Taste-That-Which-Is-Good

Beauty For Ashes - Repost

2012-01-22T06:26:00.000-06:00

Two years ago I referred to this link from Laurie at Beauty for Ashes wherein she speaks frankly about abortion. It's one of the posts that stick with you and perhaps change how you think. I wanted to repost a link to her original article once again.
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Please click here and read Beauty for Ashes - wherein she speaks frankly about Abortion.

From my own reading I will never regret what this article taught me both about abortion, pro-life and the centrality of the Gospel as touching both these subjects.

Earth despicable, Heaven desirable..

2012-01-19T19:14:00.000-06:00

Reading out loud to my family now thrice,

Try aloud yourself, my advice

Thus many visions gloriously seen

Jesus my all, Saviour and King.

--- with much apologies for the above I now present you from Erkine a Gospel Sonnet

Click for online version

Earth despicable, Heaven desirable.

There's nothing round the spacious earth
To suit my vast desires;
To more refin'd and solid mirth
My boundless thought aspires.

Fain would I leave this mournful place,
This music dull, where none
But heavy notes have any grace,
And mirth accents the moan.

Where trouble tread upon reliefs,
New woes with older blend ;
Where rolling storms and circling griefs
Run round without an end:

Where waters wrestling with the stones,
Do fight themselves to foam,
And hollow clouds with thund'ring groans
Discharge their pregnant womb:

Where eagles mounting meet with rubs
That dash them from the sky:
And cedars, shrinking into shrubs,
In ruin prostrate lie:

Where, sin the author of turmoils,
The cause of death and hell,
The one thing foul that all things soils,
Does most befriended dwell.

The purchaser of night and woe,
The forfeiture of day,
The debt that ev'ry man did owe,
But only God could pay.

Bewitching ill, indors'd with hope,
Subscribed with despair:
Ugly in death when eyes are ope,
Though life may paint it fair.

Small wonder that I droop alone
In such a doleful place:
When lo, my dearest friend is gone,
My father hides his face.

And though in words I seem to show
The fawning poet's stile,
Yet is my plaint no feigned woe;
I languish in exile.

I long to share the happiness
Of that triumphant throng,
That swim in seas of boundless bliss
Eternity along.

When but in drops here by the way
Free love distils itself,
I pour contempt on hills of prey,
And heaps of wordly pelf.

To be amidst my little joys,
Thrones,sceptres, crowns, and kings,
Are nothing else but little toys,
And despicable things.

Down witH disdain earth's pomp I thrust,
Bid tempting wealth away:
Heav'n is not made of yellow dust,
Nor bliss of glitt'ring clay.

Sweet was the hour I freedom felt
To call my Jesus mine ;
To see his smiling face, and melt
In pleasures all divine.

Let fools after heav'n of shades pursue
But I for substance am:
The heart I seek is likeness to,
And vision of the Lamb:

The wothy lamb with glory crown'd
In his august abode;
Inthron'd sublime, and deck'd around
With all the pomp of God.

I long to join the saints above,
Who, crown'd with glorious bays,
Through radiant files of angels move,
And rival them in praise:

In praise to JAH, the God of love,
The fair incarnate Son,
The holy co-eternal Dove,
The good, the great Three-one

In hope to sing without a sob,
The anthem ever new,
I gladly bid the dusty globe,
And vain delights, Adieu.

Ephesians Chapter Five Verse Twelve

2012-01-06T06:20:00.000-06:00

"Would it make any difference to you—any difference at all to the way you talk, to what you watch, to the way you ‘engage culture’—if Eph. 5:12 had never been written?” -- Carl Trueman

Ok, I totally ripped this off from Carl Trueman. Actually from Justin Taylor. Or was it Tim Challies? Challies linked to Trueman. I read Trueman. Trueman's question probed me. But then I jumped over to Justin Taylor and he also picked up on Trueman and so once again- the question.

Would it really make any difference in how I talk, how I express myself, and what I do had Ephesians 5:12 never been written? Hmmmmm - I really really hope not, but O' God that I would take this verse more to heart. My Grandfather epitomized Eph 5:12. When my mind goes to his example his purity of speech is one of the very first things I remember. And I do not attain to his example much less than to Christ to whose image I am hoping to be conformed.

EPH 5:12 "For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret."

ht: Challies, Taylor, Trueman

Blog Commendation: Surprised by Optimism

2012-01-04T19:12:00.000-06:00

Times are bad. People are evil. The government is corrupt. Hopelessness abounds. The world is falling apart. People will always fail you. But on the other hand, won't they somehow do what's right? Isn't there a spark of goodness in every man? Can't we hope that good men will prevail eventually over evil? Should we place our hope in man?

My brother in Christ and friend, John, is writing to counter some of this very thinking. I've come to respect John's words, and appreciate the insight God is granting him for the good of the body of Christ. And because of this, I'm very excited to become a new follower of his blog, "Surprised by Optimism." John openly and honestly writes:

"My reason for starting this blog is that I know the crippling power of cynicism, and I want to help others avoid it. Now, it’s not that I always walk around with a scowl on my face, as the song “He’s a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” plays ominously in the background. Instead, as Paul Miller explains in his book A Praying Life, my cynicism begins with my false assurance that “anything is possible”. However, optimism rooted in the goodness of people collapses when it confronts the darker side of life, such as disappointed expectations or downright evil in people (including myself). From the signs I see in our culture, I think that this type of cynicism is becoming a widespread problem."

After reading John's words, I was made to reflect on my own cynicism. Am I secretly and unwares cynical? Admittedly this sin can blindside me unawares. Is there hope for us to overcome this kind of cyncism? John, again, writes in words meant to bring hope:

"However, there is a way out of this quiet cynicism. Rather than withdrawing into this negative spirit, we need an optimism that is founded on something more dependable than the goodness of people. We all know deep down that people, including ourselves, aren’t good. Nevertheless, the famous words of Psalm 23 hold the key: God is willing to be our Good Shepherd who won’t disappoint. Jesus proved this willingness when he came to earth to pay the penalty of our corrupted goodness by dying on the cross. Now we have the opportunity to have hope, and even the kind of fun that lasts! There is so much hope and joy to be found in God, and I’d love if you would join me in this journey of learning to be optimistic through Him!"

ht: Unto-Him-We-Live
ps: Please be sure to read the comments on John's new blog seeing especially that from Father to Son and learn from grace.

Guest Post: A Few Thoughts on Free Will

2012-01-02T16:22:00.000-06:00

Good friend and brother, Richard, sent me "A Few Thoughts on Free Will." What a great way to begin the new year by thinking deeply concerning the things of God. So with permission and to honor my own friends meditations below are "A Few Thoughts on Free Will" by Richard.

First what is the will? (link to the dictionary.com definition of will.)

I am going to define it as our ability to make a decision, and then carry it out to fruition.

So we when make a decision about anything how do we do this? Lets look at something that seems trivial like what socks to wear. It seems that a decision about sock choice would be made freely. Or is it? When we make decisions we always do so based on some intellectual or emotional factor (or both). In picking socks most people consider style, matching outfits and so on. Someone that would flippantly say, "I don't care about what the socks look like, I just wear whatever have," at the very least have some thought concerning comfort. They would not wear socks that would hurt their feet. The point is that even the most trivial decisions we make are influenced by something. So then how "free" are these choices? I would say no choice we make is free in this sense.

Does it seem likely that the most important decision we make, that of our eternal destiny would not be influenced by some factor. We most likely agree that the Holy Spirit plays some role in our salvation. Most of us have prayed for the soul of a lost loved one. Are we not asking God to influence their will? Does it not seem true that He would influence our decision to follow Christ. If the Holy Spirit does influence the heart in this decision how can it be called "free."

The truth is, the part of our salvation that is "free" is the Grace that is given to us and the Faith to accept this free Grace. Grace must be given to us freely for our salvation. If we could be saved based solely on our decision or in other words something we do. Would not the glory of our salvation be ours and not Gods? The "freedom" of our will is not really what is at issue here. The ability of our will is what needs to be considered. Do we have the ability to come to Christ on our own terms? NO! This ability is given to us by the Holy Spirit. We have the freedom to choose salvation only after we have been given the ability. The Holy Spirit makes our will willing.

So after reading Richard, have you any thoughts of your own concerning the freedom of the will?

For more information I suggest you check out the following article: (please click on title for link)
Human Nature in it's four-fold state.
LBCF commentary on Fair will
Free Will vs. Free Will I found this article especially helpful.
Freedom of the Will by Jonathon Edwards
Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther

Gospel Sonnets of Ralph Erskine

2011-11-30T17:37:00.001-06:00

Can you picture the father of good ol' John Paton, missionary to New Hebrides, sitting under the tree reading Erkine's Gospel Sonnets, his future wife secretly observing him, he reading until he can bear no more and must get low and pray?

As I read them I think and think and think some more
Methinks I see the senior Paton, Christ to adore.
But really with faith's keen eye it's not that fatherly man I see
For these Poems, gospel rich, have awakened prayer in me.
(with apologies)

I was captivated by these two lines from Gospel Sonnets:

The law can crave no more, yet craves no less,
Than active, passive, perfect righteousness.

So searching through Erskine's book I found the whole in context as follows:
The believer, being married to Christ, is both justified and sanctified

Proud nature may reject this gospel-theme,
And curse it as an Antinomian scheme.
Let slander bark, let envy grin and fight,
The curse that is so causeless shall not light.
If they that fain would make by holy force
‘Twixt sinners and the law a clean divorce,
And court the Lamb a virgin chaste to wife,
Be charg’d as foes to holiness of life,
Well may they suffer gladly on this score,
Apostles great were so malign’d before.

When as a cov’nant stern the law commands,
Faith puts her Lamb’s obedience in its hands:
And when its threats gush out a fiery flood,
Faith stops the current with her victim’s blood.
The law can crave no more, yet craves no less,
Than active, passive, perfect righteousness.
Yet here is all, yea, more than its demand,
All render’d to it by a divine hand.
Mankind is bound law-service still to pay,
Yea, angel-kind is also bound t’ obey.
It may by human and angelic blaze
Have honour, but in finite partial ways.

Thus doth the Husband by his Father’s will
Both for and in his bride the law fulfill:
For her, as ’tis a covenant; and then
In her, as ’tis a rule of life to men.
First all law-debt he most completely pays;
Then of law-duties all the charge defrays.
Does first assume her guilt, and loose her chains;
And then with living water wash her stains:
Her fund restore, and then her form repair,
And make his filthy bride a beauty fair;
His perfect righteousness most freely grant,
And then his holy image deep implant;
Into her heart his precious seed indrop,
Which, in his time, will yield a glorious crop.
But by alternate turns his plant he brings
Through robbing winters and repairing springs.
Hence, pining oft, they suffer sad decays,
By dint of shady nights and stormy days.
But blest with sap, and influence from above
They live and grow anew in faith and love;
Until transplanted to the higher soil,
Where furies tread no more, nor foxes spoil.

This book available for purchase here.

To read online click here.

White Horse Inn blog discusses here.

ROMANS NINE - FLOW WORDS

2011-11-29T09:24:00.000-06:00

Beginning with Romans Chapter nine, when originally studying this book with my girls, we came up with a concept called "flow words."   It's like the keywords we previously employed to give us a handle on each chapter. Now, though, we wanted a handle to IMPRINT an outline of each thought in chapter nine - thoughts that flow from one to the next building an overwhelming case for the sovereignty of God in Salvation, that is his election.

Here are the "flow words" we have identified for Chapter Nine:

ROMANS NINE
Keyword: Election
Memory Verse: Rom 9:11

Flow Words – Outlining the flow of thought through Romans Chapter Nine

Verses           Flow Word
Rom 9:1-5    Sorrow over Israel’s unbelief.
Rom 9:6         What is wrong with the Word of God? – NOTHING.
Rom 9:6         They are not all Israel which are of Israel.
Rom 9:7-9      Consider Isaac and Ishmael
Rom 9:8         Children of the flesh are not the children of God
Rom 9:10-13 Consider Jacob and Esau
Rom 9:11       Why? That the purpose of God according to Election might stand.
Rom 9:14       Is there unrighteousness with God?
Rom 9:15-29 God shows mercy as he wills.
Rom 9:17       Pharoh.
Rom 9:18-23 Potter and the Clay.
Rom 9:25       Prophecy fulfilled: I will call them my people which were not my people.
Rom 9:33       Believe on the Stumbling Stone.

Online Bible with Lots of helps: http://biblos.com

Free Bible Software, many commentaries, versions, maps, dictionaries: http://e-sword.net/

ROMANS NINE-INTRO BY REVIEW

2011-11-26T20:51:00.000-06:00

ROMANS CHAPTER NINE
INTRO BY REVIEW

Keywords:
Chap 1: Without Excuse
Chap 2: The Law Condemns
Chap 3: There is none righteous
Chap 4: Imputation/Logizomai
Chap 5: Headship/Representation
Chap 6: Mortification/Vivification
Chap 7: Who Shall Deliver
Chap 8: Spirit of Life
Chap 9: Election

Alternate Keywords:
Chap 1: The Indictment Begins (Rom 1:18)
Chap 2: The law instructs but provides no promise/enablement
Chap 3: All have sinned, Total Depravity
Chap 4: Counted Righteous
Chap 5: Two Adams, First Adam/Second Adam
Chap 6: Dying to Sin and Living to God
Chap 7: O’ Wretched Man that I am
Chap 8: No Condemnation/ No Separation
Chap 9: (there are 13 “flow words” )

Memory Verses - Extended Memory Verses
Rom 1:20 - Chap 1: Rom 1:20, Rom 1:1, Rom 1:8, Rom 1:16-20
Rom 2:13 - Chap 2: Rom 2:13, Rom 2:12-16
Rom 3:10 - Chap 3: Rom 3:10, Rom 3:10-12, 3:18, 3:21, 23 3:28-29
Rom 4:3   - Chap 4: Rom 4:3, Rom 4:23-25
Rom 5:19 - Chap 5: Rom 5:19, Rom 5:8, Rom 5:14
Rom 6:11 - Chap 6: Rom 6:11, Rom 6:1-3, Rom 6:22, Rom 6:23
Rom 7:24 - Chap 7: Rom 7:24, Rom 7:18, Rom 7:25
Rom 8:2   - Chap 8: Rom 8:2, Rom 8:1, 8:8-9, 8:28, or whole chapter
Rom 9:11 - Chap 9: Rom 9:11-16, Rom 9:6, 9:8, 9:20, 9:25

REVIEW:
Chapter One showing us that we were all WITHOUT EXCUSE. That what can be known of God has been made MANFEST IN us and shown to us by GOD. Even the invisible things of God being clearly understood ever since the creation of the world, from the things that are made, even his eternal power and GODHEAD. God is. Who can deny? No one! All are without excuse. As my little girl almost 10 years old at the time said, “There had to be someone that wasn’t made to make all that was made.”

Moving on to Chapter Two, we find that the there is no law to empower us unto the making of our own righteousness. No standard we can erect will ever serve to justify us in the end before a holy God. Having the standard is never enough we must from the first breath uphold all things perfectly and at all times, for it is not the hearers of the law that are just before God but the doers of the law that shall be justified. Again from the mouth of my little girls: “The law tells you what to do, but it doesn’t give you the power to do it.” And if we might assert “We had no standard to guide us, we had no law written on stone to show us the way, how can we then be judged?” We also learned that we evidence all the time the work of the law written on our hearts, we have a conscience, we look at the actions of one another and say approvingly ‘that was good’ or ‘that was bad.’ We have law enough, which if we sin without law we shall also PERISH without law. So then the Law cannot save us, but only condemn. The Law Condemns, either that law which the Jews were under or even which standard is a “work of the law written in our hearts.”

Then in Chapter Three, the case against us having already been made , yet there is more. We hear an argument from Holy Scriptures written long before the book of Romans. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” A number of scriptures are cited, humbling us, showing us our hopeless state without remedy in ourselves. Some of which are: Psa 14:1-3, Psa 53-13, Psa 5:9, Psa 140:3, Psa 10:7, Isa 59:7-8, Psa 36:1

The charges are numerous, our own inability plainly stated: “None that understands,” “none that seeks after God,” Everyone unprofitable, no one doing GOOD. My Throat like an open grave is a man-eater. (note: I said “my” not “their” for the difficulty for me is to see my own place in this dreadful list, to see these holy charges falling upon me, but they do if I attempt to stand on my own person, ability and goodness.) My tongue has used deceit, and the deadly poison of an asp is under my lips. Mouth full of cursing - (too well do I know that truth.) Destruction and misery in my way. Not knowing the way of peace with my wife, my fellow, my friend, and especially MY GOD. The one true cause of all the previously mentioned is summed all up in the greatest of all sins, “There is no fear of God before my eyes.” Had I feared God aright, my entire passion would be for him, my thoughts always running to him, I would have diligently read His book, prayed without ceasing, this Holy Fear would have flavored my every action. Fear that doesn’t cower but cries out “who do I have in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee.” Not the fear of cowardice but the Holy fear that COMES to God.

So the testimony being clear that there is NONE RIGHTEOUS, and we know also that the UNRIGHTEOUS shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. 1Co 6:9-11 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?

But if the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, and there is None righteous, not even me, where can I go? To whom should I flee, for I, having no righteousness of my own, am at a loss, a great and terrible loss, I with no goodness of my own by which I can enter heaven and stand before GOD. My heart cries out in earnest despair “What righteousness is there then by which I can stand in the day of Judgment?”

IMPUTED RIGHTOUSNESS - GLORIOUS AND EXCEEDINGLY GREAT GOOD NEWS - for what does the scriptures say: Rom 4:3 - Abraham believed God, and it was COUNTED unto him for righteousness. Surely the scriptures included Abraham when they said there is NONE RIGHTEOUS, and yet Abraham by God was COUNTED righteous. This gives me some hope. This is good news. Can I hope also like Abraham to believe God and by faith to be counted righteous?

Romans Chapter Four assures us that this is the very case:
Rom 4:23-25 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross in our place and for our sins. Jesus Christ having completed and satisfied in his LIFE and Death all that he set out to do, sin having no more hold on him, HE was raised again, having completed that work which was necessary for our justification.

TO US it shall be IMPUTED, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Nothing meritorious in our own faith, but faith the means or instrument which joins us to Christ who did what he did in our place.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS WE NEED IN ORDER TO STAND IN THE DAY OF JUDGMENT IS BY GOD IMPUTED TO US BY FAITH. So our keyword for Romans chapter four is IMPUTATION or the Greek word LOGIZOMAI.

But how can this work? How can the righteousness of another be reckoned or counted as being mine? The answer, REPRESENTATION or HEADSHIP being illustrated in Chapter Five with a comparison between the First Adam and the Second ADAM, Jesus Christ. Adam was a figure of him that was to come, he representing all that were in him. Because of the representative office of ADAM, when he sinned all that were in him were made sinners, he brought death upon all because he represented all. Jesus Christ also is the HEAD of his people and represented them in all he did both in his living perfectly for us as our head and in his dying in our place upon the cross. Through the obedience of our representative, Jesus Christ, many shall be made righteous.

CHAPTER SIX: So in imputation and headship we have VERY GOOD NEWS, so good in fact that some may bring the abuse either complaining about the gospel being too good and scornfully saying “Shall we continue to sin that Grace may abound?” Or rather finding grace so good thinking they see an allowance for sin - “Let’s sin that grace will abound.” But the answer is a horrified negation, “THIS CANNOT EVER BE.” We should think along these lines - that we are dead to sin and alive to God. We should be dying daily to sin and living unto God, free from sin to serve righteousness, Mortification and Vivification.

CHAPTER SEVEN describes how we find this dying to sin and living to God difficult. In us, that is in our own flesh there is no strength. Looking in ourselves we do not find the ability to do good. Sin yet remains. We still have flesh remaining within to contend with, and yet being born of God we have new desires, we cry out “O Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death - thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

CHAPTER EIGHT showing us that we are not left as orphans in this world to RUN in our own strength. The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. The description is given - believers walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. But when we, as described in chapter seven, find ourselves with flesh still remaining, an enemy that beats hard upon us this chapter shows that believers, all of them, are not in the FLESH but in the Spirit. The Spirit is life and peace, we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if it is true that the Spirit of God dwells in us. And if we do not have the Spirit of Christ then we are not Christians at all and we do not belong to Jesus. But being believers, we know that the Spirit of God dwells in us and knowing this let us who live in the Spirit also WALK in the Spirit. These fruits will follow, we can pray to this end, live for this goal, we will be mortifying the deeds of the flesh by the same Spirit who dwells in us. This Spirit will give us the nature of Children. We will cry out to God in the Spirit of Adoption, Abba Father. The chapter begins with “No Condemnation for those who are IN Christ.” And ends with NOTHING Can separate us FROM Christ. Contained within this chapter we found one of the sweetest of all verses for believers, declaring that GOD causes all things to work together for good. We found the Golden Chain that cannot be broken, and we concluded then that of course nothing can separate us - we cannot be condemned for God justifies and Christ died, and all the calamities and enemies that confront us cannot destroy us or separate us from Jesus Christ. His glory is at stake and he will lose none of his own. We are secure because we are IN him.

