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God’s All-Sufficient Grace
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Here We Stand
New Focus Magazine is purposefully and plainly a sovereign grace publication. We seek with every edition to uphold, explain, promote and preach the message of God’s free grace in Christ and the absolute necessity of divine power to initiate, apply and secure the salvation of sinners. We do not look to man to save himself for we know he cannot. We do not appeal to men to save themselves for we know they cannot. We believe God’s grace alone can save a soul, and we try to say it clearly. This means we have no time for the teaching that man has a freewill with which to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation. We do not believe God has saving love for everyone, nor…
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The Malady And The Remedy
Dear Friend,—I have no doubt you think it long before I reply to yours; but the fact is, I have felt quite fast in my mind, and have not known what answer to give, for I am not very fit to travel yet. If I possibly can, I should like to comply with your request. If you ask me how I am, I can assure you that I am heartily sick of myself and almost of everybody else. There is so much self-importance, and self-seeking, and flesh and blood working under a covert of truth, and I feel so much of the stinking oozings up of it in my own cursed old man, that, as I said before, I am heartily sick; and yet, strange…
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Part 1 – (4) Deuteronomy 8:2
“And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.”—Deuteronomy 8:2 It is said,[1] that it is evident from this and other passages of Scripture, that the state of man in this world, is a state of trial or probation. It will be proper therefore to make the following inquiries: I. What this state of probation is, or what is meant by it. 1. This state of trial is not of men's graces, as faith, patience, etc., by afflictive dispensations of Providence; for men in general are not in such a state, since…
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The Breastplate
“And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim.”—Exodus 28:30 The breastplate that formed so prominent and beautiful an object in the dress of the High Priest of Israel, was designated the breastplate of judgment because, as this verse affirms, God directed that the Urim and Thummim—" lights and perfections "—should be placed in it. The breastplate was fastened to the blue robe of the ephod; a bag was at the back of the breastplate, and in this bag what is designated Urim and Thummim were placed. The marginal reading has it "lights and perfections." By Urim and Thummim the High Priest of Israel consulted the Lord in seasons of embarrassment and perplexity; and by Urim and Thummim the mind…
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The “Almost” Christian
A Sermon Preached By John Booth At Providence Chapel, Croydon, On Sunday Evening, November 29th, 1903. "Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."—Acts 26:28 The charge preferred against Paul was, as we read in Acts 21:28: "This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place (i.e., the Temple): and further brought Greeks also into the Temple, and hath polluted this holy place." So they said he taught against the law, against the Temple, and against the rules of the Temple. It is certain that Paul taught everywhere the received fulfilment of all these things, that Christ was the Substance of them. Paul had been a Pharisee; he had belonged to…
