The Musing Field

Living and Dying

2011-04-12T14:02:00.005+01:00

'Let me die- lest I die- only let me see Thy face'- Augustine

Tozer comments:

'To Augustine the sight of God inwardly enjoyed was life itself and anything less than that was death. To exist in total eclipse under the shadow of nature without the realized Presence was a condition not to be tolerated. Whatever hid God's face from him must be taken out of the way, even his own self-love, his dearest ego, his most cherished treasures. So he prayed, 'Let me die'...

Our uncrucified flesh will rob us of purity of heart, Christ-likeness of character, spiritual insight, fruitfulness; and more than all, it will hide from us the vision of God's face, that vision which has been the light of earth and will be the completeness of heaven.'

-The Root of the Righteous, pg 65-66

Views of the Bible

2011-04-09T11:36:00.002+01:00

'The point about the religious bible is that it purports to give us some direction. It contains the commands of a divinity wishing us to live a certain way.'

This is an interesting quote from Prof AC Grayling a popular humanist and editor of an Atheistic Bible called the 'Good Book'. I'm not sure why it's called that. Survival of the fittest doesn't seem like a good message in my eyes. Anyway, I reckon what Grayling has articulated is a very popular view of scripture. Most people that I speak to think the Bible is simply a book of rules and stories that were written to help us live morally. The Bible clearly contains lots of commands. But these rules weren't primarily written to change our behaviour.

The Bible was written firstly to show us how weak we are to keep God's commands. For example in Galatians 3:22 the Apostle Paul is teaching a church in modern day Turkey, he writes 'the scripture has confined all under sin'. His point is that after reading the old testament properly we will became more aware of our sin. The law confines us to sin because the more we look at God's law, the more we see his perfect standards, the more we become convinced the we are unable to obey Him perfectly. If we stop reading there the Christians message sounds quite depressing- full of guilt and despair...

The good news is the Bible also wants us to see that God has kept His own commandments on our behalf. See Galatians 3:19: 'the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith'. So the law brings us to Christ. In other words, the law (which reveals our sin) points us and connects us to the God-man, Jesus Christ, who died for our sin. Jesus also kept the law perfectly as if He were us. The result is 'justification by faith'. Imagine God in a crown court. He looks at you a disobedient sinner, one who has never honoured Him as He deserves. You think the verdict is going to be 'guilty'. But God pronounces you 'righteous'. Righteous is much much more than not guilty. Being declared 'not guilty' is brilliant because it means that you've never disobeyed. 'Righteous' on the other hand means constant perfect obedience. it speaks of someone who has never done anything wrong and always done what was right. It speaks of Jesus.

This justification is 'by faith', faith in Christ. What I'm saying is that the justification is not automatic. It's dependent on you trusting that God will freely give it to you. The declaration of 'righteous' is the declaration that Christ should have heard for His obedience. Instead of hearing 'righteous' on the cross He heard the word 'guilty'. With the guilt of my sin He was punished to liberate anyone who trusts.

Understanding the Bible properly brings transformation.

New Blog: Girls Adorn

2010-12-18T20:28:00.012Z

Check out this new blog from my friend Natalie. 'Girls Adorn' is about exploring what it means to be a female Christian in the 21st Century.

Natalie's got a PhD in Theology but more importantly wants to honour Jesus through 'adorning the doctrine of God' (Titus 2:10) with her lifestyle. Natalie and her husband are excellent friends and Christian examples.

Natalie writes about Girls Adorn:

'Many of us are trying to understand what being a woman of God looks like, after Christ, after feminism, after leaving home – in the wild WILD world of the 21st Century.

‘Girls Adorn’ is dedicated to honest, gritty articles on biblical womanhood, image, identity, relationships, sex, lust, purity, holiness, church life, theology, spirituality and female accountability.'

All Grace, No Boasting

2010-09-11T12:35:00.007+01:00

This is an amazing post from John Piper. It's titled 'My Happy Confession of Having No Merit'. I echo everything he writes.

This is my confession:

I was born into a believing family through no merit of my own at all.

I was given a mind to think and a heart to feel through no merit of my own at all.

I was brought into the hearing of the gospel through no merit of my own at all.

My rebellion was subdued, my hardness removed, my blindness overcome, and my deadness awakened through no merit of my own at all.

Thus I became a believer in Christ through no merit of my own at all.

And so I am an heir of God with Christ through no merit of my own at all.

Now when I put forward effort to please the Lord who bought me, this is to me no merit at all, because

...it is not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

...God is working in me that which is pleasing in his sight. (Hebrews 13:21)

...he fulfills every resolve for good by his power. (2 Thessalonians 1:11)

And therefore there is no ground for boasting in myself, but only in God’s mighty grace.

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:31)

(RT: Desiring God)

All Things

2010-08-26T18:04:00.004+01:00

Romans 8:30-32:

Whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

'Paul is telling us that there is no ultimate loss or irreparable impoverishment to be feared; if God denies us something, it is only in order to make room for one or other of the things he has in mind...

Paul's 'all things' is not a plethora of material possessions, and the passion for possessions has to be cast out of us in order to let the 'all things' in. For this phrase has to do with knowing and enjoying God, and not with anything else. The meaning of 'he will give us all things' can be put thus: one day we shall see nothing- literally nothing- which could have increased our eternal happiness has been denied us, and that nothing- literally nothing- that could have reduced that happiness has been left with us. What higher assurance do we want than that?'

- J. I. Packer, Knowing God, pg 307-308

What is the only real comfort in life and death?

2010-08-21T20:53:00.006+01:00

This answer from the Heidelburg Catechism is excellent:

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.'

Knowing that Jesus loves you enough to die for your sins should give real comfort everyday of life, and beyond.

Grace, Sin and Righteousness

2010-08-02T17:37:00.005+01:00

Reading through Paul Tripp's twitter feed has been a massive blessing. Here are a few of what I think are his best tweets...

If the righteousness of Christ is my hope, then I am freed from any need to polish and display my own.

Christ fulfilled the law's requirement, not so you would be a law breaker, but one who celebrates the grace that enables you to keep it.

The greatest threat to the church isn't atheism or materialism, but moralism that celebrates a righteousness that doesn't come from Christ.

Admitting you are a sinner means running from your tendency to defend, excuse, or shift the blame for what God clearly says is wrong.

Why is legalism dangerous? It makes you think you're more righteous than you are and that you don't need grace as much as you do.

Bonhoffer on acting as the Church

2010-07-25T17:22:00.007+01:00

Found a good quote on Tim Chester's blog about giving and receiving rebukes. Individualism can make the church become passive at this. The family of God need to be loving by taking responsibility for each other. This can include helping and supporting people as well as correcting and rebuking.

'The basis on which Christians can speak to one another is that each knows the other as a sinner who, even given all one’s human renown, is forlorn and lost if not given hep. This does not mean that the others are being disparaged or dishonoured. Rather, we are paying them the only real honour a human being has, namely, that as sinners they share in God’s grace and glory, that they are children of God. This realization gives our mutual speech the freedom and openness it needs. We talk to one another about the help we both need. We admonish one another to go the way Christ bids us to go. We warn one another against the disobedience that is our undoing. We are gentle and we are firm with one another, for we know both God’s kindness and God’s firmness. Why should we be afraid of one another since both of us have only God to fear?’

‘Nothing can be more cruel than that leniency which abandons other to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than that severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.’

More Bonheffer quotes here.

Real Christianity

2010-07-25T12:16:00.007+01:00

There are loads of different ideas about what authentic Christianity is in our culture, and there always has been. Jesus made it one of His missions to correct the 'Bible-guys' of His day. The Pharisee's presumed they had arrived theologically and spiritually. Jesus said to them: 'You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.' (John 5:39-40)

Many people have misconceptions of real Christianity. Even though I was brought up in a Christian home I presumed that Christianity was a way to dodge God's anger, a bit like a 'get out of hell free' card. Recently I've been reading a book by Henry Scougal called 'The Life of God in the Soul of Man'. You can read it online here. In it Scougal defines real Christianity:

'...true religion is a union of the soul with God, a real participation of the divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul, or, in the apostle's phrase, it is 'Christ formed within us'... I know not how the nature of religion can be more fully expressed, than by calling it a divine life.' (Page 16, IVP)

Real Christianity is knowing Christ. It's the enjoyment of God's essence. It's knowing and loving God because He first loved us! Jesus said to His Father while on earth: 'this is eternal life that they may know you the only one true living God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent' (John 17:3)

When Not to Preach

2010-03-28T22:25:00.003+01:00

I admire John Piper becuase he preaches well and knows when not to preach.

Praise God for giving Piper the discernement to identify his own pride, and the courage to do all he can to crucify it.

Repent Again Now

2010-02-27T15:56:00.001Z

Piper exhorts Christians not to sin against grace:

At the Cross...

2010-02-18T09:30:00.003Z

…We see God’s sovereignty—reigning with absolute control over humanity’s greatest sin.

…We see God’s purpose—making known the mystery of His will prepared before time.

…We see God’s plan—to unite all things, on heaven and on earth, in Him.

…We see God’s judgment—requiring recompense for guilt.

…We see God’s holiness—demanding the perfect sacrifice.

…We see God’s power—crushing the Son of God according to the purpose of His will.

…We see God’s wrath—punishing the wretchedness of sin.

…We see God’s sorrow—wailing as only a forsaken son can.

…We see God’s mystery—the Son, as God, separated from the Father, committing His Spirit to God.

…We see God’s compassion—pleading to the Father to forgive the ignorant.

…We see God’s gift—His one and only Son, bruised and broken on our behalf.

…We see God’s mercy—making unrighteous sinners righteous.

…We see God’s love—Christ dying for sinners.

…We see God’s rescue operation—delivering us from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of His Son.

…We see God’s proposal—pledging Himself to His bride forever.

…We see God’s revelation—the Word of God speaking His last so He might speak on behalf of many.

…We see God’s victory—disarming His enemies, putting them to shame, and triumphing over them.

…We see God’s glory—the name of the Father being magnified for the sake of all peoples.

HT: The Gospel Coalition

Pursuing God as the Greatest Delight

2010-02-16T15:37:00.007Z

Reading through Augustine's Confessions is a great way to see how to relate to God. The whole book is written like a prayer in the third person- it's a demonstration of how to pour out your heart to the Lord.

Below is a quote where Augustine explains that sin is neglecting the higher good (God), while giving preference to inferior delights. (Maybe C. S. Lewis was thinking of this part of the Confessions when writing The Weight of Glory).

'The life that we live here has its own peculiar attractiveness, and allure all its own, especially in its harmony with the rest of the creation. The bond of human friendship has a sweetness of its own, binding many souls together as one. Yet because of these things we value, sin is committed. We have an inordinate preference for these things of a lower order while neglecting the better and the higher good. We neglect You, Lord God- Your truth, and Your law.

While these inferior things we value have their delights, none are equal to You. For in You, O God, the righteous delight and You are the sweetness of the upright in heart.'

The shortest and most helpful review of 'The Shack' that I've read

2010-01-28T11:55:00.004Z

Here

'At the heart of the book is a noble effort — to help modern people understand why God allows suffering, using a narrative form... I have heard many reports of semi-believers and non-believers claiming that this book gave them an answer to their biggest objections to faith in God. However, sprinkled throughout the book, Young’s story undermines a number of traditional Christian doctrines.

... The God of The Shack has none of the balance and complexity of the Biblical God. Half a God is not God at all.'- Tim Keller

A Great Mystery

2010-01-11T17:41:00.001Z

'Indeed, this is one of the greatest mysteries in the world—namely, that a righteousness that resides with a person in heaven should justify me, a sinner on earth.'

-John Bunyan

Taken from Justification by an Imputed Righteousness

Jesus and Relationships

2010-01-08T17:07:00.005Z

'The gods of moralistic religions favour the successful and the overachievers. They are the ones who climb the moral ladder up to heaven. But the God of the Bible is the one who comes down into the world to accomplish a salvation and give us a grace we could never attain ourselves. He loves the unwanted, the weak and unloved. He is not just a king and we are the subjects; he is not just a shepherd and we are the sheep. He is a husband and we are his spouse. He is ravished with us- even those of us whom no one else notices...

