David Platt: Radical The Book & Radical The Bible Study

Shai Linne - Mission Accomplished

Lloyd - Jones On Calvinism

"I am a Calvinist; I believe in election and predestination; but I would not dream of putting it under the heading of essential. I put it under the heading of non-essential… You are not saved by your precise understanding of how this great salvation comes to you. What you must be clear about is that you are lost and damned, hopeless and helpless, and that nothing can save you but the grace of God in Jesus Christ and only Him crucified, bearing the punishment of your sins, dying, rising again, ascending, sending the Spirit, regeneration. Those are the essentials… While I myself hold very definite and strong views on the subject, I will not separate from a man who cannot accept and believe the doctrines of election and predestination, and is Arminian, as long as he tells me that we are all saved by grace, and as long as the Calvinist agrees, as he must, that God calls all men everywhere to repentance. As long as both are prepared to agree about these things I say we must not break fellowship. So I put election into the category of non-essentials."

D.M. Lloyd-Jones, What is an Evangelical? The Banner of Truth Trust, p. 87-88.

The Gospel And Racial HArmony

The Gospel and racial harmony from Jubilee Church on Vimeo.

(HT Adrian Warnock)

James White On The iPad & Kindle

In Christ Alone

Our Love Must Be A Special Kind Of Blind Love by Randal Pelton

Our Love Must Be A Special Kind Of Blind Love

Job 31:1-4, 9-12

Winning The Fight Against Sexual Temptation by Randal Pelton

Winning The Fight Against Sexual Temptation

1 Corinthians 7:1-5

Tim Challies On The Church

Tim Challies

"Yet the church is not a failure; the church—the remnant of those who are faithful, who compose only a part of the wider, visible church, remain true to Christ and continue to do God’s work in the world. Jesus himself told us that the road to salvation is narrow and only a few enter, so we should not be surprised when there are far more who turn their backs than respond with joy. We mourn their loss but trust in God’s sovereignty in saving a people to himself. This I can guarantee: 100% of God’s people have been (or will be!) ministered to and shaped by the Word of God. Every one of them has heard the preaching of a minister of the Word or has read a Bible lovingly and obediently translated. Every one of them has been successfully ministered to by another Christian. Why then do we dwell so often and sometimes exclusively on our failures and shortcomings? Does this honor God and glorify him for the battles that have been won and the lives he has changed through us?"

Read the entire article here.

The Sovereignty of God

"The painful things that come into our lives are not described by God as accidental or as out of his control. This would be no comfort. That God cannot stop a germ or a car or a bullet or a demon is not good news; it is not the news of the Bible. God can. And ten thousand times he does. But when he doesn’t, he has his reasons. And in Christ Jesus they are all loving. We are taught this sovereignty so that we will drink it in till it saturates our bones."

John Piper - A Sweet and Bitter Providence, pgs. 136-37

Memorize All of the Scripture You Can! - Bob Jennings

Look Unto Jesus And Be Saved

"This is somewhat of the word which He now speaks unto you: Why will you die? Why will you perish? Why will you not have compassion on your own souls? Can your hearts endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day of wrath that is approaching?... Look unto Me, and be saved; come unto Me, and I will ease you of all sins, sorrows, fears, burdens, and give rest to your souls. Come, I entreat you; lay aside all procrastinations, all delays; put me off no more; eternity lies at the door...do not so hate Me as that you will rather perish than accept of deliverance by Me. These and the like things does the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead and urge upon the souls of sinners... He does it in the preaching of the Word, as if He were present with you, stood amongst you, and spoke personally to every one of you... He has appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in His stead, avowing as His own the invitations which are given you in His name."

John Owen

Steven Curtis Chapman - Spring Is Coming

Free, Unconditional, Invincible Grace

"At the heart of the Reformation was one of the most fundamental questions of the Christian faith: How can I be saved from eternal damnation? The answer of all the leading Reformers was one and the same: only by God's free and sovereign grace. As J. I. Packer and O. Raymond Johnston have pointed out, it is wrong to suppose that the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, that storm center of the Reformation, was the crucial question in the minds of such theologians as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin. This doctrine was important to the Reformers because it helped to express and to safeguard their answer to another, more vital, question, namely, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christ's sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith."

Michael Haykin

Why Does the Universe Look So Old?