Wings to Fly: The law and the Gospel

2011-11-24T23:10:00.001-06:00

My son, sent me this poem by Ralph Erskine. He tells me it is from a much larger book by Erskine full of poems/sonnets. Or perhaps it is one long Sonnet, I'm not sure. If I ever find the book I hope to either own it or download to my tablet. Read carefully, Erskine has such insight. And think, doesn't this remind you so much of that other short snippet usually ascribed to John Bunyan but most likely by another John or perhaps even by Erskine. I'm speaking of "Run John Run The law commands, but gives us neither feet nor hands, far better news the gospel brings, it bids us fly and gives us wings." If you find the book by Erskine please let me know - I'll be grateful for sure. Happy Thanksgiving, I am confident you will read the following with thankful heart overflowing .

The law can crave no more, yet craves no less,
Than active, passive, perfect righteousness.
The legal path proud nature loves so well,
(Though yet 'tis but the cleanest road to hell)

Free grace by promises effects:
To what the law by fear may move,
To that the gospel leads by love
To run to work, the law commands;
The gospel gives me feet and hands:
The one requires that I obey;
The other does the pow'r convey.
What in the law has duty's place,
The gospel changes to a grace:

Law-threats and precepts both, I see
With Gospel-promises agree;
They to the gospel are a fence,
And it to them a maintenance

The righteous law condemns each man
That dare reject the gospel-plan;
The holy gospel none will save
On whom it won't the law engrave.

Observe, pray; for if here we err,
And do not Christ alone prefer,
But think the promise partly stands
On our obeying new commands;
Th' old cov'nant-place to works we give,
Or mingle grace with do and live

The gospel is the promise fair
Of grace all ruins to repair,
And leaves no sinner room to say,
Alas! this debt I cannot pay;
This grievous yoke I cannot bear,
This high demand I cannot clear.
The glorious gospel is (in brief)
A sovereign word of sweet relief;
Not clogg'd with cumbersome commands,
To bind the soul's receiving hands.
'Tis joyful news of sovereign grace
That reigns in state through righteousness

The law makes grace's pasture sweet,
Grace makes the law my sav'ry meat;
Yea, sweeter than the honey-comb,
When grace and mercy brings it home.

The precepts of the law me show
What fruits of gratitude I owe;
But gospel grace-begets the brood,
and moves me to the gratitude.

A rigid manner was the law,
demanding brick, denying straw;
But when with gospel tongue it sings,
It bids me fly, and gives me wings."
by Ralph Erskine

The above may have been collected from various parts of the book, "Gospel Sonnets" by Ralph Erskine. I added the breaks between verses as I saw most fitting - you may have done better.

Joyful Application of the Sovereignity of God

2011-11-01T18:20:00.001-05:00

At the beginning of last summer my fifteen year old daughter went on a short term missions trip to New Orleans with several other youth from our church. They worked with Urban Impact Ministries and Nola Fusion. click here to learn more about Urban Impact and Nola Fusion.

Upon return those who went gave an excellent report to the church body. My daughter put her experience in writing. Below is her words explaining her experience in New Orleans, some of the fears and unknowing she experienced, and how an understanding of the Sovereignty of God and how realizing all thing are for God's Glory worked to bring her joy and success during her time in New Orleans. (Note: on the night before my daughter left for New Orleans we learned from the Corps of Engineers that the Missouri River would rise and swell way beyond its banks rising three feet above the floor of our basement. The night before she left we evacuated our basement and two days later built a three foot levy guarding our walk in basement. While in New Orleans these things weighed on her mind and worked greater patient endurance than otherwise may have occurred. Although the flooding of the Missouri River lasted for over three months and the river rose over 21 feet beyond normal the levees built by the Corp, the County and the City all worked to hold the water at bay sparing our home and many others in our community though some dear neighbors lost home and land being on the wrong side of the levee.)

By the Grace of God my Fifteen Year Old's Joyful Application of the Sovereignty of God:

One verse that helped me throughout my trip to New Orleans was my favorite verse from Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Knowing that God had a purpose for me on this trip and that it would lead to God’s glory was a great comfort to me since I didn’t really know how the week was going to go.

I was a little overwhelmed when I saw all the poverty within five minutes of our drive to the yellow house.

We saw abandoned houses, broken windows, graffiti everywhere, gangs hanging around the city streets, and homeless people wandering around. I didn’t think I was going to see all that in only a couple of minutes. Then, just before we pulled into the yellow house I saw what I thought was a huge gang of kids hanging on the street just before we entered the yellow house, I quickly realized that it was just the other group of kids that came from NE. ;)

I had so many worries the first couple of days while I was in New Orleans. I didn’t know how the week was going to lay out, or how I was going to make friends and make my conversations glorifying to God, I was missing my family, and worried about our house, I wasn’t really sure how God was going to work in me during our stay, and I’ve never even done something like this before or even been away from my family for this long, so I didn’t have them to tell me what to think of everything that I was experiencing. Then we found out that we couldn’t call our families every night and I had to be separated into a group away from our church group and with a whole bunch of strangers for parts of the day. In my heart I was angry and frustrated about leaving our church group and having to be with this other group for a whole week!!

When we got back to our room that night I took time to lay down and think over everything that was going on. And talk to God about how I should take all this in. He reminded me that God put me here in New Orleans and in the purple group, and that it was wrong of me to be angry at where he has put me. I was put in the purple group to glorify God and that I should be glad and thankful for where God has put me. After that I was rejoicing knowing that he planned for me to be in that group and here in New Orleans and it gave me a sense of relief and a desire to take everything that came my way with joyfulness and thanksgiving because God is in control.

The week got better as it went, I started getting more comfortable with my team, and I loved getting to play and know the kids in New Orleans better! Although I missed my family and wanted to call them so desperately, I turned to God and was more dependent on Him. Whenever I was alone or was bothered by my thoughts I looked on Christ and remembered Romans 8:28. God gave me comfort and the words to say when I talked to some of the kids that I met. I got to share the gospel with two girls that I met with in New Orleans. One was a girl from the NE team and the other was from New Orleans. I was rejoicing when I got that opportunity to tell them the gospel and it made me so rejoiceful getting to share how good God is!

Through this trip God constantly reminded me of his sovereignty and how we are completely dependent on him. He gave me a peace that he was in control, even at home. I knew that if our house or my Dad’s work was flooded and if it was all taken away, it would be good. And I really realized that all my joy comes from God. When I’m at home it’s hard to realize that because I have parents to tell me how to do things, a nice bed, a good church, and all these comforts, but if it was all taken away would I still be happy. I got a little taste of that in New Orleans when I had some of that taken away, and God showed me that the only real joy I have comes from God. I did have a fun time getting to see all the kids in New Orleans, having good food,

music, games, seeing the French Quarter, getting to know all the interns, getting to know the kids in our youth better, hanging out with our leaders, but the only and real joy you have is doing it for the glory of God. He is our joy!

Now that I am back from New Orleans I’ve been thinking about all that happened and trying to let it soak in. I’ve always had a desire to be an overseas missionary and right now I’m praying to see where God wants me. I am still young and I know I have a lot more growing and maturing to do in the Lord, but God has a plan and he is still working in me and I pray that whatever happens until that day where I will be where God wants me that I will live for his Glory and continue having a deeper desire to know Him.

For more on the Youth Trip to New Orleans click here

Advice on the Imperatives

2011-09-09T09:03:00.001-05:00

Kevin DeYoung on his blog, DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed posted recently on "How to Make a Command Sink or Swim." Quoting two gentlemen from the 1600's he shows in sharp contrast two approaches to exhorting the Imperatives in Scripture.

His article:

One of the reasons we struggle with imperatives, is because they are not always handled wisely. For example, the Bible tells us plainly that we must pray (Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:17). Prayer is a requirement for the Christian and preachers are right to insist upon the practice. And yet, there is a way to make this command sink and a way to make it swim. Or perhaps I should say, there’s a way this command can make us sink or swim.
Consider two different exhortations to prayer. The first is from William Law (1686-1781) in A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life:

I take it for granted, that ever Christian, that is in health, is up early in the morning; for it is much more reasonable to suppose a person up early, because he is a Christian, than because he is a labourer, or a tradesman, or a servant, or has business that wants him. . . .
Let this therefore teach us to conceive how odious we must appear in the sight of Heaven, if we are in bed, shut up in sleep and darkness, when we should be praising God; and are such slaves to drowsiness, as to neglect our devotions for it.
For if he is to be blamed as a slothful drone, that rather chooses the lazy indulgence of sleep, than to perform his proper share of worldly business; how much more is he to be reproached, that would rather lie folded up in bed, than be raising up his heart to God in acts of praise and adoration! . . .
Sleep is such a dull, stupid state of existence, that even amongst mere animals, we despise them most which are most drowsy.
He, therefore, that chooses to enlarge the slothful indulgence of sleep, rather than be early at his devotions to God, chooses the dullest refreshment of the body; before the highest, noblest employment of the soul; he chooses that state which is a reproach to mere animals, rather than exercise which is the glory of Angels.

That’s one way to entice the believer to pray. Here’s another, this time from the Puritan Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680):

Mutual communion is the soul all true friendship; and a familiar converse with a friend hath the greatest sweetness in it . . . (so) besides the common tribute of daily worship you owe to (God), take occasion to come into his presence on purpose to have communion with him. This is truly friendly, for friendship is most maintained and kept up by visits; and these, the more free and less occasioned by urgent business, or solemnity . . . the more friendly they are . . . We use to check our friends with this upbraiding. “You still (always) come when you have some business, but when will you come to see me?” . . . When thou comest into his presence, be telling him still how well thou lovest him; labour to abound in expressions of that kind, that which . . . there is nothing more taking with the heart of any friend.

Which approach will serve you better over the long haul? I think we’d all opt for the second. The problem with the first quote is twofold: One, Law (no pun intended) insists with all his might on something that cannot be proven from Scripture (i.e., that we must get up early to pray). Two, he does not connect the biblical command to pray to the other biblical realities that would make us eager to pray. William Law makes me deathly afraid of the snooze bar. Thomas Goodwin makes me excited about prayer. Who wouldn’t want the happiness of drawing near to God? Who doesn’t delight to tell secrets and converse with a friend? Prayer will always be hard and will always take discipline, but when I see it as a means to communion with God, it feels more like a “get to” than a “have to.” I still need to hear the imperatives about prayer–and even feel convicted when I disobey them–but the indicatives of the gospel make me happy to hear the commands and eager to obey.

ht: Kevin DeYoung

John 1:1c Four Words, Perfectly ordered, perfectly chosen.

2011-05-25T19:54:00.004-05:00

THE WORD WAS GOD

THEOS EN HO LOGOS

One of the motivations spurring me onwards in the study of Koine Greek was a friend and Co-Worker. Let's just call him JW for this post. (Jehovah Witness) Certainly not my main or only motivation but one of them was his challenge to me that the phrase found in John 1:1c is only correctly translated in the New Word Translation as "and the word was a god." His contention is that the greek phrase: "kai theos en ho logos" lacks the definite article "ho" in front of the word theos. In other words without the "the" in front of "God" in the original language you must supply the indefinite article "a."

Even without an understanding of the Greek New Testament JW could easily be answered. Jesus prayed that Father would restore the glory he had with him before the world was. Yet in the OT we read that God will not share his glory with another. Thomas fell down and worshipped the resurrected Jesus Christ crying my Lord and my GOD. God is the creator of all things, Jesus declared to be the creator. I and the Father are one. You have seen the Father you have seen me. Before Abraham was I AM. Jesus is the high priest in Hebrews who is without beginning of days or end of life. God calls him God in Hebrews chapter 1. Demons acknowledge his deity. The JW position is ridiculous. They do greatly err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of GOD.

In John 1:1 c, God has given us four words so precise and in such perfect order as to at the same time destroy both arianism and sabellianism, and then uphold and reveal Trinitarian truth and then finally to gloriously proclaim the deity of Jesus Christ.

Theos -GOD
En - was

Ho - the

Logos - word

Literally in this order and word for word: "God was the word."

Had the word order been changed to "ho logos en theos" the JW could perhaps be justified in saying the best translation is "The word was a god."   We learned this in first year Greek.   Without the "ho" the beginning student would be required to supply the indefinite article "a or an." So as JW said "theos" should be "a god" unless there is more to the story, and there is. As will all serious studies, you don't learn everything you need to know in the first year.
So the word order, "ho logos en theos" supports arianism, the denial of the deity of Jesus Christ. But that is not the word order we find in John 1:1c.

What if the "ho" would have been supplied as the JW insists is necessary in order to show the deity of Jesus Christ as follows:

"Ho theos en ho logos."   Translated literally as "The God was the word." But this teaches sabellianism, the denial of the trinitarian doctrine of three distinct persons in the ONE Godhead. Sabellianism asserts that sometimes God is manifest as the Father and sometimes the Son and sometimes the Spirit. Maybe in progressive order but always asserting that The Father is the Son and the Son is the Spirit and the Spirit the Father. Sabellianism teaches that these are not three separate persons within the one Godhead but just different modes of appearing. "Ho theos en ho logos," teaches sabellianism because in Greek it says All that THE GOD is so also is THE SON. Everything about THE GOD is also about THE SON. THE GOD THE FATHER AND THE GOD THE WORD ARE ONE AND THE SAME no distinction of personhood allowed. But no "ho" in front of "theos" is found in John 1:1c for holy scriptures do not teach us Sabellianism.

Divinly Inspired and beautifully arranged these four words destroy arianism and sabellianism and declare plainly the full deity of the eternal Word, Jesus Christ.

Theos en ho logos, we identify the subject of the clause as logos because this word does have the definite article "ho" proceeding, so "ho logos", the word, is the subject of the clause.   "Theos", God, without the article but coming first in the clause for emphasis and according to good greek grammar asserting something about the quality or essence of ho logos, the word.   We have therefore plainly and correctly translated: "THE WORD WAS GOD." In very essence the word, Jesus Christ, was and is God.

FOUR WORDS perfectly chosen, perfectly arranged and ordered, and beautifully breathtaking, amazing divine verbal plenary inspiration!

Meet me at the Brook: Enjoy the Rap

2011-05-17T21:41:00.000-05:00

Enjoying the works of Thomas Brooks, and in view that he always reminds me to "meet me at the Brook" Mike sent me the following , Enjoy.

Drop that base line homie.

top of the morn to ya !

meet me @ tha brook,

scripture be given my flesh some left hooks,

I tried to fight my self, but the Spirit said go back to the book,

grabbed my bible and took a look,

opened up to isaiah 58, I was like yo, what a fresh stream,

the word be cuttin like a lazer beam, (nah I mean)

Then a thought occured to me, what a fool I be,

I love toilet water over the livin stream -

that flows from tha King He be,

man is there any help fo me,

the flesh brings death ta me,

drinkin from THA WELL brings life ya see.

if I could just-

find discipleship help,(whats this?)

swiped cat named Brooks off the shelf,

he discussed things that I felt,

his teachin be far reachin, steeped in holy writ,

unlike false teachas who only give ya a tid bit,

those wolfs who be thinkin they hot,

when they really not,

need stay away from the goats ,

I dont say this ta boast,

But if you want a fresh drink ,

somethin to make ya feel n think,

somethin that a make ya say ,

ooh false doctrine that stinks,

Caup a copy of the works of brooks ,

open up n take a look :)

Meet me at the Brook: Smooth Stones from Ancient Brooks

2011-05-09T18:10:00.011-05:00

Meet me at the Brook! That is meet me in a book by Thomas Brooks. I picked up a copy of Smooth Stones from Ancient Brooks. This book is a collection of sentences penned by Thomas Brooks and collected by Charles Spurgeon. For an excellent review of this book click here.

Consider Spurgeon's first choice:

Christ often takes the crown off his own head, and puts it upon the head of faith ; witness such passages as these, which are frequent in Scripture: "Thy faith hath saved thee," Luke 7:50. " Thy faith hath made thee whole," (Matthew, ix. 22). And no wonder that Christ crowns faith, for of all graces, faith takes the crown off a man's own head, and puts it upon the head of Christ.

Very helpful to me. Have you never wondered instead of ascribing to Faith, why didn't Jesus say, "I have made thee whole," or "I have saved thee?" Brooks answers for us pointing out that Faith will take the crown off my head and because my whole dependence relies on him - nothing on me - Faith crowns CHRIST. Christ the object of my faith. Faith removes the crown from my head and properly exalts Christ the supreme. Faith takes from me and falls upon JESUS. No Faith in faith here. Faith is set upon Jesus not upon self. Jesus be crowned.

Meet me at the Brook...... Rom 8:28

2011-05-07T16:24:00.000-05:00

My good brother in Christ, Mike, quite often sings a little ditty as he meets me in the hallway of our work. He sings, "meet me at the Brook." That's all, the whole song. "Meet me at the Brook." Short, but I LOVE IT. Mike's words and tune sometimes continuously ring in my head so catchy is the tune and so wonderful the subject to which he refers. There is a kind of a RAP sound to it. Mike is referring not to some stream somewhere but actually to the puritan, Thomas Brooks. Mike owns the Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. Very cool. I have only Precious Remedies and now Spurgeon's, Smooth Stones from Ancient Brooks. Last I spent time with Mike we poured through the index and volumes of the Complete Works, and found the following on Romans 8:28. Having read this little excerpt several times now I commend it wholly for your consideration.

Twelfthly and lastly, If thou art a holy person, if thou art one that hast that real holiness without which there is no happiness, then know for thy comfort that all things shall work together for thy good: Rom. viii. 28, 'And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.' All the afflictions, and all the temptations, and all the desertions, and all the oppressions, and all the oppositions, and all the persecutions that befalls a godly man shall work for his good, Rev. ii. 10. Every cross, every loss, and every disease that befalls the holy man shall work for his good; every device, every snare, every method, every depth, every stratagem, and every enterprise of Satan against the holy man shall work for his good ; they shall all help to make him more humble, more holy, more heavenly, more spiritual, more faithful, more fruitful, and more watchful, 2 Cor. xii. 9, 10; every day of prosperity, and every night of adversity shall work for the holy man's good ; every storm and every calm, every bitter and every sweet, every cross and every comfort, shall work for his good that is holy, Hosea ii. 5-7. When God gives a mercy, that shall work for his good ; and when God takes away a mercy, that shall work for his good; when God gives him large commons, that shall work for his good; and when God cuts his commons short, that shall work for his good ; yea, and all the falls and all the sins of the saints shall work for their good. As I get hurt by my graces, so I get good by my sins, said famous Mr. Foxe. Oh the care, the fear, the watchfulness, the tenderness, the zeal, the revenge, that God raises in the souls of his saints by their very falls! 2 Cor. vii. 8-13. Oh the hatred, the indignation, and the detestation that God raises in the hearts of his children against sin, by their very falling into sin! Oh what love to Christ, what thankfulness for Christ, what admiration of Christ, what cleaving to Christ, what exalting of Christ, and what drawing from Christ, are saints led to by their very falls! Oh what exercise of grace, what increase of grace, what magnifying of grace, what liftings up of divine power, and what a high price are holy men led to set upon the precious blood of Christ, and all by their falls! It is the glory of God's holiness that he can turn spiritual diseases into holy remedies, and soul poisons into heavenly cordials; that he can prevent sin by sin, and cure falling by falling. One calls that 8th of the Romans and the 28th verse the blind man's promise; and I may call it the lame man's promise that is holy, and the deaf man's promise that is holy, and the dumb man's promise that is holy, and the needy man's promise that is holy, and the sick man's promise that is holy, and the languishing man's promise that is holy, and the dying man's promise that is holy. Oh the comfort, oh the sweet, oh the content, oh the satisfaction that this promise hath afforded to many a precious saint, when other promises have not been at hand! Christian, what though friends and relations frown upon thee, what though enemies are plotting and conspiring against thee, what though wants, like an armed man, are ready to break in upon thee, what though men rage and devils roar, what though sickness be in thy family, and death stands every day at thy elbow, yet there is no reason for thee to fear or faint, because all these things shall work for thy good. Yea, there is wonderful cause of joy and rejoicing in all the afflictions and tribulations that comes upon thee, considering that they shall all work for thy good. Christians! I am afraid, I am afraid, that you do not run so often as you should to the breasts of this promise, nor draw that sweetness and comfort from it that it would yield, and that your several cases may require. And thus I have done with this use of comfort and consolation to all God's holy ones. You see what comfort, what consolation, yea, what strong consolation, waits upon all God's sanctified ones. I have been the longer upon this use, because the times require it, and the condition of God's people calls for the strongest cordials, and the choicest and the sweetest comforts. click here to read online - Note also the that I have added links to the complete Works of Thomas Brooks over on the right of this blog.