When God came to earth in Jesus Christ... He became the man nobody wanted. He was born in a manger. He had no beauty that we should desire him (Isaiah 53:2). He came to his own and his won recieved him not (John 1:11). And at the end everybody abondoned him. Jesus cried even to his Father: 'Why have you forsaken me?'

... Why did he become the man nobody wanted? For you and me. He took upon himself our sins and died in our place. If we are deeply moved by the sight of his love for us, it detaches our hearts from other would-be saviors. We stop trying to redeem ourselves through our pursuits and relationships, because we are already redeemed. We stop trying to make others into saviors because we have a Savior.'

-Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

From the chapter Love Is Not All You Need, pg 44-45

5 Hard Truths for Church Planters and How to Kill Stress

2010-01-06T17:34:00.006Z

The series written by Dustin Neely from the resurgence is very helpflul and practical. The five hard truths are:

1) Be Resilient
2) Be Yourself
3) Think Hybrid
4) Kill Your Stress
5) Lead Your Family Well

Kill Your Stress is my favourite post. Here are four steps to killing stress featured in that post.

4 Steps to Kill Your Stress
Kill your stress before it kills you. Here are four ways:

1. Live your Bible.
"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (Matthew 6:33-34).

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7).

"Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases" (Psalm 115:3).

We believe these Scriptures. We teach these Scriptures. But do we live these Scriptures? The reality is that most of us don't.

In seasons of stress, meditate specifically on passages that remind you of the truth and not your perceived reality. Look for the sins behind the sin for why you can't relax—sins like control, unbelief, or your worth rooted in your identity as a church planter. As you see the discrepancy between what you believe and how you live, confess, repent and pray for God's help.
Make it your goal to live the goodness of the gospel and not just believe it.

2. Listen to your body.
You know that burning in your chest at the top of your stomach? That's not supposed to be there! That, and other symptoms, are the “God-installed” ways your body has of telling you to slow down and trust him. Listen to your body’s signs, and let them be a reminder to trust him with your life, family, and church. You don't want somebody else raising your kids. If your body is telling you to slow down, do it.

3. Listen to your wife and kids.
If you are married, your spouse is likely your best ally in your ongoing battle with stress. Chances are, she and the kids (if you have them), are going to be who God uses to make you laugh, go to bed, and take a day off. Don't ignore them! If she thinks you are stressed, you probably are, even if you don't. If your kids make comments about why daddy is so tired or mad, listen to them and make changes.

4. Learn your limits.
Pastor Wayne Cordeiro has a great principle called "The Plate." Every leader has a certain-sized plate based on their skills, gifts, life season, health, etc. Not all our plates are the same size, and that is the way God designed it. Trust that God made you who you are to do what you can do and leave it at that. Realize that a lot of your stress comes from the fact that you have a salad plate stacked with a buffet plate's amount of food. Repent. Resize. Repeat.

New Year, Same Resolution

2010-01-04T22:35:00.004Z

Happy New Year to everyone who reads/glances/scrolls through these posts! It's that time of the year when people make an extra effort to make a fresh start and turn over a new leaf. We call it making a New Years Resolution, but often these resolutions don't work. This is all because we look to the resolution for power to keep it. This is one of the big mistakes that lots of people make (including me) with the Christian life. We look at the law and think to ourselves 'God wants me to do this or that. So I need to try really hard to do what he wants'. We treat God's standards like a resolution, we look for power to keep the law in the law, we look for strength to be a good Christian from the commands. Again and again we find we aren't living in a Christian way because we look to the wrong source for our and strength power. The Christian life is a life of faith (Hab 2:4). The way to live according to God's ways is by faith. What does that mean? 'Faith' doesn't really mean anything until we describe what we have faith in. This is how Paul sums up the Christian life:

'The life which I know live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved my an gave Himself for me'

Galatians 2:20

Paul wants us to know that the only way to for God is by faith. And that faith needs to be faith in the gospel. It's faith in the fact that the God-man was slaughtered in my place and for my sin. But not only that. Paul also wants us to know that His bloody death is the greatest indicator of God's love. Jesus death means God's love. But not only in a general sense. We need to have an impression of His love on our hearts. We need to see and be amazed that He gave Himself for us and you individually. We need to see that God's love is wonderfully personally and beautifully individual, whilst being at the same time collective.

So according to Paul the Christian life is empowered by a realisation of God's love shown in Jesus. If I'm to do anything Christian in my life- if I'm to love my neighbour, help the poor, serve my city, kill sin- I need to believe the gospel to greater degree everyday. The extent to which I believe the gospel is the extent of the empowering I receive to live God's way.

My resolution for 2010 and (continuing resolution for every year to come) is reflected in Ephesians 3:17-19

'that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.'

Schaeffer Resources

2009-12-30T14:32:00.004Z

I've recently been listening to a lecture course from Covenant Seminary on the life of Francis Schaeffer by Jerram Barrs. The follow up course is available free here. These lectures have really refreshed my heart and opened me up to the effective power of God. It seems to me that many Christians live in depression all because they believe that sin is too big. Instead we all need to realise to a greater degree that God's Spirit in us, is greater than Satanic threats, activity, temptations, and demonic attacks (1 John 4:4).

Schaeffer's life is one of compassion and orthodoxy- often a rare combination. He was lovingly determined to fight for a theologically pure church. He took a stand against modernism and Unitarianism, without neglecting to love people, serve his congregation, and have an exemplary marriage to Edith Schaeffer.

Schaeffer is better known for being a great apologist. After feeling God's call he started a work in Switzerland named L'Abri. L'Abri (french for shelter) was designed to be a non-judgemental environment for people to visit and explore questions about God and life. The centre still runs today to carry on the work and legacy of Francis and Edith for Jesus glory!

Resources:

The Tapestry- Edith Shaeffer's account of her and Francis' life and work.

True Spirituality- a great book that defines biblical Christianity and looks at the gospel's life implications.

How should we then live?- an analysis of historic western culture with conclusions on how these lessons should effect our lives today.

The God Who is There- in this book Schaeffer looks at different historical viewpoints regarding belief in God, and then draws his own conclusions.

Francis Schaeffer: The Early Years, and Francis Schaeffer: The Later Years- free lectures by Jerram Barrs (same links as above)

Also see Lane's Youtube channel for (cheesy!) Schaffer videos

C. S. Lewis on the Search for Beauty

2009-12-26T19:04:00.006Z

'Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself.

...We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted... Our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is... the truest index of our real situation.'

- C. S. Lewis, taken from The Weight of Glory

Jesus for the Moral and Immoral

2009-12-26T16:56:00.013Z

Over the last few days I've been reading The Prodigal God by Tim Keller. It's such a good book! Keller has skill in revealing the true meaning of the scriptures while applying them faithfully and relevantly to contemporary culture.

In case you don't know, the book is firstly about God. The Prodigal God. What does that mean? Isn't a prodigal someone who lives recklessly, rejects authority and spends all he has? Exactly. God is a prodigal God. God came down in Jesus and lived a life of offensive recklessness in the eyes of the religious leaders (the Pharisees hated Christ). Jesus doesn't reject authority but rather surrenders every right He has to be authoritative and be treated fairly, even to the extent of being nailed to a splintered bit of wood. What about spending all He has? Yes. Ultimate generosity is expressed in God giving Himself to mankind, living the life we could not live and dieing the death we should have died all to bring us back to Himself (1 Peter 3:18).

The book centers Christ's parable as recorded in Luke 15:11-31. In this parable we see two sons and a generous Father representing God. One Son is good, keeping the rules of the Father while the other Son rejects the Father, asks for His inheritance and runs off without a thought for the dignity of his family. On the surface it seems that we are taught to make a clear distinction between good and bad from the parable. This is not the case. Jesus is actually exposing the heart of the elder 'good' Son. His obedience is full of pride- He's driven by the pleasure of knowing that he is good in comparison with his reckless brother, an attitude that is despicable. The older brother doesn't love his Father. He loves to feel distinct from his runaway brother.

What's the message? You can reject Jesus by being good or bad. You can reject all the rules or keep them all to push away Christ. You can live morally or immorally without God. Keller explains that religious people avoid Jesus. The same people who are sitting in churches every Sunday (like the elder son in the home of his father), despising the lifestyles of those outside the church are avoiding Jesus by trusting in their own goodness. They don't need Jesus because they think they have their own goodness. Instead Christ wants all of us, moral and immoral, to trust in His goodness. When we trust in our own goodness to make us acceptable we are calling ourselves God, this is the essence of sin.

'Sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Saviour, Lord, and judge just as each son sought to displace the authority of the father in his own life' (pg. 43)

'It is only when you see the desire to be your own Saviour and Lord- lying beneath your sins and your moral goodness- that you are on the verge of understanding the gospel and becoming a Christian indeed. When you realize that the antidote to being bad is not just being good, you are on the brink. If you follow through, it will change everything: how you relate to God, self, others, the world, your work, your sins, your virtue. It's called the new birth because it's so radical'. (pg. 78)

More to come...

Pleasure and Duty

2009-12-26T16:51:00.001Z

Our pleasure and our duty,
Though opposite before;
Since we have seen his beauty,
Are joined to part no more:

It is our highest pleasure,
No less than duty’s call;
To love him beyond measure,
And serve him with our all.

-John Newton

God's Kingdom of Grace

2009-12-21T16:26:00.009Z

'Nothing matters in the Kingdom [of God] but the grace of God... God has a different way of looking at things. He does not see as men do; He does not compute as they do; it is all grace from beginning to end... He impresses the truth upon us by saying: 'That many that are last shall be first and the first last'. We have to cease thinking in a carnal fleshly manner. In the Kingdom of God and of Christ the standpoint is that of grace, and of grace alone; and it cuts across all other regulations. It is His grace that matters- 'by the grace of God I am what I am'. So stop looking at what you have not done and the years you have missed and realise that in His Kingdom it is His grace alone that matters.'

-Martyn Lloyd Jones, Spiritual Depression, pg 89

Race, gender, ethnicity, IQ, EQ, introvert, extrovert, rich, poor, labour, conservative, lib dem- none of this matters in God's Kingdom. Everyone and anyone who wants to enter God's spiritual society is welcome. Receiving grace makes everyone equal.

Jesus and the Old Testament

2009-12-05T19:16:00.005Z

Have a read through this quote by Tim Keller on how the Old Testament relates to Jesus....

Jesus is the true and better Adam, who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us.

Jesus is the true and better Abel, who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out not for our condemnation, but for our acquittal.

Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar, and go out into the void, not knowing whither he went, to create a new people of God.

Jesus is the true and better Isaac, who was not just offered up by his Father on the mount,but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “now I know you love me, because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me, now we can look at God, taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing Him, and say,” now we know that you love us, because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from us.”

Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserve, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.

Jesus is the true and better Joseph, who at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold Him, and uses His new power to save them.

Jesus is the true and better Moses, who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant.

Jesus is the true and better rock of Moses who was struck with the rod of God’s justice, and now gives us water in the desert.

Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.

Jesus is the true and better David, whose victory becomes his people’s victory though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.

Jesus is the true and better Esther, who didn’t just risk losing an earthly palace, but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who didn’t just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people.

Jesus is the true and better Jonah, who was cast out into the storm so we could be brought in.

Jesus is the real passover lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so that the angel of death would pass over us.

Amazing! The whole of the Old Testament works to point us to Jesus...

'[The scriptures] testify to me' John 5:39

HT: Ed Goode

How Precious is the Gospel?

2009-11-11T22:11:00.007Z

This precious:

'But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.'

Galatians 1:8

The gospel is the most precious message in existence because it is guarded by the greatest consequence. It is is more wonderful than anyone has ever imagined, prayed, or thought. In Paul's mind getting the gospel wrong- preaching a false gospel- tarnishes its treasure, reducing it to insignificance in the eyes of others. The consequence of doing this is anathema.

'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

5 Rational Beliefs Unproven by Science

2009-10-25T21:59:00.003Z

William Lane Craig explains:

1) Logic and Mathematics
2) Metaphysical truths
3) Ethical beliefs
4) Aesthetic judgments
5) Science itself

Update: I don't like the title of this video. The purpose of apologetics is not to 'humiliate' people or even show them that they have a wrong worldview. Apologetics should be used to break down the barriers that keep people from the gospel. This is to be done with respect and love.