Tim Challies blog:

"The avoidance of this question about the age of the universe will come at the cost of our own credibility. But disaster ensues when the book of natural revelation is used to trump the book of special revelation. We would not be having this discussion today if these questions were not being posed to us by those who assume that general revelation is providing to us compelling evidence that forces us to reconstruct our understanding of the biblical text, that the assured results of science are forcing us to rethink what the Bible seems to say. Great caution is in order when we begin to cede to science. The assured results of science—what do they tell us about a virgin birth? About a resurrection? About sexual orientation? Are we going to submit special revelation to what science says in all of these areas? The end of this process is theological disaster.

When it comes to the confrontation of evolutionary theory and the gospel we have a head-on collision. It is our responsibility to give an answer to this question of why the universe looks old, but the most natural understanding comes to this: the universe looks old because the Creator made it whole. When he made Adam, Adam was not a fetus but a man. By our understanding this would have required time. But for God it did not. He put Adam in the garden, which was not merely seeds, but a fertile, mature garden. God creates and makes things whole. And secondly, it looks old because it bears the effects of sin, the flood, catastrophe. Creation is groaning and in its groaning it looks old and worn, giving us empirical evidence of the reality of sin."

Read the entire article here.

John MacArthur Quote

"Most people lack the true repentance. They lack the true contrition, the true brokenness. They are void of urgent desperation. They don't have a true relationship to Jesus Christ. They just "hang around" Jesus...and they do not know what it means to bow to that which is eternal. To be concerned about that. They want a gospel that doesn't ask for repentance. They want a gospel that has no threats. They want a gospel that allows them to have some superficial attachment to Jesus, but not a bowing to His absolute sovereignty at any cost. They want a gospel that fixes them in this world to make them more comfortable. That's not it. And that's not what Jesus offers."

Is Your Faith Private Or Public?

"All You Need Is Love" (the right kind, that is!) "What's Love Got To Do With It?" (everything)

"All You Need Is Love" (the right kind, that is!) "What's Love Got To Do With It?" (everything)

1 Corinthians 13:4-7,13

Sin Must Be Mortified

"Christ will be master of the heart, and sin must be mortified. If your life is unholy, then your heart is unchanged, and you are an unsaved person. The Savior will sanctify His people, renew them, give them a hatred of sin, and a love of holiness. The grace that does not make a man better than others is a worthless counterfeit. Christ saves His people, not in their sins, but from their sins. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord."

C.H. Spurgeon

Live For Eternity

Keeping The American Dream From Becoming A Nightmare by Randal Pelton

Keeping The American Dream From Becoming A Nightmare

Proverbs 30:1-9

Some Favorite Quotes

"I do not believe that any man can preach the Gospel who does not preach the Law. The Law is the needle, and you cannot draw the silken thread of the Gospel through a man's heart unless you first send the sharp needle of the Law to make way for it." - Charles Spurgeon

"God's grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers until the Law is preached, and man's corrupt nature is exposed. It is impossible for a person to fully realize his need for God's grace until he sees how terribly he has failed the standard of God's Law." - John MacArthur

“If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.” - Leonard Ravenhill

"Evangelism is not a gift. It is a matter of obedience or disobedience." - Mark Cahill

"It is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions, have been brought into some kind of religious experience by 'accepting Christ', and they have not been saved." - A.W. Tozer

"The greatest heresy in the American Evangelical and Protestant church is that if you pray and ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart, He will definitely come in." - Paul Washer

"If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for." - Charles Spurgeon

Consider What Your Nature Is

"Seeing then that we are so corrupted in our souls and that there is neither thought nor affection which is not utterly perverted, let us not think it strange that God with his own mouth pronounces us dead, despite the fact that through our own foolish pride we imagine that there is some life in us. And that is the very thing that St. Paul deals with now in saying that the Ephesians were partakers of the above-mentioned grace, though they were dead through their own sins and iniquities. [Eph. 2:1-5] As if he should say, In order that you may the better esteem the value of God's grace and what it brings with it, do not think only upon your present state, but consider what would have become of you if God had left you such as you were in yourselves and had not succored you at all, but had let you follow your own course. Consider what your nature is, for you were dead, and there was no hope that you would ever be quickened again, because it is not in the power of man's own free will to give himself life again when he is dead already. Know therefore that God drew you out of the pit of total ruin, in other words out of the bottom of hell, when he vouchsafed to adopt you to be his children and to call you to the knowledge of His Gospel."