Reading the Classics Together at Challies.com

2011-05-06T18:41:00.001-05:00

Excitement afoot! There's a new opportunity to read a book! Tim Challies has announced an upcoming READ-THE-CLASSICS-TOGETHER project over on his blog. Several times I've particpated in Challies' reading group, reading a few classics myself including: Mortification of Sin by Owen, Spurgeon by Dallimore, Seven Last Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross by Pink, Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray. The experience is valuable. Challies' reviews, the multitude of comments from various co-readers, and the thinking required to make a comment of your own all contribute to gaining more than normal when reading a book.

But what book will Challies choose? How does Challies choose? I don't know. He made a suggestion, Robert Murray M’Cheyne by Andrew Bonar. But then asked, "what do you want?" The responses? Wow, amazing interest. Everybody wants to read a book. Reading through the comments there are some great suggestions. By far the most requested is Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen. But
it's Tim's blog, not a democracy, so we'll have to wait and see what title wins out. If it is Machen, I'm in.

I was really amazed at all the wonderful and truly Classic suggestions.

Some of the other titles with repeated requests are:

Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther
Life Together by Bonhoeffer
Confessions by Augustine
Institutes by John Calvin
Sovereignity of God by Pink
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

All great choices. Waiting excitedly to see which book wins. As of 6:15pm on 5/6/11 there are 112 comments all expressing their own hopes for the next book for Reading the Classics Together.

click here to read Tim Challies' post

BLOG COMMENDATION: From Russia With Love

2011-05-04T19:00:00.043-05:00

I'd like to bring another wonderful blog to your attention - From Russia with Love. The blog is authored by Natalie, wife of Jon and mother of "Jojo" and "Nay-nay." Not only can I call them my friends but also by God's grace we have a sense that we labor together with them. We here in the in the states, praying and supporting - They in Russia building up the church of God in Jesus Christ.

At Natalie's blog you can learn about life in Russia, raising the boys on the mission field, Jon's work as a professor enabling him to prepare future pastors and men to be leaders in the Church of God.

I heartily recommend their blog, encourage you to follow along, and hold them up in prayer before God.

I was given opportunity to thank God for From Russia With Love this evening while watching Cecile B. DeMille's, Ten Commandments. As we watched, my daughters and I were discussing some of the same events. We did note, that though this is a wonderful movie, more wonderful tonight watching for the first time in High Definition, yet there is a great deal added, facts misconstrued, and often of more concern motivations misunderstood. As we discussed, I asked my 13 yr old, how did you learn and how do you know so well the history of the events in Exodus. She quoted most wondefully from Natalie's blog saying,"Don't you read From Russia with Love? How does Josiah learn, but by listening and paying attention to his own parents and what they teach and discuss together. Didn't Natalie write concerning the events of Easter: " It's amazing how much Josiah remembers throughout his few years about these stories." Having my own daughter quote Natalie, I'd like to say thanks Natalie and Jon, for your friendship, for your work in Russia, and for your influence even in my own childrens' lives. Click here for Celebrating Passion Week and the above quote.

Natalie explains her blog and life in Russia:

My husband and I have been married since July 1, 2000. We have two cute boys, Josiah and Nathan. My family brings me so much joy, but I posses a deeper joy in knowing the Lord and Savior. Aside from the free gift of salvation, my husband is the best gift the Lord has blessed me with. He loves God with his whole heart, soul, mind,and strength. We live in Russia because it has been our desire to be involved in missions from the time we were married. My husband helps prepare men to be the future pastors and church leaders of Russia . Even though living in Russia is not easy there really is no other place I would rather be serving our Lord. My children are also a great joy in my life and without them I don't know what we would do every day!

I'm not sure which of the posts I enjoyed most, but I think it was a recent series which Natalie completed in March 2011, describing with words and pictures the history of their beginning time in Novosibirsk, Russia.

Click here or for the Novosibirsk series: Novosibirsk

Pilgrim's Progress: Christian speaks to Temporary's Faith

2011-05-02T19:05:00.025-05:00

Last we gave you Hopeful's take on why Temporary only had a temporary Faith, now Christian further elaborates by explaining the VERY ROOT cause, then he goes on to ENUMERATE nine things describing the manner of this turning back of Temporary. Here we can learn a GREAT DEAL that we may be watchful against turning back, and watchful against such practices that lead to turning back. Remember the word that says: Be diligent to make your calling and election sure.

Christian: You are pretty near the business, for the bottom of all is for want of a change in their mind and will. And therefore they are but like the felon that standeth before the judge: he quakes and trembles, and seems to repent most heartily, but the bottom of all is the fear of the halter: not that he hath any detestation of the offence, as it is evident; because, let but this man have his liberty, and he will be a thief, and so a rogue still; whereas, if his mind was changed, he would be otherwise.

How plain is that? You must have your mind changed. Though Temporary seems to repent, seeming to repent is no repentance at all. For repentance is a change of mind, and such a change of mind that affects the whole man. Fearing only hell is not a changed mind. Don't be like the criminal begging forgiveness and expressing sorrow when what he really hates is the electric chair and not those sins that brought him to this point.

Now what does this turning back look like? How is it accomplished? What is the manner thereof?

Hopeful: Now I have showed you the reason of their going back, do you show me the manner thereof.

Christian: So I will willingly.

1. They draw off their thoughts, all that they may, from the remembrance of God, death, and judgment to come.

2. Then they cast off by degrees private duties, as closet prayer, curbing their lusts, watching, sorrow for sin, and the like.

3. Then they shun the company of lively and warm Christians.

4. After that, they grow cold to public duty, as hearing, reading, godly conference, and the like.

5. They then begin to pick holes, as we say, in the coats of some of the godly, and that devilishly, that they may have a seeming color to throw religion (for the sake of some infirmities they have espied in them) behind their backs.

6. Then they begin to adhere to, and associate themselves with, carnal, loose, and wanton men.

7. Then they give way to carnal and wanton discourses in secret; and glad are they if they can see such things in any that are counted honest, that they may the more boldly do it through their example.

8. After this they begin to play with little sins openly.

9. And then, being hardened, they show themselves as they are. Thus, being launched again into the gulf of misery, unless a miracle of grace prevent it, they everlastingly perish in their own deceivings.

In brief here it is summarized from above:
Try not to think about it, and little by little leave off those things designed to help you to heaven. Do not keep company with serious on fire believers. Little by little becomes easier to avoid regular church attendance, to avoid learning and hearing the preaching of the word. Pick on the true believers, they have faults enough, find them and it will make it easier to leave the whole thing behind. Associate not with true believers but hearty sinners, do some things sinful in secret and then more and more openly.

SO I think the OPPOSITE SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED that we would maintain and Strengthen our VERY real and grace given Faith and so I enumerate:

1. Spend much time thinking of GOD, Death and Judgment to Come. Will this not make sweeter and more precious the one who has bore all judgment in your place?

2. Keep up private duties and don't neglect them. ie. Secret praying, denying fleshly lusts and watching against them, confessing your sins in true godly sorrow.

3. Seek out especially the company of RED-HOT Believers who love to engage you in spiritual conversation and demonstrate by their lives the power of the gospel. Associate most with those who will bring you up.

4. Keep up the attendance to public praying and preaching.

5. Look for the best in your brothers, their imperfections are easy enough to find , but remember that you have been forgiven much and much more for Jesus Sake. Remembering how much you have been forgiven you will not magnify what you discover in your brother.

6. Associate NOT with Carnal men to participate in their fleshly lusts.

7. Don't do in secret or discuss in secret that which will bring reproach to Jesus Christ in Public.

8. Allow not even little sins in public but keep your body under subjection, fight the good fight, and count holiness of life a precious thing to be sought.

9. Rejoice much in the great miracle of grace which God has abundantly graced upon you and causing you to turn from darkness to light.

Pilgrim's Progress: Hopeful Speaks to Temporary's Faith

2011-05-01T19:00:00.031-05:00

We pick up with Christian and Hopeful discussing for their own spiritual well-beingt how it is that Temporary could turn BACK having once begun the pilgrim way. Hopeful gives us Four reason:

1. Though the consciences of such men are awakened, yet their minds are not changed: therefore, when the power of guilt weareth away, that which provoked them to be religious ceaseth; wherefore they naturally turn to their own course again; even as we see the dog that is sick of what he hath eaten, so long as his sickness prevails, he vomits and casts up all; not that he doth this of a free mind, (if we may say a dog has a mind,) but because it troubleth his stomach: but now, when his sickness is over, and so his stomach eased, his desires being not at all alienated from his vomit, he turns him about, and licks up all; and so it is true which is written, “The dog is turned to his own vomit again.” 2 Pet. 2:22. Thus, I say, being hot for heaven, by virtue only of the sense and fear of the torments of hell, as their sense and fear of damnation chills and cools, so their desires for heaven and salvation cool also. So then it comes to pass, that when their guilt and fear is gone, their desires for heaven and happiness die, and they return to their course again.

2. Another reason is, they have slavish fears that do overmaster them: I speak now of the fears that they have of men; “For the fear of man bringeth a snare.” Prov. 29:25. So then, though they seem to be hot for heaven so long as the flames of hell are about their ears, yet, when that terror is a little over, they betake themselves to second thoughts, namely, that it is good to be wise and not to run (for they know not what) the hazard of losing all, or at least of bringing themselves into unavoidable and unnecessary troubles; and so they fall in with the world again.

3. The shame that attends religion lies also as a block in their way: they are proud and haughty, and religion in their eye is low and contemptible: therefore when they have lost their sense of hell and the wrath to come, they return again to their former course.

4. Guilt, and to meditate terror, are grievous to them; they like not to see their misery before they come into it; though perhaps the sight of at it first, if they loved that sight, might make them fly whither the righteous fly and are safe; but because they do, as I hinted before, even shun the thoughts of guilt and terror, therefore, when once they are rid of their awakenings about the terrors and wrath of God, they harden their hearts gladly, and choose such ways as will harden them more and more.

To Sum it up in our own words:

1) When the fear of damnation subsides he returns to the SINS which he formerly enjoyed. Take note of the grotesque detail of Bunyan describing the DOG returning to his own VOMIT.

2) When it is fear of MEN that causes you to run for Heaven that to will pass and you will turn back.

3) Shame that attends religion. Never be ashamed. You will and may be tempted by family, friends, workers, and employers to avoid their censorious looks, thoughts and opinions. But Temporary because of this Shame turns back.

4) Guilt and Terror are not pleasant thoughts. Why think of Hell before you come to it? If you can silence this then you can once again return to the vomit - to harden more and more your own heart.

PERSECUTED CHURCH - Mother sentenced to Death for the Name of Jesus

2011-04-30T19:00:00.005-05:00

Please remember this sister in prayer, Asia Bibi, a wife, a mother and a believer, in Jesus Christ. I heard of her case from recent news reports and learned more in detail From Voice of the Martyrs website where we read:

Asia Bibi, the wife and mother who was imprisoned and charged with blasphemy in June 2009, was sentenced to death on Nov. 7, 2010, according to Asia News.

Please Pray!
Pray that Asia Bibi and her family will find comfort and peace in the Lord. Pray that her sentence will be overturned, and pray for a repeal of the blasphemy law that has been abused repeatedly to cause undue
harm to many Christians.

Asia’s husband, Ashiq Masih, and their children are constantly on the run in Pakistan due to death threats. Other vocal supporters of amending the blasphemy law have had to flee the country because of threats to them and their families.

You can learn more about Asia Bibi, how to pray, and how to intercede in her behalf with the Pakistan Government on the Voice of the Martyr's Website:

http://www.persecution.com - Search for "Asia Bibi" to find several VOM articles.

Asia Bibi's Husband and daughters pictured below when she was first arrested in 2009.

Pilgrim's Progress: The man named Temporary

2011-04-29T19:00:00.020-05:00

Back when I first read Pilgrim's Progress and times prior, I struggled with the concept of "Eternal Security" or "Once Saved Always Saved." I remember as I read through Pilgrim's Progress, being struck by the realization that John Bunyan didn't really portray those doctrines in the characters within his book. In fact, as I read, I begin to realize Bunyan allowed for a Temporary Faith. Nothing of this "I-led-him-in-the-sinners-prayer-myself-thus-he-is-once-saved-always-saved" in Bunyan. Bunyan did certainly embrace eternal election. Bunyan understood that salvation is of the Lord and not a matter of man's personal decision. Bunyan could affirm the security of the believer but grounded it fully upon the WORK of Jesus Christ and the eternal electing-love of God and not the mere decision or will of a sinner. At first intrigued, but then so thankful was I, to have Bunyan express the Fulness of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Bunyan expressed truly a Grace that makes a man something he wasn't before, that causes a man to be no longer what he was. I realize today that this really is everywhere found in the Holy Scriptures, and all the time preached by those who understand them correctly. But back then, as far as I could tell, Decisional-Regeneration ruled the day, and I had no voice to tell me otherwise except by the grace that caused me to keep reading, keep looking, keep seeking to understand and make sense of it all.

AND SO, still walking through the enchanted ground we pick up the conversation between our two hero's Christian and Hopeful as they consider the case of the man named TEMPORARY.

Christian: Well then, did you not know, about ten years ago, one Temporary in your parts, who was a forward man in religion then?

Hopeful: Know him! yes; he dwelt in Graceless, a town about two miles off of Honesty, and he dwelt next door to one Turnback.

Christian: Right; he dwelt under the same roof with him. Well, that man was much awakened once: I believe that then he had some sight of his sins, and of the wages that were due thereto.

Hopeful: I am of your mind, for (my house not being above three miles from him) he would oft-times come to me, and that with many tears. Truly I pitied the man, and was not altogether without hope of him; but one may see, it is not every one that cries, “Lord, Lord!”

Christian: He told me once that he was resolved to go on pilgrimage, as we go now; but all of a sudden he grew acquainted with one Save-self, and then he became a stranger to me.

OBSERVATIONS:
Temporary was "a forward man in religion." Back then says Christian, you could mark him as a RELIGIOUS MAN and a man who was very OPEN About it.

Hopeful knew him, and if the truth be told, Temporary actually lived in a town named GRACELESS. And through the name of this town we know that this open and very religious man was actually without GRACE!

The man, Temporary, did have "some sight of his sins" and even some understanding of "the wages that were due thereto."

Temporary came often to HOPEFUL with "many tears." And as my eleven year old pointed out, Hopeful was true to his own name and "was not altogether without hope of him."

BUT the scriptures tell us "not every one that cries, "Lord, Lord!" Mat 7:21

And Christian lastly says, Temporary spoke of being resolved or decided to become a Christian himself, but then all of the sudden he turned back.

Lord willing, in a future post, we can see some of the reasons why Temporary had only a temporary faith.

PERSECUTED BROTHERS and SISTERS IN CHINA

2011-04-28T19:00:00.010-05:00

I'm Praying to Pray: "GOD give more grace to pray for my sisters, for my brothers in the persecuted church. More grace to pray for those suffering for Jesus Sake in China."

You can read a great deal more about persecution of Christians in China on the Voice of the Martyrs Website: http://www.persecution.com

Plus click here for VOM articles about China:

At Voice of the Martyrs you can also read the following telling us about China and how it is considered a Restricted Nation:

China was declared the People’s Republic of China in 1949 by Chairman Mao Zedong, who quickly sought to purge society of anything religious. In recent years, living standards have improved in urban areas while little has changed in the countryside, promoting discontent. Political controls remain tight. The human rights record in China is one of the worst in the world. Its system of “re-education through labor” detains hundreds of thousands of people each year in work camps without a court hearing. In Tibet, an autonomous region within China, Christians are trapped between the oppression of Buddhism and the oppression of communism. On May 8, 2009, after the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended China remain on the U.S. Department of State’s list of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry said the report was “an attempt to smear China.” Each year, China forcibly repatriates around 4,000 refugees to North Korea — where they face imprisonment, torture and even execution.

Category: Restricted Nation
Religion: Non-Religious/Other 49.58%, Chinese 28.50%, Christian 7.25%
Ideology: Communism
Head of State: President Hu Jintao

More Christians are in prison or under detention in China than in any other country. House churches (unregistered churches), which make up approximately 90 percent of China’s Christians, endure unimaginable persecution. But they stand by their commitment to preach the gospel, no matter the cost. In Tibet, most of the persecution against Christians comes from militant Tibetan Buddhists. On Feb. 11, 2009, Chinese authorities arrested 60 house church leaders, including two South Korean pastors who were attending a seminar in Wolong district, Henan province. Police
officers disrupted the meeting, arrested the Christians and confiscated phones, books and money. Authorities forced the believers to register with the government and pay a fine. Elderly believers were released, but the South Korean pastors were deported three days later for “engaging in illegal religious activities.” They have been banned from entering the country for five years. Other house church Christians remain in detention, and several churches have been forced to close or relocate.

THE PERSECUTED CHURCH of CHINA

2011-04-27T19:00:00.010-05:00

Albert Mohler wrote about the Persecuted Church in China this week on His Blog. Persecution that is taking place right in Beijing and right out in the open. Read about here, and note the excerpt I include below:

Evicted yet again from its meeting place by the authorities, Shouwang announced this month that its congregants would worship outside rather than disband or go back underground. Its demands were straightforward but bold: allow the church to take possession of the space it had legally purchased. Officials responded with a clenched fist. On Sunday, for the second week in a row, the police rounded up scores of parishioners who tried to pray outdoors at a public plaza. Most of the church’s leadership is now in custody or under house arrest. Its Web site has been blocked.

......

Shouwang’s latest troubles began again three years ago, shortly after its application for official recognition was denied. Officers from the Beijing Public Security Bureau burst into Sunday services, pronounced the gathering illegal and wrote down the personal details of everyone in the room, one by one. In the days that followed, calls were made to congregants’ employers or college administrators. Many congregants say they were threatened with dismissal from jobs or school if they did not switch to an official church. Some left, but Shouwang’s ranks continued to grow.

Let's pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ - Let's remember them that are in Bonds. Let's pray that their faith will remain steadfast in the midst of great adversity.

Finally hear what this brother said, as quoted also by Albert Mohler:

One Shouwang member spoke with Christian courage. He told The New York Times, even as his doorway was blocked by police: “I am fully prepared to go to jail for my church. I belong to the Lord, and if this is what God intended, so be it.”

Unto Him We Live: God's Work of Grace in Adoption

2011-04-26T05:00:00.000-05:00

UNTO HIM WE LIVE

There are a handful of incredible blogs I'm blessed to read on a regular basis. One of those which really challenges me, teaches me, wounds me, rejoices my heart, and stands as an example is Unto Him We Live.

Unto Him We Live is a family blog, and you will have opportunity to read posts by both Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who are the parents, as well as many insightful posts by several of their children. But I want especially to draw your attention to those posts that speak specifically to adoption.

Check out especially this post, describing how after 5 1/2 months since coming home with the Beavers from Russia, little Oksana is beginning by wonderful grace to put three words together in English - Praise the LORD, Hallelujah. Reading this you will be praising and rejoicing: A Helen Keller Kinda Week

And this post where we get a little glimpse of the POWER OF GOD as we read of the transformation of a little orphan girl into a beautiful believer in Jesus Christ: Transformation

And then this post really challenged me last Father's Day. We read of this young ladies love and appreciation for her Father, and find ourselves called to higher and holier Fathering to the Glory of God. 51 reasons why Tatiana Loves her Dad, called DEAR DADDY.

Actually as I page back through all the posts at "Unto Him We Live" with the label "Adoption" I'm hard pressed to pick out only a select few. I strongly encourage you to go back to the beginning of their blog, which started just over 1 year ago, on April 15, 2010 with this post discussing the possible halting of Russian Adoption: click here, and read the entire story and then keep reading as this work of God's Grace continues. Thanking God to have such friends.

To see All posts with the Label Adoption: Click here

Friendships in the Family

2011-04-24T19:00:00.038-05:00

I love my kids! I delight to see them enjoy sweet friendship with one another. The quote below reminds me not to take such family-love for granted. Care is required - WE MUST WIN one another's Love inside the home doors!! Good counsel and good exhortation to me as Father, to seek to cultivate such love within the home. I fear I've often failed through neglect - but other times I rejoice to see and hope that sibling friends in our home are best friends. The lack of Family Friendships is wounding but the practice and display of GODLY brotherly love between brothers and sisters towards each other works to the GLORY OF GOD. God give us more of this daily!

