"God's Works of Providence" - J. Gresham Machen

“The Bible plainly teaches that God works His will just as surely through the free actions of personal beings including man as He does through the courses of the heavenly bodies or the silent ripening of the grain…God, according to the Bible, is master of the heart of man just as much as He is master of the impersonal forces of nature, and from man’s heart man’s actions come.
Even the wicked actions of men serve God’s purposes and it is by His works of providence that He permits those wicked actions to be done.
Just pass in review, my friends, the history of Bible times. Nation after nation rises on the scene – Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Rome. Wicked nations are these – cruel, hard and proud. Yet how does the Bible represent them? How does the Bible represent even the cruel devastations that they carried on amid the people of God? As defeating God’s eternal purpose, as contravening His governance of the world? No, my friends, the Bible represents those wicked nations as unwitting instruments in God’s almighty hand.
Take also the wicked acts not of nations but of individual men. Were they accomplished without the providence of God; did they defeat His governance of the world? The Bible tells us, No. ‘You thought’ – said Joseph to his wicked brothers – “you thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Gen. 50:20). Even the supreme crime of all the ages, the crucifixion of Jesus our Lord, was not brought about apart from the providence of God. ‘For truly’ says the Book of Acts, ‘ in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place’ (Acts 4:27,28).
No, my friends, there are no exceptions here. Everything that is done in the whole course of the world – by forces of nature or by the free actions of men good and bad – everything has God as its great Cause.
But though God brings all these things to pass, He brings them to pass in widely different ways. He does not bring to pass the free actions of personal beings in the same way as the way in which He brings to pass the ripening of the grain. He brings to pass the actions of personal beings in a way that preserves their freedom and their responsibility to the full.
Shall that be accounted a thing inconceivable? We persuade our fellow men, yet their freedom is preserved when they do what we persuade them to do. Shall not then God be able to do with certainty what we with our little power do with uncertainty? Does not God who made the soul of man know how to move it in accordance with its own nature so that its freedom shall not be destroyed?
Shall He not be able even to use the evil actions of men for His own holy purposes? The Bible tells us plainly that He does so use those evil actions. Even they do not lie beyond His governance as the great First Cause. Yet the Bible tells us with equal plainness that He is not the author of sin that sin is ever hateful in His eyes. Why He allowed sin to enter is the mystery of mysteries, but that He did so we are plainly told, and that He did so for some high and holy end.”

- J. Gresham Machen, The Christian View of Man

"...the Bible regards it as surprising that any are saved...” J. Gresham Machen

“The Bible clearly teaches that when some men are saved and others are lost, neither of these two things come as a surprise to God, but both come to pass because they both stand in God’s eternal plan.
The Bible lays the chief stress upon the former of these two things; it lays more stress upon the fact that the saved are predestined to their salvation than it does upon the fact that the lost are predestined to their eternal retribution.
Why does it do that? Does it do it because it seeks to obscure in any way the predestination of the lost? Certainly not. On the contrary, it teaches that latter doctrine in certain passages in the clearest possible way. Why then does it lay the chief stress upon the predestination of the saved to salvation?
I think I can tell you at least one reason why it does so. It does so because it regards the salvation of the saved and not the eternal loss of the unsaved as the really surprising thing. We are prone to look at the matter in exactly the opposite way. The thing that we regard as surprising is that any members of the human race, any of those excellent creatures known as men, who are supposed to be doing the best they can and be guilty, at the most, of merely trifling and thoroughly forgivable faults, should ever fall under the divine displeasure. But the thing that the Bible regards as surprising is that any of those fallen creatures known as men, all of whom without exception deserve God's wrath and curse, should be received into eternal life. We regard it as surprising that any are lost: the Bible regards it as surprising that any are saved. Naturally, it is the surprising or unexpected thing upon which the stress is laid. It is for that reason, or at least partly for that reason, that the Biblical doctrine of the predestination is concerned chiefly with the predestination of the saved to their salvation rather than with the predestination of the unsaved to their eternal loss. The latter side of the matter is less extensively expounded simply because it is everywhere presupposed. It forms the dark background upon which the wonder of God’s purpose for those whom He has chosen for salvation is thrown into glorious relief.”

- J. Gresham Machen, A Christian View of Man

“All truly united to Christ are united to Him in His death..." - Robert Murray M’Cheyne

"You must look on Christ and all that cleave to Him as one great body of which He is the head and we the members. This is the very way in which God speaks of us in the Bible. ‘For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.’ (1 Cor. 12:12). ‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it’ (verse 27). Again, God ‘gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all’ (Eph. 1:22-23). And Paul speaks of ‘the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God’ (Col. 2:19).

Just as it pleased God to unite us to Adam as members of one body, so that when he sinned we sinned, when he fell we fell, so it has pleased God to unite those who believe to Christ, so that when He obeyed we obeyed, when he died we died, when He was buried we were buried with Him. The moment a poor guilty sinner cleaves to Christ, he is reckoned by Jehovah a member of Christ’s body; so that when Christ was nailed to the tree, we were nailed; when the cup of God’s wrath was poured out to Him it was poured out to us; when His blood streamed from His wounds it covered us, for we were His members.

