Fundamental Christianity

  The miracle of salvation    Matthew 8 v1-4 In Matthew 5-7, we have the teachings of Jesus; in chapters 8-9 we have His miracles of which there are 10.   I want to speak to you today of the miracle of salvation as illustrated in the miracles of Jesus, in particular the cleansing of the leper.   We should never forget what we were before God saved us; the Lord spoke through Isaiah the prophet in chapter 51 v1, “ ”Hearken to me ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock from whence ye are hewn and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged .”   The apostle Paul never forgot what he was saved from-1 st Timothy 1v13 “..who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious (a violent bully). ”   He wrote to the Ephesians to remind them what they once were;   Ephesians 2v2 and v3 “in time past”, or “once”, what you were individually, before God intervened in mercy.   What they were was “dead in  ...

Christianity is not a creed, nor a doctrine, nor a religion; it is fundamentally a person. and that person is Jesus Christ.  You can have Buddhism without Buddha; Islam without Mohammed; but there is no Christianity without Christ-He is Christianity, and this fact pervades the whole of scripture.  He is the subject of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and in all sections of the book-Luke 24v27 and 44-45.  Without Christ there is no existence of anything-John 1v3; apart from Him even disciples can do nothing-John 15v5; apart from Him the human race is doomed-John 3v36.  He is the founder, the centre and the circumference of Christianity.  The phrase "in Christ", or "in Him" is used hundreds of times in the New Testament, and separates the saved from the lost.  In the great epistle about the church-Ephesians, this is found 27 times.  The whole world is divided into two groups, those in Christ, and those not; it really is as fundamental as that.  ...