Treasures may be found at the Castle. Look for yourself! The Castle is almost a thousand years old. Its primary function is to serve as a helpful store house from spiritual treasures. Many famous bible scholars, orators and professional educators as well as commoners have visited the Castle to stand on the shoulders of those giants who have left their thoughts, wisdom and understandings in written copy. Their copy is in the form of print, cursory writing, and typing. Some of the visitors are from the reformation period. Others are theologians, Seminary Presidents, and a plethora of recognized bible teachers in the current era. We have copies of writings from Martin Luther, John Calvin, Lewis Sperry Chafer, Donald G. Barnhouse, Joseph Dillow, Bob Thieme, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln and many other substantial teachers and Theologians. The following will encapsulate some of their notations, comments and lessons. These master teachers, taught thousands of lessons from every book in the bible. Each person that left notations in short note or long form provided the interested reader with some of the best expressions of knowledge that have ever been conveyed. The following represents important excerpts from the best of what they have either said, written or taught. Many of the notations cannot be ascribed to a known person, therefore, a number of the writings will not be ascribed to the original writer, or speaker. These vast treasures are not out in the open, they must be found and opened, I discovered a small treasure chest, just recently, that was overflowing with a vast wealth of spiritual truths, knowledge, and wisdom. The first note that happened to capture my attention was written by Bob Thieme.

“God’s Love is self-motivated, unconditional, infinite and absolute. Human love is object motivated, conditional, finite and relative. God’s love is in his eternal self! He needs no object for his love to function. He is the total object. We don’t love unconditionally, only God does. The unfailing love of God gives every believer in Jesus Christ super surpassing riches that reflect Gods’ grace, which cannot be compared to any human wealth or success in life. The unfailing love of God is the key to our motivation in the spiritual life! When we discover God’s love for us in eternity past, that He knew all about us and graciously provided for us long before we ever existed, long before Jesus Christ created the universe, we will stand in awe. Our response to this overarching love of God becomes our love for God. This is the true motivation that must accompany the inculcation of Bible Doctrine to advance to the high ground of spiritual maturity.”

The next note was written by Martin Luther and is amazing.

“Paul’s aim in the word of God is to make grace necessary to all men. God Looks down from heaven and sees that none seek after him, PS 14:2-4, Ps 53:2-3. The power in man to seek after him is nowhere to be found, as all men go out of the way; If man could initiate something by himself, he would not need grace, as it stands man needs grace and nothing good or upright is left for man for, he is declared to be unrighteous, ignorant of God, despiser of God, turned away from God, and unprofitable in his sight. If works of the law do not justify, where is man to go? The very keeping of the law drags man under it and says you are lost and undone, I can do nothing for you. Whether a good keeper of the law or a bad one, works of the law leave man as ungodly and condemned. None can whisper a word against this truth.

It is no small thing when man is said to be ignorant of God and to despise him, for this is the fountainhead of all iniquities, the sink of sins and a hell of evil. What evil is not present where there is ignorance and contempt of God. They are not only ignorant, but they actually despise God! Herein, is unbelief, disobedience, sacrilege, and blasphemy toward God and love of self in all things from God and even of man—all mouths are stopped, and all the world becomes guilty before God… no flesh is justified in his sight, Romans 3:19,20. How can all mouths be stopped if a power that gives us ability is left in us? How can man be called guilty if he is not counted unrighteous and ungodly, that he merits damnation and vengeance. Jeremiah 23:29, our hearts can become so hard that we do not hear or feel the force of his voice and message.”

The next note was penned by: Lewis Sperry Chafer,

“Do we believe and then surrender to God? On account of its subtlety due to its noble character, no confusing intrusion into the doctrine that salvation is conditioned alone upon believing is more effective that the added demand that the unsaved must dedicate themselves to do God’s will in their daily lives as well as to believe upon Christ. Due to the utter inability and spiritual death of the unsaved, they are shut up to the one message that Christ is their Savior and they cannot accept him, the Word of God declares, unless illuminated to that end by the Holy Spirit. Saving faith is not a possession of all men but is imparted specifically to those who do believe. Eph. 2:8. To impose a need to surrender the life to God as an added condition of Salvation is most unreasonable. God’s call to the unsaved is never said to be unto the Lordship of Christ, it is unto His saving grace. With the reception of the divine nature through the regenerating work of the spirit, a new understanding and a new capacity to respond to the authority of Christ are gained. It is clear that a self-dedication taxes the limit of ability even of the most devout believer. The error of imposing Christ’s Lordship upon the unsaved is disastrous as the preacher is calling upon them to dedicate their lives and is demanding of them what they have no ability to produce. The idea of believing on Christ for salvation and promoting exclusively the obligation to surrender to God is substituting consecration for conversion, faithfulness for faith, and beauty of daily life for believing unto eternal life. This kind of deceptive teaching promotes a wretched heresy that it matters nothing what one believes respecting the Saviorhood of Christ it matters only that the daily life is dedicated to God’s service. The tragedy of this delusion is those who embrace it are likely never to be delivered by a true faith in Christ as Savior. This is ‘the blind leading the blind.’

Dr. Chafer continues. “A most subtle form of deception is the practice of applying to unbelievers the Lordship of Christ. In relaying this meritorious message to the unsaved, their darkened mind sees dimly some possible advantage in submitting their lives to the Lordship of Christ in whom they really know nothing. Such false teachings are only human adjustments to God and are not in any way the terms required by his holy character, which first condemns mankind and rejects all his supposed merit, and then offers perfect and eternal Salvation to the helpless unbeliever on no other terms that he believes on Christ as his Savior. The unregenerate individual, because of his condition in spiritual death, has no ability to desire the things of God, 1 Cor 2:14, or to anticipate what his outlook on life will be after he is saved. It is therefore an error of the first magnitude to divert that feeble ability of the unsaved to exercise a God given faith for salvation into the unknown and complex spheres of self-dedication which dedication is the Christians greatest problem. No more important obligation rests on the preacher than that of preaching the Lordship of Christ to Christians exclusively and the Saviorhood of Christ to those who are unsaved.  

In all Gospel preaching every reference to the life to be lived beyond regeneration should be avoided as far as possible. This approach is a simple adjustment to the limitation and actual condition of those to whom the gospel is addressed. It is desirable to remind them that the new relation to Christ will exist only after they receive Him as Savior and thereafter, new abilities will be possessed by which they can live to the glory of God.  Such proffered assurance is far removed from the practice of introducing obligations which are exclusive Christian in character and as something to which they must consent in order to be saved. Multitudes of unsaved people have been diverted from the question of their acceptance of Christ as savior to other questions regarding amusements or unchristian ways of living.  As the unsaved person has no motive or spiritual light by which to face his problems that person can only be bewildered by these issues. His problem is not one of giving up what in his unsaved state seems normal to him; it is a problem of receiving the Savior with his full Salvation.