HT: Between Two Worlds

Free Tim Keller Sermons

2009-10-24T14:39:00.003+01:00

Until recently Redeemer Presbyterian Church charged for most of their sermons. Now they have a released 150 of Tim Keller's sermons for free! Download them here.

God's Will for your Life...

2009-10-17T21:19:00.011+01:00

Lots of people talk about God's will. It seems that much of the time we think of God's will as a maze. We become scared of making a wrong decision- moving to the wrong location, studying at the wrong university, marrying the wrong person- just in case we fall out of 'God's perfect will for our lives' lost in the maze, displeasing God...

If you're like me and tend to think in this way, Kevin DeYoung's book Just Do Something will refresh you. The subtitle is true, doing something is a 'liberating approach to finding God's will'. I'm not going to say too much now as I hope to blog a book review when I've finished it. Here's a quote to give you a taste of DeYoung's point:

'Here's the real heart of the matter: Does God have a secret will of direction that He expects us to figure out before we do anything? And the answer is no. Yes, God has a specific plan for our lives. And yes, we can be assured that He works things for our good in Christ Jesus. And yes, looking back we will often be able to trace God's hand in bringing us to where we are. But while we are free to ask God for wisdom, He does not burden us with the task of divining His will of direction for our lives ahead of time... God does have a specific plan for our lives, but it is not one that He expects us to figure out before we make a decision... we should stop thinking of God's will like a corn maze, or a tight-rope, or a bull's-eye, or a choose your own adventure novel.'- Page 24.

Tozer on Textualism

2009-08-06T20:21:00.004+01:00

'The error of textualism is not doctrinal. It is far more subtle than that and more difficult to discover, but its effects are just as deadly. Not its theological beliefs are at fault, but its assumptions.

It assumes, for instance, that if we have the word for a thing we have the thing itself. If it is in the Bible, it is in us. If we have the doctrine, we have the experience. If something was true of Paul it is of necessity true of us because we accept Paul's epistles as divinely inspired. The Bible tells us how to be saved, but textualism goes on to make it tells us that we are saved, something which in the very nature of things it cannot do. Assurance of individual salvation is thus no more than a logical conclusion drawn from doctrinal premises, and the experience wholly mental.'

-A. W. Tozer, Leaning into the Wind, pages 20-21

TV: Servant or Master?

2009-08-05T22:14:00.006+01:00

'A good test of whether television is servant or master is, when your children have watched something, do they then go out and do something related to what they have seen? Is their imagination stimulated? Television is a servant when your children can watch a program then say, “Well that was fascinating. Let's go and play Robin Hood," or “Let's go and do this thing."- Jerram Barrs

I presume that most people reading this post haven't got any children. The principle still applies: Do we watch TV to stimulate us and serve us? Or are we allowing it to master us?

TV as a master

Culture wants us to watch telly passively, allowing every idea change our thinking. Jesus wants us to be transformed by having our minds renewed with scripture (Rom 12:2, John 17:17). Active watchers of TV think critically: 'What is this programme telling me about God, myself and the world?' The problem is that television hasn't been designed to be engaged with actively. Most programmes exist to be accepted and enjoyed without hesitation. Passive viewers of TV are likely to let the telly become a master. It can become a God: whenever the television speaks we listen, the television commands we obey.

TV as a slave

I believe television is a redeemable gift from God. Largely the TV has become a master, it rules and reigns in many homes, but by God's grace Christians have the power to use television in a sinless way for good. Here are a few ways I think this can be done:

1) Watch TV and praise God for His creation- watch nature programmes that cause you to thank God for what He has made

2) Watch TV and praise God for narratives - God made us to be story lovers, hence scripture is written mainly in narrative. Through grace God has given many non-Christians with gifts in story writing. Praise God for those gifts by enjoying their work.

3) Watch TV and fear hell- the wrath of God is worse than any calamity ever captured in a disaster movie

4) Watch TV to understand the world- TV represents the worlds views and opinions. Watch the TV to understand culture and reason against it with non-Christian friends/family

5) Watch TV to learn contextualisation- watch TV looking for the gospel. Many programmes contain themes of redemption, atonement and reconciliation. TV can be an evangelistic tool in being a bridge to the gospel .

6) Watch TV to care about the world- God cares about our fallen world. Watch the news and grieve over sin and its effects.

7) Watch TV to provoke prayer- as you see and grieve over the effects of sin in the world pray for spiritual and physical restoration.

8) Watch TV to show self-control- Christians should be examples to the world of how to enjoy TV righteously. Christian lives should make the gospel attractive.

The TV can be a good slave or a terrible master.

More Musings

2009-07-21T21:09:00.007+01:00

It's been a while since I've blogged. It seems the bug left me for a while, but now I think it's back. I like to use my blog as a place where I can accurately express my thoughts and theology in words. I often have lots of different ideas floating around in my head that I feel will benefit me (and maybe others) more if I choose to write them down. Here are a few things that God has been teaching/re-affirming in me recently.

1) God loves to use weak people

Time and time again, over the last few months, I've found that my natural instinct, to depend on myself doesn't really help anyone I believe God has been bringing me to a place where He's been showing me how my own skills and abilities have failed to attain the calling that He has placed on my life. It's only when He does this that we really see, in a crystal clear way, how much we need Him every day. In the times when I've felt useless, confessing this uselessness has glorified the power of God in ways I haven't seen before. Depending on God is the opposite of pride, relying on Him contradicts the desires of the flesh, acknowledging our weakness displays His strength.

2) The pursuit of my own happiness is essential to glorify God

Credit goes to Piper for expressing this truth in Desiring God. I was on holiday in Greece when I read this book from cover-to-cover, it blew me away. When I first read that God commands my happiness (Psalm 37:4), I thought 'Really? Does He actually want me to be satisfied? Isn't this self-centred? I mean, aren't I stealing the attention away from God's glory and towards my own satisfaction?' After wrestling with questions like these individually and with friends, I'm now sure that Christan Hedonism is a God-centered principle to live by.

Some disagree with Piper's articulation of Christian Hedonism. I was talking to a Pastor the other day who rejects Christian Hedonism because, in his eyes, it seems to make man's own desires god. Christian Hedonism does not make the chief end of man the fulfillment of man's desires. Christian Hedonism answers the question: how can God be most glorified in me? To say it another way: How should I live, in order to magnify the worth of God? Both questions are individual. Both questions are looking for a way of life for man to live. How can God be most glorified in me? Christian Hedonism says: 'God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him' and 'God's worth and splendour will be most manifested in your life when you are completely overwhelmed with His goodness. Christian Hedonism doesn't make human desires a god. Christian hedonism makes the fulfillment of our Spirit-filled desires (satisfaction/ happiness) the only way to glorify God individually.

I was reminded again about this truth as I spoke about the parable of the hidden treasure (Matthew 13:44), to a group of international students. A man goes out into a field, sees the treasure, sells all he has and buys that field. Why does he buy the field? He buys the field for the sake of his happiness. 'For joy' he sells all he has. The man in the parable is not stupid like an investor who puts money into dodgy stocks. The man is in touch with reality. He looks at the worth of all he has and compares it with the worth of the treasure. The treasure out-weighs all he has. So from a heart that sincerely desires his own benefit, he buys that field. We must come to Christ for our own pleasure. The pursuit of my own joy in God massively glorifies Him!

3) Everything Christian is about Faith and Love

I preached in January on Deuteronomy 8:1 'Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers'. It was my first sermon, I loved preaching every minute of it (mp3 is available here). The sermon became an expression of most of my theology. Despite this I tried to centre the sermon around our obligations to obey God as Christians. Why should we obey God? What's in it for us? How does God motivate us to obey Him? are all questions I tried to answer in the sermon.

In preparing I was able to spend time thinking about Galatians 5:6 'In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.' Paul is making the point that anything we do (however Christian we may think it is) is absolutely worthless without faith working through love. That's powerful and shocking to the ego. What even reading a Christan book or fasting? Yup. Everything is nothing without faith and love. Faith being a continual trust in the reality that the gospel pronounces over every believers life. Love being a continual outpouring of desire fixed in the beauty of God.

Without faith and love I am sinning and my obedience is counted as nothing. 'Whatever is not of faith is sin' according to Romans 14:23. Sin is not necessarily an action that is wrong in God eyes, rather it is a God-debasing mindset that trusts in everything outside of Him.

'Without love I am nothing' is Paul's message to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13:1-3). Isn't God always pleased with martyrs? No, 'though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing' (v3). Actions that are void of faith and love are sinful and empty in God's eyes. The whole Christian life is about faith and love- it's so simple and profound! the greatest Christians are those who love the hardest and believe the most.

That's enough for tonight. More thoughts to follow.

Why Some Leave the Church

2009-06-20T13:22:00.001+01:00

Best Manning for the Brand's

2009-04-28T15:07:00.004+01:00

Last Saturday marked the wedding day of my good friends Tom and Natalie. I was privileged enough to be the best man!
Below is the speech I gave...

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are all well and enjoying this very special day. My name is Simon and I am the very honoured best man to Mr and Mrs Thomas Brand.

Until early 2008 Tom had described himself as a ‘bachelor to the rapture’. He was adamant that female companionship wasn’t for him…

And then there was Natalie. He came back from Bryntyrian, Wales to Brighton for the weekend in January 2008 with a glazed look on his face. Almost like someone had shot him with a tranquilliser dart. That dart was love. The shooter very skillful and still is as Tom describes her as the perfect woman (reminding me on several occasions not to read too theologically into that statement).

So I feel privileged to first be here with you as we celebrate the fruit of your love and doubly privileged as I get to shame you, Tom for a few minutes in front of 150 people.

I first met Tom at our church- Montpelier Place four years ago. I had heard about him previous to our meeting. He had caused quite a stir amongst the more mature members of the congregation with his ripped jeans and long hair. To quote one lady reflecting on seeing Tom from behind:‘I didn’t know if he was a boy or a girl’. And another commenting on his ripped jeans: ‘we must be in the end times’. In case you’re not familiar with the phrase, ‘end times’ refers to serious moral and spiritual decay.

Tom did change his look. He cut his hair (it looks very nice…) and decided to go to the other extreme with the jeans. Instead of them being baggy one pair imparticular looks very very tight… painfully tight… anyway let’s move on from Tom’s appearance to his brain…

Is Tom an intellectual? I can honestly say that in the years I've known him, no one has ever questioned Tom's intelligence. In fact, I've never heard anyone even mention it. Obviously that’s a joke. Tom studied theology at the Wales Evangelical School of Theology (WEST) achieving a 2:1 degree and he has definitely used his knowledge during his time working for the church this year. In a sermon on John 14:1 where Jesus says: ‘Let not your hearts, be troubled; you believe in God believe also in me’ two out of Tom’s four points in his sermon were ….bearing in mind that Baptist churches like three points, three simple statements or words starting with the same letter… perichoresis and consubstantiality. The note takers in the church weren’t looking too pleased with the choice of words…

Tom’s articulation and vocabulary are also impressive. Previous to meeting Tom I spoke not many words and bad pro-non-see-ation also it was that my grammar was like very…. like bad. Tom helped- and told wot I had to do to be a person who uses their mouth …like better. After gaining audible help from Tom my own spoken English has improved incredibly.

**
Natalie, firstly you look wonderful, and secondly I have for you five pieces of advice concerning Tom that I think you’ll find helpful for married life:

1) Expect unexpected requests
Tom once asked his mother if he could have a toilet placed in the middle of the garden so that he could watch the planes going past whilst doing his business…

2) Keep your jewellery secure
From the age of about seven Tom developed a habit for collecting women’s jewellery, nice stones and chains. He even had his own special little box to keep his collection safe. I haven’t seen the box but I have been told that it is very fetching.

3) By deceiving Tom you can gain a large Star Wars figure collection
Natalie, here is a tried and tested formula (tried and tested by his brothers) that should work in giving you a large Star Wars collection.

a) Get Tom focused on a single figure
b) Talk to Tom about the good points of that figure
c) Watch as Tom offers practically every figure in his collection to gain new figure

4) Encourage Tom to use conventional ways of opening doors
In the past Tom has been known to try and open his brothers door using a canon. As a seven year old he would batter Robert’s door down with his wooden model.