John Calvin

Spiritual Blessings In Christ

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."

Ephesians 1:3-14

Is God's Plan Of Salvation A Failure Since So Many People Are Going To Hell?

Angels Would Give Anything To Have What Has Been Given To You

Jonathan Edwards Quotes

"Can the believing husband in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in Hell? Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell? Can the loving wife in Heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband in Hell? I tell you, yea! Such will be their sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish their bliss."

"Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life."

"Spiritual pride in its own nature is so secret, that it is not so well discerned by immediate intuition on the thing itself, as by the effects and fruits of it; some of which I would mention, together with the contrary fruits of pure Christian humility. Spiritual pride disposes to speak of other persons' sins, their enmity against God and his people, the miserable delusion of hypocrites, and their enmity against vital piety, and the deadness of some saints, with bitterness, or with laughter and levity, and an air of contempt; whereas pure Christian humility rather disposes, either to be silent about them, or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others; whereas an humble saint is most jealous of himself; he is so suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The spiritually proud person is apt to find fault with other saints, that they are low in grace; and to be much in observing how cold and dead they are; and being quick to discern and take notice of their deficiencies. But the eminently humble Christian has so much to do at home, and sees so much evil in his own heart, and is so concerned about it, that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts; he complains most of himself, and complains of his own coldness and lowness in grace. He is apt to esteem others better than himself, and is ready to hope that there is nobody but what has more love and thankfulness to God than he, and cannot bear to think that others should bring forth no more fruit to God's honour than he. Some who have spiritual pride mixed with high discoveries and great transports of joy, disposing them in an earnest manner to talk to others, are apt, in such frames, to be calling upon other Christians about them, and sharply reproving them for their being so cold and lifeless. There are others, who in their raptures are overwhelmed with a sense of their own vileness; and, when they have extraordinary discoveries of God's glory, are all taken up about their own sinfulness; and though they also are disposed to speak much and very earnestly, yet it is very much in blaming themselves, and exhorting fellow-Christians, but in a charitable and humble manner. Pure Christian humility disposes a person to take notice of every thing that is good in others, and to make the best of it, and to diminish their failings; but to gave his eye chiefly on those things that are bad in himself, and to take much notice of every thing that aggravates them.

In a contrariety to this, it has been the manner in some places, or at least the manner of some persons to speak of almost every thing that they see amiss in others, in the most harsh, severe, and terrible language. It is frequent with them to say of others' opinions, or conduct, or advice--or of their coldness, their silence, their caution, their moderation, their prudence, &c.--that they are from the devil, of from hell; that such a thing is devilish, or hellish, or cursed, and that such persons are serving the devil, or the devil is in them, that they are soul-murderers, and the like; so that the words devil and hell are almost continually in their mouths. And such kind of language they will commonly use, not only towards wicked men, but towards them whom they themselves allow to be the true children of God, and also towards ministers of the gospel and others who are very much their superiors. And they look upon it as a virtue and high attainment thus to behave themselves. Oh, say they, we must be plain hearted and bold for Christ, we must declare war against sin wherever we see it, we must not mince the matter in the cause of God and when speaking for Christ. And to make any distinction in persons, or to speak the more tenderly, because that which is amiss is seen in a superior, they look upon as very mean for a follower of Christ when speaking in the cause of his Master. What a strange device of the devil is here, to overthrow all Christian meekness and gentleness, and even all show and appearance of it, and to defile the mouths of the children of God, and to introduce the language of common sailors among the followers of Christ, under a cloak of high sanctity and zeal, and boldness for Christ! And it is a remarkable instance of the weakness of the human mind, and how much too cunning the devil is for us!" - Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

Subscribing To "Old School" Fashion by Randal Pelton

Subscribing To "Old School" Fashion

1 Peter 3:3-4; 1 Timothy 2:8-10

Be Ready For Every Good Work

Be Ready For Every Good Work

Titus 3:1-11 "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned."

