the redeeming Angel of the covenant — C. H. Spurgeon

“Let us declare concerning our Lord that we found him better and better and better and better, even till we entered into his rest. He has been at first better than our fears, then better than our hopes, and finally better than our desires. So good, so blessed a God do we serve, that he always by his deeds of grace outruns our largest expectations. What cause we have for the worship of grateful praise; let us not be slow to render it…

Do you remember when he [Jesus Christ] came to you personally, and wrestled with you and tore away your self-righteousness, and made you limp upon your thigh? This it may be was your first introduction to him. You saw him by night, and thought him at the first to be rather your enemy than your friend. Do you recollect when he took your strength away from you, and then at last saved you, because in utter weakness, as you were about to fall to the ground, you laid hold of him and said, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me,” and so you won a blessing from him? You had thought aforetime that you had strength in yourself, but now you learned that you were weakness itself, and that only as you became consciously weak would you become actually strong. You learned to look out of self to him, and do you not bless him for having taught you such a lesson? Will you not when you come to die bless him for what he did for you then, and all your life long? O my brethren, we owe all things to the redeeming Angel of the covenant [Jesus Christ]. The evils which he has warded off from us are terrible beyond conception, and the blessings he has brought us are rich beyond imagination. We must adore him, and, though we see him not, we must in life and in death by faith worship him with lowly love."

— C. H. Spurgeon (1878). The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 24, pp. 130).

the doctrine of election and evangelism — James M. Boice

“and all who were appointed for eternal life believed” — Acts 13:48

"Isn’t it interesting that we should have this statement of the doctrine of election right in the middle of this great evangelistic story? There are people who cannot imagine how anybody can be an evangelist if God decides who will be saved and then saves them. The argument goes, “If God is going to save certain people, God will save them regardless. What I do doesn’t matter. Or, if it depends on me, then it depends on me and you must not talk about election.”
Actually, those who have had the greatest faith in God’s electing power are also those who, by the grace of God, have proved to be the most effective evangelists. Virtually all the famous missionary pioneers were believers in election.
“Why did they go out to evangelize, then, if they believed God was going to save people anyway?”
That isn’t quite the way to put it. If God is going to save someone, God will save them. That is true. But it is not quite correct to say that God will save them anyway, because when we say, “God will save them anyway,” we mean that God will save them apart from our (or another’s) witness, and that is not true. The God who appoints the ends also appoints the means, and the means he has appointed in the evangelization of other people is our witness.
We are to take the gospel into all the world. But as we go we are to know that God will work through that witness to bring to faith those he has appointed.
I sometimes say I do not know how you can evangelize any other way, at least not in a thinking manner. Suppose it does not depend on God; suppose it depends on you. Suppose people are saved because you are eloquent or because you have the right answers or because you happen to be in the right place at just the right time—entirely apart from God’s election. If that is true, it means that if you do not have the right answers, if you are not in the right place, if you do not present the gospel in just the right way, then these people will perish and it will be your fault. I do not know how anybody can live with that.
On the other hand, if you believe that God has appointed some for eternal life and that as you testify God will use that testimony to bring those persons to faith, the burden is removed and witnessing becomes what it was meant to be: a joy, as it obviously was for Paul and Barnabas."

— James M. Boice (1997). Acts: an expositional commentary (pp. 248–249). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

the teachings of Jesus — James Montgomery Boice

“The third part of Peter’s summation of the gospel is the public ministry of Jesus: “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him” (Acts 10:38). This ministry involves two things: good deeds and special acts that demonstrated Christ’s power over Satan.

The significant thing about this summation of the public ministry of Jesus is that, as in his previous sermons, Peter does not mention Christ’s teaching. In the Gospels we find whole chapters filled with Christ’s sayings, parables, and discourses. In Matthew the Sermon on the Mount takes three chapters and the Olivet Discourse takes two. Chapters 14–16 of John contain what we call the final discourses. The reason for this omission is that until people come to understand what Jesus Christ accomplished by his death, turn from sin, and follow him, they are incapable of responding to his teaching. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said that his disciples are to be poor in spirit, meek, pure in heart, and peace-makers, to live by the teaching of the Scriptures, and to follow a standard higher even than that found in the Old Testament. These teachings are important and necessary for those who are Christ’s. But if they are taught to those who are not yet converted, to those who are incapable in their unconverted state of doing them, these teachings are misleading and harmful.

