An Eternal Appointment?

January 11, 2021 at 3:44 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments
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Question: Why does Acts 13:48 say that the people who were appointed to eternal life were the ones who believed?

Answer: The King James Version actually says they were “ordained.” Some other versions say “appointed” or “chosen,” but it’s the same idea.

And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Acts 13:48

The reason it says this is to let us know that God decides which people will respond to the preaching of His Word. Only those who have been elected (I Peter 1:2) by God believe the Truth of the Gospel when they hear it preached. This is a great Scriptural example of God’s sovereignty at work, and notice how it is balanced by man’s responsibility in the very next verse:

And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region.

Acts 13:49

Knowing that God had ordained many gentiles to be saved, the Apostles and the new believers were excited to preach the Good News all over the region!

Salvation

January 7, 2021 at 5:17 pm | Posted in Salvation | 7 Comments
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During the time The Deep End was started, I was sometimes being called on to fill in for the pastor of the church to which our family belonged at that time. This included occasionally teaching Wednesday night Bible lessons, and even preaching in the main Sunday morning service a few times. My practice when preaching was to sometimes preach a whole evangelistic message, but at other times to preach a message focused on some specific topic that was addressed primarily to people who were already saved. However, even in those messages, I would try (usually at the end) to give a Gospel presentation or what I would sometimes call a salvation invitation.

In making blog entry categories, I grouped these together under the cateory called Salvation, and later added other evangelistic lessons or messages designed to call unsaved people to repentance and faith, or to hopefully impart some Biblical knowledge on the topic of eternal salavtion.

Since this is the 1500th post on The Deep End, I thought it would be a good idea to place links to those salvation-themed posts in one place.

1. Just the Facts
2. You Need To Know This
3. We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming to Bring You this Important Announcement
4. Standing in the Crossway (Obadiah vv.11,14)
5. What Christians Want You to Know (I Corinthians 1:23; Romans 10:13)
6. It’s Just Faith (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 4:5)
7. The One Question You MUST NOT Get Wrong (Mark 8:29; John 10:30)
8. The Most Obvious Difference between Jesus and Us
9. Time Is Running Out (Acts 17:30-31)
10. The Bad News and the Good News (Ephesians 2:1-5; Acts 4:12)
11. The Work that Won’t Work (Romans 11:6; 6:23)
12. Do You Want to Live Forever? (I Timothy 2:5)
13. Give Him Your Heart (Proverbs 23:26)
14. Porcine Predilection Predates Powerful Prevailing Pardon, Prompting Personal Purity
15. The Elevator to Heaven
16. The End of Blame-Shifting
17. The Dash Between Two Dates (James 4:14; Job 14:1)
18. The Big Announcement (Luke 2:10)
19. Coming to Yourself (Luke 15:17)
20. From Cursing to Blessing (Galatians 3:10,13)
21. A Major Breaking News Story (Mark 1:15; I Corinthians 15:3-4)
22. Maybe
23. The Last but Not the Least – Part 3 (Jeremiah 46:20-21)
24. Dr. Law and Dr. Grace
25. Healing for Truly Broken Hearts (Psalm 147:3-5; Matthew 5:4)
26. Discipleship Lesson 1: Salvation*
27. Calling Witnesses (Part 1)
28. Calling Witnesses (Part 2)
29. Calling Witnesses (Part 3)
30. The Ordo Salutis
31. More Powerful than a Roaring Shadow (Psalm 23:4)
32. Light Measures Time
33. Salvation Is Not Like Shongaloo
34. The Breathtaking Wonder of God (Micah 7:18-19)
35. How Many Christians Really Know This?
36. The Crisis
37. I Can Tell the Future (Romans 14:10-12; Acts 16:31)
38. The Men Who Worked on Skyscrapers (Genesis 32:24-32)
39. Are You Struggling? (Matthew 11:12; Mark 16:16)
40. From What Were You Saved (A and B)? (Isaiah 53:5-10)
41. From What Were You Saved? (C)
42. Why Some People Just Don’t Get all that Jesus/Church/Religion/Christianity/Gospel Stuff (I Corinthians 4:3-4; Romans 10:17)
43. The Mountain No One Can Climb Alone
44. Beware Forensic Filth (Ephesians 5:5)
45. Catechism Question 21 (Romans 10:13)
46. What Does it Mean to be “Saved?”
47. “Saved” as a Term of Art
48. The Difference between Saved and Lost
49. Merry Reality
50. Reintroducing John 3:16
51. The Paycheck You Don’t Want to Receive
52. Guilty No More (Romans 3:19-24)
53. The Most Important Invitation You Will Ever Receive (Isaiah 55:1-7)
54. For Goodness’s Sake

* most-viewed post in category

Quotes by the Dozen

January 4, 2021 at 11:31 am | Posted in Quotes | 1 Comment
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Yesterday was the 12th anniversary of The Deep End. The initial concept of the blog focused on the idea of “swimming,” so, while the majority of the posts were original content, I would occasionally find a theological quote which referenced swimming, bookmark it, and cite it in a post under a category of quotes. In honor of the occasion I have listed links to these below:

1. Spurgeon Liked To “S.W.I.M.,” Too (Luke 2:19)
2. John Piper Likes To “S.W.I.M.,” Too
3. Vance Havner Liked to “S.W.I.M.,” Too
4. Even Warren Wiersbe Likes to S.W.I.M. (The Gospel of John)
5. Pastor John Wilkerson is the Best “S.W.I.M.”er I Know *
6. My Wife Is a Super “S.W.I.M.”mer
7. Paul Washer Really S.W.I.M.s Hard
8. The Wesleys Were a “S.W.I.M.”ming Family
9. Jonathan Edwards Was a Heavenly “S.W.I.M.”mer
10. Douglas Wilson’s Turn to “S.W.I.M.”
11. All Presidents Should “S.W.I.M.” Like Woodrow Wilson (Romans 12:2)
12. R.C. Sproul “S.W.I.M.”s with Thanksgiving
13. C.S. Lewis Liked to S.W.I.M.
14. S.W.I.M. with Spurgeon
15. It’s Good to “S.W.I.M.” with Spurgeon
16. Spurgeon Would S.W.I.M. Deeper than Most (Deuteronomy 29:29)
17. Curtis Hutson Encouraged Young Men to S.W.I.M. (Numbers 13:23-33)
18. John Piper’s S.W.I.M. Prayer (Hebrews 2:1)
19. Pastor John Wilkerson S.W.I.M. Quote (Galatians 1:3-4)
20. Vance Havner Warns Us to S.W.I.M. with Care (Matthew 8:28-34)
21. Oswald Chambers Says You Can S.W.I.M. with Joy (Romans 8:37; II Corinthians 7:4)
22. My Blog Gets a Shout-Out from Todd Friel
23. R.C. Sproul Discusses the Times in which We S.W.I.M.
24. Spurgeon Exhorts You to S.W.I.M. NOW
25. Charles Spurgeon Liked to S.W.I.M. Poetically (Isaiah 41:18)
26. D.L. Moody S.W.I.M. Quote
27. Short S.W.I.M. with D.L. Moody
28. G. Campbell Morgan Wasn’t Too Proud to S.W.I.M. (Deuteronomy 8:3,16; Proverbs 16:18)
29. A Confident S.W.I.M. with John Flavel (Ephesians 4:14-16)
30. Thomas Watson Says S.W.I.M. by Faith (Deuteronomy 6:4; Galatians 4:6; Hebrews 11:1)
31. Matt Redman S.W.I.M. Quote (Psalm 59:16; Ephesians 2:1-5)
32. Spurgeon Encouraged us to S.W.I.M. Faithfully (Psalm 119:89-92)
33. Spurgeon Was Old Enough to S.W.I.M. (Psalm 92:13-15)
34. S.W.I.M. in Deep Waters with John Aughey (Psalm 69:1-3,13-16)
35. Edmund Spenser Could S.W.I.M. Lyrically (Luke 12:27-31; Proverbs 24:30-34)
36. Warren Webster Said It Is Important to S.W.I.M. with a Few Individuals (II Timothy 2:2)
37. Charles L. Quarles Pleads that We S.W.I.M. with Urgency (John 14:6; I Timothy 2:5; Acts 1:8)
38. Charles H. Spurgeon Needed Grace to S.W.I.M. (Ezekiel 47:9)
39. Douglas Wilson on Why We Must S.W.I.M. (Romans 1:16; Jude v. 23)
40. S.W.I.M. with Humility (Job 38:16)
41. John Piper: S.W.I.M. to be Married (Ephesians 5:31-33)
42. How Rosaria Butterfield Learned to S.W.I.M. (James 3:1; II Timothy 2:2)
43. Tim Challies: When You S.W.I.M. Downstream (I Corinthians 6:19-20; Micah 2:1; Psalm 36:1-4)
44. Douglas Wilson: S.W.I.M. to Obey (Romans 6:16; Joshua 24:22-24)
45. A.W. Tozer Challenged Us to S.W.I.M. in God the Father (Isaiah 40:28)
46. Douglas Wilson: S.W.I.M. to be Detestable (I Corinthians 6:9-11)
47. Pastor John Wilkerson: Don’t S.W.I.M. with Alcohol (Proverbs 20:1; 23:29-35; I Peter 5:7)
48. Douglas Wilson: S.W.I.M. to Get Out of Secularism (II Corinthians 6:17; Colossians 2:8)
49. Or in Which a Christian May S.W.I.M. (John 4:14; Jeremiah 23:29)
50. D.L. Moody: S.W.I.M. Deeper in Grace (II Corinthians 9:8)
51. Tyler Never Actually Learned How to S.W.I.M.
52. Sinclair Ferguson on a Difficult S.W.I.M. with Geerhardus Vos (Psalm 42:7)
53. S.W.I.M. Up through the Depths with Beowulf (Psalm 130:1; 77:16)
54. Augustine Wanted People to S.W.I.M. with the Monsters of the Deep (Genesis 1)
55. Thomas Watson: S.W.I.M. to Repent
56. Augustine on Those Who Will S.W.I.M. When Brought Ashore (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-42)
57. S.W.I.M. to Make Disciples
58. Christian Men Must S.W.I.M. (Job 23:12; Jeremiah 15:16; I Peter 2:2)
59. S.W.I.M. with the Fish (Romans 1:19-20)
60. Michael John Beasley: Equipped to S.W.I.M.
61. John Eliot Helped People to S.W.I.M. Plainly (Cotton Mather; Isaiah 40:11; John 21:15)
62. Douglas Wilson: S.W.I.M. in the Arts (Exodus 28:2; Psalm 29:2)
63. S.W.I.M. to Hope in Grace (Spurgeon; Romans 11:6; I Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5)
64. Don’t S.W.I.M. Subjectively (Robert Golding; John 14:6; 17:17)
65. George Herbert Morrison Would Not Only S.W.I.M., but Drink, from Deep Waters (Psalm 42:7; Job 12:22; I Corinthians 2:10)

*most-viewed entry in category


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