Counterfeit Gods - Tim Keller

"An idol is something that we look to for things that only God can give. Idolatry functions widely inside religious communities when doctrinal truth is elevated to the position of a false god. This occurs when people rely on the rightness of their doctrine for their standing with God rather than on God himself and his grace. It is a subtle but deadly mistake. The sign that you have fallen into this form of self-justification is that you become what the book of Proverbs calls a “scoffer”. Scoffers always show contempt and disdain for opponents rather than graciousness. This is a sign that they do not see themselves as sinners saved by grace. Instead, their trust in the rightness of their views makes them feel superior."

Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods, pg.131

"Let Your Speech Always Be Gracious..." by Randal Pelton

"Let Your Speech Always Be Gracious..."

Sunday, May 30, 2010

James 3:3-12; Col. 4:5-6

Does God Get More Glory If Humans Have Free Will?

Keep Reading

John Piper:

"What I have learned from about twenty-years of serious reading is this. It is sentences that change my life, not books. What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth, some powerful challenge, some resolution to a long-standing dilemma, and these usually come concentrated in a sentence or two. I do not remember 99% of what I read, but if the 1% of each book or article I do remember is a life-changing insight, then I don't begrudge the 99%."

Read the entire article here.

Apply The Gospel To Everything

“In order to grow in Christlikeness, we’ve got to intentionally apply the gospel to everything we are and everything we long to do. We’re not to sever our obedience from [Christ's] perfect sinlessness nor disconnect our mortal life from his resurrected life. We’ve got to understand ourselves in the light of our new identity, seeing ourselves as we truly are: sinful and flawed, loved and welcomed. Only these gospel realities have enough power to engender faith, kill idolatry, produce character change, and motivate faithful obedience.”

Elyse Fitzpatrick, Because He Loves Me

(HT Jared Wilson)

Individual And Cosmic

Tullian Tchividjian:

"Jesus is the divine curse-remover and creation-renewer. Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross broke the curse of sin and death brought on by Adam’s cosmic rebellion. His bodily resurrection from the dead three days later dealt death its final blow, guaranteeing the eventual renewal of all things “in Christ.”

The dimensions of Christ’s finished work are both individual and cosmic. They range from personal pardon for sin and individual forgiveness to the final resurrection of our bodies and the restoration of the whole world. Now that’s good news—gospel—isn’t it? If we place our trust in the finished work of Christ, sin’s curse will lose its grip on us individually and we will one day be given a renewed creation. The gospel isn’t only about reestablishing a two-way relationship between God and us; it also restores a three-way relationship among God, his people, and the created order. Through Christ’s work, our relationship with God is restored while creation itself is renewed. This is what theologians mean when they talk about redemption. They’re describing this profound, far-reaching work by God.

Of course none of this is available for those who remain disconnected from Jesus. Sin’s acidic curse remains on everything that continues to be separated from Christ. We must be united to Christ by placing our trust in his finished work in order to receive and experience all the newness God has promised. For, as John Calvin said, “As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.” But for all that is united to Christ, everything false, bad, and corrupting will one day be consumed by what is true, good, and beautifying—and this includes the material world."

Tullian Tchividjian - Unfashionable

Our Compassionate Provider - Mark 8:1-10

Temptation

"No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting it, not by giving in. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it. "

C.S. Lewis

To Judge Or Not To Judge; That Is The Question by Randal Pelton

To Judge or Not to Judge; That is the Question

Matthew 7:1-6

Defeating The Deadly Sin Of Greed by Randal Pelton

Defeating The Deadly Sin Of Greed

James 3:13-4:4

To Speak or Not to Speak - Mark 7:31-37

Why We Should Show Love To One Another

Frank Turk:

"So when Pastor Ortlund says, “What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up, not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause, not standing aloof but embracing them freely, not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love,” I’m completely with him. What’s amazing about the Gospel is not what it makes of other people (for good or ill): it’s what it makes of me, which is that I am acceptable to God, and therefore I am acceptable to other people – not a lost cause which other people should rightfully shun.

In my own right, my own merit, I am a lost cause who ought to be shunned. Anyone in their right mind should not associate with me for what I am on my own – because I’m a loser on my own, morally, socially, and spiritually.

But in Christ, by what Christ has done, I have the right expectation that I am right with God – and that other who are like me in this regard are also right with God and therefore in the same standing and beautiful family that I belong to.

That expectation should make me generous to others spiritually, not stingy. And it should, as Pastor Ortlund says, make me a joy to be with."

