Revivals (Stanton)

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

Voluntown, Ct., Dec. 28, 1842.

AB GOLDSMITH ON CHURCH COUNCILS (Santamaria)

COMMUNICATIONS.

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

In a former communication, I proposed to consider some errors which have crept in among the Baptists, ten of which were named as principal errors, and to each of which special regard was to be paid in a particular and separate paper, and first in order stood “Ecclesiastical Councils.” These bodies have of late assumed an importance and consequence in Church Legislation, which ought to alarm every friend to Gospel order, and cause an immediate and serious inquiry among the sons of Zion, for the “Old Paths” and the “Good Way,” with an accompanying determination to walk therein, when found. They originated in their present form in the corruption of the Church in early ages, and received a great proportion of their importance from the royal sanction of Constantine, when he solemnized the Marriage of “Church and State.” It is not necessary at this time to specify the particular Councils, which at different times have set, to dictate laws to Zion, or Babylon, to make Creeds and confessions of faith,—by which to make and punish Heretics. Our object is not to amend or reform them, but to destroy them, or prove that they ought to be destroyed, at least in their present form. The only way then is to appeal to the old statute book, which, like the Book of the Law in king Josiah’s days, seems to be hid in the rubbish, and look for what is there written; and if the modern proceedings will not compare therewith, let us reject the inventions of men and obey the law of the Lord.

HEBREWS 2.5-11 (Santamaria)

Some passages feel like thunder rolling across the page—slow at first, then suddenly splitting the sky open. Hebrews 2:5–9 is one of them. It takes the whole architecture of reality—angels, humanity, dominion, suffering, glory—and rearranges it around one blazing center: a Man crowned with glory who first wore thorns.

Entertaining Angels Unawares (Santamaria)

There is something at once beautiful and unsettling in the command of Hebrews 13:2: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” It is one of those verses that opens a window for a moment, lets in a gust of heaven, and then leaves us standing there wondering how many ordinary moments were not ordinary at all.

Jesus, the Only Begotten Son of God (Santamaria)

There are truths in Holy Scripture that stand like mountains above the landscape of revelation. Men may wander around them, deny them, rename them, or try to chip them into something smaller, but still they rise. One of those truths is this: Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. This is not a decorative phrase, not a soft religious title, not a poetic flourish added by devout men. It is part of the very marrow of the Christian confession. “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15). John wrote his Gospel “that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31). Take away the Son as Scripture presents Him, and the gospel is not merely weakened; it is gutted.

THE FINALITY OF CHRIST (Santamaria)

When the Perfect Comes: A Fuller Reading of 1 Corinthians 13:8–13

There are passages in Scripture that seem, at first glance, so simple that one wonders why they have caused such controversy. First Corinthians 13:10 is one of them: “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” Yet around that single line, whole systems have been built, arguments sharpened, and theories defended with more confidence than the text itself will bear. Some have said “that which is perfect” is the completed New Testament canon. Others have said it is the mature condition of the church. Still others have taken it, more broadly and more naturally, as the final state of perfection into which the saints enter at the return of Christ. The question is not trivial. Paul’s point touches not only spiritual gifts, but the entire contrast between the church’s present partial condition and her future fullness.¹

MANY CROWNS (Santamaria)

MANY CROWNS

Contents

FOREWORD

Introduction

Actual Articles concerning this Doctrine from the Signs

But does not Paul speak of his desire that he may win a crown?

FOREWORD

ENGLISH VERSIONS AFTER THE kjv (Santamaria)

English Bibles After the King James Version

WOMEN WEARING HEAD COVERINGS (Santamaria)

WOMEN AND HEAD COVERINGS

Shall We Know Our Loved Ones in Heaven (Santamaria)

This article presents both the pros and the cons of this idea.  Since some are orthodox who hold different positions on this matter, we let the reader evaluate with the guidance of the Spirit, which he is persuade

Shall We Know Our Loved Ones in Heaven?