“In every home where there are brothers and sisters, there is a field which needs only wise, patient culture—to yield life’s richest and loveliest things. Are we cultivating this field or is it lying neglected, covered, perhaps, with weeds and thorns, while we are spending all our strength in trying to make harvests grow on some bare, rocky hillside?…

Friendships in the family require care and culture—as do other friendships. We must win one another’s love inside the home doors just as we win the love of outside friends. We must prove ourselves worthy; we must show ourselves unselfish, self forgetful, thoughtful, and kind, tender, patient, helpful. Then when we have won each other we must keep the treasure of affection and confidence, just as we do in the case of friends not in the sacred circle of home.”
J.R. Miller , 1882 (source)

HT: Becky -- thank you Becky for the great example.

Young and Married

2011-04-23T18:10:00.016-05:00

I have been BLESSED with some incredible friends who write WONDERFUL Blogs. As a means of expressing my appreciation for the efforts they put forth I've added a "Great Blogs To Follow" listing to the right. Plus today I want to draw your attention to a wonderful new blog called, Young and Married. I encourage you to go check it out. Their purpose statement especially captured my attention because by the Grace of God in our house we do Love Marriage:

"...we live in a culture which strongly encourages couples to wait until much older to be married and frowns upon those who desire to marry young. We wish to turn this notion upside down and show that not only can a young couple survive when married young, but thrive. We also wish to encourage young men and women to pursue marriage if God is calling you to it, and not to wait, merely because it is culturally acceptable."

Pilgrim's Progress: Ignorance Falls Behind

2011-04-22T08:50:00.000-05:00

Now having had dialog with Ignorance for some time - Ignorance making his Confession of a Fantasy, False and Deceptive Faith - Christian and Hopeful making a good explanation of the True Gospel including in wonderful summary who Jesus IS - The son of God from all eternity manifest in the flesh, and what HE has DONE: Living and Dying and Raised again as our substitute and representative, in whose righteousness we are covered and will be safe and spotless on the judgment day - Ignorance having no stomach for anymore GOOD NEWS falls behind saying as follows:

Ignorance: You go so fast I cannot keep pace with you; do you go on before: I must stay a while behind.

Then they said,

“Well, Ignorance, wilt thou yet foolish be,
To slight good counsel, ten times given thee?
And if thou yet refuse it, thou shalt know,
Ere long, the evil of thy doing so.
Remember, man, in time: stoop, do not fear:
Good counsel, taken well, saves; therefore hear.
But if thou yet shalt slight it, thou wilt be
The loser, Ignorance, I’ll warrant thee.”

I REALLY ENJOY THE POETRY of John Bunyan. Perhaps it because having invested so much in the Pilgrim's Progress these poems are full of meaning. I suggest READ the above poem ALOUD and you to will find it wonderful.

Pilgrim's Progress: Revelation - Awaking from a dream

2011-04-21T19:00:00.002-05:00

Today Ignorance reviles Hopeful and Christian at the very thought of REVELATION from Heaven. Note in this:
1) The mocking of the unenlightened worldling.
2) The absolute necessity of Revelation
3) The comfort of believing as the result of God's revealing.

We open up with Hopeful directing Christian to address Ignorance thus:

Hopeful: Ask him if ever he had Christ revealed to him from heaven.

Not waiting for Christian to speak, Ignorance, mockingly with incredulous disbelief, utter disgust, a kind of "HUH - what in the world are you thinking you complete moron" which is directed back at Christian and Hopeful. The very idea of God revealing from heaven is beyond the pale of any acceptability in the eyes of ignorant Ignorance.

Note the words of Ignorance but also try to get the awful sentiments.

Ignorance: What! you are a man for revelations! I do believe, that what both you and all the rest of you say about that matter, is but the fruit of distracted brains.

HE MOCKS!

As I tried with my most disgusted voice and screwed up facial expressions to impersonate the mocking of Ignorance this morning my 11 year old asked: "What are Revelations"

I tried to explain that before we come to faith in Christ we are dead but God resurrects us to a living faith. We were blind but God opened our eyes. That except God awaken us we sleep on in ignorance. We must be born again.

With all solemnity, my eleven year explained some thinking she had lately been contemplating:

"For sometime now I'd been thinking how before I became a Christian it was like I was in a dream. You know how when you are in a dream you try to think things and they seem to make sense to you but really they are not quite right. But because you are dreaming you think in your dream that they are right. That's how I was before I was saved, like I was in a dream thinking I was thinking right when I really wasn't. It was just dream thinking that was really confused thinking. But then when I was saved it was like waking up from a dream. Now I thought about things in the right way. I was no longer in a dazed dream way of thinking but awake to the truth. My thinking is now right. I can see now, how before I was saved that thinking that seemed right then wasn't. I had woke up from the dream to reality."

Thanks be to God, Christ has been revealed to her from heaven. She has woken up from the dazed dream state of not really knowing to a delicious reality in Christ. Knowing truth for he is TRUTH.

Ignorance mocks at revelation, but except for the grace of revelation there is no knowing him.

Mat 11:27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

1Co 12:3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

Eph 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
Eph 1:19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

Read on as Bunyan through the lips of our Heroes responds to such mocking ignorance.

Hopeful: Why, man, Christ is so hid in God from the natural apprehensions of the flesh, that he cannot by any man be savingly known, unless God the Father reveals him to him.

Ignorance: That is your faith, but not mine, yet mine, I doubt not, is as good as yours, though I have not in my head so many whimsies as you.

Christian: Give me leave to put in a word. You ought not so slightly to speak of this matter: for this I will boldly affirm, even as my good companion hath done, that no man can know Jesus Christ but by the revelation of the Father: yea, and faith too, by which the soul layeth hold upon Christ, (if it be right,) must be wrought by the exceeding greatness of his mighty power (Matt. 11:27; 1 Cor. 12:3; Eph. 1:17-19), the working of which faith, I perceive, poor Ignorance, thou art ignorant of. Be awakened, then, see thine own wretchedness, and fly to the Lord Jesus; and by his righteousness, which is the righteousness of God, (for he himself is God,) thou shalt be delivered from condemnation.

Pilgrim's Progress: Ignorance Protests Imputed Righteousness

2011-04-20T19:00:00.002-05:00

Previously we saw Ignorance make his Confession and Christian respond by demonstrating the faith described by Ignorance as Fantasy, False and Deceitful. In making his response Christian made no empty denouncements but along with them made also gospel declarations. And because the gospel is such good news Ignorance protests as follows:

Ignorance: What! would you have us trust to what Christ in his own person has done without us? This conceit would loosen the reins of our lust, and tolerate us to live as we list: for what matter how we live, if we may be justified by Christ’s personal righteousness from all, when we believe it?

As we read this my 15 year old quoted Rom 6:1, "Shall we continue in sin that Grace may abound?"

How would answer Ignorance at this point? True the gospel is so good, Chris has indeed in his own person done without us. But is it true that "this conceit" as Ignorance terms, will lead us into all lust. Does the gospel truly understood free us to all kinds of SIN?

And we also answer as in Romans 6:2, NO, GOD FORBID, May it never be! How can we that are dead to sin live any longer therein. Even at the indeed of his book, does Bunyan repeatedly address also this matter of sanctification on gospel terms.

My 11 year old this morning reminded us that Though the law shows us very well what we must do it does not give us the ability to do it. The law condemns but it does not save.

How Christian responds to Ignorance's Protest:
Christian: Ignorance is thy name, and as thy name is, so art thou: even this thy answer demonstrateth what I say. Ignorant thou art of what justifying righteousness is, and as ignorant how to secure thy soul, through the faith of it, from the heavy wrath of God. Yea, thou also art ignorant of the true effects of saving faith in this righteousness of Christ, which is to bow and win over the heart to God in Christ, to love his name, his word, ways, and people, and not as thou ignorantly imaginest.

I love it all, but note especially this word: "thou also art ignorant of the true effects of saving faith in this righteousness of Christ, which is to bow and win over the heart to God in Christ, to love his name, his word, ways, and people, and not as thou ignorantly imaginest."

The Answer lies in this: "the true effects of saving faith."

Saving Faith is effectual in the life of the believer. We believe because we have been born again. And being born-again we are new creations in Christ Jesus. We live from new principals. The Spirit of the Living God indwells us now, and He works in us both to WILL and TO DO of his good pleasure. Phil 2:9.

Ignorance says: "This gospel is too good, believe that and there will be nothing to restrain you from all manner of loose-living, sin, and high treason. HOW IGNORANT is Ignorance to the true effects of saving faith! How can we who are dead to sin live any longer therein?"

Pilgrim's Progress: Part 3 Ignorance's Confession and Christian's Response

2011-04-18T14:33:00.001-05:00

Christian has been making a good response to Ignorance's Confession of Faith. Previously we saw that the Faith of Ignorance as described by his own confession was both FANTASY for not founded upon the word of God and FALSE for it takes away from the justification based upon the personal righteousness of Jesus Christ and instead applies it to our own. And further it is False for it makes Christ not the justifier of the person but of his works and then the works the justifier of the person. Now as a final point Christian shows this faith is a DECEPTIVE FAITH.

Christian: How dost thou believe?

Ignorance: I believe that Christ died for sinners; and that I shall be justified before God from the curse, through his gracious acceptance of my obedience to his laws. Or thus, Christ makes my duties, that are religious, acceptable to his Father by virtue of his merits, and so shall I be justified.

Christian: Let me give an answer to this confession of thy faith.

1. Thou believest with a fantastical faith; for this faith is nowhere described in the word.

2. Thou believest with a false faith; because it taketh justification from the personal righteousness of Christ, and applies it to thy own.

3. This faith maketh not Christ a justifier of thy person, but of thy actions; and of thy person for thy action’s sake, which is false.

4. Therefore this faith is deceitful, even such as will leave thee under wrath in the day of God Almighty: for true justifying faith puts the soul, as sensible of its lost condition by the law, upon flying for refuge unto Christ’s righteousness; (which righteousness of his is not an act of grace by which he maketh, for justification, thy obedience accepted with God, but his personal obedience to the law, in doing and suffering for us what that required at our hands;) this righteousness, I say, true faith accepteth; under the skirt of which the soul being shrouded, and by it presented as spotless before God, it is accepted, and acquitted from condemnation.

This Faith is deceitful for in the great day of judgment you will still be under the wrath of GOD and will not stand but fall. True Justifying faith covers one in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and thus covered we will be spotless before God, ACCEPTED and Acquitted from condemnation.

And so Ignorance's confess of Faith thus shown to be described a:
FANTASY FAITH,
FALSE FAITH,
and DECEIVING FAITH

Ignorance is not done yet - he has a couple of remaining arguments which we consider in the next post, Lord willing.

Octavius Winslow: Intercession of the Holy Spirit

2011-04-17T19:00:00.003-05:00

Below is an extract from Octavius Winslow's Book, No Condemnation, describing what is meant in Romans 8:26 in the interceding work of the Holy Spirit. Click here to read the whole chapter on v. 26

"We know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." The Holy Spirit is here represented in the character of a pleader, or advocate for the saints. To form a vivid conception of this truth, we have but to imagine an anxious and embarrassed client prosecuting some important suit, or, perchance, battling for his life in a court of justice. At his side stands his counselor, thoroughly acquainted with the nature of his case, and deeply versed in the bearings of the law. He is there to instruct the suppliant how to shape his course, with what arguments to support, with what pleas to urge, with what words to clothe his suit. Such is the advocacy and such the aid of the Spirit in the matter of prayer. We stand in the presence of the Lord- it may be to deprecate a deserved punishment, or to plead for a needed blessing. "We know not what we should pray for as we ought." How shall we order our cause before the Great Judge? With what feelings, with what language, with what arguments shall we unburden our heart, unveil our sorrow, confess our sin, and make known our request? How overcome the remembrance of past ingratitude, and the conviction of present guilt, and the pressure of deep neediness, and the overwhelming sense of the Divine Majesty? How wake the heart to feeling, how rouse the dull, sluggish emotions of the soul, how recall the truant affections, and how concentrate the mind upon the holy and awesome engagement? But our Counselor is there!

"The Spirit itself makes intercession for us." And how does he this? He indites the prayer. Think not that that spiritual petition which breathed from your lips and rose as an incense-cloud before the mercy-seat was other than the inditing of the Holy Spirit. He inspired that prayer, he created those desires, and he awoke those groanings. The form of your petition may have been ungraceful- your language simple, your sentences broken, your accents tremulous, yet was there an eloquence and a power in that prayer which reached the heart and moved the arm of God. It overcame the Angel of the Covenant. And whose eloquence and whose power was it? The interceding Spirit. He also teaches us what to pray for. Many and urgent as our needs are, we only accurately know them as the Spirit makes them known. Alas, what profound ignorance of ourselves must we cherish when we know not what we should ask God for as we ought! But the Spirit reveals our deep necessity, convinces us of our emptiness, poverty, and need, and teaches us what blessings to ask, what evils to deprecate, what mercies to implore.

Pilgrim's Progress: Part 2: Ignorance's Ignorant Confession and Christian's Response

2011-04-16T19:00:00.000-05:00

First Christian points out that Ignorance has a Fantasy Faith not founded upon the word. Now consider points 2 and 3 where Christian shows easily it also a False Faith.

Christian: How dost thou believe?

Christian: Let me give an answer to this confession of thy faith.

1. Thou believest with a fantastical faith; for this faith is nowhere described in the word.

2. Thou believest with a false faith; because it taketh justification from the personal righteousness of Christ, and applies it to thy own.

3. This faith maketh not Christ a justifier of thy person, but of thy actions; and of thy person for thy action’s sake, which is false.

IN POINT 2:

This confession is False for it described a faith that takes from being justified by the personal righteousness of Christ and instead describes being justified by your own personal righteousness. Though it adds that your works are made acceptable by the virtue of Christ it cannot be escaped that it is the works that are themselves the righteousness upon which acceptance is found.

IN POINT 3 shown FALSE:

Further the faith described by Ignorance is shown to be a FALSE FAITH because in his confession JESUS CHRIST IS NOT THE JUSTIFIER of the PERSON BUT OF HIS WORKS. And then the Person is actually Justified by the WORKS. This sounded so much like New Perspective theology whereby one is justified not by the imputed righteousness of Christ but on the basis of the whole life lived that I wanted to put a picture of N.T. Wright at the top of my post.

Bunyan says it so well as he shows the falsness of this ignorant Faith: "This faith maketh not Christ a justifier of thy person, but of thy actions; and of thy person for thy action’s sake, which is false."

Christ is the justifier of the person. Take this away and you have a false faith. Worse yet in Ignorance's system work's are the grounds of one's acceptance and entrance into heaven. Christ justifies the works says Ignorance and these works then justify the person. When reading Ignorance's Confession, I actually missed this. So thankful then was I when Bunyan made it so plain, and so applicable to a whole host of false system with this confession of Ignorance at their very core. ie. Federal Vision, Roman Catholicism, New Perspective, Ignorant beleivers in a multitude of ignorant churches - GOD HAVE MERCY.

The Intercession of the Spirit - Rom 8:26

2011-04-15T19:00:00.001-05:00

Samuel Bloomfield in Recensio Synoptica (see links to all the volumes of Recensio Synoptica at the right) explains the intercessory work or advocacy of the Holy Spirit of God as we read in Rom 8:26 as follows:

In order, however, more clearly to comprehend this little understood point of Christian Theology, especial attention must be paid to the primitive sense of entugxanein and intercedere, which is, " to go between any two persons, to manage any one's business with another." Now this may be done in various ways; either by acting as Speaker, and Advocate, or as Pleader, (which last office belongs to our Saviour), or (as is that of the Holy Spirit) suggesting the best means of accomplishing any business; and therefore aiding and acting uper hmwn, on our behalf, or (to use an illustration drawn from human affairs) as a Solicitor or Attorney acts on behalf of another, by suggesting to him what is proper for him to say, and putting him in the right way to proceed
in any business. And it is truly observed by Taylor, that " the Spirit of God makes intercession for the Saints, not by making supplication to God in their behalf, but by directing and qualifying their supplications in a proper manner, by his agency and influence upon their hearts; which, according to the Gospel scheme, is the peculiar work and office of the Holy Spirit." And I would add, that this answers to the description of the Paraclete, or Holy Spirit, Joh. 14, 16 & 17., by which is meant Teacher, Helper, Comforter. (See the Dissertation there on the sense of Paraclete.) Click here for Recensio Synoptica Rom 8:26
Click here for Summary concerning Recensio Synoptica

Pilgrim's Progress: Part 1: Ignorance's Ignorant Confession and Christian's Response

2011-04-14T14:11:00.002-05:00

To Ignorance's Confession of Faith Christian responds by describing his Faith as follows:

FANTASY FAITH
FALSE FAITH
DECEIVING FAITH

Christian's response is FULL OF TRUE GOSPEL and very instructive. My girls and I enjoyed very much pondering in detail the truths contained within.

Christian: How dost thou believe?

Christian: Let me give an answer to this confession of thy faith.

1. Thou believest with a fantastical faith; for this faith is nowhere described in the word.

FANTASY FAITH - the word does not describe a faith of this kind as you have ignorantly declared. That we enter into heaven for reason that our WORKS are MADE acceptable is not found within Holy Writ. This is a fantasy faith having no solid foundation in the word of God.

We are reminded to ground all our Faith upon the Eternal Word of God alone.
Tit 3:5-6
Eph 2:8-9
2Tim 3:16-17

Pilgrims Progress: Christian's reponse to the Ignornant Confession

2011-04-13T19:00:00.002-05:00

Christian and Hopeful traveling through the Enchanted Ground have joined up with Ignorance. Through a time of questions and answers which have culminated in Ignorance's own ignorant confession, we now come to Christians response.

Christian: How dost thou believe?

Christian: Let me give an answer to this confession of thy faith.

1. Thou believest with a fantastical faith; for this faith is nowhere described in the word.

2. Thou believest with a false faith; because it taketh justification from the personal righteousness of Christ, and applies it to thy own.

3. This faith maketh not Christ a justifier of thy person, but of thy actions; and of thy person for thy action’s sake, which is false.

I would like to point out something I noticed reading this time through the Pilgrim's Progress. WE are now Almost at the end of the book. For from the Enchanted Ground we enter Beulah Land, and from Beulah Land we cross the river and enter the Celestial City. WE ARE ALMOST THERE! Only a few pages remain, only a short distance to go. Yet, I note, John Bunyan, our dreaming allegorist, has at the end of his book taken several occassions now to plainly assert the gospel of Jesus Christ who is himself our righteousness. Plainly and repeatedly in these last pages have we read of the Representative Office of Jesus Christ, of Jesus's own Righteousness imputed to us who believe. -- DOES THIS UNDERLINE FOR YOU, as it does for me, that we NEVER out grow the gospel. We never move beyond it. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation at the beginning of our walk and ongoing and even up to the very end as we cross the river to the Celestial City.

And so we should learn to, Preach the Gospel to ourselves everyday.

Holy War and the Intercession of the Spirit in Rom 8:26

2011-04-12T19:00:00.001-05:00

Teaching from Roman 8 verse 26, I was reminded of something I read from John Bunyan's Holy War around 24 years past. This passage from Holy War very wonderfully illustrates what is meant by the Intercession of the Spirit in Roman 8:26. For we should understand not that the Spirit himself prays for us, pleading for us, which is the office of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. But rather, he is the intecessor or advocate who teaches us both what-we-ought-to-pray and in what-manner-we-should-pray. Christ is our advocate IN heaven with the Father. The Holy Spirit is the advocate who is WITH us. 1John 2:1 and John 14:16

In Bunyan's allegory, Holy War, the LORD Chief Secretary, is the allegorical representation of the person of the HOLY SPIRIT. Read below first some necessary background and then Bunyan himself allegorically expressing the truth contained in Romans 8:26 concerning the intercession of the Spirit of God.

AN ILLUSTRATION FROM JOHN BUNYAN’s BOOK, HOLY WAR:
Some background:
Because of former rebellion and allegiances with Diabolus, the city of Mansoul has long been under his harsh rule. The people of the city now longing to come to Emmanuel, plead with him for forgiveness, seeking him as the Saviour of their city, they send out petitions for help and forgiveness. But time and again these petitions are refused, unheard and unreceived. It comes to their attention that the only proper way to offer up a letter to Prince Emmanuel is to have the Lord Chief Secretary make out the petition, who is in allegory the Holy Spirit of God. And so we pick up the story:

CHAPTER 15

After the town of Mansoul had been in this sad and lamentable condition for so long a time as I have told you, and no petitions that they presented their Prince with, all this while, could prevail, the inhabitants of the town, namely, the elders and chief of Mansoul, gathered together, and, after some time spent in condoling their miserable state and this miserable judgment coming upon them, they agreed together to draw up yet another petition, and to send it away to Emmanuel for relief. But Mr. Godly-Fear stood up and answered, that he knew that his Lord the Prince never did nor ever would receive a petition for these matters, from the hand of any whoever, unless the Lord Secretary’s hand was to it; ‘and this,’ quoth he, ‘is the reason that you prevailed not all this while.’ Then they said they would draw up one, and get the Lord Secretary’s hand unto it. But Mr. Godly-Fear answered again, that he knew also that the Lord Secretary would not set his hand to any petition that himself had not an hand in composing and drawing up. ‘And besides,’ said he, ‘the Prince doth know my Lord Secretary’s hand from all the hands in the world; wherefore he cannot be deceived by any pretence whatever. Wherefore my advice is that you go to my Lord, and implore him to lend you his aid.’ (Now he did yet abide in the castle, where all the captains and men-at-arms were.)

