The Day After the Election
Dr. James White speaks truth here that all Christians should carefully hear…
Happy Reformation Day!
The Sacrifices of God
“All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2)
Last weekend my wife and I spent time in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina on a weekend retreat with our Sunday school class. The drive up was exhilarating as we approached the mountain line and began experiencing the popping of our ears as our bodies adjusted to the change in pressure. The colors of the leaves were astounding. The views from the car as we climbed higher and higher were absolutely breathtaking.
read the rest of this article …
The Triumph of Grace over the Power of Sin
Mike Ratliff has posted an excellent article on the condition of the visible church with regards to a lack of understanding and preaching on repentance. In fact, it seems these days that even mentioning repentance may get you thrown out of the “popular” culture within the church visible.
The debate in the visible Church in our time concerning the need for Christians to walk in Repentance is actually quite perplexing to those of us whose hearts and consciences are bound to the Word of God. It clearly exhorts us all to repent and walk in righteousness. I had a conversation with a Pastor a couple of years ago at lunch following his sermon that Sunday morning. We discussed the dreadful condition in the visible Church today in which most professing Christians appeared to be very immature and in bondage to their flesh. I asked for his opinion of why that was so. His response was that it was the result of the Church not being the Church as God designed. There was little or no Church discipline. There was little preaching of the Law and the Gospel together. There was hardly ever a mention of walking in repentance before our Holy God. I agreed completely with his analysis. He also shared that he did not believe that a very large percentage of the professing Christians were genuine.
Head on over to “Possessing the Treasure” to read the rest of this great article.
Practical Atheists
“Christians are condemned who profess to own God for their God and yet do not live as if he were their God. (1) They do not believe in him as a God. When they look upon their sins, they are apt to say, Can God pardon? When they look upon their wants, they say, Can God provide, can he prepare a table in the wilderness? (2) They do not love him as a God. They do not give him the cream of their love, but are prone to love other things more than God; they say they love God, but will part with nothing for him. (3) They do not worship him as God. They do not give him that reverence, nor pray with that devotion, as if they were praying to a God. How dead are their hearts! If not dead in sin, they are dead to duty. They pray as to a god that has eyes and sees not, ears and hears not. In hearing the Word, how much distraction, and what regardless hearts have many! They are thinking of their shops and drugs. Would a king take it well at our hands, if, when speaking to us, we should be playing with a feather? When God is speaking to us in his Word, and our hearts are taken up with thoughts about the world, is not this playing with a feather? Oh, how should this humble most of us, that we do not make God to be a God to us! We do not believe in him, love him, worship him as God. Many heathens have worshipped their false gods with more seriousness and devotion than some Christians do the true God. O let us chide ourselves; did I say chide? Let us abhor ourselves for our deadness and formality in religion; how we have professed God, and yet have not worshipped him as God.”
- Thomas Watson, “The Right Understanding of the Law“
Celebrating Fall
A recent church Fall Newsletter headlined, “Celebrating the Beauty of God’s Changing World” Now, at first glance this may seem like a harmless headliner. It sits on top of a beautiful fall picture of children catching falling leaves. Harmless right? It’s quite picturesque too. Yet, I can’t help to point out how this could be misread. There seems to be a revealing error being communicated here. A fatal error that points to a trend in our churches that has proven to be detrimental to so many. A celebration of gifts rather than the giver. A few years ago this might have never caught my attention and I would have excused it as an issue of semantics and simply displayed grace to the editor. (I’m still willing to dialogue with the editor, because it could be just a matter of retraction and correction.) Yet, this error will more than likely be smiled at as cleaver and cute (with children laughing, of course it’s cute) Yet the effort to make the season less about a Pagan ritual by throwing ‘God’ in the headline doesn’t necessarily excuse the headline as being an acceptable Christian statement. Without ‘God’ in the headline it would read “Celebrating the beauty of a changing world” sounds like a progressive political magazine now, right? Do you see my conflict yet? God is not changing, yet His world is changing. Is this something we should celebrate?
