. I know preaching the gospel to myself each day will equip me with more boldness to believe what GOD says. I’ll recognize and benefit more from His grace and be more willing to embrace His commands (ref#60, p52). By reveling in CHRIST I retain my fellowship with GOD and find my rest! As I rehearse the Gospel, “give me that rest without rest, the rest of ceaseless praise” The Valley of Vision (ref#76, p172).

“…we must praise God – in the morning and every night, not only on Sabbath days, but every day; it is that which the duty of every day requires. We must praise God, not only in public assemblies, but in secret, and in our families, showing forth, to ourselves and those about us, his lovingkindness and faithfulness” Matthew Henry (ref#18, [Ps 92:1-6]).