So they heartily thanked Mr. Godly-Fear, took his counsel, and did as he had bidden them. So they went and came to my Lord, and made known the cause of their coming to him; namely, that since Mansoul was in so deplorable a condition, his Highness would be pleased to undertake to draw up a petition for them to Emmanuel, the Son of the mighty Shaddai, and to their King and his Father by him.

Then said the Secretary to them, ‘What petition is it that you would have me draw up for you?’ But they said, ‘Our Lord knows best the state and condition of the town of Mansoul; and how we are backslidden and degenerated from the Prince: thou also knowest who is come up to war against us, and how Mansoul is now the seat of war. My Lord knows, moreover, what barbarous usages our men, women, and children have suffered at their hands; and how our home-bred Diabolonians do walk now with more boldness than dare the townsmen in the streets of Mansoul. Let our Lord therefore, according to the wisdom of God that is in him, draw up a petition for his poor servants to our Prince Emmanuel.’ ‘Well,’ said the Lord Secretary, ‘I will draw up a petition for you, and will also set my hand thereto.’ Then said they, ‘But when shall we call for it at the hands of our Lord?’ But he answered, ‘Yourselves must be present at the doing of it; yea, you must put your desires to it. True, the hand and pen shall be mine, but the ink and paper must be yours; else how can you say it is your petition? Nor have I need to petition for myself, because I have not offended.’

He also added as followeth: ‘No petition goes from me in my name to the Prince, and so to his Father by him, but when the people that are chiefly concerned therein do join in heart and soul in the matter, for that must be inserted therein.’

So they did heartily agree with the sentence of the Lord, and a petition was forthwith drawn up for them.

Pilgrim's Progress: Ignorance's Confession and the Meaning of Words

2011-04-12T07:30:00.001-05:00

We have been studying the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith as a group of brothers every Tuesday morning and it has been wonderful. Not moving too fast but carefully considering each chapter and each point. IN the Main we are affirming all that we read and we are often taken to depths of understanding that we had previously not known.

With this post I want to present to you Ignorance's own confession of faith in response to Christian's probing and tactical question, "How dost thou believe?" I would remind us of how only a few paragraphs back. Ignorance made his own affirmation of justification by faith when he said:

Ignorance: Do you think that I am such a fool as to think that God can see no further than I; or that I would come to God in the best of my performances?

Christian: Why, how dost thou think in this matter?

Ignorance: Why, to be short, I think I must believe in Christ for justification.

Now, though Ignorance uses such good words here, more important than words is the MEANING Assigned to them. The meaning becomes quite clear as Ignorance answers the question, "HOW DOST THOU BELIEVE?"

Christian: How dost thou believe?

"I believe that Christ died for sinners." -- words that are true when invested with the correct meaning. But this morning as my three little girls and I discussed, it was the 13 year old who said in answer to my question, "Does Ignorance speak truth here or error when he says, "I believe that Christ died for sinners," 13 yr old said, "he speaks falsely, for though the words are true what he MEANS by them is not really that Christ died for sinners. He doesn't mean it in the true way."

"and that I shall be justified before God from the curse," The same goes for the second part, though the words are true when meant in the true way, Ignorance understands them to mean something quite different from the truth.

What does Ignorance mean when he says, "I believe that Christ died for sinners and that I shall be justified before God from the curse?"

This question is answered in the remainder of Ignorance's Confession of Faith:

Ignorance says, I am justified... "through his gracious acceptance of my obedience to his laws."

Q. But Ignorance says "gracious" isn't Ignorance affirming that we are saved by GRACE in this statement?
A. Though Ignorance speaks of grace it is not the grace that saves. For Ignorance speaks not of being saved by Grace apart from works but GRACE that accepts my works. Grace that makes MY WORKS the grounds of acceptance.

And finally, further does the meaning of IGNORANCE's words become clear and how though they were RIGHT WORDS they had WRONG MEANING as he confesses:
"Christ makes my duties, that are religious, acceptable to his Father by virtue of his merits, and so shall I be justified."

Q. But Ignorance says it is by VIRTUE of the MERITS of Christ by which I am justified. Is that not a true statement.
A. NO, the statement is false though part of the words are true their meaning is FALSE. For Ignorance makes the merit of Christ the justifier of my WORKS -- Not my PERSON. The grounds of Justification in the eyes of Ignorance is my own works which are made acceptable by the merits of Christ. YET it is my WORKS says HE that are the grounds by which I shall be justified.

Lord willing, in our next post we will consider Christian's answer to this IGNORANT CONFESSION OF FAITH.

Rom 8:26 - Intercession of the Spirit

2011-04-11T19:10:00.001-05:00

I am experimenting with a website I recently discovered whose purpose is to enhance one's study of the Holy Scriptures by providing access to many versions and commentaries and other resources.

I encourage you to check out http://biblos.com.

Realizing the difficulty of grasping what is meant in Romans 8:26 as the Interceding Work of the Holy Spirit, I gathered together some of the comments I found on the same at biblos.com.

Click here for biblos's search results on Rom 8:26.
King James Bible
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

BARNES NOTES:
Maketh intercession - The word used here ὑπερεντυνγχάνει huperentungchanei, occurs no where else in the New Testament. The word ἐντυνγχάνω entungchanō, however, is used several times. It means properly to be present with anyone for the purpose of aiding, as an advocate does in a court of justice; hence, to intercede for anyone, or to aid or assist in any manner. In this place it simply means that the Holy Spirit greatly assists or aids us; not by praying for us, but in our prayers and infirmities.

JOHN GILL:
...but the Spirit itself maketh intercession, for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered; not the spirit of a man; or the gift of the Spirit in man; or a man endued with an extraordinary gift of the Spirit; but the Holy Ghost himself, who makes intercession for the saints: not in such sense as Christ does; for he intercedes not with the Father, but with them, with their spirits; not in heaven, but in their hearts; and not for sinners, but for saints: nor in the manner as Christ does, not by vocal prayer, as he when on earth; nor by being the medium, or way of access to God; nor by presenting the prayers of saints, and the blood and sacrifice of Christ to God, as Christ does in heaven; nor as the saints make intercession for one another, and for other persons: but he intercedes for them, by making them to intercede; he indites their prayers for them, not in a book, but in their hearts; he shows them their need, what their wants are; he stirs them up to prayer, he supplies them with arguments, puts words into their mouths, enlarges their hearts, gives strength of faith in prayer, and all the ardour and fervency of it; he enables them to come to God as their Father; and gives them liberty and boldness in his presence, which requires an heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, faith in the blood and righteousness of Christ, and a view of God, as a God of peace, grace, and mercy: and this intercession he makes, "with groanings which, cannot be uttered"; not that the Spirit of God groans, but he stirs up groans in the saints; which suppose a burden on them, and their sense of it: and these are said to be "unutterable"; saints, under his influence, praying silently, without a voice, as Moses and Hannah did, 1 Samuel 1:13, and yet most ardently and fervently; or as not being able to express fully what they conceive in their minds, how great their burdens are, and their sense of their wants.

Geneva Study Bible:
(h) Incites us to pray, and tells us as it were within, what we will say, and how we will speak.

PEOPLE'S NEW TESTAMENT:

But the Spirit itself. The Spirit himself (Revised Version). Observe the climax: The creation groans; we ourselves groan; the Spirit himself groans. The Spirit within us intercedes by groaning which are his, in that they are prompted by the Spirit. Augustine says:

It is not in himself, nor in the substance of the Eternal and Blessed Trinity that he groans, but in us because he makes us groan.''

Groanings which cannot be uttered. Speechless groanings.

Wesley's Notes:
We know not - Many times. What we should pray for - Much less are we able to pray for it as we ought: but the Spirit maketh intercession for us - In our hearts, even as Christ does in heaven. With groanings - The matter of which is from ourselves, but the Spirit forms them; and they are frequently inexpressible, even by the faithful themselves.

JOHN CALVIN:
But the Spirit himself intercedes, [266] etc. Though really or by the event it does not appear that our prayers have been heard by God, yet Paul concludes, that the presence of the celestial favor does already shine forth in the desire for prayer; for no one can of himself give birth to devout and godly aspirations. The unbelieving do indeed blab out their prayers, but they only trifle with God; for there is in them nothing sincere, or serious, or rightly formed. Hence the manner of praying aright must be suggested by the Spirit: and he calls those groanings unutterable, into which we break forth by the impulse of the Spirit, for this reason -- because they far exceed the capability of our own minds. [267] And the Spirit is said to intercede, not because he really humbles himself to pray or to groan, but because he stirs up in our hearts those desires which we ought to entertain; and he also affects our hearts in such a way that these desires by their fervency penetrate into heaven itself. And Paul has thus spoken, that he might more significantly ascribe the whole to the grace of the Spirit. We are indeed bidden to knock; but no one can of himself premeditate even one syllable, except God by the secret impulse of his Spirit knocks at our door, and thus opens for himself our hearts.

EDITOR to JOHN CALVIN'S COMMENTARY:
"Intercedit -- huperentunchanei -- abundantly intercedes," for so huper, prefixed to verbs, is commonly rendered. This is the proper action of an advocate, a name given to the Spirit by our Savior, allon parakleton -- "another advocate," not "comforter," as in our version, and Christ is called by the same name in 1 John 2:1, and the same work, "interceding," is ascribed to him, Hebrews 7:25. But we learn in John 14:16, that the Spirit is an advocate with us -- "that he may abide with you for ever;" and in 1 John 2:1, that Christ is an advocate in heaven -- "with the Father." The same name and a similar kind of work are ascribed to both. Some, as Doddridge, to avoid the blending the offices of the two, have rendered the verb here by a different term, but not wisely. -- Ed.

Pilgrims Progress: Ignorance, Christian and Tactics

2011-04-09T12:29:00.005-05:00

To the right in the center of the picture is IGNORANCE. We have heard from him before in our Pilgrim's Progress. Let's pick up in our story as Christian and Hopeful wait up for this solitary traveler.

I saw then in my dream, that Hopeful looked back, and saw Ignorance, whom they had left behind, coming after. Look, said he to Christian, how far yonder youngster loitereth behind.

Christian: Aye, aye, I see him: he careth not for our company.

Hopeful: But I trow it would not have hurt him, had he kept pace with us hitherto.

Christian: That is true; but I warrant you he thinketh otherwise.

Hopeful: That I think he doth; but, however, let us tarry for him. (So they did.)

Then Christian said to him, Come away, man; why do you stay so behind?

Ignorance: I take my pleasure in walking alone, even more a great deal than in company, unless I like it the better.

Sometime back my two oldest daughters (14 and 22 yrs at the time) and I read together a book called TACTICS by Greg Koukl.

One of the main TAKE-AWAYS for us in reading TACTICS was the realization of how effective questions can be in furthering the conversation, and furthering the GOAL of making the TRUTH Known.

See below, the questions posed by our our HEROES, which I have Highlighted in red, and in which BUNYAN effectively illustrates TACTICS and Question-Posing's similar to those described in Koukl's book in the conversations between Christian, Hopeful and Ignorance, who are yet in the Enchanted Grounds. (whew - that's a long sentence.)

Christian: Come, how do you do? How stands it between God and your soul now?

Ignorance: I hope, well; for I am always full of good motions, that come into my mind to comfort me as I walk.

Christian: What good motions? Pray tell us.

Ignorance: Why, I think of God and heaven.

Christian: So do the devils and damned souls.

Ignorance: But I think of them, and desire them.

Christian: So do many that are never like to come there. “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing” (Prov. 13:4).

Ignorance: But I think of them, and leave all for them.

Christian: That I doubt: for to leave all is a very hard matter; yea, a harder matter than many are aware of. But why, or by what, art thou persuaded that thou hast left all for God and heaven?

Ignorance: My heart tells me so.

Christian: The wise man says, “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool” (Prov. 28:26).

Ignorance: That is spoken of an evil heart; but mine is a good one.

Christian: But how dost thou prove that?

Ignorance: It comforts me in hopes of heaven.

Christian: That may be through its deceitfulness; for a man’s heart may minister comfort to him in the hopes of that thing for which he has yet no ground to hope.

Ignorance: But my heart and life agree together; and therefore my hope is well-grounded.

Christian: Who told thee that thy heart and life agree together?

Ignorance: My heart tells me so.

Christian: “Ask my fellow if I be a thief.” Thy heart tells thee so! Except the word of God beareth witness in this matter, other testimony is of no value.

Ignorance: But is it not a good heart that hath good thoughts? and is not that a good life that is according to God’s commandments?

Christian: Yes, that is a good heart that hath good thoughts, and that is a good life that is according to God’s commandments; but it is one thing indeed to have these, and another thing only to think so.

Ignorance: Pray, what count you good thoughts, and a life according to God’s commandments?

Christian: There are good thoughts of divers kinds; some respecting ourselves, some God, some Christ, and some other things.

Ignorance: What be good thoughts respecting ourselves?

Christian: Such as agree with the word of God.

Ignorance: When do our thoughts of ourselves agree with the word of God?

Christian: When we pass the same judgment upon ourselves which the word passes. To explain myself: the word of God saith of persons in a natural condition, “There is none righteous, there is none that doeth good.” It saith also, that, “every imagination of the heart of man is only evil, and that continually” (Gen. 6:5; Rom. 3). And again, “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21). Now, then, when we think thus of ourselves, having sense thereof, then are our thoughts good ones, because according to the word of God.

Ignorance: I will never believe that my heart is thus bad.

Christian: Therefore thou never hadst one good thought concerning thyself in thy life. But let me go on. As the word passeth a judgment upon our hearts, so it passeth a judgment upon our ways; and when the thoughts of our hearts and ways agree with the judgment which the word giveth of both, then are both good, because agreeing thereto.

Ignorance: Make out your meaning.

Christian: Why, the word of God saith, that man’s ways are crooked ways, not good but perverse; it saith, they are naturally out of the good way, that they have not known it (Psa. 125:5; Prov. 2:15; Rom. 3:12). Now, when a man thus thinketh of his ways, I say, when he doth sensibly, and with heart-humiliation, thus think, then hath he good thoughts of his own ways, because his thoughts now agree with the judgment of the word of God.

Ignorance: What are good thoughts concerning God?

Christian: Even, as I have said concerning ourselves, when our thoughts of God do agree with what the word saith of him; and that is, when we think of his being and attributes as the word hath taught, of which I cannot now discourse at large. But to speak of him with reference to us: then have we right thoughts of God when we think that he knows us better than we know ourselves, and can see sin in us when and where we can see none in ourselves; when we think he knows our inmost thoughts, and that our heart, with all its depths, is always open unto his eyes; also when we think that all our righteousness stinks in his nostrils, and that therefore he cannot abide to see us stand before him in any confidence, even in all our best performances.

Ignorance: Do you think that I am such a fool as to think that God can see no further than I; or that I would come to God in the best of my performances?

Christian: Why, how dost thou think in this matter?

Ignorance: Why, to be short, I think I must believe in Christ for justification.

Christian: How! think thou must believe in Christ, when thou seest not thy need of him! Thou neither seest thy original nor actual infirmities; but hast such an opinion of thyself, and of what thou doest, as plainly renders thee to be one that did never see the necessity of Christ’s personal righteousness to justify thee before God. How, then, dost thou say, I believe in Christ?

Ignorance: I believe well enough, for all that.

Christian: How dost thou believe?

ASKING QUESTIONS - that I by grace might learn to ASK more questions. I think Christian accomplished as much and much more with the asking of questions than ever he could have only making declarations. Though Ignorant remains ignorant still - I did note that eventually even Ignorant asked such questions as enabled Christian to instruct him truthfully.

I see that in spiritual conversations much good can come from effectively asking questions. We learn better where the lack truly lies, we gain the attention of our audience more effectively, we actually show more respect by striving to really understand the one with whom we are conversing. When we are discussing spiritual things with an unbeliever we have TRUTH and RIGHT on our side and so by asking a good question we place a burden of proof on the one who is truly in the wrong -- which helps them to see also they really have no grounds for what they mistakenly and sinfully believe.

READ AGAIN THE QUESTIONS FROM ABOVE and see if maybe you find some helps there for yourself to further along spiritual conversations in which you may soon be engaged.
How stands it between God and your soul now?
What good motions?
But why, or by what, art thou persuaded that thou hast left all for God and heaven?
But how dost thou prove that?
Who told thee that thy heart and life agree together?
Why, how dost thou think in this matter?
How, then, dost thou say, I believe in Christ?
How dost thou believe?

With the last question we will leave off, and with my thinking that Ignorance's answer of this last leads to some most wonderful gospel-insight as described by Christian, I hope next time to discuss the same.

Click here for a TACTICS book review by Tim Challies.
Click here for a TACTICS blog tour.

Going through the River

2011-04-04T22:01:00.006-05:00

Death, for the believer in Christ, is the wonderful entrance into the presence of Jesus Christ. Yet it is a journey into what we only see by faith. How the journey will commence we do not know exactly. The greatness of the other side we know by faith but not sight. In his book, Help Heavenward, by Octavius Winslow there is an analogy somewhat related to this certain but unknown journey.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW:

A father and mother were living with their two children on a desert island in the midst of the ocean, on which they had been shipwrecked. Roots and vegetables served them for food, a spring supplied them with water, and a cavern in the rock with a dwelling. Storm and tempest often raged fearfully on the island.

The children could not remember how they had reached the island; they knew nothing of the vast continent; bread, milk, fruit, and whatever other luxury is yielded there, were things unknown to them.

There landed one day upon the island four Moors in a small boat. The parents felt great joy, and hoped now to be rescued from their troubles; but the boat was too small to take them all over together to the adjoining land, so the father determined to risk the passage first.

Mother and children wept when he embarked in the boat with its frail planks, and the four black men were about to take him away. But he said, “Weep not! It is better yonder, and you will all follow soon.”

When the little boat returned and took away the mother, the children wept still more. But she also said, “Weep not! In the better land we shall all meet again.”

At last came the boat to take away the two children. They were frightened at the black men, and shuddered at the fearful sea over which they had to pass. With fear and trembling they drew near the land. But how rejoiced they were when their parents appeared upon the shore, offered them their hands, led them into the shade of lofty palm-trees, and regaled upon the flowery turf with milk, honey, and delicious fruits. “Oh, how groundless was our fear!” said the children; “we ought not to have feared, but to have rejoiced when the black men came to take us away to the better land.”

“Dear children,” said their father, “our voyage from the desert island to this beautiful country conveys to us a yet higher meaning. There is appointed for us all a still longer voyage to a much more beautiful country. The whole earth, on which we dwell, is like an island. The land here is, indeed, a noble one in our eyes, although only a faint shadow of heaven. The passage hither over the stormy sea is—death; that little boat resembles the bier, upon which men in black apparel shall at some time carry us forth. But when that hour strikes, then we, myself, your mother, and you, must leave this world. So fear not. Death is, for pious men who have loved God, and have done His will, nothing else but a voyage to the better land.”

Pilgrim's Progress: The Just God Justly Justifies

2011-03-21T21:20:00.005-05:00

Can you sing with our good friend Hopeful, O' for a 1000 Gallons of Blood to Spill...please read on for explanation.

Fearful of falling asleep in the Enchanted Ground, Christian and Hopeful discuss Hopeful's conversion. Christian now directs Hopeful to explain specifically how the Gospel effected his Spirit, "This was a revelation of Christ to your soul indeed. But tell me particularly what effect this had upon your spirit."

Hopeful answers firstly:
"It made me see that all the world, notwithstanding all the righteousness thereof, is in a state of condemnation. -- The WHOLE WORLD IS CONDEMNED.

The secondly:

"It made me see that God the Father though he be just, can justly justify the coming sinner."

Great sentence, the JUST GOD can JUSTLY JUSTIFY the COMING-SINNER! How can this be? How can God be JUST and YET JUSTIFY JUSTLY THE UNJUST?