There is at least two types of changing here that could be expressed:1) The change that happens Read more
True Conversion
Is Christianity a Religion?
I’ve heard both sides of this coin. Frankly, I hear the emphasis most often that Christianity is not a religion, it’s a personal relationship. While I understand the importance of setting Christianity apart from all other religions we must also consider what we are saying when we make the statement, “Christianity is not a religion.”
Josh, over at the Truth Matters blog, has posted an excellent article by Voddie Baucham on just this topic and Voddie does an excellent job explaining why we should be very careful how we use our words…
“There is a common mantra that has been around for a while, but which seems to be picking up steam. It goes like this: “Christianity is not a religion; it’s a relationship.” We’ve all heard it before. However, how many of us have bothered to evaluate this ubiquitous saying? I believe we must do just that.”
Head on over to Truth Matters and check out this great article…
The Serious Error of Decisional Evangelism
The more I study God’s word and the more I seek to know Him more, the more I am so burdened for the church in America. We have become so man centered and so activity focused in our churches that we have all but left the glorious gospel of God behind or set the gospel up on a shelf for all to admire from a distance only to be shadowed by “bigger and more important things.”Over twenty years ago I went through the motions of repeating a prayer from a pastor as I walked a long isle. Like a magic mantra, I repeated the words of my preacher, was baptized shortly after, and was told subsequently that I was saved. I had no understanding of sin, repentance, the holiness of God, the justice of God or my condition as a sinner. I was told to simply repeat a prayer. While it was an emotional experience it was not one that was wrought by the Spirit of God through repentance and faith. I am so grateful that my God did later save me. He transformed by heart of stone to a heart of flesh and my faith is not in a decision. My faith is not even in my faith. My faith is an ongoing faith in the person and work of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And that faith is a precious gift from my God - the God that for most of my life I lived in horrendous rebellion. Despite that hellish rebellion, He saved me. That my friend is amazing grace.
Book Review: The Great Exchange
It is so refreshing to read a book that exalts Christ on every single page and lifts the glorious doctrines of the substitutionary, vicarious, penal atonement of Christ from Scripture. It seems these days that you have to dig to the bottom shelf at the back of your local Christian bookstore to find anything worth reading.
This excellent book, The Great Exchange: My Sin for His Righteousness by Jerry Bridges & Bob Bevington, is an absolute joy to read. The forward by Sinclair Ferguson, senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church right here in my hometown of Columbia, SC is a magnificent read in itself.
Bridges & Bevington walk through the doctrine of the substitutionary death of Christ chapter by chapter by isolating it in different books of the Bible. The book opens with a great introduction and overview of the doctrine then shows how the apostles themselves summarized the substitutionary death of Christ in their writings. Following that is an excellent overview of Christ’s atoning cross-work as found in the Old Testament.
The authors then take you through a well written, theologically sound and very reformed overview of the substitutionary death found in the New Testament Scriptures as found in Romans, 1,2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1,2 Thessalonians, 1,2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews (which is an extensive chapter), 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation.
The writing is engaging and written at a level that both the layperson and the well-read theologian will both admire. From page to page is the exaltation of our Lord and Savior’s substitutionary death on the cross. The writers take time to exegete Scripture well and provide great historical context from each book.
I found one particular line in the book so well put considering the flood of prosperity preaching in the world today that tries so blasphemously to turn the cross into a means for material, worldly riches:
“Jesus offers no prosperity gospel. Christ is not a means to and end for the Christian - He is the end.” (Page 154)
I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to read a lot of good Christian books - many of the reformed flavor and this is one that will remain in arms reach on my bookshelf. Every Christian should read this book. Pastors today need desperately to return to the correct, Biblical understanding of the cross and books like “The Great Exchange” are a welcomed addition to the back of the Christian bookstores!
Download a pdf of the Foreward, Preface and Introduction.
Head on over to monergismbooks.com to order your copy today!
Polls
Loading ...