Prayer Service 9-4-24

Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans (I Am Comforted with Him)

Comfort me with your fruit and your drink, my beloved, and the rest will not matter. Let your promise be my portion, and your care for my soul. Then whatever is left for my body will be enough.

Lord, let me sit down to eat with you, and I will never complain about the menu. If I have a portion from your table, however much it is, just let me hear your voice saying, “I am yours, and with me are all things.” I will be content with your allowance.

With your inheritance in hand, and for my children as well, I ask no more for myself or for them. I will be quiet and at peace, and I know that all is well. I will not worry, because you are near. Amen. —Richard Alleine

Hebrews 13:5 (ESV)

5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Prayer of Gratitude for His Allowance

Petition for Contented Hearts.

Needs From Our Community:

Annette Herrington: Unknown Illness

Ireland Millsaps: Back Injury (Hospitalized)

Lucas Hooper: Brain Bleeding

Abel Buchanan: Hospitalized at Levine’s Children?

Case Beasley: Colon Cancer

Hope, Jason, and Grandma Sanders

Bereavement of Mary Griffin and Perry Waldroup

Other Needs:

Dean Woodworth: Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS)

Roman Davidson: Recovery from liver Transplant

Leuna Angel: Leukemia

Jim Tierney: Lymphoma

Kathleen Icenhower: Mental Recovery

Iva Lee: Management of CHF, Bodily pain.

Allen: Management of Diabetes, etc.

Expectant Mothers and Babies.

-Before the break for the Summer Apologetics study...

…we were looking at...

The Scope of the Atonement of Jesus Christ

Today will be mostly review.

Definition:

Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Atonement)

atonement

1 reparation for a wrong or injury.

2 (the Atonement) . . . the reconciliation of God and mankind through the death of Jesus Christ.

Differing theories on how that was accomplished (not exhaustive):

Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Atonement, Atonement Theories)

(1) moral influence—Christ’s death acts as a positive example of love in action;

(2) ransom (Christus victor)—Christ is the ransom that buys back sinners from Satan or gains the victory over evil;

(3) satisfaction—Christ’s death appeased the honor due God that has been robbed by human sin; and

(4) penal substitution—Christ stood in the legal place of sinners, bearing the just punishment due us because we transgress God’s laws.

We hold most particularly to #4

Why?

2 Primary Reasons (Many More)

The Substitutionary Nature of Atonement in the OT

The plain language of the New Testament

For example:

John 1:29 (ESV)

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

1 Peter 2:24 (ESV)

24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree . . . By his wounds you have been healed.

Galatians 3:13 (ESV)

13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—

1 Peter 3:18 (ESV)

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God...

-Now, the question we were looking at before, was...

…of whom is this true?

Remember this from John Owen:

Either Christ died for:

1. All of the sins of all people (Universalism) 2. Some of the sins of all people (Modern Evangelical View) 3. All of the sins of some people (Definite Atonement)

-And here too, we affirm the latter of those.

This is from the book we’ve been following:

Since not all men will be saved as the result of Christ’s redeeming work, a limitation must be admitted.

Either the atonement was limited in that it was designed to secure salvation for certain sinners, but not for others...

…or it was limited in that it was not intended to secure salvation for any, but was designed only to make it possible for God to pardon sinners on the condition that they believe.

In other words, one must limit its design either in extent (it was not intended for all) or in effectiveness (it did not secure salvation for any). — Steele, Thomas, and Quinn

-We Have been studying it Categorically:

1. Jesus came to save men, not merely make them able to save themselves:

Matthew 1:21 (ESV)

21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Luke 19:10 (ESV)

10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

2 Corinthians 5:18 (ESV)

18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself...

Hebrews 9:12 (ESV)

12 he entered once for all into the holy places . . . by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

etc., etc.

2. The Atonement of Christ fulfilled the Eternal Covenant:

For example:

John 6:37–39 (ESV)

37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

Just doesn’t work with a universal atonement

John 10:14–15 (ESV)

14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,

15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

John 10:26–29 (ESV)

26 but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

John 17:1–2 (ESV)

1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,

2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

John 17:9–10 (ESV)

9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

-And this is where we’ve come to...

…in the outline of the Book:

To a necessary consideration...

…of this great biblical paradox:

3. Some passages speak of Christ’s dying for “all” men and of His death as saving the “world,”

yet others speak of His death as being definite in design and of His dying for particular people and securing salvation for them. — Steele, Thomas, and Quinn

And if you want to know...

… how to resolve that tension...

…you’re going to have to come back next week.

Let’s pray.