This explains the true meaning of Galatians 2:20, ‘I have been crucified with Christ’; and Colossians 2:20, ‘If with Christ you died…’; Colossians 3:3, ‘For you have died.’ When paleness spread over the dying frame of Immanuel, it spread over us. When the last drops of blood were oozing from His wounded hands and feet, that was our life blood. When He bowed His head in agony, crying, ‘It is finished’, that was out head that bowed. It was the curse due to our sins that was finished in that awful hour. And further still, when they laid Him in the rocky sepulcher, pale, cold, motionless, where He continued under the power of death for a time, we were buried with Him.

Let us learn from this how completely believers are freed from the curse of sin. ‘For one who has died has been set free from sin’ (Rom. 6:7). When a malefactor suffers the last punishment of the law, when his dead body is cut down from the gibbet and hurried to the malefactor’s grave, the law has no more vengeance to pour out upon him. So it was when Christ died. On the cross He was in the hands of justice. But when He rose from the grace the curse was all gone. He left sin behind Him like the grave clothes, or the napkin that was about His head! So free are you from the guilt of sin, believer in Jesus! You have left all your sins in the rocky sepulcher. Sin and you are quits. ‘You are crucified’, ‘you also have died to the law through the body of Christ’ (Rom. 7:4)…

Often you despair of ever reaching a sinless world. Ah, there is one blessed way. If you are united to Christ, then God engages to make you walk in newness of life. He has pledged His glory that He will do it. His truth & covenant faithfulness, His honour & justice, His holiness & love are all pledged that He will raise you up by the almighty power of His Holy Spirit, that you may walk in newness of life! Greater is He that is for you than all that can be against you. He engages His Word & glory to give a new heart, a new mind, a new life. Be not afraid, only believe.”

- Robert Murray M’Cheyne, New Testament Sermons

“Delighting in God, rejoicing in God, and profiting from the Scriptures” - A. W. Pink

“That in which a man most delights is his "god." The poor worldling seeks satisfaction in his pursuits, pleasures and possessions. Ignoring the Substance, he vainly pursues the shadows. But the Christian delights in the wondrous perfections of God. Really to own God as our God is not only to submit to His sceptre, but is to love Him more than the world, to value Him above everything and everyone else. It is to have with the Psalmist an experiential realization that “all my springs are in you.” (Psa. 87:7). The redeemed have not only received a joy from God such as this poor world cannot impart, but they "rejoice in God" (Rom. 5:11); and of this the poor worldling knows nothing. The language of such is "the Lord is my portion" (Lam. 3:24).
Spiritual exercises are irksome to the flesh. But the real Christian says, "It is good for me to draw near to God" (Psa. 73:28). The carnal man has many cravings and ambitions; the regenerate soul declares, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord" (Psa. 27:4). And why? Because the true sentiment of his heart is, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you." (Psa. 73:25). Ah, my reader, if your heart has not been drawn out to love and delight in God, then it is still dead toward Him.
The language of the saints is, "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation." (Hab. 3:17,18). Ah, that is a supernatural experience indeed! Yes, the Christian can rejoice when all his worldly possessions are taken from him (see Heb. 10:34). When he lies in a dungeon with back bleeding, he can still sing praises to God (see Acts 16:25). Thus, to the extent that you are being weaned from the empty pleasures of this world, are learning that there is no blessing outside of God, are discovering that He is the source and sum of all excellency, and your heart is being drawn out to Him, your mind stayed on Him, your soul finding its joy and satisfaction in Him, are you really profiting from the Scriptures.”

A. W. Pink, Profiting from the Word

http://www.biblebelievers.com/Pink/pink_profiting02.html

Pleading the Atonement - Isaac Watts

“Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed!” Psalm 84:9

“Father, God, who seest in me
Only sin and misery,
Turn to Thy anointed One,
Look on Thy beloved Son;
Him, and then the sinner see;
Look through Jesus’ wounds on me.

Heavenly Father, Lord of all,
Hear, and show thou hear'st my call!
Bow Thine ear, in mercy bow,
Smile on me a sinner now!
Now the stone to flesh convert,
Cast a look, and melt my heart.

Lord, I cannot let Thee go,
Till a blessing Thou bestow;
Hear my Advocate divine,
Lo! to His, my suit I join;
Join'd with His, it cannot fail:
Let me now with Thee prevail!

Turn, from me, Thy glorious eyes
To His bloody sacrifice,—
To the full atonement made,
To the utmost ransom paid:
And, if mine, through Him, Thou art,
Speak Thy mercy to my heart.

Jesus, answer from above,
Is not all Thy nature love!
Pity from Thine eye let fall;
Bless me whilst on Thee I call:
Am I thine, thou Son of God?
Take the purchase of Thy blood.

Father, see the victim slain,
Offer'd up for guilty men:
Hear his blood-prevailing cry;
Let Thy bowels then reply!
Then through Him the sinner see;
Then, in Jesus, look on me!”

- Isaac Watts