Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Our Sorrows are Mortal
"Our sorrows are all, like ourselves, mortal. There are no immortal sorrows for immortal souls. They come, but blessed be God, they also go. Like birds of the air, they fly over our heads. But they cannot make their abode in our souls. We suffer today, but we shall rejoice tomorrow."
C.H. Spurgeon
C.H. Spurgeon
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Self-Control
Ed Welch:
"There is a mean streak to authentic self-control. Underneath what seems to be the placid demeanor of those who are not ruled by their desires is the heart of a warrior. Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin. . . .
When was the last time you said 'No' to something, out of obedience to Christ, when it actually was hard to say 'No'? Maybe you can say 'No' quite easily to cocaine, but you linger over salacious advertising. Maybe you can say 'No' to the second or third drink, but you will never miss a dessert (though you vow weekly to change your eating habits). Whatever earthly desire doesn’t take 'No' for an answer is a lust that surpasses your desire for Jesus Himself. With this in mind, we quickly realize that self-control is not simply an exercise in self-improvement. It is an essential discipline in a high-stakes spiritual battle. The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desires is a declaration of all-out war."
Read the entire article here.
(HT Dane Ortlund)
"There is a mean streak to authentic self-control. Underneath what seems to be the placid demeanor of those who are not ruled by their desires is the heart of a warrior. Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin. . . .
When was the last time you said 'No' to something, out of obedience to Christ, when it actually was hard to say 'No'? Maybe you can say 'No' quite easily to cocaine, but you linger over salacious advertising. Maybe you can say 'No' to the second or third drink, but you will never miss a dessert (though you vow weekly to change your eating habits). Whatever earthly desire doesn’t take 'No' for an answer is a lust that surpasses your desire for Jesus Himself. With this in mind, we quickly realize that self-control is not simply an exercise in self-improvement. It is an essential discipline in a high-stakes spiritual battle. The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desires is a declaration of all-out war."
Read the entire article here.
(HT Dane Ortlund)
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Reaching the Affluent with the Gospel
The Cripplegate:
"What if a man wearing a tie entered your church along side a man in rags? Honestly now? Who would you assume needed the Gospel more? To whom would your heart go out? Our instinct here is evidence of our failure to maintain Gospel fidelity. Our hearts should go out to both. Not weeping over the businessman in the same way you do the poor man is an insult to the Gospel. To provide the homeless man with bread only is not the full extent of Christian love. Neither is assuming the man in the tie is less destitute as the man in need of bread."
Read the entire article here.
"What if a man wearing a tie entered your church along side a man in rags? Honestly now? Who would you assume needed the Gospel more? To whom would your heart go out? Our instinct here is evidence of our failure to maintain Gospel fidelity. Our hearts should go out to both. Not weeping over the businessman in the same way you do the poor man is an insult to the Gospel. To provide the homeless man with bread only is not the full extent of Christian love. Neither is assuming the man in the tie is less destitute as the man in need of bread."
Read the entire article here.
Opinions & Beliefs
Opinions and beliefs are meant to be evaluated in the light of truth. What did happen? What do you think and believe? How do you judge people or your situation? Finally, is what you think true and righteous, or false and sinful? Instead of posing these sorts of questions, “I feel that...” ducks conscious evaluation of my ideas and judgments. What I feel just is. True-for-me replaces truth. The Bible has devastating things to say about leaning on your own understanding, about being wise in your own eyes, about the way that seems right to a man, and about people who delight in airing their opinions (see Prov. 3:5; 3:7; 14:12; 18:2).
David Powlison - Seeing With New Eyes, 2003, p. 213-214.
David Powlison - Seeing With New Eyes, 2003, p. 213-214.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Adoption through Propitiation
"Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be adoption through propitiation, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that."
J.I. Packer - Knowing God, p. 214
(HT Justin Taylor)
J.I. Packer - Knowing God, p. 214
(HT Justin Taylor)
Christ Will Be Master Of The Heart
"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
C.H. Spurgeon
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Douglas Moo - Baptism in Colossians 2:12
"Paul’s logic runs like this: you have been spiritually “circumcised.” This circumcision took place when you were buried with Christ and raised with him. And this burial and resurrection with Christ happened when you were baptized. As this paraphrase of Paul’s argument also reveals, the popular explanation that Paul uses baptism as a symbol of our death to the old life (when we are plunged beneath the water) and resurrection to the new life (when we arise out of the water) is also wide of the mark. Baptism does not symbolize what happened when we were converted; it somehow is integrally involved in that conversion itself. The best way to account for this and at the same time to do justice to Paul’s constant emphasis on our faith as the key to our coming to Christ (as he does at the end of this very verse, as if to guard against a possible misunderstanding) is again to recognize a broadly attested New Testament theological concept dubbed by James Dunn “conversion-initiation.” The New Testament connects our coming to Christ (being converted and initiated in the new covenant community) to faith, to repentance, to the gift of the Spirit, and to water baptism, in various combinations. Any of these, in a kind of metonymy, could be used to connote the whole experience–implying, of course, in each instance, the presence of all the others. Water baptism, then, as a critical New Testament rite intimately connected to our conversion experience, could be used as shorthand for the whole experience."