5) Avoid telling Tom off near waist-high walls
When on a family holiday one year in Sardinia; Tom exposed a bit too much of himself. Standing near a waist-high wall next to his brother and sister Robert and Sarah, whilst being told off by his parents; Tom decided to pull a moony at his siblings. They tried desperately hard to keep a straight face in front of David and Angela with Tom’s rear in view!

**
On a more serious note Tom, here is some advice from Matthew Henry on why marriage is not misogynism or feminism but equality:

‘Eve was not taken out of Adam's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.’

**
Being a friend of both Tom and Natalie has enabled me to see how much Christ means to them as a couple. They are Christians. And they do not use this phrase lightly. I see in both Tom and Natalie’s life remarkable evidence that God is with them. They live in light of God’s love. They’ve realised the depth and the ugliness of their own and each other’s sin. But they don’t live in guilt or shame. Why? Because they know that there is a God who loves with such intensity it produces his own pain.
In that Jesus died for them. He was crucified. He took their punishment- He stood in their place. And God offers forgiveness through what Jesus did and hope to everyone in this room if you haven’t yet experienced it. He offers freedom from sin and life in Himself- real life.

This wedding has been and will continue to be a happy time. But it’s not the ultimate wedding. This wedding has been a day to celebrate the beautiful love that Tom and Natalie have for one another. The ultimate wedding will be bigger and better. It will be when Jesus marries His people to reflect His awesome love for them. Jesus invites you not just to attend this ultimate wedding, but to be the bride. Jesus welcomes us into perfect love and relationship with Him. I’m praying that we all would know and live in that love as Tom and Natalie clearly do.

I’d like to propose a toast ‘to the joy of love reflected in marriage’

Thank you

Ways to stir each other up to love and good works

2009-04-23T14:21:00.012+01:00

Hebrews 10:24 says 'let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.' When preaching on this verse the other Sunday I gave ten practical ways to obey this command. Here are the first five...

1) Get a prayer/accountability partner

Find someone who you have a good relationship with and arrange to meet with them every week to talk about your personal struggles and difficulties. James says that we should confess our sins to each other and pray for each other (5:16). Use this time to humbly acknowledge to the other person that you're a sinner in need of practical and godly counsel. Every member of the church has something to teach another member. Encourage each other and bear each others burdens (Gal 6:2).

2) Be an example for everyone
Paul tells Timothy to be an example for everyone despite age: ‘Let no one despise your youth but be an example to the believers in word in conduct, in love, in Spirit, in faith, in purity' (1 Tim 4:12). Live your life in a godly way to show other Christians that godliness is real gain (1 Tim 6:6). Christians are encouraged to live godly lifes when they their brothers and sisters displaying the happiness that comes from living in God's presence.

3) Acknowledge evidences of grace
Here's one I got from C J Mahaney. Go up to Christians you know and tell them about the grace you see God pouring out in their lives. If you see humility, acknowledge it to the glory of God. If you see patience in a friend, tell him or her. Change in a person is easier seen by others than by yourself. Encourage others by explaining how you see God changing them.

4) Acknowledge gifts
When Jesus ascended He gave gifts to all men (Eph 4). Everyone in the church has a gift essential for the proper functioning and life of the church. Tell people about how you see God using them. Explain to people what gifts their skills might dictate that they have. Stir up each others gifts and don't neglect the gift that is in you (2 Tim 1).

5) Suggest books for people to read
There are loads of great books to read that have had a massive impact on Christians of the past and present. Suggest books for your friends to read that have changed and challenged you. Encourage each other to read books that are full of deep doctrine and at the same time are written in a heart-felt way.

To be continued...

Gospel Community

2009-04-17T10:40:00.003+01:00

Here's the structure of the sermon I'm preaching this sunday evening (God willing) at MPBC titled 'The Gospel Community'...

Hebrews 10:24-25:
'And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the Day approaching.’

-The gospel empowers loving consideration not neglect: ‘let us consider one another’

-The gospel empowers personal spiritual nurturing: ‘let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works’

-The gospel empowers commitment to people and a community: ‘let us consider one another… not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some’

-The gospel empowers Christians to lovingly challenge each other: ‘let us consider one another… exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the day approaching’

*Update: Direct link to the mp3 sermon here*

Losing Life for True Gain

2009-04-09T11:15:00.001+01:00

Church Prayer

2009-03-26T15:07:00.004Z

My notes for a talk I'm giving tonight at the MPBC prayer meeting...

Acts 4:23-31
23 And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24 So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, 25 who by the mouth of Your servant David[a] have said:

‘ Why did the nations rage,
And the people plot vain things?
26 The kings of the earth took their stand,
And the rulers were gathered together
Against the LORD and against His Christ.’[b]

27 “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. 29 Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, 30 by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.” 31 And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

1) Prayer is a church activity

Prayer is individual... and also largely corporate:

23 And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24 So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said….

There’s accountability- the church are living in each others lives
There’s corporate response: ‘they raised there voice to God in one accord’
They all agree, they all care
Prayer is unifying- we show each other they we are concerned with the same issues

2) Prayer uses God’s words

“Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, 25 who by the mouth of Your servant David[a] have said:
‘ Why did the nations rage,
And the people plot vain things?
26 The kings of the earth took their stand,
And the rulers were gathered together
Against the LORD and against His Christ.’[b]

When the church pray they pray with truth in biblical ways
The church in Acts was Bible-saturated, they prayed quoting scripture

3) Prayer asks big things

‘Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, 30 by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”

They ask for miracles to confirm their message
They ask for boldness to speak the word- remember they had been previously threatened and tried by the Sanhedrin

4) Prayer makes an impact

31 And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

They were filled with the Spirit: they felt God’s presence and God’s confirmation.
The room shaking!

They spoke the word of God. How many of them? Just the Apostles?
No, the whole church spoke the word with boldness.

God came close and empowered the church!

Bible by the Beach

2009-03-13T19:46:00.003Z

Bible by the Beach - a new conference coming to Eastbourne

1st-4th May 2009 - £50 adult, £1 children- Congress Theatre, Eastbourne

Speakers include: Wallace Benn, Terry Virgo, Paul Williams, Kent & Barbara Hughes, Ben Kwashi, Phil Moon, Mike Ovey, Andrew Baughen, Stef Liston

Music by: Stuart Townend, Phatfish and Simon Brading

Joy and Evangelism Part 2

2009-03-09T12:46:00.005Z

In 'Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners' Bunyan describes how the joy of other Christians helped him to see how much he needed God:

'But upon a day the good providence of God called me to Bedford to work at my calling, and in one of the streets of that town I came where there were three or four poor women sitting at a door in the sun talking about the things of God: and being now willing to hear their discourse, I drew near to hear what they said, for I was now a brisk talker of myself in the matters of religion; but I may say I heard, but understood not, for they were far above out of my reach. Their talk was about a new birth, the work of God in their hearts, as also how they were convinced of their miserable state by nature; they talked bow God had visited their souls with his love in the Lord Jesus, and with what words and promises they had been refreshed, comforted, and supported against the temptations of the devil; moreover, they reasoned of the suggestions and temptations of Satan in particular, and told to each other by what means they had been afflicted, and how they were borne up under his assaults. They also discoursed of their own wretchedness of heart and of their unbelief, and did contemn, slight, and abhor their own righteousness as filthy and insufficient to do them any good.

And methought they spoke as if joy did make them speak; they spoke with such pleasantness of scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had found a new world-as if they were people that dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned among their neighbors. At this I felt my own heart begin to shake and mistrust my condition to be naught, for I saw that in all my thoughts about religion and salvation the new birth did never enter my mind, neither knew I the comfort of the word and promise, nor the deceitfulness and treachery of my own wicked heart. As for secret thoughts, I took no notice of them, neither did I understand what Satan's temptations were, nor how they were to be withstood and resisted.'

Joy made these ladies speak! As they spoke Bunyan was challenged. He saw the pleasure of knowing God in these Christians. He saw their joy; their experience of Christ's beauty outwardly manifested. The happiness of these Christians were bright lights exposing Bunyan to the darkeness of his nature.

Bunyan and Suffering

2009-03-09T00:59:00.002Z

John Bunyan comments on 2 Corinthians 1:9 'We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead':

‘By this scripture I was made to see that if ever I would suffer rightly, I must first pass a sentence of death upon every thing that can be properly called a thing of this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyment, and all, as dead to me, and myself as dead to them. The second was, to live upon God that is invisible, as Paul said in another place; the way not to faint, is to "look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’

Joy and Evangelism

2009-03-08T00:30:00.004Z

'Restore to me the joy of Your salvation... Then... sinners shall be converted to You.' Psalm 51:12-13

Knowing the gospel is not enough. Evangelism doesn't work when we are satisfied with knowing the gospel. People need to see that we enjoy the gospel. They need to see that we've fallen in love with a beautiful God through the gospel. The attractiveness of Christ is the substance of our joy in God. If the world can't see that Christians are delighted with the gospel they will be forced to assume that Christ is not attractive. And if Christ is not attractive He doesn't need to be and shouldn't be worshipped.

That's why David seeks his happiness in God: 'restore to me the joy of your salvation'. Sinners are converted when Christians rejoice in salvation. Sinners see the beauty of Christ through the joy of Christ's people.

Preach to Yourself

2009-02-28T20:09:00.004Z

'I say that we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing “ourselves” to talk to us! Do you realize what that means? I suggest that the main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you in the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s [David in Psalms 42:5, 11] treatment is this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: “Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you.” Do you know what I mean? If you do not, you have had but little experience.

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: “Why art thou cast down” - what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: “Hope thou in God” - instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and What God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.

- Martyn Lloyd Jones, pg 20-21 of Spiritual Depression

One Gospel for all people, all of the time

2009-02-22T15:09:00.003Z

The Cross Hurts Proud People

2009-02-21T16:29:00.003Z

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." What does it mean to be crucified with Christ? I think it means this: First, that the gruesome death of the all-glorious, innocent, loving Son of God for my sin is the most radical indictment of my hopeless condition imaginable. The crucifixion of Jesus is the open display of my hellish nature. And, second, when I see this and believe that he really died for me, then my old proud self which loves to display its power by climbing ladders of morality and intellect and beauty and daring dies. Self-reliance and self-confidence cannot live at the foot of the cross. Therefore, when Christ died, I died.'

-John Piper

What God's been saying to me

2009-02-18T17:55:00.003Z

The biggest thing that God's been speaking to me about over the last month is summed up well by Calvin:

'The evil in our desire typically does not lie in what we want, but in that we want it too much'

I know it's not particularly profound but I need to be taught this lesson every day.

Peace and Truth

2009-02-18T11:38:00.002Z

'Peace and friendship amongst men is a wonderful thing... At the same time however, God's truth ought to be so precious to us that even if we had to set the whole world on fire in order to promote it, we should be willing to do so!'

-John Calvin

Sarah Edwards

2009-02-14T18:30:00.004Z

'They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is beloved of that great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on him—that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight forever…. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this great God has manifested himself to her mind…. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have someone invisible always conversing with her.'

-Jonathon Edwards on his wife Sarah

That's what I call a woman!

HT: Desiring God

How to be content without money

2009-02-12T15:17:00.006Z

To be content without money you need to find something of greater value than money; you need to pursue a greater pleasure.

'Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.' So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?''

Hebrews 13:5-6

God doesn't ask Christians to stop loving money as an end in itself. He asks Christian to stop loving money by seeking greater contentment elsewhere. He commands Christians to seek Him as the root of all meaningful contentment. When God is your satisfaction money doesn't need to be. He is better than money. He will never leave us or abandon us. He will always be our guide and rock. Money provides a temporal basis for contentment. God provdies and offers Himself to humanity as the source of all deep life, joy and contentment.

Wisdom and Romance

2009-02-11T15:07:00.004Z

'The problems we see in relationships today- the impatience, the lack of purpose, and the misguided emotions- are all expressions of foolishness. We need wisdom. Wisdom complements romance. Like the string attached to the kite, wisdom enables a romance to really soar. It anchors it, disciplines it, and brings it to its highest potential... When the emotional winds get dangerously strong, wisdom pulls the kite down to safety so it won't get destroyed... You're ready to start a courtship when you can match romance with wisdom.'