For answer to this we look back in the conversation where first we see a number of scriptures linked together naturally by Hopeful as he lays out the Gospel he was bidden to believe:
"...as I thought, I saw the Lord Jesus looking down from heaven upon me, and saying, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Acts 16:31. But I replied, Lord, I am a great, a very great sinner: and he answered, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” 2 Cor 12:9. Then I said, But, Lord, what is believing? And then I saw from that saying, “He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst,” John 6:35, that believing and coming was all one; and that he that came, that is, that ran out in his heart and affections after salvation by Christ, he indeed believed in Christ. Then the water stood in mine eyes, and I asked further, But, Lord, may such a great sinner as I am be indeed accepted of thee, and be saved by thee? And I heard him say, “And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.” John 6:37. Then I said, But how, Lord, must I consider of thee in my coming to thee, that my faith may be placed aright upon thee? Then he said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” 1 Tim 1:15. He is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. Rom 10:4, and chap. 4. He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification. Rom 4:25. He loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Rev 1:5. He is the Mediator between God and us. 1 Tim 2:5. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. Heb 7:25. "

Oh I HOPE YOU are still reading along BECAUSE I truly want you to CATCH NOW THE EXPLANATION HOPEFUL MAKES and the CONCLUSION HE DRAWS:
"From all which I gathered, that I must look for righteousness in his person, and for satisfaction for my sins by his blood: that what he did in obedience to his Father’s law, and in submitting to the penalty thereof, was not for himself, but for him that will accept it for his salvation, and be thankful."
1) LOOK FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS IN HIS PERSON.

2) SATISFACTION by his BLOOD.

3) He did what he did in obedience to his Father's law.

4) Submitting to the penalty thereof, was not for himself but for the one who believe on HIM....and be thankful.

BUT WAIT... there is more. Not only in the short space of our story do we have the GOSPEL succinctly stated, Penal Substitutionary Atonement wonderful described, biblical support detailed, but there is more......

NOW is the sanctifying power of the GOSPEL on display as Hopeful further describes the effects upon his soul. "It made me greatly ashamed of the vileness of my former life, and confounded me with the sense of mine own ignorance; for there never came a thought into my heart before now that showed me so the beauty of Jesus Christ. It made me love a holy life, and long to do something for the honor and glory of the name of the Lord Jesus. Yea, I thought that had I now a thousand gallons of blood in my body, I could spill it all for the sake of the Lord Jesus."

Bunyan I love you, I love you for the beautiful description, instruction, and counsel which again and again and again and again once more you pour into my ears and which by grace is sinking all the way down into my heart.
The effect of the gospel upon my soul is:
1) Make me greatly ashamed of the vileness of my former life.
2) Confounds me with a sense of mine own ignorance.
3) So great does the gospel show me the BEAUTY of Jesus Christ.
4) It makes me to LOVE a HOLY Life,
5) And puts in me to LONG to do for the HONOR and GLORY of the LORD JESUS.
6) Longing... IF only I had 1000 gallons of blood, I COULD spill it all for the sake of the Lord Jesus.

The gospel has sanctifying power. Look not to the law for enablement and promise, it's not there. The gospel is the power of God unto Salvation. Rom 1:16.

Pericope de Adulterae

2011-03-13T20:51:00.003-05:00

You may have previously read or heard the phrase, "Pericope de Adulterae." But what does it mean?

Pericope was defined over at the Theological Word of the Day blog as:
"A single unit of thought in the Scripture. This could comprise a sentence or verse (as in the Proverbs), a paragraph, or a series of paragraphs which makes up one argument or narrative. For example, the story of Abraham”s encounter with the angels and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is one pericope and the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is one pericope. When teaching or preaching the Scriptures, it is considered best to teach one pericope at a time, not necessarily one verse or chapter at a time."

The "Pericope de Adulterae" is the name given to the narrative regarding the woman caught in adultery found at John 8:1-11. The passage contains some very familiar phrases which have worked their way into our language, and literature, and culture:

Let the one without sin cast the first stone.

Where are your accusers?

Neither do I condemn thee.

Go and sin no more.

Most, or all, modern versions place this "Pericope" in brackets or notate it as not originally part of the gospel John. Now, I like to think, that in the main, I try to avoid contentious topics in this blog, yet I hope my friends bear with me as I register my conviction that this passage is authentic. Sometimes things may not be as they are popularly perceived and we should occasionally be encouraged to look a little closer and to consider a matter more carefully. I believe when considering "Which Greek Text is preferred?" that prior to rejecting passages known to be in use by believers for 1700 years by all, such a further investigation is warranted.

Perhaps you may be lacking access or exposure to the arguments in favor of the Pericope de Adulterae's authenticity and would appreciate the opportunity to dig deeper and consider more carefully. Enough said. If you would like access to "the other side" which is really the traditional side see the three links below. Keep in mind, the matter is much deeper than a few offhand comments by me or those included in the margins of some bible versions, I only hope with the links below to give you a glimpse into a few more facts than you may have been previously aware. Perhaps you will be persuaded to treat with reverent fear any thoughts of lightly dismissing the Pericope de Adulterae in case indeed it is the very Word of God.

First an incredible book, Recensio Synoptica Annotationis Sacrae, by Samuel Bloomfield. (It's not really written in Latin though like good old books includes Latin quotes sometimes with the translation thereof.) This link even includes a button, which, when pushed causes the book to be read out loud. Read from page 274-284. The Link should take you straight to page 274 of Vol III.

http://www.archive.org/stream/recensiosynoptic03bloo#page/274/mode/2up

The next link is Appendix I from John Burgon's book, Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/burgon/corruption.iii.xviii.html

Finally by the able Edward F. Hills, you will want to page down to item #4 of the link below where the discussion of the Pericope de Adulterae begins.
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/kjvdcha6.htm

Recensio Synoptica Annotationis Sacrae

2011-03-11T21:54:00.005-06:00

At the right I have added a new collection of links accessing the works of Samuel T. Bloomfield.

Recensio Synoptica Annotationis Sacrae by Samuel T. Bloomfield described as:

"Bloomfield's Recensio Synoptica Annotationis Sacrae is a Critical Digest commentary of collected notes Synoptically Arranged and Annotated in all the books of the New Testament. It is a massive labor and filled with classical references and original annotations. Many years in preparation and the basis of his later Greek New Testament Commentary in two volumes."

The above includes volume 9 which is Bloomfield's Greek and English Lexicon.

Plus Greek New Testament with English Notes by Samuel Bloomfield described as:
"Bloomfield's New Testament Commentary on the Greek Text based on patristic and classical sources. His previous Lexicon and his Recensio Synoptica in 8 vols is the basis of this commentary. He is always instructive and good hermeneutical source for older views on the text.mjm,2010."

I often consult Bloomfield's Greek New Testament. Many times he refers you to his larger work, the Recensio Synoptica. The links have been added to this blog in hopes that it will be for some a convenient reference.

From Wikipedia:

Samuel Thomas Bloomfield (1790–1869), English scholar and Biblical textual critic.

He was educated at Sidney College, Cambridge. Bloomfield published Recensio Synoptica, and doctrinal Annotations on the New Testament (in 8 volumes, 1826). He also edited a Greek and English lexicon to the New Testament, revised and enlarged from Robinson's lexicon (1829); a translation of Thucydides (3 volumes, 1829).

Bloomfield's Greek New Testament has been largely used, both in England and the United States.

I was originally directed to Bloomfield's works by a good friend who also pointed me to Spurgeon's Recommendation in Commenting and Commentaries. Spurgeon writes:

BLOOMFIELD (S. T., D.D.) The Greek Testament, with English Notes; chiefly original. 2 vols., 8va. Lond., 1841 8/6 to 14/-

" " Additional Annotations on the New Testament. 8vo. Lond., 1850. 2./6. We frequently get more from Bloomfield than from Alford, though he is not so fashionable. His notes are full of teaching.

" " Recensio Synoptica Annotationis Sacrae; being a Critical Digest of the most important Annotations on the New Testament. 8 vols., 8va. Lond., 1826. 15/-to 21/-[A considerable part of this work was included in recent editions of the editor's Greek New Testament.] "It would be impossible to convey to our readers an adequate idea of the mass of information which the learned author has brought to bear upon the numerous passages which he has undertaken to illustrate, and we can safely say, that the enquirer will find very few of which Mr. Bloomfield has not given a complete and satisfactory exposition."

Pilgrim's Progress: Still Talking - Still awake

2011-03-11T06:28:00.002-06:00

Our heroes Christian's and Hopeful's conversation continues on, as they, fearful of falling asleep in the Enchanted Ground, discuss Hopeful's conversion.

We can learn a great deal from this simple testimony as the wisdom of God through Bunyan's apt pen comes through:

Hopeful: I made my objections against my believing, for that I thought he was not willing to save me.

Christian: And what said Faithful to you then?

Hopeful: He bid me go to him and see. Then I said it was presumption.

I like this, Hopeful thought he had no right to believe that Jesus was willing to save himself. But Faithful says: "GO TO HIM AND SEE." I repeated that to my girls many times this morning. I loved it as we read over. Will he recieve me? I don't know. -- The answer: "GO TO HIM AND SEE." Am I one of the elect? I don't know. Well Go to him and see.

Then in answer to Hopeful's, "I think it would be presumption to go and see" we read:

He said, No; for I was invited to come. Matt. 11:28. Then he gave me a book of Jesus’ inditing, to encourage me the more freely to come; and he said concerning that book, that every jot and tittle thereof stood firmer than heaven and earth. Matt. 24:35.

So with objections resolved, Hopeful tells us he next asked of Faithful - "what must I do when I come to him. " Faithful's answer --- Pray. But read careful the content of this prayer. Not so reflective of the modern "sinner's prayer" to which you may be accustomed.

Then I asked him what I must do when I came; and he told me I must entreat upon my knees, Psa. 95:6; Dan. 6:10, with all my heart and soul, Jer. 29:12,13, the Father to reveal him to me. Then I asked him further, how I must make my supplications to him; and he said, Go, and thou shalt find him upon a mercy-seat, where he sits all the year long to give pardon and forgiveness to them that come. Exod. 25:22; Lev. 16:2; Num. 7:89; Heb. 4:16. I told him, that I knew not what to say when I came; and he bid say to this effect: God be merciful to me a sinner, and make me to know and believe in Jesus Christ; for I see, that if his righteousness had not been, or I have not faith in that righteousness, I am utterly cast away. Lord, I have heard that thou art a merciful God, and hast ordained that thy Son Jesus Christ should be the Saviour of the world; and moreover, that thou art willing to bestow him upon such a poor sinner as I am-and I am a sinner indeed. Lord, take therefore this opportunity, and magnify thy grace in the salvation of my soul, through thy Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Note:

As the Father to REVEAL Jesus.

Make me to KNOW and BELEIVE.

If his Righteousness HAD NOT BEEN.

If I had not faith in that Righteousness. I am UTTERLY CAST AWAY.

MAGNIFY thy Grace in the salvation of my soul.

I'm so thankful to discuss such wisdom with my little girls. May God give us the grace not to waste this opportunity and the reading of such a great work. By the grace of God, I'm humbled by Bunyan once again.

Pilgrim's Progress: Talking to Stay Awake

2011-03-09T20:05:00.005-06:00

Our two traveler's in order to prevent their falling asleep while traveling through the enchanted ground, purpose to commune together in Spiritual Conversation. Talking with your brother can keep you awake, awake spiritually.

I was struck by this in their conversation:

"Christian: And did you ask him what man this was, and how you must be justified by him?

Hopeful: Yes, and he told me it was the Lord Jesus, that dwelleth on the right hand of the Most High. Heb. 10:12-21. And thus, said he, you must be justified by him, even by trusting to what he hath done by himself in the days of his flesh, and suffered when he did hang on the tree. Rom. 4:5; Col. 1:14; 1 Pet. 1:19. "

Note the next question. It reminds me so much of our study in Romans - primarily Romans Chapter four where we learn that though there is NONE Righteous, yet we can find a righteousness imputed by Faith, the Righteousness of Jesus Christ.

In our Romans study this discovery led to the next question: "But how can the righteousness of another be counted as mine?"

Here is almost the same question from the lips of Hopeful:

"I asked him further, how that man’s righteousness could be of that efficacy, to justify another before God."

And just as Romans Four led us into Romans Five where we learn of the representative work of Jesus Christ, the Federal Headship. Rom 5:19.

We hear the recounting of Hopeful:
"And he told me he was the mighty God, and did what he did, and died the death also, not for himself, but for me; to whom his doings, and the worthiness of them, should be imputed, if I believed on him."

How wonderfully and yet simply into the CHRISTIAN-and-HOPEFUL conversation is the truth of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ made manifest.

Help Heavenward

2010-12-24T22:24:00.003-06:00

Hey, over on the Octavius Winslow Archive, there is going to be a "Challies-Like Reading the Classics Together" read through Winslow's book, Help Heavenward. I've joined and you can to. the Project begins on January 10, 2011 upon which time you have one week to read through the first chapter. Appears that Matthew Blair will be covering one chapter a week. My copy arrived yesterday and it looks like there's eleven Chapters total.

I've already read the preface, foreward and table of contents, plus a little of chapter 1 to whet my appetite. Like other books by Winslow this looks to be very sweet, very warm, very heart enflaming. I'm truly beleiveing for a freshness in my soul and spirit as I slowly and thoughtfully and reflectively read through Winslow.

Matthew Blair writes that this is his favorite of Winslow's books. I've only really been exposed to couple of other works by Winslow - but I confirm they are RICH.

On the first page of Chapter One, Winslow thinking of those spies who went into the promise land writes and we read: "Faith is the spiritual spy of the soul." Wow - sound exiciting to you? I'm fired the journey. I'll leave you with poem which is at the conclusion of Chapter one:

“A captive here, and far from home,
For Zion’s sacred courts I sigh:
“There the ransomed nations come,
And see the Savior ‘eye to eye.’

“While here, I walk on hostile ground;
The few that I can call my friends
Are, like myself, with fetters bound,
And weariness my path attends.

“But we shall soon behold the day
When Zion’s children shall return;
Our sorrows then shall flee away,
And we shall never, never mourn.

“The hope that such a day will come
Makes e’en the captive’s portion sweet;
Though now we’re distant far from home
In Zion soon we all shall meet.”

Click Here and Here for the Octavius Winslow Archive reading the classics together.

Click here to find "Help Heavenward" online.

Christmas Shoe Box and The Gospel

2010-11-23T17:40:00.004-06:00

As part of Operation Christmas Child a Ministry of Samaritan's Purse my three little girls each packed a shoe box. Wanting to really love on the child who would recieve her box my 11 year old enclosed the note pictured above. Please click on the picture to enlarge the image.

click here for more on Operation Christmas Child.

Gospel Summary

2010-11-04T17:43:00.003-05:00

Read this today on Provocations and Panting, who read it on Ligonier Minstries. Excellent Summary of the Gospel by Jeremiah Burroughs from his book, GOSPEL CONVERSATIONS:

The gospel of Christ is the good tidings that God has revealed concerning Christ. As all mankind was lost in Adam and became the children of wrath, put under the sentence of death, God, though He left His fallen angels and has reserved them in the chains of eternal darkness, yet He has thought upon the children of men and has provided a way of atonement to reconcile them to Himself again.

The second Person in the Trinity takes man’s nature upon Himself, and becomes the Head of a second covenant, standing charged with sin. He answers for it by suffering what the law and divine justice required, and by making satisfaction for keeping the law perfectly. This satisfaction and righteousness He tenders up to the Father as a sweet savor of rest for the souls that are given to Him.

And now this mediation of Christ is, by the appointment of the Father, preached to the children of men, of whatever nation or rank, freely offering this atonement unto sinners for atonement, requiring them to believe in Him and, upon believing, promising not only a discharge of all their former sins, but that they shall not enter into condemnation, that none of their sins or unworthiness shall ever hinder the peace of God with them, but that they shall through Him be received into the number of those who shall have the image of God again to be renewed unto them, and that they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

That these souls and bodies shall be raised to that height of glory that such creatures are capable of, that they shall live forever enjoying the presence of God and Christ, in the fullness of all good, is the gospel of Christ. This is the sum of the gospel that is preached unto sinners.
ht: Timmy Brister

The ONE Who Gives Peace - John 14:27

2010-09-10T10:41:00.001-05:00

MY PEACE I GIVE UNTO YOU:

Preparing recently for a Labor day Weekend sermon which was to be on the text Joh 14:27, I was struck how Jesus says "MY peace." This qualification "MY" and "I GIVE" was precious to me as I meditated upon this verse. I thought upon Jesus and how willing he is to give this peace and also HOW ABLE he is to give his own peace. Both in accomplishing our justification by making payment for sin, dying as a substitute for his people upon the cross and also imparting to us PEACE, a work of the SPIRIT of GOD, the COMFORTER. In further dwelling upon the word "MY" I thought it good to read the whole of John's Gospel noting from each chapter some precious truth about Jesus.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

CHRIST WHO IS OUR PEACE - HE IS....

CHRIST WHO IS OUR PEACE - HE IS....
IN JOHN CHAPTER ONE:
The Word in the beginning, with GOD, and is God, John 1:1
The creator of all things, John 1:3
Life in Himself, the light of men, John 1:4
Shining in the Darkness. John 1:5
TO THOSE believing on his name and recieving him, John 1:12
He gives power to become sons of God.
He is the Word from everlasting made flesh, John 1:14
And dwelling amoungst us,
Declared by the prophet
The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. John 1:29

IN JOHN CHAPTER TWO:
The water He turned to wine, John 2:9
He cleansed the temple
Overturning tables,
Wielding a scourge,
Pouring out the changers' money.
The zeal of his Father house consuming him. John 2:15-17
AND He knows what is in ALL men. John 2:24-25

IN JOHN CHAPTER THREE - HE IS:
The Bronze Serpent lifted UP, John 3:14-15
The only begotten of his Father,
Sent of the Father,
Him upon whom, All the ones believing will not perish. John 3:16
The bridegroom, John 3:29
The one to whom God giveth not the spirit by MEASURE. John 3:34

IN JOHN CHAPTER FOUR:
The second miracle he does,
Healing the nobleman's Son,
From afar with a word,
The son lives,
The Whole house believes,
Jesus our God and Saviour. John 4:46-54

IN JOHN CHAPTER FIVE:
The impotent lay at the pool,
Waiting no more,
Jesus has come,
The word is spoken,
And immediately the impotent walks. John 5:7-9
They seek to Kill him,
For Jesus, Not only healing on the Sabbath,
But God is His Father, he equal with God. John 5:18
They want to kill the one who
Gives life to those dead who hear his voice. John 5:25
For Jesus has life, life in HIMSELF. John 5:26
The scriptures speak of him, John 5:39
Moses wrote of him. John 5:46

IN JOHN CHAPTER SIX:
He feeds 5000, John 6:10-11
Walks on Water John 6:21
Into a ship that immediately is on the otherside.
He gives meat which endures to everlasting life. John 6:27
To believe on Jesus is to work the work of God. John 6:29
The Father has given HIM a people, John 6:37
And he is able,
And willing,
To receive that which his Father has given him,
He is the living bread, John 6:51
Eat of this bread and live forever,
The bread that he gives is his own flesh,
Given for the life of the world.
Eat his flesh,
Drink his blood,
If not you are dead. John 6:53
His words are Spirit and Life. John 6:63

IN JOHN CHAPTER SEVEN:
Believing on Him,
Rivers of Living Water
Flowing out of your belly. John 7:38-39
Which is the Spirit,
Promised.

IN JOHN CHAPTER EIGHT HE IS:
The light of the World, John 8:12
The son who makes free indeed, John 8:36
Seen of Abraham, who was made glad. John 8:56

IN JOHN CHAPTER NINE:
He gives sight to the blind.
Like the blindman,
so was I in Sin,
But praise be to Him,
NOW I SEE. John 9:25

IN JOHN CHAPTER TEN HE IS:
The door, John 10:7
The good shepherd, John 10:14
Laying down of himself, John 10:18
His life for the sheep, John 10:15
Giving eternal life, John 10:28
To his own who shall never perish, John 10:28
One with the Father. John 10:30

IN JOHN CHAPTER ELEVEN:
HE Loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus. John 11:5
HE IS the Ressurrection, John 11:25
And the Life.
HE Wept. John 11:33
And then Raised the Dead Lazarus. John 11:42-43
Calling him Forth.

IN JOHN CHAPTER TWELVE:
Annointed for Burial
By Mary,
With costly ointment,
She wiping his feet with her hair,
And the house filled with the odor. John 12:3, John 12:7
Riding on the Young ass,
Triumphal Entry, John 12:14-15
The voice from Heaven, John 12:28
The judgment of this world,
The prince Cast out. John 12:31

IN JOHN CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The hour has come, John 13:1
With Joy and Quiet
We peer into The Inner Sanctuary,
The final hours, the last advice,
The precious words before his arrest....
He leaves an example,
Washing their feet, John 13:15
"Do as I have done to you,
The servant is not greater than his lord."
"Judas, that thou doest,
Do quickly." John 13:17
"Only a little longer,
Soon I am gone." John 13:33
"Love one another, John 13:34
By this they will know you are mine." John 13:35

IN JOHN CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Let not your heart be troubled John 14:1
I am going,
AND Coming Again,
Receiving you unto myself, John 14:3
The Comforter is coming, John 14:26
Peace I am leaving, John 14:27
If you loved me
You would be rejoicing, John 14:28
For I go to the Father.

