Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

whole peninsula of India been long since evangelized? The gospel has
been preached there; but the lives of the Europeans professing
Christianity there have been, in general, profligate, sordid, and base.
From them sounded out no good report of the gospel; and therefore the
Mohammedans continue to prefer their Koran, and the Hindoos their
Vedas and Shasters, to the Bible.
Do not suppose that ye have no need of continual instruction; without
it ye cannot preserve the Christian life, nor go on to perfection. God will
ever send a message of salvation by each of his ministers to every
faithful, attentive hearer. Do not suppose that ye are already wise enough;
you are no more wise enough than you are holy enough; they who slight
or neglect the means of grace, and especially the preaching of God's holy
word, are generally vain, empty, self-conceited people, and exceedingly
superficial both in knowledge and piety.
"Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
There are many professors of Christianity still who answer the above
description. They hear, repeatedly hear, it may be, good sermons; but, as
they seldom meditate on what they hear, they derive little profit from the
ordinances of God. They have no more grace now than they had several
years ago, though hearing all the while, and perhaps not wickedly
departing from the Lord. They do not meditate, they do not think, they do
not reduce what they hear to practice; therefore, even under the preaching
of an apostle, they could not become wise to salvation.
Should the most nutritive aliment be received into the stomach, if not
mixed with the above juices, it would be rather the means of death than
of life; or, in the words of the apostle, it would not profit, because not
thus mixed. Faith in the word preached, in reference to that God who sent
it, is the grand means of its becoming the power of God to the salvation
of the soul. It is not likely that he who does not credit a threatening when
he comes to hear it, will be deterred by it from repeating the sin against
which it is levelled; nor can he derive comfort from a promise who does
not believe it as a pledge of God's veracity and goodness. Faith, therefore,