-Josh Harris, page 58 of Boy meets Girl

Receiving Christ

2009-02-10T17:47:00.004Z

Here are my notes from a devotion I gave at Olivet english language school last week...

'But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.'

John 1:12-13

1) Receiving Jesus requires:
a) Recognising who you are
i) Jesus is the light and we are the darkness-
We naturally hate the light:
‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it’ (1:5)
‘He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own but His own did not receive Him’ (1:10-11)

b) Recognising Him- you need to recognise Jesus
i) He’s God- Jesus is God (1v1)
ii) Everything was made by Him (1v3)
iii) In Him was life (1v4)- Life is all about Jesus- if you don’t know Jesus you don’t have life- you haven’t experienced beauty - He came to bring abundance of life (10:10)
iv) Jesus came to earth- the word became flesh (1v10)

You need to see that Jesus is valuable
You need to see that He is wonderful and worth following whatever happens to you!

c) Relying on Him
You need to trust who He is and what He says: He gives the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.
Receiving Jesus is believing in Him

2) Receiving Jesus shows that God’s given birth to you. Receiving Jesus shows that God's given you life.
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Were born = past tense
In these verse John makes a distinction between being 'born' and 'receiving Christ'
First: Born by the Spirit
Secondly: Receive Christ = Believe on Him

These two things might be very close together or years apart

a) Receiving Christ is your decision
This is why Peter preached at Pentecost: ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ (Acts 2:38)

When Jesus said ‘make disciples’ part of that = ‘Get people to receive me’

We’re called to gather people- people come to Jesus by hearing the gospel and being saved

b) Being born of God was God’s decision, not yours
When you were born naturally it wasn't your decision. You only responded to the act.
You then responded with trust and love towards your parent

V13: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
i) Not of the will of man= You didn’t decide =
Something happened that you didn’t ask for

ii) Not of the will of the flesh = This birth wasn't something that your sinful nature wanted.
The flesh loves sin not Jesus

iii) Not of blood = Doesn’t come through family
Just because you’re parents are born-again doesn’t mean that you will be

This birth is a re-orientation of who you are.
It’s a change of what you:
Value
Crave for
Cling on to
Lust after
Love

The Spirit gives birth to you and changes your desires

Once the Spirit’s done that you choose Christ because you finds Him attractive

3) Receiving Jesus gives you ‘God-rights’
We don’t deserve anything from God.
We've all sinned-
You might say: ‘But I’m a really good person, God will have to accept me’ = Your problem is pride

You are without hope if you like to yourself- you have no rights before God
I John 1:8 ‘If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.’
Why? Because God’s character is perfectly white meaning He can see how black you are.
We are dirty with sin- you like filthy to God until Jesus comes in

So we are without rights before God because of sin- we have nothing to claim off God
Society allows you to claim goodness from them – you have civil rights – you don’t before God
But God changes that- He offers us a right- something to claim off Him- access to His goodness- it only happens if you receive Jesus
What’s the right you receive? ‘He gave the right to become children of God’

4) Receiving Jesus makes you a Child of God

God says: I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the LORD Almighty.” (2 Cor 16:8)

The God you’ve offended wants to be your Dad
You are His enemy and now He wants to be a good Father

All of Heaven praises Him, angels worship and say ‘Holy, holy, holy’…
And He chooses us to join them

Gal 4:3-7
‘Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.’

If you’re a son whatever you inherit what He has. We inherit God through Christ.

5) Receiving Jesus is the only way to become a Child of God
Some think that everyone is a child of God this is not true.
Everyone is an enemy of God not a child
To become a child we need to receive Jesus

Christianity teaches that Jesus exclusively saves
Islam doesn’t save- I need to say that because I care about Muslims

There are 2 ways to reject God:
Religion- doing the right thing, keeping the rules, getting proud and being damned for it in the name of God
Irreligion- rejection of God's standards

We need Jesus who kept the perfect standards of God for us. When we receive Him we receive His perfection (righteousness) this enables us to come to God and enjoy Him. The enjoyment of God is the worship that God demands from all of us forever.

God Exalts Himself because He Loves

2009-02-06T19:25:00.001Z

There's Hope- Jesus Died

2009-02-04T13:55:00.003Z

I had a great time singing this hymn earlier:

There is a fountain filled with blood
drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
and sinners plunged beneath that flood
lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
that fountain in his day;
and there may I, though vile as he,
wash all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood
shall never lose its power
till all the ransomed church of God
be saved, to sin no more.

E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream
thy flowing wounds supply,
redeeming love has been my theme,
and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing thy power to save,
when this poor lisping, stammering tongue
lies silent in the grave.

By William Cowper

It's a hymn filled with hope. Jesus died to wash away our filth! He did to cleanse us from everything that we naturally love. Through His death we are released from our enslavement to sin and into beautiful sonship. He's provided for us. There's more of Jesus' blood to wash away your sin than there is your sin to be washed away. God is more gracious than you are sinful! Guilty stains are replaced with pure white! Jesus takes away our disobedience and gives us His obedience The gospel is amazing!

Free?

2009-01-31T21:52:00.005Z

'If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed'

Jesus, John 8:36

Pray for Sussex CU's mission week

Evolution: Fact or Fiction?

2009-01-31T21:46:00.004Z

John Blanchard visited MPBC last night to discuss the topic of evolution.

Download the talk along with the Q+A session here.

Proud People Don't Sleep Well

2009-01-29T18:19:00.002Z

You're not indispensable. The Church will survive if you take a day off. God's Kingdom will not collapse without you:

'Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it... It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.'

Psalm 127:1-2

God does His building through you and without you. He builds when you labour and He builds when you sleep. So don't get up too early and sit up really late thinking that your work is doing God a favour. You need to sleep because sleep has faith in the fact that God works when you're inactive. Sleep humbles because you realise that God doesn't actually need you. Proud people don't sleep well.

Don't Be Too Easily Pleased

2009-01-29T15:44:00.004Z

'Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.'

-C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Jesus is better than sin!

Receive Jesus to call God 'Dad'

2009-01-28T12:56:00.009Z

'But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name' John 1:12

We don't deserve anything from God. But God gives, He's gracious. John 1:12 says that God offers us rights in His courtroom. In other words: God is able to give us a claim on His goodness. Once you have 'God-rights' you can make a claim. You get 'God-rights' by receiving Christ; believing and relying on Jesus.

When we have a right to God's goodness God is bound to respond out of His own joy. God offers us the right to become His children. He asks us to receive Christ and call Him Dad. He wants us to enjoy His Fathering.

First Sermon

2009-01-25T23:53:00.002Z

Preaching is the most awesome experience. Mainly because preaching demands you to prepare, which gives you more exposure to the gospel. More exposure to the gospel results in a greater experience of God's infectious life-giving power only if you want it.

Listen to my first sermon titled 'Obey, because God is for you' here.

Don't Waste Your Sexuality

2009-01-24T15:04:00.001Z

I love this:

Gratitude and Hope in relation to Obedience

2009-01-23T17:49:00.007Z

My sermon on Sunday evening is all about obeying God. In my first point I hope to explain the difference between Hope and Gratitude as different motives for obedience.

Gratitude is the produce of seeing and experiencing past grace. In Exodus 20:2-3 God says: 'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.' God is encouraging the Israelites to obey Him based on grace He has already given, the deliverance from the house of bondage.

Hope is the produce of seeing and experiencing promised grace. In Deuteronomy 8:6-7 the Lord motivates obedience by reminding the Israelites of the good land He has promised to them. 'Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills'

It's then that I looked up what Piper had to say and found this:

Piper's argument is this: God is more glorified when the Christan is motivated by hope to obedience because hope requires more relying faith than the faith required in gratitude. Gratitude requires a simple accepting faith. The faith we have in past events, that have happened by God's grace, is a not relying faith it is only an accepting faith. Something like this: 'I thank you God that you did this or that for me and I believe that it was for my good and your glory.'

Hope say things to God like: 'I thank you God that I will be like you (1 John 3:2)' Saying this requires more faith than that of gratitude because I'm yet to experience the grace for which I'm trusting God for. I'm simply trusting that I will be like Him. This trusting is based upon God's faithfulness displayed in promised grace.

If then hope is the main motive for Christian obedience, is hope the main motive for other types of obedience? How do you get a child to eats it dinner? You would never say to that child 'Don't you remember what I got you for Christmas?' You would say something like 'Remember that Christmas is coming soon. I've got presents for you.' By using the second statement the child is more likely to eat his or her dinner and the parent is seen to be greater because the child has expressed a trust in the promise of the parent.

So what God is doing in asking us to be mainly motivated to obedience by hope is firstly, glorifying Himself and secondly, setting our hearts on a future enjoyment of His goodness. Gratitude makes us thankful and appreciative people but gratitude lacks vision and courage. Hope makes us an expectant, lively, excited, people to more of a God-glorifying degree.

Gospel Not Rules

2009-01-22T09:51:00.008Z

Here's a handy little quote from TK that I've managed to slip into Sunday's sermon on obedience.

"You can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently... the gospel of Jesus is not religion or irreligon, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservativism or liberalism. Nor is it something halfway along the spectrum between two poles - it is something else altogether."

- Tim Keller, The Prodigal God

The gospel is all about loving, adoring, being happy in, and praising Jesus! Hooray!!

HT: Dave Bish

Update: The sermon can be found here

It is Well with My Soul

2009-01-21T16:34:00.005Z

I was chatting with a friend yesterday about this hymn:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

It's an amazing hymn of confidence in God when times are hard. When writing this hymn Horatio Spafford was dealing with the loss of four of his daughters from a boat collision. His wife Anna and survived and sent him a telegram reading 'SAVED ALONE'. In 1881 Spafford and his wife founded the 'American Colony' an outreach mission in Jerusalem to benefit the poor.

My favourite verse is verse three: 'My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord'. Spafford's joy was found in God. For Him happiness derived itself from what Jesus had already done- being condemned by the Father for Spafford's sin.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Being a Happy Christian

2009-01-20T17:29:00.004Z

‘The greatest need of the hour is a revived and joyful Church… Unhappy Christians are, to say the least a poor recommendation for the Christian Faith; and there can be little doubt but that the exuberant joy of the early Christians was one of the most potent factors in the spread of Christianity.’

- MLJ, taken from the foreword of Spiritual Depression

God Satisfies

2009-01-17T21:40:00.009Z

'The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.... If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly pleasures, and on the other, never to mistake them for something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.'

-C. S. Lewis, taken from book 3 and chapter 10 of Mere Christianity

Get Baptised in the Spirit

2009-01-17T13:33:00.002Z

'All Things For Good' by Thomas Watson

2009-01-15T10:04:00.004Z

If there is one promise in scripture which throughout all time given hope to the saints it is likely to be Romans 8:28:

‘And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.’

It is for this reason that Thomas Watson’s work ‘All things for Good’ based on this text was originally published in 1663 named ‘A Divine Cordial’. The book is exactly that: A divine cordial. It has a medicinal affect on spiritual health. It sooths anxiety, it arouses affection towards God, it comforts the soul, it seeks to crucify unbelief, and it strengths the root of faith in the precious doctrine of God’s sovereignty.

Watson in the preface explains his intent: 'To know that nothing hurts the godly, is a matter of comfort; but to be assured that all things which fall out shall co-operate for their good, that their crosses shall be turned into blessings, that showers of affliction, water the withering root of their grace and make it flourish more; this may fill their hearts with joy till they run over.'

Watson is concerned with our joy. He wants us to see God. To see God’s love in ordering all events to bring us closer to Him- the source of goodness. Watson wants us to attack every doubt which claims ‘God is not for you’ and replace it with God’s promises. Promises like: ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him out of them all.’ (Psalm 34:19) and “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven (Matthew 5:11-12).

