Required reading
Profiting from the Word by A. W. Pink (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Read Chapter 8, 'The Scriptures and the Promises'.
My notes and thoughts
Today Pink looks at how the word profits us in relation to the promises of God. We profit from the word when:
(i) we perceive to whom the promises belong;
(ii) we labour to make the promises of God our own;
(iii) we recognize the blessed scope of God's promises;
(iv) we make a proper discrimination between the promises of God;
(v) we are enabled to make God's promises our support and stay;
(vi) we patiently await the fulfilment of God's promises;
(vii) we make a right use of the promises.
I liked Pink's first point, that the promises do not belong to everyone: 'A sinner might just as well petition a tree as call upon God for mercy while he despises and rejects Christ.' Therefore preachers need to be wary of handing out the promises of God carelessly: 'How terrible, then, is the blindness and how great is the sin of those preachers who indiscriminately apply the Divine promises to the saved and unsaved alike! They are not only taking 'the children's bread' and casting it to the 'dogs,' but they are 'handling the word of God deceitfully' (2 Cor. 4:2), and beguiling immortal souls.'
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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