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HE SHALL GIVE US ALL THINGS
The idea that God gives all things involved with the salvation of sinners without demanding some sort of works is foreign to the natural minds of men. They think that they must “accept the Lord,” or “pray the sinner's prayer,” or “get baptized,” or “get born again,” or “open their heart's door to Jesus” or some such thing in order to be born again. What I am saying is this: the idea of free grace is foreign to the notions of man-made religions of all sorts. Some say take a bath in the Ganges River, some say make a pilgrimage to Mecca, some say be baptized in our church, etc., etc. The adherents of all popular religions say these things or something similar. “Do this” or “be sincere” or “join our church” or keep the law and you will be born again are some of the claims made. But the message of the Bible is completely at odds with the ideas of men. Thus God said, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death,” (Proverbs 16:25). Paul in Romans 8:32 wrote: “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Someone said Paul's is the argument of the mother and the stroller. If you can talk a mother out of her baby, you can talk her out of the stroller to go along with the baby. If she will give up her precious baby, the other things are inconsequential. Based upon the fact that God did not spare His very own beloved Son, but turned Him over to wicked men to do what God's “hand and...counsel determined before to be done,” (Acts 4:28) surely He will give us all things necessary for the Christian life. In God's plan of salvation Paul said God delivered Christ “up for us all.” The “us” there, obviously, is not every individual living, dead and yet to be born. He includes himself along with the “saints” or Christians at Rome for those are the people to whom he wrote. But the point is that since God gave up His Son who was the most precious thing to Him, God will with Christ give all things needed to those for whom Christ was given. God gives: “freely.” With Christ God freely gives us all things necessary for the Christian life. He gives first spiritual life, godly sorrow, repentance, faith and so works in us by His Spirit to motivate and enable us to live for Him. Paul wrote, “...he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ,” (Philippians 1:6). That beginning of a good work is the new birth of which John wrote saying they “were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” (John 1:13).
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