A Biblical Meditation on Recognition, Reunion, and the Glory to Come

Few questions press more deeply upon the human heart than this one: Will we know those we loved when we are with the Lord? Will the mother know the child she buried? Will the husband know the wife with whom he walked through tears and prayer? Will faithful friends in Christ, long separated by death, stand together again in full and holy joy?

An Old School Baptist Evaluation of “Opinions in the Wake of the SBC Essay” (Saantamaria)

An Old School Baptist Evaluation of “Opinions in the Wake of the SBC Essay”

FOREWORD

DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE (Santamaria)

Stevenson doesn’t really begin Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a monster. He begins with respectability—clean streets, clean names, clean dinner conversation—and with a door that shouldn’t be there.

THE HOLY LAMB OF GOD (Santamaria)

BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD!

I Shall Not Die, But Live: Psalm 118:17 and the Unconquerable Life in Christ (Santamaria)

Psalm 118:17 stands as one of the most defiant declarations in Scripture: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD" (KJV). In Hebrew, לֹא־אָמוּת כִּי־אֶחְיֶה וַאֲסַפֵּר מַעֲשֵׂי־יָהּ (loʾ ʾāmût kî ʾeḥyeh waʾă Sappēr maʿăśê-Yah). This verse pulses with raw vitality—a survivor's cry rising from death's shadow, a vow to testify amid peril. It is no mere sentiment; it is battle-tested faith forged in the crucible of suffering, echoing through millennia to every soul facing mortality's sting. Today, in a world of pandemics, wars, and personal despair, Psalm 118:17 confronts us: Will you claim unconquerable life, or surrender to fear?

DELIVER US FROM EVIL (Santamaria)

“Deliver us from evil” is one of those prayers that sounds simple until you realize it’s the sound a drowning man makes when he finally stops pretending he can swim.

"Exhortations" in the Bible (Santamaria)

Modern evangelical talk about “exhortations” often smuggles in a whole theory of the Christian life: God saves you by grace, and then (so the story goes) He progressively sanctifies you by piling up commands, spiritual disciplines, and “steps of obedience,” until you slowly become holier in the same way a rock becomes a statue—chip, chip, chip—assuming you keep cooperating.

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HOLINESS AND SANCTIFICATION (Santamaria)

Holiness and sanctification in the New Testament are not two unrelated ideas that happen to share religious perfume. They are members of the same Greek word-family, built on one bright root: ἁγ-. If you understand that family—how its nouns, verbs, and adjectives behave—you’ll stop treating “holiness” as a vague mood and “sanctification” as a mystical self-improvement program. You’ll start hearing the New Testament’s own emphasis: God marks off what is His, and what is His must not be treated as common.

We Do Know What To Pray For (Santamaria)

Prayer is one of the places where a man finds out, in the most personal way possible, that God is God and he is not. In theory, everybody agrees with that. In practice, we are all tempted to treat prayer like a lever: pull it correctly, and heaven must move. Or we treat it like a performance: say it well enough, and the room will feel spiritual. Or we treat it like a duty: do it because we’re supposed to, and hope God counts it as something.

"Even your santification (Santamaria)

The phrase you’re aiming at is from 1 Thessalonians 4:3 (KJV): “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification…” In a lot of modern preaching, that line gets turned into a banner for “progressive sanctification” as a kind of spiritual staircase—your holiness steadily increasing measurably, until your growth becomes the quiet proof that God accepts you.

FROM GLORY TO GLORY (Santamaria)

“For glory to glory” is one of those phrases that can get hijacked by the spiritual self-improvement industry. People hear it and imagine a sanctification ladder: rung one, rung two, rung three—getting holier in a measurable, upward-only way, until you finally become the Christian you were “supposed” to be.

But Paul is not selling a ladder. He’s breaking a veil.