If we speak about the teachings of Jesus without first speaking of the need for repentance and faith in Jesus as our Savior from sin, people quite naturally begin to think that Christianity is merely about doing good. It is learning what Jesus taught and trying to put it into practice. This only encourages self-righteousness, a trust in human righteousness, which is harmful. Whenever Christianity has fallen into that pattern of teaching it has made a great mistake.”

— James Montgomery Boice (1997). Acts: an expositional commentary (pp. 183–184). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

the ark of salvation Jesus Christ — John Owen

"When a soul is turned out of its self-righteousness, and begins to look abroad, and view the heaven and earth for a resting-place, and perceives an ocean, a flood, an inundation of wrath, to cover all the world, the wrath of God revealing itself from heaven against all ungodliness, so that it can obtain no rest nor abiding, — heaven it cannot reach by its own flight, and to hell it is unwilling to fall; — if now the Lord Jesus Christ do not appear as an ark in the midst of the waters, upon whom the floods have fallen, and yet has got above them all for a refuge, alas! what shall it do? When the flood fell there were many mountains glorious in the eye, far higher than the ark; but yet those mountains were all drowned, whilst the ark still kept on the top of the waters. Many appearing hills and mountains of self-righteousness and general mercy, at the first view, seem to the soul much higher than Jesus Christ, but when the flood of wrath once comes and spreads itself, all those mountains are quickly covered; only the ark, the Lord Jesus Christ though the flood fall on him also, yet he gets above it quite, and gives safety to them that rest upon him.

Let me now ask any of those poor souls who ever have been wandering and tossed with the fear of the wrath to come, whether ever they found a resting-place until they came to this:— God spared not his only Son, but gave him up to death for us all; that he made him to be sin for us; that he put all the sins of all the elect into that cup which he was to drink of; that the wrath and flood which they feared did fall upon Jesus Christ (though now, as the ark, he be above it, so that if they could get into him they should be safe). The storm hath been his, and the safety shall be theirs. As all the waters which would have fallen upon them that were in the ark fell upon the ark, they being dry and safe, so all the wrath that should have fallen upon them fell on Christ; which alone causeth their souls to dwell in safety? Hath not, I say, this been your bottom, your foundation, your resting-place? If not (for the substance of it), I fear you have but rotten bottoms."

—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ

Redemption —John Owen

“That doctrine which will not by any means suit with nor be made conformable to the thing signified by it, and the expression, literal and deductive, whereby in Scripture it is held out unto us, but implies evident contradictions unto them, cannot possibly be sound and sincere, as is the milk of the word. But now such is this persuasion of universal redemption; it can never be suited nor fitted to the thing itself, or redemption, nor to those expressions whereby in the Scripture it is held out unto us. Universal redemption, and yet many to die in captivity, is a contradiction irreconcilable in itself.

To manifest this, let us consider some of the chiefest words and phrases whereby the matter concerning which we treat is delivered in the Scripture, such as are, redemption, reconciliation, satisfaction, merit, dying for us, bearing our sins, suretiship, — his being God, a common person, a Jesus, saving to the utmost, a sacrifice putting away sin, and the like; to which we may add the importance of some prepositions and other words used in the original about this business: and doubt not but we shall easily find that the general ransom, or rather universal redemption, will hardly suit to any of them; but it is too long for the bed, and must be cropped at the head or heels.

Begin we with the word redemption itself, which we will consider, name and thing. Redemption, which in the Scripture is λύτρωσις sometimes, but most frequently ἀπολύτρωσις, is the delivery of any one from captivity and misery by the intervention λύτρου, of a price or ransom. That this ransom, or price of our deliverance, was the blood of Christ is evident; he calls it λύτρον, Matt. xx. 28; and [it is called] ἀντίλυτρον, 1 Tim. ii. 6, — that is, the price of such a redemption, that which was received as a valuable consideration for our dismission. Now, that which is aimed at in the payment of this price is, the deliverance of those from the evil wherewith they were oppressed for whom the price is paid; it being in this spiritual redemption as it is in corporal and civil, only with the alteration of some circumstances, as the nature of the thing enforceth. This the Holy Spirit manifesteth by comparing the “blood of Christ” in this work of redemption with “silver and gold,” and such other things as are the intervening ransom in civil redemption, 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. The evil wherewith we were oppressed was the punishment which we had deserved; — that is, the satisfaction required when the debt is sin; which also we are, by the payment of this price, delivered from; so Gal. iii. 13: for we are “justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” Rom. iii. 24; “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,” Eph. i. 7; Col. i. 14. Free justification from the guilt, and pardon of sin, in the deliverance from the punishment due unto it, is the effect of the redemption procured by the payment of the price we before mentioned: as if a man should have his friend in bondage, and he should go and lay out his estate to pay the price of his freedom that is set upon his head by him that detains him, and so set him at liberty. Only, as was before intimated, this spiritual redemption hath some supereminent things in it, that are not to be found in other deliverances…