God is for us. This is the premise of the book. He works all things (recessions, deaths, persecution, unemployment, discouragement, traffic lights and bad postal services-even sin!) for our good. Watson writes: 'All the various dealings of God with His children do by a special providence turn to their good'. But how so we know that they work for our good? This knowing is experience more than intellect. Knowing that God is for us is not a deduction processed by our minds but a compulsion we feel. 'The Spirit of God imprints heavenly truths upon the heart as with the point of a diamond…The Lord does not leave His people at uncertainties in matters of salvation. The apostle says, ‘We know’. We have arrived at holy confidence. We have both the Spirit of God, and our own experience, setting seal to it.’ (pg10)

Watson adopts a typical puritan manner when writing about the text. It’s systematic, clear, structured and more importantly: thorough. The book is relatively short but very comprehensive; he deals with text as puritans do.

‘The best things work for good to the godly’ is the title of the first chapter. Watson spells out the most treasured spiritual realities and duties to convince his reader. God is good and He works for our good. He’s the Father and master of perfect giving and good gifts (James 1:17). The promises of God work for our good. John 10:29 ‘My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.’ Watson argues the promises of God are ‘food for faith’ and ‘springs of joy’ (pg 17). ‘There is more in the promises to comfort than in the world to perplex.’ The graces of the Spirit work for our good. Grace makes the soul elegant and beautiful. The virtuous wife will do her husband good all the days of her life (Prov 31:12). The angels work for our good. They are ‘ministering Spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation’ (Heb1:14). Fellowship, the intercession of Christ, and the payers of the saints- all these things work for our good!! J

Chapter two examines how the worst things work for our good. Affliction works for our good: 'In the word preached, we hear what a dreadful thing sin is, that it is both defiling and damning, but we fear it no more than a painted lion; therefore God lets loose affliction, and then we feel sin bitter in the fruit of it. A sick-bed often teaches more than a sermon.' (pg 27). Afflictions give happiness in God: ‘The saints in affliction have had such sweet raptures of joy, that they thought themselves in the borders of the heavenly Canaan.’ (pg 30).

Temptation works for our good. Watson quotes Luther who said ‘there are three things that make a Christian – prayer, meditation, and temptation.’ Temptations stirs up Christians to desire Heaven as Heaven is a place without temptation. Temptation helps us to fear sin: ‘The more a child of God is tempted, the more he fights against the temptation. The more Satan tempts to blasphemy, the more a saint trembles at such thoughts, and says, ‘Get thee hence Satan.’ (pg35)

There are times in the Christian life when God is distant from us. ‘When God withholds the sweet manifestations of His favour, He does not look with such a pleasant aspect, but veils His face, and seems to be quite gone from the soul.’ (pg 39) It is at these times when you pray and you can’t feel anything. Or you commit sin and can’t feel the conviction. It’s those times when the heart goes cold that are the most treacherous to our own spiritual life. Although these moments are dangerous they do work for our good. The times of loneliness work for our good in that, we identify ourselves as a child of God. When you start to look into your soul and say ‘I can’t see the Spirit’s working and power’ it evidences that once you had the Spirit’s working and power.
Desertion helps a Christian to seek God with more passion. When it feels like God is hiding His face, you beg to see it even more. You crave it and pray until you see Him again. ‘Desertion works for good, as it prepares the saints for future comfort. The nipping frosts prepare for spring flowers. It’s God’s way first to cast down, then to comfort.’ (pg 43)

The fourth point made in this chapter is that ultimate evil of sin works for our good. Sin produces godly sorrow. Psalm 119:136 ‘Rivers of water run down from my eyes, because men do not keep Your law.’ Watson writes: ‘The sins of others work for good, as they make us more earnest in working for our own salvation. When we see wicked men take such pains for hell, this makes us more industrious for heaven.’ (pg 46).
The ultimate proof that sin works for our good is seen in Christ. It was Christ crucified that cleanses our sin. For us to come to God, Jesus had to die. And for Jesus to die there had to be death. For death to exist there had to be sin. Christ was crucified because the Romans committed the greatest sin- the nailing of the son of God to a tree. Sin works for our good. God commanded evil to exist for our everlasting joy and His eternal glory. Within the time line of history and the context of every event sin makes God look good.
In the words of Augustine: ‘God would never have ordained evil if he could not bring good out of it.’

In the following chapters Watson continues to exposit the verse by examining the two qualifications for the privilege of the verse. If all things work together for good to a certain person, this person must also love God and be called according to God’s person.

Watson defines love as ‘an expansion of soul, or the inflaming of the affections, by which a Christian breathes after God as the supreme and sovereign good.’ (pg 66). Love is breathing after God. It should be a normal natural exercise that people constantly engage themselves in. Instead what do we do? We hate him, naturally. Sinners are suffocating themselves from life if they don’t love God.
Love for God needs to be a passionate love. We need to love all of God with all that we can. ‘God, who is the chief of our happiness, must have the chief of our affections. The creature may have the milk of our love but God must have the cream.’ (pg 71)

Watson then devotes a chapter to writing about the tests of love. How do we know we love God? How can detect our love for God? His tests are as follows:
A fruit of love is the musing mind upon God
A fruit of love is desire of communion
A fruit of love is grief (for sin)
A fruit of love is magnanimity (14C word which denotes a greatness of soul, heart and mind. A sort of courage and zeal that sustains someone with peace during trouble)
A fruit of love is sensitivity
A fruit of love is hatred against sin
A fruit of loving is crucifixion
A fruit of love is fear
A fruit of love is loving what God loves
A fruit of love is the entertaining of good thoughts abut God
A fruit of love is obedience
A fruit of love is the desire to exalt God in the eyes of others
A fruit of love is to long for Christ’s appearing
A fruit of love is humility

Watson continues on to give twenty reasons why we should love God. Twenty!
Here are a few:
‘4) God is the most adequate and complete object of our love. All the excellencies that lie scattered in the creatures are united to Him. He is wisdom, beauty love, yea the very essence of goodness.’ (pg 89)
8) Love to God is the best self-love. It is self-love to get the soul saved; by loving God, we forward our own salvation. (pg 91)
‘14) Love to God will never let sin thrive in the heart’ (pg 96)

Effectual calling is the second qualification. This calling is a double calling and is received by every Christians. There is an outward call. That is hearing the gospel. Hearing about Jesus. Hearing that God is angry with you in your sin and yet is offering you love and acceptance through Jesus. The gospel is the objective work of what Christ did on the cross. It’s an offer and an invitation. It’s the expression of God’s heart to a broken generation: ‘We implore you on Christ’s behalf be reconciled to God!’ (2 Cor 5:20).

The inward call is something different. The inward call is the sensing of God for the first time in your soul. He says ‘Live!’ and you are born. Then you respond by receiving Christ as wonderfully attractive and needed. Both of these calls are needed for salvation. The inward call is irresistible. We didn’t ask to be born. In the same we didn’t ask to be born-again. God does it and then we respond. It’s not that we ask God to start working in us and then he takes up the offer. He starts working in us while we are dead in sin. The Spirit makes us alive. The Spirit gives life!!

‘Take notice what a mighty power God puts forth in calling sinners! God does so call as to draw (John 6:44)… A man can no more convert himself than a dead man can raise himself. It is called a creation (Col 3:10). To create is above the power of nature.’ (pg 113)

The last part of the text is ‘according to His purpose’ (Rom 8:28). God does it because He wants to. The pleasure of God in His own will is the ground of the text. It is God’s pleasure to save some and not others. That’s a serious statement. It exalts God and offends men. Watson isn’t afraid to say what the text really means, he writes:
‘If it be God’s purpose that saves, then it is not free-will. Pelagians are strenuous asserters of free-will. They tell us that a man has an innate power to effect his own conversion but this text confutes it. Our calling is ‘according to God’s purpose.’… All depends upon the purpose of God. When the prisoner is cast at the bar [convicted in a court of law], there is no saving him, unless the king has a purpose to save him. God’s purpose is His prerogative royal.’ (pg 125)

‘All things for good’ is a great read. It’s an easy introduction to the Puritan mindset and literature. But most of all it’s a book of humbling comfort. Comfort because our God is large enough to order everything for our benefit and humbling because we don’t deserve that. We deserve Hell not blessing. All things work for our good. Nothing is a threat anymore to our eternal well-being. Even the sin rooted deep in us that we lust after every day works for our good. Praise God!

Are you sure you're called to preach?

2009-01-14T16:28:00.004Z

'How may a young man know whether he is called or not? That is a weighty enquiry, and I desire to treat it most solemnly. O for divine guidance in so doing! That hundreds have missed their way, and stumbled against a pulpit is sorrowfully evident from the fruitless ministries and decaying churches which surround us. It is a fearful calamity to a man to miss his calling, and to the church upon whom he imposes himself, his mistake involves an affliction of the most grievous kind.'

- Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, page 28

Someone who changes isn't always someone who's saved

2009-01-10T16:40:00.013Z

Some people become transformed by the work of the church without the work of the Holy Spirit. The church can be friendly, welcoming, and kind and these may produce verbal Christianity; a Christianity seen in words and actions but not desires.

Some of us are so keen to see people save that we pronounce a person 'in the kingdom' before seeing the fruits of repentance (Matthew 3:8). Repentance is not a change of lifestyle primarily. It leads to a changed lifestyle. Repentance is all about spiritual emotions- what you love and what you hate. Spiritual emotions cling to Jesus.

A person who loves God will hate sin. God's lover finds sin repulsive not tolerable, evil not excusable, horrid not delightful. A lover of God realises that sin is offending God. It's treason against a good King. It's calling the Lord a liar. Sin is lawlessness. Sin is breaking the commandments that reflect the perfect character of God. Sin is punished with eternity. Either in an eternal person (Jesus Christ) or with eternal flames. God's lover knows He should be in Hell forever. Hell is a fair place for the sinner to be.

Being in the Presence of God

2009-01-09T16:57:00.005Z

'The real test of being in the presence of God, is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small dirty object. It is better to forget yourself altogether.'

-C. S. Lewis

Taken from book 3 and chapter 8 of Mere Christianity

Let the Nations Be Glad!

2009-01-08T15:16:00.018Z

You know if you're reading a good book when it gets you praying. You know if you're reading an even better book if it gets you praying scripture:

'Let the peoples praise You, O God;

Let all the peoples praise You.

Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy!'

Psalm 67:3-4

'Let the Nations Be Glad!' by John Piper is a great read. Full of classic Piper meat constructed around a theology of missions. I'm a bit of a fan of Piper and totally agreeing with the concept of Christian Hedonism (when rightly interpreted) so this book was just my thing.

The premise behind the book? 'Missions exists because worship doesn't' (pg 17). The ultimate end of the church is not missions Piper argues but worship. We are made to glorify God by enjoying Him forever and this if considered seriously it will start a fire in our hearts for the evangilisation of the world. Our worship should fuel our missions. When you taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8) you want others to taste the same soul-satisfying sweetness.

This book of theology is meant to move us. Knowledge produces feelings which in turn produce action. It can happen in no other way. If you start learning that 'the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one' (1 John 5:19) your heart should be moved to love. Passion for God and His glory coupled with compassion for humanity motivate people to be risk-takers for the gospel. And these two motives Piper argues are one in the same thing:

'Unbelief not only dishonours God but also destroys the soul. Everything that discredits God damages man. Every assault on God's holiness is an assault on human happiness. Every thought or feeling or action that makes God look wrong or irrelevant increases man's ruin. Everything that decreases God's reputation increases man's suffering. And so missions is driven by a passion not only to restore the glory of God to its rightful place in the worshipping soul but also to rescue sinners from everlasting pain.' (pg 208-209)

The book is divided into three sections. In the first 'Making God Supreme in Missions: The Purpose, the Power, and the Price.' Piper sways the reader to see the purpose of missions to exalt God's God-centeredness to all the nations; that is God's commitment to glorify Himself for all eternity. God is righteous He loves to celebrate and magnify the ultimately valuable (Himself) above everything else: 'God's righteous passion and delight is to display and uphold His infinitely valuable glory. This is not a vague theological conjecture. It flows inevitably from dozens of biblical texts [texts like Is 48:9-11, Rom 9:17, Is 43:25, John 12:27-28, Phil 1:9,11 etc etc] that show God is relentless in pursuit of praise and honor from creation to consummation.' (pg 22)

The power of missions could only be prayer. Not just any prayer but prayer in the Spirit. Not just saying words but feeling God. Prayer needs to be expectant and persevering prayer. Prayer like the prayer of George Mueller who wrote 'I am now, in 1864, waiting upon God for certain blessings, for which I have daily besought Him for 19 years and 6 months, without one day's intermission.' (pg 69). I was convicted by this. I'm too quick to give up! We have to battle on asking, seeking and knocking because our Father loves to give good gifts (Matt 7:7-11, James 1:17).