Douglas Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, p. 202
Douglas Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, p. 202
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Jesus Never Fails
Faith is only as reliable and helpful as the trustworthiness of its object; and Christian faith is powerful and effective because the object of faith, Jesus Christ, is infinitely powerful and absolutely dependable. Christian faith never fails, because the One in whom that faith is placed never fails.
John MacArthur - Ephesians, Moody, 1986, p. 358.
John MacArthur - Ephesians, Moody, 1986, p. 358.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
From the Garden to the Cross by Tim Challies
Tim Challies:
I know that it is bad form to turn a sermon into a blog post, but I’m going to do it anyway (hey, it’s my blog!). Yesterday I preached from Genesis 3 and found great joy in going from the garden to the cross. There are lots of ways we can do this, but I chose to do it through the cherubim. Can I ask you to read along? I think you’ll find this a real encouragement.
By the end of Genesis chapter 3, the Lord has passed judgment on the serpent, on the woman and on Adam and he has banished them from the Garden of Eden—banished them from his presence and from the place where they could have access to the tree of life from which they could eat and live forever as sinful immortal beings. Before the entrance, to ensure they could never return to the garden, he placed a flaming sword and the cherubim.
What is a cherubim? Cherubim have gotten a bit of a bad rap, I think. When we think of cherubs we tend to think of cute, pudgy little angels that help children go to sleep. According to the Bible, though, the cherubim are terrifying warriors who are guardians of the things of God. They are described as having the general appearance of men, but also of having the face of a lion or the face of an eagle—fierce creatures, predators. They have wings—sometimes two pairs and sometimes just one. These are creatures who are created specifically to protect and to fight and to destroy. You do not want to meet a cherubim and you do not want your kids to be thinking about them when they are trying to get to sleep!
It was cherubim that were mounted on the top of the Ark of the Covenant; their wings stretched out over the mercy seat. It was from here, from the mercy seat, under the wings of the cherubim, that the Lord spoke to Moses so that in the Old Testament we read of God being the God who is enthroned between the cherubim. These are holy creatures, creatures who are near the presence of God. They aren’t cute; they aren’t pretend. They are powerful, they are strong, they are holy, they will utterly destroy any unholy thing that comes near the presence of God. They are the ultimate guardians. This is their job and they do it with perfection!
Do you see how unholy Adam and Eve have become? How unholy we have become? Between us and God we must now have this kind of a creature to keep us away from him, to guard his presence from our pollution, from our sin.
So there was the Garden and the tree of life—the tree that Adam and Eve and all their children could eat of and live. And now there between them were the cherubim with the flaming sword. The way was barred. No man could now approach God. No man could approach God and eat and live forever. Man must die. He must die and return to the dust from which he was taken. No man could brave those cherubim and live. This is where Genesis 3 ends. But, thankfully, the Bible continues. And as it continues, we meet the cherubim again. So just quickly, let’s follow those cherubim. We will follow them…
…To the Tabernacle
The next place we find those cherubim is in the wilderness. When the Israelites left Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, God told them to build a tabernacle, a place of worship.
This tabernacle had a courtyard where all of God’s people could go to perform their sacrifices, to be made right with God. It had an enclosed inner place, the Holy Place, where only the priests could go. And it had a Most Holy Place, the Holy of Holies, where only one man could go, and he only once a year. This was the center of the tabernacle, the pinnacle. This is where the ark of the covenant rested, the ark in which God dwelt between the cherubim. God had dwelt in the Garden of Eden; now God dwelt here in the tabernacle, here in the ark, between the cherubim.
Between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place was a curtain, a thick curtain of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. This curtain was meant to keep everyone away—to keep them away from God. And worked into the curtain by the finest artists, was the image of the cherubim. Between God and the people, between God’s people and the presence of God in the Most Holy Place were those cherubim. There on the curtains they declared that they were still the guardians, that they had to keep unholy beings out of God’s presence, that the way was still barred. The Israelites made their sacrifices, they performed what God told them to do, but always they knew that God was hidden behind the curtain, behind the cherubim, away from sinners.
Read the entire article here.
I know that it is bad form to turn a sermon into a blog post, but I’m going to do it anyway (hey, it’s my blog!). Yesterday I preached from Genesis 3 and found great joy in going from the garden to the cross. There are lots of ways we can do this, but I chose to do it through the cherubim. Can I ask you to read along? I think you’ll find this a real encouragement.
By the end of Genesis chapter 3, the Lord has passed judgment on the serpent, on the woman and on Adam and he has banished them from the Garden of Eden—banished them from his presence and from the place where they could have access to the tree of life from which they could eat and live forever as sinful immortal beings. Before the entrance, to ensure they could never return to the garden, he placed a flaming sword and the cherubim.
