Jul
26
The promise and the promiser
Filed Under Christian Living, Justification, Poetry, Prayer | Leave a Comment
In preparing to preach tomorrow on 2 Peter 1:3-4, I found this bit of verse in Octavius Winslow’s The Precious Things of God:
How oft have sin and Satan strove to rend my soul from Thee, my God!
But everlasting is Thy love, and Jesus seals it with His blood.
The oath and promise of the Lord join to confirm the wondrous grace;
Eternal power performs the word, and fills all heaven with endless praise.
Amidst temptations sharp and long, my soul to this dear refuge flies;
Hope is my anchor, firm and strong, while tempests blow and billows rise.
The gospel bears my spirit up; a faithful and unchanging God
Lays the foundation of my hope in oaths and promises and blood.
Apr
8
Tops of the mountains of our guilt
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“Standing at the foot of the cross, and beholding the Redeemer in his expiring agony, the Christian may indeed gather courage. When I think of my sin, it seems impossible that any atonement should ever be adequate; but when I think of Christ’s death it seems impossible, that any sin should ever be great enough to need such an atonement as that. There is in the death of Christ enough and more than enough. There is not only a sea in which to drown our sins, but the very tops of the mountains of our guilt are covered. Forty cubits upwards hath this red sea prevailed. There is not only enough to put our sins to death, but enough to bury them and hide them out of sight. I say it boldly and without a figure, — the eternal arm of God now nerved with strength, now released from the bondage in which justice held it, is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Christ.”
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “The Believer’s Challenge,” delivered June 5, 1859
Oct
10
Whether we are elected
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We are not saved because we believe that we are elect; rather, we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Listen to the counsel of the Second Helvetic Confession:
We therefore find fault with those who outside of Christ ask whether they are elected. And what has God decreed concerning them before all eternity? For the preaching of the Gospel is to be heard, and it is to be believed; and it is to be held as beyond doubt that if you believe and are in Christ, you are elected. For the Father has revealed unto us in Christ the eternal purpose of his predestination, as I have just now shown from the apostle in II Tim. 1:9-10. This is therefore above all to be taught and considered, what great love of the Father toward us is revealed to us in Christ. We must hear what the Lord himself daily preaches to us in the Gospel, how he calls and says: “Come to me all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Also, “It is not the will of my Father that one of these little ones should perish” (Matt. 18:14).
Let Christ, therefore be the looking glass, in whom we may contemplate our predestination. We shall have a sufficiently clear and sure testimony that we are inscribed in the Book of Life if we have fellowship with Christ, and he is ours and we are his in true faith.
Apr
23
There is no plan B…
Filed Under Around the Church, Bible, Evangelism, Holiness, Justification, Men, The Church | Leave a Comment
Dr. Elliott Greene has been doing a marvelous job at FPC Kosciusko’s annual Bible Conference (look for mp3s of the sermons later this week at fpckosciusko.org), taking us through the book of Ephesians under the title ‘What the Church Would Be If She Knew What She Was.’ In introducing Dr. Greene on Friday evening I read for the second time an excerpt from Dr. Ligon Duncan’s introductory address at the recent Twin Lakes Fellowship. He had posted it on his blog. It sums up so much of the vision of what The Sweet Dropper is about and what FPC Kosciusko is about:
“What do we long to see come out of the Twin Lakes Fellowship?
“. . . a strong coalition of Bible-saturated, truth-driven, God-entranced, prayer-soaked, aggressively evangelistic, Christ-treasuring and exalting, Spirit-filled, sovereign grace-loving, missions-advancing, hell-robbing, strong-thinking, real-need-exposing, soul-winning, mind-engaging, vagueness-rejecting, wartime-life-style-pursuing, risk-taking, justice-advancing, Scripture-expounding, cross-cherishing, homosexuality-opposing, abortion-denouncing, racism-resisting, heaven-desiring, imputation-of-an-alien-righteousness-proclaiming, justification-by-faith-alone-apart-from-doing-preaching, error-exposing, complementarian, joyful, humble, loving, courageous, happy pastors working together for the Gospel. (Thanks to John Piper for many of these words and thoughts).
“And we want to see them leading strong evangelical churches who, while they hold as faithfully and biblically as they know how to certain doctrinal distinctives not shared by all other biblical evangelical churches, band together for the Gospel on a basis that is robustly doctrinal, historic, orthodox, reformational, world-opposing-while-at-the-same-time-world-serving, Bible-preaching, scriptural-theology-inculcating, real-conversion-prizing, deep biblical evangelism-practicing, New Testament church-membership-and-leadership-implementing, church-discipline-applying, healthy and growing Disciple-making – all for the display of God’s glory in the churches.
“May the Lord raise up such a ministerial fraternity – not on the basis of doctrinal minimalism but rather on the basis of shared conviction of the truth and Gospel forbearance in the areas where we differ; not to the detriment of our convictions regarding our distinctives in faith and practice in the local churches and families of churches we serve, but to their enhancement. And may the Lord raise up churches that are truly a witness to grace in this passing age, a display of the glory and power of God’s saving grace, outposts of heaven, suburbs of eternity. For the church is God’s strategy, and there is no plan B.”