IN JOHN CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
He is the True Vine John 15:1
We the branches John 15:5
Abide in Him John 15:7
He in us
Glorify the Father, John 15:8
Bear much fruit,
And so be his disciples.
Love One Another, John 15:12
The world will hate You,
FOR The world has hated HIM, John 15:18-19
The Comforter is coming,
The Spirit of Truth,
He will testify of HIM John 15:26

IN JOHN CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Expedient it is that he goes,
For he goes not
The comforter comes not.
But if he goes,
The comforter he sends. John 15:7
The Spirit of Truth
Who will guide
into all truth. John 15:13
Like a woman in travail
Sorrow will be yours,
But like her delivered,
anguish forgotten,
Joy reigning, John 15:21
You will rejoice
With joy no man can take. John 15:22
You shall be scattered
leaving me alone,
because the Father is with me. John 15:32
I tell you now,
that in me
ye might have peace.
Be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world. John 15:33

IN JOHN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The High Priestly Prayer:
LIFE Eternal to Know God
And Jesus Christ
Whom God has sent. John 17:3
He prays his Father,
"Glorify Me
With the same Glory
I Had with thee before the world was." John 17:5

IN JOHN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
In the Garden,
They seek him,
To arrest the innocent.
Knowing all things, John 18:4
He asks them - they reply,
He says "I AM"
Backward they fall, all to the Ground. John 18:5
Willing his life he lays down,
No one will take it from him.
The good shepherd for the sheep.
God-Man, representing Men, as Man.
Born and come into the world,
A King but not of this world. John 18:37

IN JOHN CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The enemy having no power
But what was given of God. John 19:11
It is finished,
With Life yet in him,
He of his own volition,
Bowed his head,
And Gave up the Ghost. John 19:30
He laid down his life and died for his own.
It is finished.

IN JOHN CHAPTER TWENTY:
HE IS RISEN
"Thomas, Reach hither thy finger" John 20:27
"Behold my hands"
Many other signs he did yet not written, John 20:30
But these written, that ye might believe, John 20:31
That Jesus is the Christ,
The Son of God,
And that believing ye might have,
Life through his name.

IN JOHN CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Jesus, the Lamb of God,
Who has taken away the sins of the world,
Who lived in our midst,
Speaking words that are Spirit and Truth,
Teaching and Preaching,
Healing and Miracles,
The works given him of the Father.
The Good Shepherd,
The sacrifice for sin,
Life now in his name,
Many other things Jesus did,
If they should be written,
Every one,
I suppose that even the world itself
Could not contain the books
That should be written
AMEN. Joh 21:25

Peace He Left,
His Peace he gave,
Not as the World gives,
Gave He unto us.
Let not our hearts be troubled,
Neither Let them be afraid. Joh 14:27

PEACE - Octavius Winslow on Joh 14:27

2010-09-10T10:31:00.003-05:00

Given the opportunity to preach Labor Day weekend while our Pastor was out of town, I was praying and searching for the biblical passage. During this time of not knowing I read the day's post from the Octavius Winslow blog. Here was the text. Although I didn't borrow or use Winslow in preparing or delivering the sermon - I was much encouraged by him as God's means to remind me of a text that has long been very precious to me.

Here is what I read:

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives give I unto you.” John 14:27

Peace also is a fruit of spiritual-mindedness. What peace of conscience does that individual possess whose mind is stayed upon spiritual things! It is as much the reward as it is the effect of his cultivated heavenliness. The existence of this precious blessing, however, supposes the exposure of the spiritual mind to much that has a tendency to ruffle and disturb its equanimity and repose. The Christian is far from being entirely exempt from those chafings and disquietudes which seem inseparable from human life. To the brooding anxieties arising from external things- life’s vicissitudes, mutations, and disappointments; there are added, what are peculiar to the child of God, the internal things that distract- the cloudings of guilt, the agitations of doubt, the corrodings of fear, the mourning of penitence, the discipline of love.

But through all this there flows a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. It is the peace of the heavenly mind, the peace which Jesus procured, which God imparts, and which the Holy Spirit seals. A heavenly mind soars above a poor dying world, living not upon a creature’s love or smile- casting its daily need upon the heart of a kind Providence- anxious for nothing, but with supplication and thanksgiving making known its requests unto God- indifferent to the turmoil, vexations, and chequered scenes of worldly life, and living in simple faith and holy pleasing on Christ. Thus detached from earth, and moving heavenwards by the attractions of its placid coast, it realizes a peace which passes all understanding.

And if this be the present of the heavenly mind, what will be the future of the mind in heaven? Heaven is the abode of perfect peace. There are no cloudings of guilt, no tossings of grief, no agitations of fear, no corrodings of anxiety there. It is the peace of perfect purity- it is the repose of complete satisfaction. It is not so much the entire absence of all sorrow, as it is the actual presence of all holiness, that constitutes the charm and the bliss of future glory.

The season of sorrow is frequently converted into that of secret joy- Christ making our very griefs to sing. But the occasion of sin is always that of bitter grief; our backslidings often, like scorpions, entwined around our hearts. Were there even- as most assuredly there will not be- sadness in heaven, there might still be the accompaniment of happiness; but were there sin in heaven- the shadow of a shade of guilt- it would becloud and embitter all. Thus, then, as heaven is the abode of perfect peace, he who on earth has his conversation most in heaven approximates in his feelings the nearest to the heavenly state. Oh that our hearts were more yielding to the sweet, holy, and powerful attractions of the heavenly world! Then would our conversation be more in heaven.

HT: Matthew Blair

Book Review - The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission

2010-08-16T19:28:00.008-05:00

The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission, Promoting the Gospel with More Than Our Lips by John Dickson

Over on the Zondervan Blog, Koinonia, I recently was selected by drawing to receive and review this book by John Dickson, director of the Centre for Public Christianity (www.publicchristianity.org).

My interest was quickly piqued as read through the endorsements at the beginning of the book. For example: Alistair Begg reports that this book is "required reading at Parkside." And Alistair McGrath writing "I have learned from reading it...it challenged me, encouraged me, and often inspired me. And at my age that's quite an achievement." And Collin Hansen advising "John Dickson will encourage you from Scripture with many varied ways to promote the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Following the endorsements I went to the back of the book scanning the notes, the Scripture Index and especially reading through the subject index trying to get a "feel" for the books scope, depth, and possibly also special items to note as I read through the content.

The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission (which I will refer to simply as Secret for the remainder of the review) has 91 endnotes and 380 scripture references taken from 12 OT books and 21 NT books. The Subject Index includes seven Greek word in their phonetic anglicized equivalent (there are actually at least 24 instances where Dickson deals with as many different Greek words) ; 7 ancient names ie. Philo, Ignatius, Eusebius, Chrysotom, Irenaeus, Tiberius; A couple of words I had no idea about: tripitaka and upanishads; plus some various others subjects which grabbed my attention: God-Talk, apostolic gospel, New Atheism, Koran, Shema, Turkey, Richard Dawkins, employee-employer relationships, and Hitchens.

Some other items of interest before we begin:

Scripture references are generally from the TNIV.
Study Guide and videos are available at www.promotingChrist.com (I haven't checked this out yet but their availability is a definite plus.
No footnotes, only endnotes.
239 Pages in length.
Ravi Zacharias and Alister McGrath wrote the two Forewords.
Ravi Zacharias has known and worked alongside John Dickson for several years.
Justin Taylor posted the following links to John Dickson, which might prove useful in getting to know the author 1) Promoting The Gospel 9-10-08 2) Promoting the Gospel Conference 11-25-08 several audios 3) Dickson interviews John Lennox 12-26-08 4) John Dickson interviews Martin Hengel 7-11-09
Kevin deYoung lists this book in the up and coming books to watch for in 2010, with a slight cautionary word. click here I would love to see deYoung's thoughts after having read the book.

In the introduction, "Confessions of an Evangelists", Dickson describes his own story of coming to Christ at the age of 15 and enthusiastically and continuously speaking about Christ to anyone who would listen. But this early freedom and frequency was soon squelched when astute leaders in his church noticing his ability and activity had him enrolled in a several month long evangelism training class. The results weren't good. Coming out of this class he lists several things that changed for him. He now had a canned outline of the gospel, which really wasn't the whole rich gospel of who Jesus was and what he did. He lost his earlier pre-training freedom of speaking of Christ in all occasions for a method which required him to use a one-size-fits all system. He became self-conscious as a result plus he now saw mission work as only what he could say with his lips. And so a major goal of Secret is to show that The whole life lived can be mission oriented always promoting Christ even in times when outwardly our lips are not proclaiming Christ.

Chapter One subtitled, "Why Get Involved in Missions" might very well be my favorite. It reminded me very much of a John Piper quote: "Missions exist because worship doesn't."

Dickson expounds on Deu 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD, quoting also from 1Cor 8:4-6 for the purpose of saying "If there is just one God in the universe, everyone everywhere has a duty to worship that Lord." Dickson then walks us through Psalm 96:4-5 demonstrating "the driving force behind all our efforts to bring the news of the one true Lord to our friends and neighbors: If there is one Lord to whom all people belong and owe their allegiance, the people of that Lord must promote this reality."

Chapter one alone justifies the price of the book.

As the book progresses we are given apologetic helps in answering various objections such as "All religions are equal," tolerance/intolerance, and various forms of Pluralism.

The book goes on to encourage us and to instruct us by exhortations, by scripture exegesis, and by many of Dickson's own life example in how we can "Promote the Gospel." Promote the gospel by speaking, by much praying, with our money, by godly behaviour, through good works individually and corporately.

Throughout the book I sensed a desire in Dickson to remain balanced. For example he does encourage good works as a mission promoting activity but then adds "mission disconnected from the gospel is not Christian." He encourages us to preach the gospel by talking about the gospels, the events in the gospels, the narrative of the gospels, but then reminds us to not neglect the theological meaning of these events. Which I read as meaning don't just talk about the doctrine of the atonement but show who Jesus is from eternity, how he lived and what he taught, and how he suffered and how he died and how he rose on the third day. But so as not to be devoid of the theological meaning, why he came, why he lived as he lived in our place and as our representative, and how he died a wrath absorbing sacrifice. Demonstrating that we are justified by Faith and not works and for all this God gets the glory. Dickson lists many non-verbal ways to promote the gospel but then spends his longest chapter on "What is the Gospel" and includes two appendices with further gospel-telling helps.

I am aware of the controversies today over just what is the doctrine of Justification. And I noted that the first endorser of Dickson's book is N. T. Wright, who comes down on the wrong side of this debate endorsing and promoting the New Perspective on Paul. So I read with care especially those passages dealing with just "What is the Gospel?" Dickson's book is written carefully enough that evidently he offends neither side. I might add that, in his chapter, "What is the Gospel?" I would wish there was more emphasis on theological meaning accompanying the recounting of the gospel narrative. It was there, but I would wish for more. Yet, what I took away especially from that chapter, was to be more careful to recount the content of the gospels and not just the doctrine of the gospels and I think that was the weakness Dickson was addressing.

Providentially, it is very appropriate that I received, read and reviewed this book as in our own church we are praying and striving to increase our missionary endeavors beginning this month.

I extend my thanks to Zondervan Publishing for sending me The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission and with the endorsers I can say I am better for having read this book and hope especially better equipped for the promoting of Christ my savior to the Glory of God.

Below is pictured some of the notes and index I created to enhance my own use of this book in the future, click on picture to enlarge and further zoom in:

Pilgrim's Progress - Demas

2010-07-25T18:22:00.001-05:00

Pictured at the left is John Bunyan in prison, perhaps writing The Pilgrim's Progress as his beloved blind daughter Mary clings to his side. He did not love this world, he did not forsake Christ for the treasures of this world. He did not listen to Demas for all the freedom this world had to offer. I sometimes try to think of Bunyan like this as I read and discuss with my little girls, The Pilgrim's Progress.

No more in the Plain called Ease, temptation comes and and our Heroes encounter Demas:

Then Christian and Hopeful outwent them again, and went till they came at a delicate plain, called Ease, where they went with much content; but that plain was but narrow, so they were quickly got over it. Now at the farther side of that plain was a little hill, called Lucre, and in that hill a silver-mine, which some of them that had formerly gone that way, because of the rarity of it, had turned aside to see; but going too near the brim of the pit, the ground, being deceitful under them, broke, and they were slain: some also had been maimed there, and could not, to their dying day, be their own men again.

Then I saw in my dream, that a little off the road, over against the silver-mine, stood Demas (gentleman-like) to call passengers to come and see; who said to Christian and his fellow, Ho! turn aside hither, and I will show you a thing.

Christian: What thing so deserving as to turn us out of the way to see it?

Demas: Here is a silver-mine, and some digging in it for treasure; if you will come, with a little pains you may richly provide for yourselves.

What a temptation is this? Please note to see the silver mine they must TURN OUT OF THE WAY. And Hopeful is beginning to succumb:

Hopeful: Then said Hopeful, let us go see.

Praise God, for a faithful brother to check us.

Christian: Not I, said Christian: I have heard of this place before now, and how many there have been slain; and besides, that treasure is a snare to those that seek it, for it hindereth them in their pilgrimage.

And so Christian converses some with Demas that Hopeful might learn and ourselves:

Then Christian called to Demas, saying, Is not the place dangerous? Hath it not hindered many in their pilgrimage? Hosea 9:6.

Demas: Not very dangerous, except to those that are careless; but withal he blushed as he spake.

Interesting, how Demas blushed. Is this some indication that he knew he lied? Some hint of that former conscience? Whatever it may be Christian is not fooled.

Christian: Then said Christian to Hopeful, Let us not stir a step, but still keep on our way.

Hopeful: I will warrant you, when By-ends comes up, if he hath the same invitation as we, he will turn in thither to see.

Hopeful now seeing their danger, and remembering just what kind of principals Byends held to predicts Byends fall here.

Christian: No doubt thereof, for his principles lead him that way, and a hundred to one but he dies there.

Demas: Then Demas called again, saying, But will you not come over and see?

Christian: Then Christian roundly answered, saying, Demas, thou art an enemy to the right ways of the Lord of this way, and hast been already condemned for thine own turning aside, by one of his Majesty’s judges, 2 Tim. 4:10; and why seekest thou to bring us into the like condemnation? Besides, if we at all turn aside, our Lord the King will certainly hear thereof, and will there put us to shame, where we would stand with boldness before him.

Demas cried again, that he also was one of their fraternity; and that if they would tarry a little, he also himself would walk with them.

Christian: Then said Christian, What is thy name? Is it not the same by which I have called thee?

Demas: Yes, my name is Demas; I am the son of Abraham.

Christian: I know you; Gehazi was your great-grandfather, and Judas your father, and you have trod in their steps; it is but a devilish prank that thou usest: thy father was hanged for a traitor, and thou deservest no better reward. 2 Kings 5:20-27; Matt.26:14,15; 27:3-5. Assure thyself, that when we come to the King, we will tell him of this thy behavior. Thus they went their way.

I liked how Bunyan joined Judas, and Gehazi with Demas. We read the whole account of Elisha, Naaman, and Gehazi from 2Kings 5.

Demas like Talkative earlier does prove scary to me. And because of him, my girls and I had some talk on the doctrine of the perseverance of the Saints. We talked about election, we talked about the ransom price. We talked about the atonement accomplished. We talked about the gift of the Father to the son and how all that the Father giveth to the son shall come to him, and for the one who comes, Jesus is both able and willing to receive him and will in no wise cast him out. Comforting truths to me, comforting to my girls as we consider Demas and are warned away from the love of this present world.

Col 4:14 Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.

Philemon 1:23-24 There salute thee Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus; Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow laborers.

2Ti 4:10 For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.

And so Hopeful's prediction proved true:

By this time By-ends and his companions were come again within sight, and they at the first beck went over to Demas. Now, whether they fell into the pit by looking over the brink thereof, or whether they went down to dig, or whether they were smothered in the bottom by the damps that commonly arise, of these things I am not certain; but this I observed, that they were never seen again in the way. Then sang Christian,

“By-ends and silver Demas both agree;

One calls, the other runs, that he may be

A sharer in his lucre: so these two

Take up in this world, and no farther go.”

1John 2:15-17

Pilgrim's Progress - The Plain Called Ease

2010-07-24T18:07:00.001-05:00

The Delicate, Narrow Plain, Called Ease.

Our Heroes, Christian and Hopeful, out pacing Mr. Byends and companions experience some refreshing times, though very brief, in fact only a sentence's breadth. Yet in beautiful Bunyan fashion I think we learn from this one sentence something of the Christian Experience:

We read:

Then Christian and Hopeful outwent them again, and went till they came at a delicate plain, called Ease, where they went with much content; but that plain was but narrow, so they were quickly got over it.

I noted that here they had "much content." And yet we should remember, this was a delicate plain, a narrow plain and so we won't be here long in the delicate, narrow plain called Ease. I think Bunyan wants us to know there is such a thing as a time of Ease where trials seem to cease from view, temptations not so tempting, persecutors not so apparent. But even so this shouldn't be expected long. The place is delicate and the plain itself is narrow. So wonderful as the journey here is - since we are ever moving to the celestial city soon we quickly get over it and find ourselves facing the next trial.

Thank you God for those refreshing times may I learn to "Don't Waste your Plain called Ease."

SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V9-11

2010-07-23T18:18:00.001-05:00

Continuing in our look at Psalm 42

Psalm 42:9-11

Psa 42:9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Psa 42:10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?
Psa 42:11 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

The despair expressed here is so painful. God is my rock, I will pray to my rock, my God and ask, "why have you forgotten me, why go I on mourning? My enemy continues to oppress me, my sins overwhelm me, my grief over them is so great, I am distressed and pained because of it. My bones hurt, my body aches, my stomach is sick. These things are speaking to me over and over again doubt and unbelief, mocking me, "where is thy God? Where is he? why do you continue in this doubt if your God is here - he is not here - where is your GOD? He is gone from you."

Again we are reminded, THE PROBLEM IS YOU ARE LISTENING TO YOURSELF. YOU LET YOURSELF TALK TO YOU. But verse eleven once again demonstrates the proper soul healing procedure. Take your soul by the hand and no longer listening to it - talk to it - talk to yourself in this manner, preaching the gospel to yourself everyday.

Why are you cast down, Soul?
Why are you disquieted, clamoring and noisy-complaining, Soul?

HOPE IN GOD, SOUL. Soul, Hope thou in GOD.

I will YET after this praise GOD. There will be praise after this darkness. God is my help. His countenance, his presence, his SMILE and favor which is MINE in Christ who bought me. He will make MY own countenance SHINE IN HEALTH. Glow with Rosy robust health. He is the health of my countenance. My face will shine in joy for my God. For my saviour, his lovingkindness is ever towards me, for I belong to Christ. HE has given me to his son, and I belong to Jesus. I am his and he will never cast me away. He is able and willing to receive me, who am given to himself from the Father. It's a matter for GOD and he will bring health to my face, joy to my body. My bones will hurt no more. Soul, Hope thou in God.

SPURGEON:
Thus faith closes the struggle, a victor in fact by anticipation, and in heart by firm reliance. The saddest countenance shall yet be made to shine, if there be a taking of God at his word and an expectation of his salvation.
“For yet I know I shall him praise
Who graciously to me,
The health is of my countenance,
Yea, mine own God is he.”

SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V8

2010-07-22T18:05:00.002-05:00

Continuing on in our look at Psalm 42

Lovingkindness a noble-lifebelt in a rough sea......

Psalm 42:8

Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

There is something so wonderful here - the LORD will COMMAND his lovingkindness. Do you hear that word, "command?" The Lord has a directive for his lovingkindness. My problems are overwhelming me, my body hurts, my stomach aches, my soul is cast down and disquieted within me .... BUT GOD will command his lovingkindness -- even in the daytime. Christ for me, Christ my saviour, Christ my sacrifice that satisifies the just wrath of God. Christ my mediator between God and men. Christ the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Christ fairer than the fair. Christ lovely and beautiful, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. Christ who condemned sin in the flesh. Christ given for me and in my place, delivered up for my offenses and raised again for my justification. Christ who has washed me from my sins. In Christ is lovingkindness abounding. And knowing my calling and election of God - making it sure - believing in the saviour Jesus Christ I know his lovingkindness is commanded in the daytime.

SPURGEON:
Come what may there shall be “a certain secret something” to sweeten all. Lovingkindness is a noble life-belt in a rough sea. The day may darken into a strange and untimely midnight, but the love of God ordained of old to be the portion of the elect, shall be by sovereign decree meted out to them. No day shall ever dawn on an heir of grace and find him altogether forsaken of his Lord: the Lord reigneth, and as a sovereign he will with authority command mercy to be reserved for his chosen. “And in the night.” Both divisions of the day shall be illuminated with special love, and no stress of trial shall prevent it.