Suffering is the worthy price of missions. 'Loss and suffering, joyfully accepted for the Kingdom of God, show the supremacy of God's worth more clearly in the world than all worship and prayer.' (pg 71) Taking up our cross is our duty and therefore joy. Being ready to die with Christ so that we fill up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions (Col 1:24) or to put it another way represent the sufferings of Christ to men, women and children who haven't seen Christ face-to- face. Piper quotes Bonhoeffer: 'The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion wit Christ. When Christ calls a man, He bids Him come and die.' (pg 74) When we are happy to adopt such an attitude Christ will be made to look wonderful. Our calling is to go outside the camp and suffer with Him (Heb 13:12-14). Suffering looks different for everyone; for one it might be cancer, for another persecution. One thing is for sure that if we are to be glorified with Him we will suffer with Him (Rom 8:17).

Part two of the book suddenly becomes more theological and analytical. Drawing on Edwards Piper explains that the consequence of offending infinite beauty equates to an endless time in Hell. Punishment for a crime increases when you the person you offend is more valuable. 'Sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving infinite punishment.' (Edwards, pg 122). What is needed to escape this wrath? Conscious faith in Christ. Piper labours to prove it must be conscious. People need to know the name of Jesus to be saved, this comes from the word of God delivered by man (Rom 10:14-15). It is the name of Jesus that needs to be named for salvation, an anonymous saviour is not a glorified saviour.

The third section of Let the Nations goes back to worship. Piper loves to remind, this is wonderful (Phil 3:1). He reminds us again that worship is the chief end of the church and pure worship needs pure motives. So what are the proper motives for missions? The glory of God and the happiness of man. Are these two not mutually exclusive? No, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. In other words 'the pleasure you take in God is the measure of the treasure you find in Him.' (pg 212)

Piper gives an interpretation of John 4:23 - the worship that the Father wants should be in Spirit and in truth. He points out that this worship principle is for everyday life, not just one day a week. We need truth, the right facts about God. And we need the Spirit, the right attitude towards God. Jesus is the new temple of God. He is the new meeting place of God and man. It is there we can behold His glory, full of grace and truth. And if this is true and we have Jesus with us until the end of the age (Matt 28:20). In the words of Luther: 'The worship of God... should be free at table, in private rooms, downstairs, upstairs, at home, abroad, in all places, by all people, at all times. Whoever tells you anything else is lying as badly as the pope and the devil himself.' (pg 222) Inward New Testament worship will manifest itself in a transformed life. Holy living is the over-spill of real worship. If you love God with your heart and mind you'll want to love Him with your tongue, arms and feet as well.

Let the Nations Be Glad is a book that gets you worshiping on the spot by saying things like 'O Lord I want to serve you' or 'O God raise up workers for the harvest field'. It's a book that will increase your view of God as more glorious than everything else and likewise your love for the extension of the gospel so that the nations can be glad as they praise the infinitely beautiful God.

Calvin's Commentary

2009-01-07T12:06:00.004Z

The complete version of Calvin's commentaries on the whole Bible are online here.

Contentment in God

2009-01-06T21:41:00.003Z

Below are the notes from a talk I gave this morning at Olivet English language school. Comments and criticisms are encouraged!

This morning I want to think about being content in God. Everyone wants to be content. Everyone wants satisfaction. The problem is that we naturally (because of our sin-nature) hate the most satisfying and amazing person; God. And we fall in love with everything other than God as if it were as beautiful as the real God.

Pray

Read: Hebrews 13:5-6

5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
6 So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’’

1) We can only become content in God when we see how wonderful God is
Why is God a wonderful God for humans? God is a wonderful for humans because He wants what is best for us with more passion than anything or anyone else.

So what is best for us? God is best for us.

The Bible is the message of a God who has constantly giving Himself to a people for His own glory- to make Himself look great. Ultimately this happens in Christ (1 Peter 3:18).

"I didn't understand this idea of a God who says, 'You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I'm the best, and then I'll give you eternal happiness. If you won't, then you don't get it!' It seemed to be about ego. I can't see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me"- Brad Pitt

Pitt’s understanding of worship isn’t right- he sees a distinction between happiness and worship. Scripture teaches that what we are happy with is what we worship.

2) Contentment in God frees people to kill the love of money
Being content in God is the God-given weapon to attack our love for money.

Verse 5 ‘Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

So the reason why we can be content and not go to money is because God is enough. We don’t need money to make us happy if we have God. He satisfies my desires. He’s my joy and my life.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.26 My flesh and my heart may fail, [money fails, wealth fails to make me content] but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:25-26
When we see God as ultimately beautiful there’s no need to find ultimate beauty in anything else.

Money isn’t needed for our satisfaction because God says I wont leave your or abandon you. He promises to be near and next to you in everything. He promises to love as a Father- a good fair Dad doesn’t leave his kids, he promises to go and prepare a place for us so that we can be with Him forever.
Why would anyone want money and reject this God?

God is better than money. This is good news for us because God is opposed to our love of money. Jesus said more about money then He did heaven and hell combined:

"One thing you lack,"... "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Mark 10:21

‘It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Matt 19:23

‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ Luke 12:34

Wealth is dangerous because it sucks you in. Money demands worship from people. And when you worship money all you want is more money. Brighton is sucked in. If you want to be religious in this city you need love money- you need to be greedy. Money has cursed this city.

Wealth is more of a curse than a blessing.

1 Tim 6:6-10:
6 Now godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 8 And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

If you want to be sure that you’re going to Hell start loving your wallet.

Love for money will kill God for us if we don’t kill it. It will consume our worship and make God look tiny and unattractive and unpleasant.

But we can kill this love or money if we enjoy the beauty of God- finding him more wonderful than life.

3) Contentment in God gives confidence in the face of man
If we are content with this God and the love of money is dieing- If we want more of God than we do money- If we want to make Him look God and not make money look good then we will have boldness.
13:6 ‘we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
The Spirit of God has anointed us for what God has for us to do and He will empower us. He gives power so that we can be His witnesses- His witnesses:
Acts 1:8 ‘you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’
Man should be afraid when we are filled with the Spirit because no-one can God from doing what He does. No-one could stop the early church and they tried. Christian history shows that when you kill Christians, Christian’s grow- it’s strange! Normally when you kill things they become extinct- not Christians!
The apostles turned the world upside down because God they were broken people who relied on an external power. And we have the same power so there’s no reason why we can’t see the same thing happening in Brighton.

What can man do to us?
If they kill us we get closer to God.
If they don’t kill we get the opportunity of getting other people closer to God.

God is saving people because He is God and He does whatever He pleases. And usually He gets weak people who are content with Him and fills them with confidence and power to make Himself look great.

4) You can only be content in God by receiving Jesus
Jesus was absorbed loving His Father. He was the perfect example of what it is to be content in God. He was given boldness and confidence by the Spirit to win people into the Kingdom. He was the ultimate teacher on money and possessions- He was homeless and broke and at the same time more blessed than anyone else.

To become content in God you need to admit the you love to worship what God hates. You need to know that your God’s enemy; God hates your rebellion. You deserve continuous torture for offending a wonderful God. Hell isn’t the only thing God offers. He’s given us great news of hope: Jesus. He was fully God and fully content in God, fully hating the love of money, fully confident in His message.

This Jesus wants you to know His love, God wants you receive Him by admitting your sin and turning away from so that you can enjoy God and not money. Trust in Jesus He died to remove sinners by making them into worshippers.

Odd things about the Human Race

2009-01-04T21:33:00.002Z

'...there [are] two odd things about the human race. First, [we are] haunted by the idea of a sort of behaviour [we] ought to practise, which you might call fair play, or decency, or morality, or the Law of Nature. Second, that we do not in fact do so.'

- C S Lewis, taken from chapter 4 of Mere Christianity

Fasting in 2009

2009-01-01T11:51:00.003Z

Here's a helpful post written by John Piper encouraging Christians to fast in 2009.

Happy New Year!

Praying Paul's Prayers

2008-12-29T11:07:00.001Z

(Romans 15:5-6) God of endurance and encouragement grant me to live in such harmony with others in the church, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together we may with one voice glorify You, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Romans 15:13) May You, the God of hope fill me with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit I may abound in hope.

(Ephesians 1:17-19)God of my Lord Jesus Christ, Father of glory, may You give me a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, having the eyes of my heart enlightened, that I may know what is the hope to which You have called me, what are the riches of Your glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of Your power toward me.

(Ephesians 3:14-19) Father, according to the riches of Your glory grant me to be strengthened with power through Your Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith—that I, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that I may be filled with all the fullness of God.

(Philippians 1:9-11) And it is my prayer that my love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that I may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to Your glory and praise.

(Colossians 1:9-12) I ask that I may be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy the Lord Jesus, fully pleasing to You, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of Yourself. May I be strengthened with all power, according to Your glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to You, the Father, who has qualified me to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

(Colossians 4:12) May I stand mature and fully assured in all the Your will God.

(1 Thessalonians 5:23) May You, the God of peace sanctify me completely, and may my whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(2 Thessalonians 1:11-12) God make me worthy of Your calling and fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by Your power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in me, and I in him, according to Your grace God and the Lord Jesus Christ‘s.

(Hebrews 13:20-21) May You. O God equip me with everything good that I may do Your will, working in me that which is pleasing in Your sight.

Compiled by Victor Mason

How to be Perfect

2008-12-28T17:45:00.004Z

'For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man.'

James 3:2

To be perfect just say all the right stuff and mean all the stuff you say.

'But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?

James 3:8-11

The tounge is an indicator of the heart. What you desire is exposed in your words. We speak about whatever makes us happy. If you love God you'll speak about Him.

Get a new heart from Jesus if you don't have one already.

Driscoll on Cessationism

2008-12-27T23:16:00.004Z

I'm currently reading Colin Hansen's book 'Young, Restless and Reformed' where he documents the story of the Calvinistic resurgence in the states. Chapter seven is on Driscoll and Mars Hill and as always he has something humorously offensive to say:

'...I had been basically a theological cessationist and a fan of fundamentalist straw man attacks on charismatics... It wasn't until some years later, however, that I came to see the cessationists' interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12-14 as the second worst exegesis I had ever read, next to that of a Canadian nudist arsonist I once did some research on.' (pg 145)

Is that a bit strong Driscoll? Well actually I can see his very clear point. I'm a convinced charismatic thanks to well... what I see as bad cessionist arguments as well as scriptural texts that tell us when the miraculous gifts will cease (1 Corinthians 13:8-12).

Cessionism can be misinterpreted though. I know cessainionists' who have seen more healing's and visions and are more filled with the Spirit than some of my charismatic friends. I'm glad the same God is at work in the whole of the authentic church.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

2008-12-24T15:56:00.008Z

'You better watch out,

You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I’m telling you why;

Santa Claus is coming to town.'

Tonight is the night. He knows when you are sleeping and he knows when you're awake, he even knows if you've been bad or good 'so be good for goodness sake'.

Is the message of Santa good news? It's actually not. Santa works on a basis of merit; He requires children to be good before they can recieve his goodness, he wants us to be nice and kind before he is kind to us. Santa doesn't set us an example he only gives us what we deserve. If you're a bad person then Santa doesn't care about you. Your Christmas will be boring and dull without the moral merit that he demands.

Let Piper explain...

Santa's teaches religion. You can only enter his good books if you meet a standard. If Santa were God everyone would be without hope. He wouldn't let anyone into heaven because no-one is good enough. The good news for us is that peace, joy and love are given by Jesus Christ and not earnt. He says: 'Whoever comes to me I will never cast out' (John 6:37). Christ wants people good and bad to simply accept him. He doesn't require moral reformation or a good lifestyle before loving a person. He sets the standard by loving unconditionally. God's news is good to everyone and anyone who wants it. You don't need to work to get Jesus' blessing. He wants us to come broken and humble admitting that we can't live up to His standards. Christ wants us to take him at His word- simply to trust and recieve fom Him.

