Did Jimmy Carter believe?

Here is continuation of yesterday's post: When you believe God put you into His Son, it’s the people in Christ that He chose to predestinate. Same way with Israel. These guys are born into Israel, and just because they were born into that elect--that chosen nation--didn’t mean their name was going to stay in the register.

They had to have a circumcision which was of the heart and spirit. They had to exercise faith; they had to have the heart faith reality, see, to keep their name in the register and if they didn’t have it, then their name didn’t stay there.

Revelation 22: [18] For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
[19] And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

Notice that it doesn’t say, “take away his name out of the book of life.” It says He takes away his part. You see, folks, the judgment in this passage is that a place to write the fellow’s name was prepared, because there’s a place, as it were, for everybody’s name to be written.

Christ died for everybody. God desires all men to be saved and He’s tasted death for every man. There’s a place for everybody’s name to be written in the book.

Verse 17: [17] And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

You know the invitation of the Bible is, “Come, come, come, come, come, come.” Whosoever will. Place for everybody’s name.

This guy in this passage here, the judgment on him is that the place was prepared back before the foundation of the world. Your name gets written in the place when you trust Christ.

The book of life is a book of all those people who possess everlasting life. It’s a book of the names of the elect, those who are destined to eternal bliss and blessing; those who are the possessors of everlasting life by faith in Christ Jesus. Your name gets put in there when you trust Him. And your name doesn’t get taken out of that book.

The passages that talk about blotting the name out either are clear statements that it can’t happen, or they’re talking about a different book--that book about the nation and those people can have their name taken out of that if they weren’t in the real thing.

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Jimmy Carter, in his 1996 book Living Faith, tells the reader that while he was raised from a baby in church, and was only three when he began memorizing Bible verses in Sunday School, “By the time I was 12 or 13 years old, my anxiety about (doubting Christ’s resurrection) became so intense that at the end of every prayer, until after I was an adult, before ‘Amen’ I added the words ‘And, God, please help me believe in the resurrection.’ ”

As Jordan often repeats, “You’ll never meet an honest person who spent 15 hours looking at the actual evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ not come to the conclusion: ‘He came out of the grave.’

“Now, you might not like what the resurrection means, but you can’t look at the evidence with an unprejudiced heart and mind and not recognize the historical reality that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.”

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Regarding my post from the other day, entitled "Songs change history," the all-time classic hymn, “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed” was also written by Isaac Watts, considered one of the greatest hymn writers of all time.

A biographical passage on him: “A very unusual man, Watts served as minister of the English Congregational Church, preaching his first sermon at 24. History says that though he was a charming man, his stature was small and his physical appearance hard to believe. Only five feet in height, his face was sallow with a hooked nose, small beady eyes and a deathlike pallor. One lady, a Miss Elizabeth Singer, who had fallen in love with his poetry and thought she had met her soulmate at last, refused his hand in marriage when she finally saw him, with the remark, ‘I admired the jewel but not the casket!’ However, his hymns have been jewels admired by all generations of Christians.”

1. Alas! and did my Savior bleed
   And did my Sov’reign die?
   Would He devote that sacred head
   For such a worm as I?
2. Was it for crimes that I had done
   He groaned upon the tree?
   Amazing pity! grace unknown!
   And love beyond degree!
3. Well might the sun in darkness hide
   And shut his glories in,
   When Christ, the mighty Maker died,
   For man the creature’s sin.
4. Thus might I hide my blushing face
   While His dear cross appears,
   Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
   And melt my eyes to tears.
5. But drops of grief can ne’er repay
   The debt of love I owe:
   Here, Lord, I give myself away,
   ’Tis all that I can do.
• Refrain (Hudson):
  At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
  And the burden of my heart rolled away,
  It was there by faith I received my sight,
  And now I am happy all the day!

 Refrain (Campmeeting):

• I do believe, I do believe
  That Jesus died for me;
  And through His blood, His precious blood
  I am from sin set free.