The phrase you’re aiming at is from 1 Thessalonians 4:3 (KJV): “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification…” In a lot of modern preaching, that line gets turned into a banner for “progressive sanctification” as a kind of spiritual staircase—your holiness steadily increasing measurably, until your growth becomes the quiet proof that God accepts you.

Psalm 91 in Three Parts 3/3 (Santamaria)

Part 3 — The Promise and the Name (Psalm 91:9–16)

Psalm 91 in three partsd 2/3 (Santamaria)

 
Part 2 — The Terrible Things (Psalm 91:3–8)

Psalm 91 in Three Parts 1/3 (Santamaria)

Part 1 — The Secret Place (Psalm 91:1–2)

THERE IS NOTHING "COMMON" ABOUT GRACE (Santamaria)

The saying about rain falling on the good and the evil lives inside one of Jesus’ most needle-sharp commands: love your enemies. He does not try to win the point with a philosophical system or a sentimental appeal. He points to the sky and says, in effect, “Look at your Father’s habits. Then look at yours.”

The Remainder He will Restrain (Santamaria)

Psalm 76 is a victory hymn with steel in its teeth. It looks out at armed men, chariots, and the kind of human confidence that swagger-walks into God’s world as if history belongs to the loudest. Then it watches that confidence collapse into sleep and silence. In that setting, Psalm 76:10 lands like a final hammer-blow: God is so sovereign that even wrath—human wrath, violent wrath, arrogant wrath—cannot escape being used, bound, and finally made to serve His glory.

THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH (Santamaria)

Romans 16:25–26 is Paul’s final chord, and it rings like a cathedral bell. After fifteen chapters of sin exposed, grace proclaimed, justification defended, sanctification clarified, Israel considered, the church instructed, and love commanded, Paul ends by lifting your chin upward: the gospel is not a human idea that stumbled into history. It is God’s eternal purpose breaking into time—now revealed, now published, now calling the nations to the “obedience of faith.”

"...and by smooth talk and flattery they completely deceive the hearts of the innocent" (Santamaria)

Romans 16:18 is Paul with his pastoral gloves off. He has spent an entire letter laying out the glory of God in the gospel—sin exposed, grace magnified, Christ exalted, the righteousness of God revealed—and then, right near the end, he turns and says: now guard it. Watch. Because there is a kind of danger that does not arrive wearing horns. It arrives smiling.

GOD HAS A PLAN (Santamaria)

Jeremiah 29:11 is one of those verses that gets printed on mugs and stitched onto pillows—usually with the emotional volume turned up and the historical context turned down to a whisper. But the original setting is not a pleasant devotional moment in a sunlit kitchen. It is exile. It is dislocation. It is the ache of living under an empire you did not choose, with graves behind you, strangers around you, and a future that looks like fog

BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD?? (Santamaria)

THE DIFFERENCES BETYWEEN HOLINESS AND SANCTIFICATION (Welsh Tract Publications)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP3C6CC8

DO NOT GRIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT (Santasmaria)

In Pocket Beebe, look for the article titled “Quench Not the Spirit.—I Thess. V. 19” (it’s a Signs of the Times editorial dated Middletown, N.Y., July 1, 1857). In that piece, Beebe explains “grieving” (Eph. 4:30 language) and “quenching” (1 Thess. 5:19) together, and he draws his famous distinction.

Here are the key lines, exactly in his wording:

“Those admonitions… cannot be so construed as to signify that God is a being subject to passions like us.” (sovereignredeemerbooks.com)

“[Not] that he can be grieved and extinguished by his creatures.” (sovereignredeemerbooks.com)

“This spirit which is born of the Spirit is not God, but it is of God.” (sovereignredeemerbooks.com)

“It is called, ‘the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.’—Eph. iv. 30… distinguished from the Holy Ghost, which is God.” (sovereignredeemerbooks.com)

“This spirit… is susceptible of grief… elevation and depression… totally inapplicable to God, the eternal Spirit.” (sovereignredeemerbooks.com)