IN THE NIGHT HIS SONG SHALL BE With me.

At night in bed, when my thoughts drift where they shouldn't where cares and sin overwhelm. Where in the quiet my thinking lead to my doubting there his song shall be with me. There I can find him. God commanding lovingkindness in the daytime and at night his SONG IS WITH ME.

SPURGEON:
Our God is God of the nights as well as the days; none shall find his Israel unprotected, be the hour what it may. “His song shall be with me.” Songs of praise for blessings received shall cheer the gloom of night. No music sweeter than this. The belief that we shall yet glorify the Lord for mercy given in extremity is a delightful stay to the soul. Affliction may put out our candle, but if it cannot silence our song we will soon light the candle again.

His song with me and my prayer to GOD.

God hears our prayers - his ear is open to us. He has bought us with a precious price, the dear blood of the blessed glorious only-begotten of the FATHER and he will hear his own they know his voice and he knows them.

SPURGEON:
“And my prayer unto the God of my life.” Prayer is yoked with praise. He who is the living God, is the God of our life, from him we derive it, with him in prayer and praise we spend it, to him we devote it, in him we shall perfect it. To be assured that our sighs and songs shall both have free access to our glorious Lord is to have reason for hope in the most deplorable condition.

SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V7

2010-07-21T18:51:00.002-05:00

Continuing on in our look at Psalm 42
God's Waves and Billows

Psalm 42:7

Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.

Q. What are waterspouts?
A. I'm thinking water shooting up from the sea terrible to behold. And John Gill writes:
By which are meant afflictions, comparable to the deep waters of the sea, for their multitude and overwhelming nature; see Psalm 69:1; these came pouring down, one after another, upon the psalmist: as soon as one affliction over, another came, as in the case of Job; which is signified by one calling to another, and were clamorous, troublesome, and very grievous and distressing;

Q. What noise do they make?
A. You can imagine the terrific rush of noise, the gushing forth, crashing with fierceness. Waters from the DEEP uniting force with Waters deep as well. Deep calling unto deep with troubles mounting as in the noise of GOD's tremendous workings in nature - his waterspouts.

Q. And to whom do they belong?
A. To GOD, they are his waterspouts.

Still praying to GOD, "...thy waves and thy billows...."

Tremendous waves of troubles are coming over me and they are thy waves, I receive them from the hand of my God. All things are of the Lord troubles as well.

And so Matthew Poole writes:
All thy waves and thy billows; thou hast sent one sharp trial or affliction upon me after another.

Are gone over me, i.e. are gone over my head, as this same verb is used, Psa_38:4. They do not lightly sprinkle me, but almost overwhelm me.

SPURGEON:
“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts.” Thy severe dealings with me seem to excite all creation to attack me; heaven, and earth, and hell, call to each other, stirring each other up in dreadful conspiracy against my peace. As in a waterspout, the deeps above and below clasp hands, so it seemed to David that heaven and earth united to create a tempest around him. His woes were incessant and overwhelming. Billow followed billow, one sea echoed the roaring of another; bodily pain aroused mental fear, Satanic suggestions chimed in with mistrustful foreboding, outward tribulation thundered in awful harmony with inward anguish: his soul seemed drowned as in a universal deluge of trouble, over whose waves the providence of the Lord moved as a watery pillar, in dreadful majesty inspiring the utmost terror. As for the afflicted one he was like a lonely bark around which the fury of a storm is bursting, or a mariner floating on a mast, almost every moment submerged. “All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” David thought that every trouble in the world had met in him, but he exaggerated, for all the breaking waves of Jehovah have passed over none but the Lord Jesus; there are griefs to which he makes his children strangers for his love's sake. Sorrow naturally states its case forcibly; the mercy is that the Lord after all hath not dealt with us according to our fears. Yet what a plight to be in! Atlantic rollers sweeping in ceaseless succession over one's head, waterspouts coming nearer and nearer, and all the ocean in uproar around the weary swimmer; most of the heirs of heaven can realise the description, for they have experienced the like. This is a deep experience unknown to babes in grace, but common enough to such as do business on great waters of affliction: to such it is some comfort to remember that the waves and billows are the Lords, “thy waves and thy billows,” says David, they are all sent, and directed by him, and achieve his designs, and the child of God knowing this, is the more resigned.

SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V6

2010-07-20T18:45:00.001-05:00

Continuing on in our look at Psalm 42

Therefore Will I Remember Thee

Psalm 42:6

O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.

Now again David speaking to GOD, after first taking Soul in Hand now in Prayer to GOD, "MY SOUL IS CAST DOWN WITHIN ME." What to do - I MUST REMEMBER GOD. We must Remember God wherever we are. Remember God in the school work, in the office, on the river, in the pedal boat, in the canoe, with your friends, Remember God for he is the health and healing of all your soul problems. His countenance is your HELP. Remember God in the city, the country. Remember God and in prayer pledging to remember and trust and depend upon God. WE ARE HELPLESS - but we have a great HELPER.

Spurgeon:
Here the song begins again upon the brass. So sweet an ending deserves that for the sake of a second hopeful close the Psalm should even begin again. Perhaps the Psalmist's dejection continued, the spasm of despondency returned; well, then, he will down with his harp again, and try again its power upon himself, as in his younger days, he saw its influence upon Saul when the evil spirit came upon him. With God the song begins the second time more nearly than at first. The singer was also a little more tranquil. Outward expression of desire was gone; there was no visible panting; the sorrow was now all restrained within doors. Within or upon himself he was cast down; and, verily, it may well be so, while our thoughts look more within than upward. If self were to furnish comfort, we should have but poor provender. There is no solid foundation for comfort in such fickle frames as our heart is subject to. It is well to tell the Lord how we feel, and the more plain the confession the better: David talks like a sick child to its mother, and we should learn to imitate him. “Therefore will I remember thee.” 'Tis well to fly to our God. Here is terra firma. Blessed downcasting which drives us to so sure a rock of refuge as thee, O Lord! “From the hill Mizar.” He recalls his seasons of choice communion by the river and among the hills, and especially that dearest hour upon the little hill, where love spake her sweetest language and revealed her nearest fellowship. It is great wisdom to store up in memory our choice occasions of converse with heaven; we may want them another day, when the Lord is slow in bringing back his banished ones, and our soul is aching with fear. “His love in times past” has been a precious cordial to many a fainting one; like soft breath it has fanned the smoking flax into a flame, and bound up the bruised reed. Oh, never-to-be-forgotten valley of Achor, thou art a door of hope! Fair days, now gone, ye have left a light behind you which cheers our present gloom. Or does David mean that even where he was he would bethink him of his God; does he declare that, forgetful of time and place, he would count Jordan as sacred as Siloa, Hermon as holy as Zion, and even Mizar, that insignificant rising ground, as glorious as the mountains which are round about Jerusalem! Oh! it is a heavenly heart which can sing -
“To me remains nor place nor time;
My country is in every clime;
I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.
“Could I be cast where thou art not,
That were indeed a dreadful lot,
But regions none remote I call,
Secure of finding God in all.”

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V5

2010-07-19T18:29:00.003-05:00

Continuing in our look at Psalm 42

Psalm 42:5

Psa 42:5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

Q. What is it to be cast down? How sad, how low, how despairing are you my soul and why are you thus?

Q. What is it to be disquieted? The soul is not quiet, it cries, it weeps and complains, there is an uproar within, a clamour of despair and noisy tumult of soul-upsettedness. Your whole body sometimes feels the pain of it. The bones hurt, the stomach hurts, the soul cries and the body aches.

Why Soul are you cast down - why are you in such a loud tumult?

Q. TO WHOM IS DAVID TALKING NOW?

A. He is talking to his own soul, talking to HIMSELF. D.M. Lloyd Jones' book, Spiritual Depression, is to my hearing becoming more and more well known for his great exposition of this psalm. I hear Lloyd-Jones here saying: "Preach the gospel to yourself every day." Before Jerry Bridges helped us with this concept, Lloyd-Jones did and before that THE WORD OF GOD has taught us this wisdom.

David is talking to himself. As Lloyd-Jones wrote, the problem is we are always listening to ourselves. Stop listening to yourself and take yourself in hand and counsel your own soul, "Hope thou in GOD. " Preach the gospel to yourself - quiet your soul with such words - not listening to the clamorous, depressed, downcast soul, but speaking to it the GOSPEL. HOPE THOU SOUL IN GOD.

God's countenance is a HELP TO US. His near presence is a HELP to US. HIS sending his son FOR US is a HELP to us. His smile of electing Love is our HELP. WE believe in Christ he has smiled upon us and Christ is for us. Who can be against us? God who spared not his own son but delivered him up for us -- how shall he not with HIM freely give us all things. He has already given the greatest in CHRIST HIS ONLY-BEGOTTEN, all else is less, and all else is ours in CHRIST. His countenance is our help.

Spurgeon writes on this:
Salvations come from the propitious face of God, and he will yet lift up his countenance upon us. Note well that the main hope and chief desire of David rest in the smile of God. His face is what he seeks and hopes to see, and this will recover his low spirits, this will put to scorn his laughing enemies, this will restore to him all the joys of those holy and happy days around which memory lingers. This is grand cheer. This verse, like the singing of Paul and Silas, looses chains and shakes prison walls. He who can use such heroic language in his gloomy hours will surely conquer. In the garden of hope grow the laurels for future victories, the roses of coming joy, the lilies of approaching peace.

HELPS or SALVATIONS:
Albert Barnes in his Notes points out that the word "Help" as found in the original Hebrew is in the plural and wonderfully explains as follows:

"For the help of his countenance - literally, “the salvations of his face,” or his presence. The original word rendered help is in the plural number, meaning salvations; and the idea in the use of the plural is, that his deliverance would be completed or entire - as if double or manifold. The meaning of the phrase “help of his countenance” or “face,” is that God would look favorably or benignly upon him. Favor is expressed in the Scriptures by lifting up the light of the countenance on one. See the notes at Psa 4:6; compare Psa 11:7; Psa 21:6; Psa 44:3; Psa 89:15. This closes the first part of the psalm, expressing the confident belief of the psalmist that God would yet interpose, and that his troubles would have an end; reposing entire confidence in God as the only ground of hope; and expressing the feeling that when that confidence exists the soul should not be dejected or cast down."

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V4

2010-07-18T18:22:00.002-05:00

Continuing in our look at Psalm 42

Psalm 42:4

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.

There were better times before - the thinking of the joy I had then in worship and praise with like-minded worshippers of GOD, with a multitude that kept holyday. Really kept it - in true worship to God. The VOICE OF JOY was there, I had joy in the Lord then. Now tears are my meat - but then Joy. And remembering these things I pour out my soul in me.

What is this: "pour out my soul in me?" Matthew Henry describes it thus: "his soul was poured out in him; he melted away, and the thought almost broke his heart. he poured out his soul within him in sorrow, and then poured out his soul before God in prayer."

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V3

2010-07-17T18:08:00.001-05:00

Continuing in our study of Psalm 42

Psalm 42:3

My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

Tears are meat! Tears are meat? What does this mean? How can tears be meat? Daily King David partakes of tears? Daily they are his meal, no food but this - my tears. So distressed that the only meat to eat is the tears I cry.

I'm thinking, like David's enemies taunting him, "where is thy God?" our own sins and doubts and unbeliefs say the same thing - they speak words of an enemy ringing and banging in the inner ear..... "where is thy God?" Oh God - come to me, satisfy my thirst, quiet my enemies. I pant for thee.

Spurgeon:
When a man comes to tears, constant tears, plenteous tears, tears that fill his cup and trencher, he is in earnest indeed. As the big tears stand in the stag's eyes in her distress, so did the salt drops glitter in the eyes of David. His appetite was gone, his tears not only seasoned his meat, but became his only meat, he had no mind for other diet. Perhaps it was well for him that the heart could open the safety valves; there is a dry grief far more terrible than showery sorrows. His tears since they were shed because God was blasphemed, were “honourable dew,” drops of holy water, such as Jehovah putteth into his bottle. “While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?” Cruel taunts come naturally from coward minds. Surely they might have left the mourner alone; he could weep no more than he did - it was a supererogation of malice to pump more tears from a heart which already overflowed. Note how incessant was their jeer, and how artfully they framed it! It cut the good man to the bone to have the faithfulness of his God impugned. They had better have thrust needles into his eyes than have darted insinuations against his God.

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V2

2010-07-16T18:03:00.003-05:00

Continuing in our look at Psalm 42

Psalm 42:2

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

Repeating again, first in verse 1 "panting soul" now in verse 2 "thirsting soul" thirsting for GOD.
OH GOD SATISFY MY THIRST - FOR YOU I THIRST. Spurgeon writes how violent thirsting really is:
“Thirsteth.” Which is more than hungering; hunger you can palliate, but thirst is awful, insatiable, clamorous, deadly. O to have the most intense craving after the highest good! this is no questionable mark of grace. “For God.” Not merely for the temple and the ordinances, but for fellowship with God himself. None but spiritual men can sympathise with this thirst.

And as an encouragement and emphasis - "THE LIVING GOD." Again Spurgeon writes:
Because he lives, and gives to men the living water; therefore we, with greater eagerness, desire him. A dead God is a mere mockery; we loathe such a monstrous deity; but the ever-living God, the perennial fountain of life and light and love, is our soul's desire. What are gold, honour, pleasure, but dead idols? May we never pant for these.

When shall I come and appear before GOD? God seems so distant now - my thirst is not satisfied by grows - when shall I be in the presence of God again?

Spurgeon: "“To see the face of God” is the nearer translation of the Hebrew; but the two ideas may be combined - he would see his God and be seen of him; this is worth thirsting after!"

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V1

2010-07-15T18:53:00.002-05:00

Continuing our study in Psalm 42

Psalm 42:1
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

This is how David felt. King David, the same that killed Goliath, the same called a man after God's own heart. He felt just as a deer very thirsty, parched and panting after water, cool fresh water. The deer, dry to the bone, running all night from the hunter perhaps, fleeing the wolf, now spent and thirsting to the point of PANTING is how DAVID SAYS, speaking in prayer to GOD, HIS OWN SOUL PANTS AFTER GOD. God my soul pants for thee! I'm thirsting for you my GOD.

Something is wrong for King David - he is thirsting as one who cannot be satisfied and the only satisfaction to refresh his soul is to drink deeply of GOD.

To add to these thoughts from Spurgeon's Treasury of David I found the following:
As after a long drought the poor fainting hind longs for the streams, or rather as the hunted hart instinctively seeks after the river to lave its smoking flanks and to escape the dogs, even so my weary, persecuted soul pants after the Lord my God. Debarred from public worship, David was heartsick. Ease he did not seek, honour he did not covet, but the enjoyment of communion with God was an urgent need of his soul; he viewed it not merely as the sweetest of all luxuries, but as an absolute necessity, like water to a stag. Like the parched traveller in the wilderness, whose skin bottle is empty, and who finds the wells dry, he must drink or die - he must have his God or faint. His soul, his very self, his deepest life, was insatiable for a sense of the divine presence. As the hart brays so his soul prays. Giro him his God and he is as content as the poor deer which at length slakes its thirst and is perfectly happy; but deny him his Lord, and his heart heaves, his bosom palpitates, his whole frame is convulsed, like one who gasps for breath, or pants with long running. Dear reader, dost thou know what this is, by personally having felt the same? It is a sweet bitterness. The next best thing to living in the light of the Lord's love is to be unhappy till we have it, and to pant hourly after it - hourly, did I say? thirst is a perpetual appetite, and not to be forgotten, and even thus continual is the heart's longing after God. When it is as natural for us to long for God as for an animal to thirst, it is well with our souls, however painful our feelings. We may learn from this verse that the eagerness of our desires may be pleaded with God, and the more so, because there are special promises for the importunate and fervent.

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG

2010-07-14T18:25:00.003-05:00

This morning my girls and I during r Saturday morning breakfast and bible study took a look into Psalm 42 before resuming our reading and discussions of Pilgrim's Progress.

Psalm 42

To increase our comprehension, before we began with a serious reading, I thought it good to ask a few questions:

Q1. What is a hart?
A1. We know the song, as the deer panteth for the waters.... I was pretty sure the girls would hear "hart" and think "heart." Other than that - I thought they probably would have no idea what is a "hart."

E-Sword tells us also: a "hart" is a stag, a deer, a male deer.

Q2. What are water brooks?
A2. Eleven year old said "small running streams of water." Good enough, I thought. This might be easy.

Q3. What is panting?
A3. This was harder for them to grasp. We thought of a movie we saw, a comedy, actually, but in this movies closing scene there were two men approaching the hero demanding said here give up his most prized position. The hero thought they meant the gold, which he tossed in their direction. The men just took the gold and threw it away. "We don't want your gold we want your water." You see they were in the middle of the desert dying of thirst. Gold was nothing - water was everything. "Have you ever been so thirsty that you yearned after a glass of cold refreshing water?" I asked.

Q4. What is it to be "cast down?"
A4. To be very sad, to be really depressed, down in spirits.

Q5. What is it to be disquieted?
A5. One answered, "to be really quiet." NO, quite the opposite, there is "QUIET" and then there is "DIS -- QUIETED." There is noise, a ruckus going on. Instead of peace there is clamor. Your soul is loudly complaining.

Q6. What is "countenance?"
A6. Another tough question. Thinking in terms of the appearance of one's countenance, I tried to explain by giving various appearances to my facial expressions. Serious, stern, happy, loving and caring -- see how my countenance changes as my appearance shows forth differently. Also, how so much happiness relies on their mother's first reception of me as I return home every day. Is it Joyful or sad, does she run and greet me with a hug? Or does she look up with a big smile and that every friendly "Hey your home!" - as her countenance is first towards me upon my daily return my own mood is affected. And so also is she affected by my first countenance towards her. Literally countenance: "his face or presence."

Continued tomorrow

Pilgrim's Progress - More Thoughts on Byends

2010-07-13T18:38:00.000-05:00

THE MOTIVE IS EVERYTHING --- IT MAKES THE MAN

To further the lessons we learned from Byends and company I thought to read from Lectures on Pilgrim's Progress by George Cheever. Selected thoughts from the author as follows: click here for context

The philosophy of Money-Love and By-ends is that which the god of this world teaches all his votaries, and, alas, when motives come to be scrutinized, as they will be, at the bar of God, how much of our apparent good will be found to be evil, because in the root that nourished both the branches and the fruit, there was found to be nothing but self-interest carefully concealed. Ye seek me, not because of the miracles to be witnessed, or the grace to be gained, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.

Now is not this logic of Money-love very bare-faced ? And yet these men considered it perfectly triumphant, and an argument that Christian and Hopeful could not possibly contradict. Whereupon they resolved to propound the same question to them, and so puzzle and defeat them. But to their astonishment, Christian declared that none othe;-s than heathens, hypocrites, devils, and witches conld be of their opinion,' and then he went on to prove this so clearly and powerfully out of Scripture, with instances in point, that the men were completely staggered, and stood staring one upon another unable to answer a word. What, said Christian to Hopeful, will these men do with the sentence of God if they cannot stand before the sentence of men ?

This passage in the pilgrimage is full of instruction, and we might dwell long upon it, and upon the danger of evil motives under the guise of a good cause, or of unholy motives in a holy cause. The motive is every thing; it makes the man. An eye single makes a single-minded man: an eye double makes a double minded man. An eye single is good in whatever a man undertakes, considered even merely in reference to the things of this life, and as requisite to decision of character. In this view the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light; what they do for this world they do with energy and whole-heartedness, which is just what, as pilgrims, we want for Christ. We want in all tillings an eye single for God, for his approbation, for his glory, and this is the precious motive that excludes every other, or keeps every other subordinate, and turns every thing to gold. " Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not as unto men." The very drudgery and toilsomeness of our pilgrimage is turned into a divine and holy service, by this precious singleness of heart for Christ! O how desirable is this in every thing ! This is the body of that beautiful composition by Herbert, entitled The Elixir, which is perhaps the best series of stanzas he ever wrote. It is good to drink this on our pilgrimage, especially after such a conversation with By-ends and Money-love. By ends are almost always bad ends, but love to Christ, singleness of heart for Christ, sets them at a distance, and shows them at once in their native hypocrisy and deformity.

Teach me, my God and King,
In all things thee to see,
And what I do in any thing
To do it as for thee.

Not rudely, as a beast,
I'd run into an action,
But still to make thee prepossest.
And give it thy perfection.

A man that looks on glass

On it may stay his eye;

And if he pleaseth, through it pass.

And then the heaven espy.

All I may of thee partake;
Nothing can be so mean
Which with this tincture for thy sake
Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for thy laws
Makes that and the action fine.

This is the famous stone

That turneth all to gold;

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for less be told.