Apr
19
Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave–a review
Filed Under Books, Christian Living, Justification, Reading, Resources | Leave a Comment
Lynard Skynard sang That Smell. You remember that one, don’t you?
Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars, oak tree you’re in my way
There’s too much coke and too much smoke
Look what’s going on inside you.
Ooooh that smell, can’t you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell–the smell of death surrounds you.
I should have read or sung that when I preached on Proverbs 9 last Sunday night (available at fpckosciusko.org). I owe Eddie Thomas thanks for bringing the Skynard song back to the forefront of my mind. A lot of what I said in the sermon about temptation and the voluntary slavery of sin was drawn from an excellent book by Dr. Edward T. Welch, Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave–Finding Hope in the Power of the Gospel (Presbyterian and Reformed, 2001).
Welch exposes the addict’s condition: a worship disorder that leads him/her to heed to the call of the ’strange woman’ (to use the language of the early chapters of Proverbs) and begin a slowly developing courtship. Going into her house leads to a horrific discovery: ‘the dead are there…her guests are in the depths of Sheol’ (Proverbs 9:18). Her feast of pleasure is a banquet in the grave.
This book is a valuable resource, even if you are not an addict of some kind or ministering to an addict. Addicts are not a category to themselves when it comes to sin. Rather, Welch reminds us, ‘there is no “us” and “them” with addictions. The descent should feel familiar to us all…Having known something of the voluntary slavery [to sin] ourselves, we are more patient with those who are ensnared. We are also more eager to partner with them and lead them to Jesus Christ, the One who liberates them and carries us out of the pit’ [66].
Since my initial read of the book last fall, I find myself coming back again and again to this book in both my preaching and one-to-one ministry. Welch is straightforward in his assessment of the 12-step model that governs most treatment programs, acknowledging the model’s strengths and also unsparingly critiquing the self-reliance and self-righteousness that the 12-step model fosters. He provides a number of helpful ways to confront, listen, and bring our thoughts back again and again to the gospel, giving special emphasis to the vital role the Church plays in being a place of healing and ministry through the ordinary means of grace. Welch is especially skillful in bringing the reader to consider the addictions in his/her own life, widening the scope far beyond drug and alcohol dependence. He writes in the preface:
Theology makes a difference. It is the infrastructure of our lives. Build it poorly and the building will eventually collapse in ruins. Build it well and you will be prepared for anything. The basic theology for addictions is that the root of the problem goes deeper than our genetic makeup. Addictions are ultimately a disorder of worship. Will we worship ourselves and our own desires or will we worship the true God? Through this lens, all Scripture comes alive for the addict. No longer are there just a few proof texts about drunkenness. Instead, since all Scripture addresses our fundamental disorder of worship, all Scripture is rich with application for the addict. [xvi]
In his commentary on Galatians 5:4, Luther asks, ‘What do you do when you are caught in some sin? If your answer is, “I’ll do better next time,” then you have no need of Christ…Instead, despair of your own righteousness and trust boldly in Christ.’ Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave echoes Luther’s answer and equips us to engage into the fierce and painful battles against sin that all of us face.
Apr
4
All ye that pass by
Filed Under Easter, Justification, Music, Poetry | Leave a Comment
Chip Stam, Director of the Institute for Christian Worship at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, has a weekly “Worship Quote of the Week” you can receive as a free email (click here for more info). This week’s is a Charles Wesley poem about the atoning death of Christ. The opening line is based on Lamentations 1:12:
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me,
which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.
ALL YE THAT PASS BY
All ye that pass by, to Jesus draw nigh:
To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?
Your ransom and peace, Your surety He is:
Come, see if there ever was sorrow like His.
For what you have done His blood must atone:
The Father hath punished for you His dear Son.
The Lord, in the day of His anger, did lay
Your sins on the Lamb, and He bore them away.
He answered for all: O come at His call,
And low at His cross with astonishment fall!
But lift up your eyes at Jesus’ cries:
Impassive, He suffers; immortal, He dies.
He dies to atone for sins not His own;
Your debt He hath paid, and your work He hath done.
Ye all may receive the peace He did leave,
Who made intercession, “My Father, forgive!”
For you and for me He prayed on the tree:
The prayer is accepted, the sinner is free.
That sinner am I, who on Jesus rely,
And come for the pardon God cannot deny.
My pardon I claim; for a sinner I am,
A sinner believing in Jesus’ Name.
He purchased the grace which now I embrace:
O Father, Thou know’st He hath died in my place.
His death is my plea; my Advocate see,
And hear the blood speak that hath answered for me.
My ransom He was when He bled on the cross;
And losing His life He hath carried my cause.
—Charles Wesley, 1707-1788, from METHODIST HYMNS, 1779.