And when he finally nails down what “quenching” means in practice, he says: “To quench… the spirit… is to walk after the flesh.” (sovereignredeemerbooks.com)

The Infernal Blaze of Brotherly Love: An Odyssey Through φιλαδελφία and חֶסֶד, Igniting the Soul with Biblical Fire (Santamaria)

From the blood-soaked sands of first-century persecution, where emperors’ swords cleaved families and lions devoured the faithful, erupts a divine mandate that shakes the heavens and rends the earth: Τὸ τέλος πάντες ὁμόφρονες, συμπαθεῖς, φιλάδελφοι, εὔσπλαγχνοι, ταπεινόφρονες (1 Peter 3:8)—“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love (φιλαδελφία), a tender heart, and a humble mind!”

English Grammar for Bible Study Welsh Tract Publications)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GLJ1WPV2

MOSES WILL ACCUSE YOU TO THE FATHER (Santamaria)

“Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father… Moses… accuses you.” (John 5:45)

Ezekiel and Eschatalogy (Welsh Tract Publications)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GM8ZZV3Z

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF (Santamaria)

“Love thy neighbor as thyself” is one of those lines that sounds simple until you actually stare at it long enough for it to stare back.

It shows up first in the Holiness Code of Leviticus:

Hebrew (Lev. 19:18): וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ אֲנִי יְהוָה
Transliteration: wə’āhavtā lərē‘ăkā kāmōkā, ’ănī YHWH
Literal sense: “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am YHWH.”

Advancing The Kingdom of God (Welsh Tract Publications)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GMKQQZSK

GOD IS A PERSON (Welsh Tract Publications)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GLRGJ9TC

GOD A PERSON (Santamaria)

 

GOD A PERSON

Introduction

The Influence of the Kabbala on Jewish Theology (Welsh Tract Publications)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GMXLRGHQ

“Of Him, and Through Him, and To Him” (Smith)

Romans 11:35–36

“For who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?

Baptism For The Dead (Welsh Tract Publications)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GN3F6YG4

Paul’s words here (I Timothy 1:3–4) (Santamaria)

Paul’s words here (I Timothy 1:3–4) are not the polite opening of a theologian arranging his bookshelf. They’re the urgent voice of an apostle doing triage in a living church. He’s left Timothy in a real place with real people and a real contagion: teaching that sounds “religious” but quietly reroutes the soul away from Christ, away from faith, away from the actual work of God.

There is nothing Common aboout Grace (Welsh Tract Publications)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GNJ5N9BM

IN THE LAST DAYS II TIMOTHY 4 (Santamaria)

Paul’s warning in II Timothy 4:3–4 is not subtle. It’s one of those passages where the apostle stops speaking like a gentle counselor and starts speaking like a fire bell in the night. And what makes it so disturbing is that he doesn’t predict the church will merely be attacked from the outside. He predicts the church will be hollowed out from within by a kind of spiritual consumerism—people treating “teaching” the way Rome treated entertainment: as something purchased to satisfy taste.

The Anabpaitst Rebellion of Munster (Welsh Tract Publications)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GN9YRX4N

Set to His Seal That God Is True John 3:31–36 (Smith)

When we come to John chapter 3, we find ourselves standing beside two men whose ministries could not be more different in scope, yet perfectly united in purpose: Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, and John the Baptist, the forerunner appointed to prepare His way. John understood his calling with remarkable humility. When his disciples expressed concern that the crowds were now flocking to Jesus rather than to him, John answered with words that have echoed through the centuries: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

II TImothy 3 (Santamaria)

II Timothy 3 is Paul taking Timothy by the collar—lovingly, urgently—and turning his face toward reality. Not the sentimental “reality” of motivational quotes, but the gritty kind where truth costs something, where counterfeit religion is more dangerous than open hostility, and where Scripture is not an ornament but oxygen.