Read the entire article here.

God Of Justice

“It’s always interesting to watch what happens when people who insist that God would never judge them come face to face with undeniable evil. Confronted with some truly horrific evil, then they want a God of justice — and they want him now. They want God to overlook their own sin, but not the terrorist’s. ‘Forgive me,’ they say, ‘but don’t you dare forgive him!’ You see, nobody wants a God who declines to deal with evil. They just want a God who declines to deal with their evil.”

Greg Gilbert, What Is the Gospel? (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2010), 44.

Changing The Rules

The Church Is Where The Truth Is

"The Word of God tells us that Christ’s church is glorious... (But) today the glory of the church is thickly veiled. It is no exaggeration to assert that in the main it presents a picture of advanced decadence and extreme feebleness... Let it be said emphatically, the church is where the truth is. Sound doctrine always has been, is today, and ever will be the foremost mark of the true church. But who dares to assert that there is today in the churches a rising tide of interest in doctrine? By and large people do not go to church to learn about God from His infallible Word, but to be tranquilized. And that the glory of God is both the beginning and the end of common worship does not seem to occur to them."

R.B. Kuiper

Cheap Grace

"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance, and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using it and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?

…Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - The Cost of Discipleship, pp. 45-47

(HT Internet Monk)

*A Must Listen To*: Coming To Grips With Our God Who Has A Love-Hate Relationship With Sinners by Randal Pelton

Coming To Grips With Our God Who Has A Love-Hate Relationship with Sinners

Psalm 5:5; 11:5, John 3:16, Proverbs 6:16-19

Preoccupation With Self

"Man's basic problem is preoccupation with self. He is innately beset with narcissism, a condition named after the Greek mythological character Narcissus, who spent his life admiring his reflection in a pool of water. In the final analysis, every sin results from preoccupation with self. We sin because we are totally selfish, totally devoted to ourselves, rather than to God and to others."

John MacArthur

Truly Knowing God

(HT Street Fishing)

Pastor Randal Pelton - It's Time For Saints To Simmer Down

It's Time For Saints To Simmer Down

James 1:18-25

The Church Is One

Make It Your Aim To Fear God

Safe-Guard Against False Teaching

What is the best safe-guard against false teaching? Beyond all doubt the regular study of the word of God, with prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The Bible was given to be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm. 119:105). The man who reads it aright will never be allowed greatly to err. It is neglect of the Bible which makes so many a prey to the first false teacher whom they hear. They would have us believe that "they are not learned, and do not pretend to have decided opinions." The plain truth is that they are lazy and idle about reading the Bible, and do not like the trouble of thinking for themselves. Nothing supplies false prophets with followers so much as spiritual sloth under a cloak of humility.

J.C. Ryle

There Is An Infinite, Qualitative Difference Between Potter And Clay

You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" 20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

Romans 9:19-23

John Piper:

"Paul argues that a potter has the authority and right over the clay to make a wide range of vessels from the same lump. Verse 21: "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?" The argument here is basically: Potters know more than clay about what is wise to make. I say this because Paul asks in verse 20, "Who are you, O man, [that is, a mere man, a mere piece of clay] to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’" In other words, the argument is simply this: we humans don’t know enough to elevate our values and our standards and our insights to the point of judging God and saying: You used your sovereignty in an unwise, unrighteous way. That’s argument number one. There is an infinite, qualitative difference between potter and clay that makes it foolish and wrong for clay to criticize the choices of the potter."

Read the entire article here.

What Should We Teach About Creation?

Pastor Randal Pelton - What Disasters And Suffering Tell Us About Our Condition

What Disasters and Suffering Tell Us About Our Condition

Luke 13:1-5

His Personal Love For You

“In one sense the whole object of being a Christian is that you may know the love of Jesus Christ, his personal love to you; that he may tell you in unmistakable language that he loves you, that he has given himself for you, that he has loved you with ‘an everlasting love.’ He does this through the Holy Spirit; he ’seals’ all his statements to you through the Spirit. . . . You believe it because it is in the Word; but there is more than that; he will tell you this directly as a great secret. The Spirit gives manifestations of the Son of God to his own, to his beloved, to those for whom he has gladly died and given himself.”

D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 7.1-8.4 (Edinburgh, 1973), page 61.