Redemption is the freeing of a man from misery by the intervention of a ransom, as appeareth. Now, when a ransom is paid for the liberty of a prisoner, is it not all the justice in the world that he should have and enjoy the liberty so purchased for him by a valuable consideration? If I should pay a thousand pounds for a man’s deliverance from bondage to him that detains him, who hath power to set him free, and is contented with the price I give, were it not injurious to me and the poor prisoner that his deliverance be not accomplished? Can it possibly be conceived that there should be a redemption of men, and those men not redeemed? that a price should be paid, and the purchase not consummated? Yet all this must be made true, and innumerable other absurdities, if universal redemption be asserted. A price is paid for all, yet few delivered; the redemption of all consummated, yet few of them redeemed; the judge satisfied, the jailer conquered, and yet the prisoner inthralled! Doubtless, “universal” and “redemption,” where the greatest part of men perish, are as irreconcilable as “Roman” and “Catholic.” If there be a universal redemption of all, then all men are redeemed. If they are redeemed, then are they delivered from all misery, virtually or actually, whereunto they were inthralled, and that by the intervention of a ransom. Why, then, are not all saved? In a word, the redemption wrought by Christ being the full deliverance of the persons redeemed from all misery, wherein they were inwrapped, by the price of his blood, it cannot possibly be conceived to be universal unless all be saved: so that the opinion of the Universalists is unsuitable to redemption.”

—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ

Consider the possibility that you may be wrong as to what the Christian message really is —Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“So that raises for us the question of what exactly repentance is. How do I know whether I have repented? The details given to us here about what happened in this city of Samaria tell us exactly what repentance means (Acts 8:1-25)…

So let us look at this passage. First, the people "gave heed" (Acts 8:6). This means they gave earnest heed. They not only heard, they listened. Now this must be examined because it is a vital term. What does it imply? Obviously it implies in the first place a readiness to hear. It is an astounding fact that many people are not Christians because they have refused to hear, and this is because they have been blinded by their prejudices…

It is possible for you to refuse to hear. You can stop yourself from hearing, from listening. God knows, many people have done that, and a large number of people are still refusing to hear the Gospel. They sometimes take this stance because they feel they know all about it and think it is a lot of nonsense…

Take the man who says, "I'm not a Christian." So you say, "Why not?" And he pours out a whole lot of cliches: "There's nothing in it. Tommyrot. Science has disproved it." Then you begin to ask him about the contents of the Bible, and you find out at once that he does not know anything about it. He has never read the Bible, and he has not the slightest idea as to what the Christian message really is. He may think it is a lot of sob stuff and that Christian people just spend their time singing hymns and choruses and complimenting one another…

My dear friend, do you have an open mind? Are you really ready to listen to this message? Have you ever given it a fair hearing? Is it not wrong from every standpoint to dismiss a message, a teaching, before you have ever listened to it, when you know nothing about it? But that is the tragedy of the times.

Oh, people may attack the church or a preacher or Christian people whom they happen to know, but that is not attacking Christianity; that is attacking the failure of particular Christians, which is very different. It is quite impossible for anybody to become a Christian without listening to the message. Of necessity the first thing we must do is listen to it, and listen to it fairly, listen to it honestly.

Now let us be frank: you do not like a prejudiced person, do you? What do you think of a man who will not listen to what you happen to believe, your hobby or your pet theory? Perhaps you are a politician, and you hold particular political views. What would you think if, when you went to address a meeting, the people just began singing the moment you began speaking and did not allow you to utter a single word? But perhaps you have been behaving just like that with regard to the Gospel.”

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Compelling Christianity (Studies in the Book of Acts)