What is a cherubim? Cherubim have gotten a bit of a bad rap, I think. When we think of cherubs we tend to think of cute, pudgy little angels that help children go to sleep. According to the Bible, though, the cherubim are terrifying warriors who are guardians of the things of God. They are described as having the general appearance of men, but also of having the face of a lion or the face of an eagle—fierce creatures, predators. They have wings—sometimes two pairs and sometimes just one. These are creatures who are created specifically to protect and to fight and to destroy. You do not want to meet a cherubim and you do not want your kids to be thinking about them when they are trying to get to sleep!
It was cherubim that were mounted on the top of the Ark of the Covenant; their wings stretched out over the mercy seat. It was from here, from the mercy seat, under the wings of the cherubim, that the Lord spoke to Moses so that in the Old Testament we read of God being the God who is enthroned between the cherubim. These are holy creatures, creatures who are near the presence of God. They aren’t cute; they aren’t pretend. They are powerful, they are strong, they are holy, they will utterly destroy any unholy thing that comes near the presence of God. They are the ultimate guardians. This is their job and they do it with perfection!
Do you see how unholy Adam and Eve have become? How unholy we have become? Between us and God we must now have this kind of a creature to keep us away from him, to guard his presence from our pollution, from our sin.
So there was the Garden and the tree of life—the tree that Adam and Eve and all their children could eat of and live. And now there between them were the cherubim with the flaming sword. The way was barred. No man could now approach God. No man could approach God and eat and live forever. Man must die. He must die and return to the dust from which he was taken. No man could brave those cherubim and live. This is where Genesis 3 ends. But, thankfully, the Bible continues. And as it continues, we meet the cherubim again. So just quickly, let’s follow those cherubim. We will follow them…
…To the Tabernacle
The next place we find those cherubim is in the wilderness. When the Israelites left Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, God told them to build a tabernacle, a place of worship.
This tabernacle had a courtyard where all of God’s people could go to perform their sacrifices, to be made right with God. It had an enclosed inner place, the Holy Place, where only the priests could go. And it had a Most Holy Place, the Holy of Holies, where only one man could go, and he only once a year. This was the center of the tabernacle, the pinnacle. This is where the ark of the covenant rested, the ark in which God dwelt between the cherubim. God had dwelt in the Garden of Eden; now God dwelt here in the tabernacle, here in the ark, between the cherubim.
Between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place was a curtain, a thick curtain of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. This curtain was meant to keep everyone away—to keep them away from God. And worked into the curtain by the finest artists, was the image of the cherubim. Between God and the people, between God’s people and the presence of God in the Most Holy Place were those cherubim. There on the curtains they declared that they were still the guardians, that they had to keep unholy beings out of God’s presence, that the way was still barred. The Israelites made their sacrifices, they performed what God told them to do, but always they knew that God was hidden behind the curtain, behind the cherubim, away from sinners.
Read the entire article here.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Love your Fellowmen
"Love your fellowmen, and cry about them if you cannot bring them to Christ. If you cannot save them, you can weep over them. If you cannot give them a drop of cold water in hell, you can give them your heart's tears while they are still in this body."
C.H. Spurgeon
C.H. Spurgeon
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Does the Bible Teach that Baptism is for Disciples Only?
Two fellow seminary students debate the subject of infant baptism here.
(HT Alpha & Omega Ministries)
(HT Alpha & Omega Ministries)
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Freedom
"Freedom is not only the principle in the Christian life. Freedom is for something. God has set us free for holiness. He has set us free from the guilt and bondage of sin – but not in order that we might become enslaved to the very sins for which Christ died to redeem us!... No action which is contrary to the plain Word of God can ever be legitimate for the Christian. No appeal to spiritual freedom or to providential circumstances can ever make what is ethically wrong anything else but sinful. For the Christian is free only to love and obey the law of God. Therein lies his true freedom."
Sinclair B. Ferguson - Discovering God’s Will, 1991, p. 66.
Sinclair B. Ferguson - Discovering God’s Will, 1991, p. 66.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
A Great Salvation
"This is a great salvation because the destiny we are saved for is great: we will one day break free from cancer and paralysis and arthritis and blindness and depression and corruption and futility and inherit the glory of the risen Son of God. He has been crowned with glory and honor (2:9); and that is where he is leading us. And it is a great salvation because the Savior is great: This is the Son of God who came, not an angel, not a mere human being, but the Son of God, who is God—worshiped and revered forever. No one less than God has come to lead us to glory. So this is a great salvation because the Forerunner is great and because the goal is great. The Forerunner is the Son of God and the goal is glory of God."
John Piper
John Piper
Monday, July 04, 2011
Trial, Weakness & Trouble
"In trial and weakness and trouble, He seeks to bring us low, until we learn that His grace is all, and to take pleasure in the very thing that brings us and keeps us low. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. His presence filling and satisfying our emptiness, becomes the secret of humility that need never fail. The humble man has learned the secret of abiding gladness. The weaker he feels, the lower he sinks, and the greater his humiliations appear, the more power and the presence of Christ are his portion."
Andrew Murray
Andrew Murray
Friday, July 01, 2011
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