(HT Ray Ortlund)

Randy Alcorn - Testimony

When did you put your faith in Christ? from Randy Alcorn on Vimeo.

Commend Christ As Gain

John Piper:

"My biggest concern about the effects of the prosperity movement is that it diminishes Christ by making him less central and less satisfying than his gifts. Christ is not magnified most by being the giver of wealth. He is magnified most by satisfying the soul of those who sacrifice to love others in the ministry of the gospel.

When we commend Christ as the one who makes us rich, we glorify riches, and Christ becomes a means to the end of what we really want—namely, health, wealth, and prosperity. But when we commend Christ as the one who satisfies our soul forever—even when there is no health, wealth, and prosperity—then Christ is magnified as more precious than all those gifts.

We see this in Philippians 1:20-21. Paul says, “It is my eager expectation and hope that . . . Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Honoring Christ happens when we treasure him so much that dying is gain. Because dying means “to depart and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23).

This is the missing note in prosperity preaching. The New Testament aims at the glory of Christ, not the glory of his gifts. To make that clear, it puts the entire Christian life under the banner of joyful self-denial. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20).

But even though self-denial is a hard road that leads to life (Matthew 7:14), it is the most joyful of all roads. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). Jesus says that finding Christ as our treasure makes all other possessions joyfully dispensable. “In his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

I do not want prosperity preachers to stop calling people to maximum joy. On the contrary, I appeal to them to stop encouraging people to seek their joy in material things. The joy Christ offers is so great and so durable that it enables us to lose prosperity and still rejoice. “You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (Hebrews 10:34). The grace to be joyful in the loss of prosperity—that is the miracle prosperity preachers should seek. That would be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. That would magnify Christ as supremely valuable."

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Speechless - Steven Curtis Chapman

Russell Moore On Having An Uneasy Ecological Conscience

Russell Moore:

"Pollution kills people. Pollution dislocates families. Pollution defiles the icon of God’s Trinitarian joy, the creation of his theater (Ps. 19; Rom. 1).

Will people believe us when we speak about the One who brings life and that abundantly, when they see that we don’t care about that which kills and destroys? Will they hear us when we quote John 3:16 to them when, in the face of the loss of their lives, we shrug our shoulders and say, “Who is my neighbor?”

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Caring For The Environment

Randy Alcorn:

"God entrusts us with the earth as He entrusts us with our bodies, and He intends for us to take care of both. If you are conservative, then doesn’t it make sense to try to conserve your own health, your family’s health, and the health of the world we inhabit? (That “conservation” became a liberal term instead of a conservative one is counterintuitive.)

Perhaps because many environmental activists scorn the Bible and Christian beliefs, we have ignored our stewardship job description, as if it were somehow incompatible with the gospel. But it was God, not an environmental extremist, who delegated to us the responsibility of creation care. It was God, not an animal rights activist, who entrusted animals to us. Just as John 3:16 is inspired by God, so is Proverbs 12:10: “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal.”

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Worldly Grief Leads To Death

Kevin DeYoung:

"Worldly grief is not good grief. It leads to death. Because worldly grief does not allow us to see our offensiveness to God, we don’t deal with our sin in a vertical direction. And therefore, we don’t get forgiveness from God, the lack of which leads to spiritual death. Worldly grief deals with symptoms not with the disease. Worldly grief produces despair, bitterness, and depression because it focuses on regret for the past (which can’t be changed) or the present consequences (which can’t fully avoid) instead of personal sinfulness (which can always be forgiven).

Ironically, if we say “I can’t forgive myself” it’s probably a sign of worldly grief–either unbelief in God’s promises and the sufficiency of Christ’s work on the cross, or regret that is merely focused on my loss and what other people think of me and not on my sin before a holy God.

We hate to look at our sin, but when we refuse to deal with our sin, we are only hurting ourselves. Sorrow over loss of money does not bring it back. Sorrow over personal failure does not make it all better. Sorrow over negative reactions from others does not make them like us again. But sorrow over sin can lead to repentance and repentance leads to mercy and mercy means a fresh start.

So, yes, God wants us to feel guilty when we are guilty. But he doesn’t want us to feel guilty when we are not. And when we are, he doesn’t want us to wallow in our sin. He wants us to run to the cross, confess it, be cleansed, and enjoy a clean conscience."

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