'For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.' (Luke 19:10) We don't deserve Jesus and we could never earn him. Christ wants us to receieve Him. 'But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name' (John 1:12).

Have a Merry Christmas!

HT: Desiring God

Applying Christ to Every Text

2008-12-13T17:47:00.003Z

Four ways to apply Christ by Tim Keller:

1) Theme Resolution
Certain theme run throughout scripture for example the theme of law and grace. Christ has fulfilled every theme of scripture. Christ met the demands of the law by living a perfect life and brings God's grace to us through His death.

2)Law Completion
This is preaching Christ from ethical principles. Every duty that we should perform has been completed by Christ. Every law points us to Christ because the law says to us ‘you can never fulfil me, you need a saviour' (Gal 3:24).

3) Story Insertion
The holistic narrative of scripture is the message of Jesus. Preach Christ from the story to be considered by looking for pictures of Christ in the text. For example: Jesus is the true Adam, Abel, Abraham….' Every story is about Jesus.

4) Symbol Fulfilment
Every major figure points us to Christ. The non-personal symbols point us to Christ. The entire sacrificial and temple system points us to Christ.

Read my notes from the whole lecture here.

The Westminster Conference

2008-12-13T16:10:00.005Z

The Westminster Conference is a yearly gathering of Christians (mainly Pastors) for the study of Puritan and historic doctrines. I went this year and really enjoyed it. Jeremy Walker gives a brief summary of the conference; part one and part two. I might upload my notes soon.

Loving to Obey

2008-12-05T20:53:00.003Z

Below are notes from a talk I gave at Olivet English Language School last Tuesday. Comments and criticisms are encouraged!

Deuteronomy 8:1,6-10
1 “Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers.
6 “Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.

Deuteronomy is a collection of sermons written by Moses for the 2nd generation of Israelites. The situation is like this: the first generation of Israelites have been released by God from Egypt - from the bondage of slavery in that land for as a nation for 430 years to the liberation of serving Yahweh.

Moses led the people with divine authority out of Egypt through the red sea and all the way to Sinai to receive the law. On the way they take a diversion through the wilderness for 40 years, complaining, grumbling and sinning against the Lord. And the Lord wipes the first generation of Israelites he destroys them. This book (the fifth book of Moses) is designed to stir up the second generation to obey God and take the Promised Land by looking back at some of the faults of the first generation.

Why should we want to obey God? What motivates us to obey?
Grace- God free love to sinners like us who don’t deserve it at all.
There are 2 types of grace that make us want to obey God:

1) Past Grace:
In Exodus 20 God says:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me….’

God entices the people to obey because He is God and He’s brought them out of slavery. He’s done so much for them. He’s been so good to them. He’s loved them when they deserved His anger.

We should want to obey because we can see change in our life. We hated God now we love Him- God did that! God changed you. We were running to Hell as God’s enemy. Now we can’t wait to get to Heaven to be with our Father forever!

God has given us the Holy Spirit and through the Holy Spirit we get gifts. We get comfort, we get led, we get taught. We get power to kill sin in our life.

2) Promised Grace:
Look at verses 8:6-10
6 “Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.
7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey;
9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.

The Israelites were promised Canaan and encouraged to obey because God was giving them a good land, it’s a beautiful land. In verse 7 Moses describes it with commodities that are precious and expensive. This is the inheritance that Christians –not because we’re good, only because Jesus is good!

God’s got a wonderful place for us. He’s prepared it Himself. He’s going to collect us Himself so that we can be with Him forever.
And the best thing about this place is Himself.
We’ll be observing and enjoying His own dazzling beauty forever. We’ll be looking at His indescribable glory forever.
We’ll be beholding our God and making a loud noise of praise to Him forever.

In heaven we have ‘an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved for [us]’ (1 Peter 1:4).
Thinking about Heaven ignites our hearts to want to obey God.

So what is obedience?
Obedience is the proper reaction to Grace. Obedience looks at the goodness of God and says ‘tell me what to do and I’ll do it because I love you.’

The last phrase ‘I’ll do it because I love you’ is really important.
Because If you ‘do the right stuff’ without having a heart for God- a heart that desires God and see God as beautiful then God does not accept what you do as obedience.

Obedience is never outward acts. Everything has to be done with a love for God and a joy in Him. It has to be delight more than duty. Joy is our duty!

The Pharisees obeyed, they did all the right stuff and Christ said:’ These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honour Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.’ (Matt 15:8).

Obedience is the heart-felt reaction to grace. We love Him because He first loved us! (John 4:19)

In Deuteronomy 7:7-8 God shows His love to the Israelites. He affirms that He is for them.
‘The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 8 but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.’

God’s love doesn’t consider the ability of a person-
God’s love simply loves for one reason: love! God chooses to love.

God chose to love Israel over other nations God chooses to love us. He didn’t have to-He could have given us what we deserve: Hell- he didn’t He’s gracious and kind.
God chose to love us because He chose to!

The Context of Obedience is Love-
Obedience has to come from a heart of love because obedience is a reaction to Grace.

1) Love makes obedience enjoyable- it becomes a pleasure
Before I was saved I though of obedience as a word that was against me. God was trying to make me unhappy by getting me to obey him.
When I was saved everything that was boring to me became a joy.
His word became enjoyable to me!
Psalm 119:24 ‘Your statues are my delight’.

What makes you read your Bible? Because you know you should or because you love it? Because someone has told you to or because you know that scripture is ‘more to be desired than gold’ (Psalm 19:10)? This book is better than gold!

Jeremiah says: ‘You words were found, and I ate them, and your word was to me my joy and rejoicing of my heart’ (15:16).

2) Love makes obedience liberating – it’s not a burden
‘For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.’ (1 John 5:3).
Keeping God’s commandments used to feel restrictive- they stopped me from doing what I really wanted to do!
Now they are liberating and wonderful- it’s great to obey God and do what He wants!

1 “Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe,
that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers.

What does God want from us?
God wants universal obedience – ‘Every commandment’
We should obey all the commandments. He wants us to submit every area of our life to Him- Jesus needs to be Lord over all that we are and do.

God wants exact obedience – ‘be careful to observe’
We need to be constantly re-examining ourselves and asking: ‘is this right in God’s eyes?’ ‘Am I doing His will?’

Obedience brings blessing through the promise – life, multiplication, and possession –‘that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers.’
1) Obedience shows us that we are God’s children
If obeying God is a reaction to grace then when we obey God we are preaching to the world: ‘God has worked in this soul’.

In John 14:23 Jesus says: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him.’

John 14:15 ‘If you love me you will keep my commandments.’

2) Obeying God allows us to enter into a greater fullness of God in this life.
When we live a life that is obedient in every area we experience more of God.

If we don’t love to pray we miss out on more of God
If we don’t enjoy church we miss out on more of God
If we don’t read and study scripture with passion we miss out on more of God
If we don’t have Christian friends to help and support us we miss out on more of God

Be Careful:
Obedience doesn’t save.
If you’re not a Christian then you need to know that doing the right thing never gets anyone into Heaven – it only gets people further into Hell.
Obedience doesn’t make God say ‘Oh you’re doing well.’ We can’t please God like that. Everything good that we try and do for God is filthy rags in His eyes- disgusting and horrible.
God doesn’t want to see all your goodness because you’re not good. We’re filthy, dirty sinners.

The beauty is that one man obeyed perfectly. One man did everything right in God’s eyes. And the amazing thing is He didn’t do what was right so that He could get to God. He did it so that we can get to God. Jesus Christ chose to give the perfection that He earnt (from His perfect life) to whoever wants it.
You must come broken- admit to God that you can’t please Him- you’re a sinner. Then thank God that God loves sinners and is willing to forgive you of every sin- everything that you’ve ever done wrong in His eyes.

Obedience to God shows that grace is working; obedience never wins God to bless us.
If you put your trust in Christ- if you believe that God became a man and died for you then God is for you. And God will give you power to obey like Jesus Christ did.

The Chief End of God

2008-12-05T20:37:00.002Z

Q 1: What is the chief end of God?
A: The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy displaying and magnifying his glory forever.

Q 2: Who is the most God-centered person in the universe?
A: God.

Q 3: Who is uppermost in God’s affections?
A: God.

Q 4: Is God an idolater?
A: No. He has no other gods before him.

Q 5: What is God’s chief jealousy?
A: God’s chief jealousy is to be known, admired, trusted, enjoyed, and obeyed above all others.

Taken from the Piper message 'Why God Is Not a Megalomaniac in Demanding to Be Worshiped'

Expositional Preaching

2008-11-29T21:18:00.000Z

God's Satisfies us by Loving Himself

2008-11-28T20:26:00.007Z

God loves Himself supremely above all other creatures. He delights in the purity of His character. He observes and analyses every emotion and mental capacity He possesses and declares it good! God is excellent, all together lovely, more beautiful than any landscape or icon. God's reaction to Himself is worship. He worships Himself loving to demonstrate His magnificence to everyone by speaking through creation. He is clearly seen through the testimony of earth.

He is a consuming fire, burning bright with radiance and indescribable light. He is the lion from the tribe of Judah; powerful, strong, the King of all creatures. He's the lamb that was slaughtered; meek and humble. He's the lamb that wanted to be slaughtered. It was His will to redeem a people to give Himself the joy of adoration. He desired worshippers to worship with His Spirit through His truth. He was willing to look guilty in the world's eyes to purchase our innocence. His cross was horrid and bloody. It was brutal and evil to nail the Son of God to splintered wood yet at the same time it works to express the greatness of His glory. He died and suffered to make Himself look wonderful. He did it to make Himself happy. For the joy that was promised to Him He endured the cross.

What do we get from God's efforts to make Himself look wonderful? We get we've always wanted: the happiness that comes from beholding beauty!

'And he [Moses] said, 'Please show me your glory.'' Exodus 33:18

The Grace-filled Church

2008-11-23T22:42:00.002Z

Tim Chester gives 7 practical ways to help create communities of grace.

God's Love

2008-11-22T21:07:00.005Z

I've just started Owen's book 'Communion with God' -it is amazing! Owen is unpacking what is to know God loves us and how to feel this love. If you're going to buy one Puritan book in the near-future buy this one!!

Here's a taste:

'The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.' (Page 13)

'Consider who it is who loves us. It is the love of him who is in himself all-sufficient and who is infinitely satisfied with himself and his own glorious excellences and perfections... His only Son, by himself alone, would be sufficient to satisfy and delight that Father. But in spite of all this, the Father will love his saints also. And the Father's love is such that he does not seek his own happiness and satisfaction only, but ours also.' (Page 28)

'When the soul discovers the excellency and sweetness of Christ in the banqueting house, it is overcome and cries out to be made partaker of his fullness. The soul is 'lovesick' - overcome with the mighty power of God's love.' (Page 43)

The Christian and the World: Staying Holy and Faithful

2008-11-21T17:35:00.002Z

Here are my notes from a Bible study I gave last night at MPBC...

We have two duties as Christians with respect to the world:

1) Avoiding worldliness
1 John 2:15-17:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

2) Engaging with the world
1 Cor 9:19-23:

19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; 20 and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; 21 to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; 22 to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.

We need to learn to find the balance between avoiding and hating sin and also making ourselves relevant out of love for the world.

2 things about the world:

1) We live in a changing world
2) We live in a constant world

If we are to adopt what Paul says in 1 Cor 9 we can say two things:
1) We need to be constant-some things should never change eg truth
2) We need to change- some things have to change if we are stay in touch with the world eg the outward appearance and arrangement of our Christianity

Paul’s Aim: The glory of God in winning souls. Paul gets himself involved in culture but not for his own pleasure in culture. Every act of engagement performed by Paul is done for the sake of winning souls
From the text:
-Paul changes his disposition to win more people for Christ ‘all things to all men’
-Paul (to change His lifestyle) must have been aware/ researched into the surrounding culture
-Paul’s focus on methods does not deny his belief in the Holy Spirit’s work
-Paul became all things to all men to remove unnecessary barriers to the gospel
There are some cultural forms that restrain people understanding the gospel. E.g. the incarnation-Christ came into the culture of the time

Engagement with the world is the concept of sinless identification with the sinful beings, showing them that the gospel is relevant and applicable and needed for their lives. It’s not compromising on truth, neglecting theology or changing the gospel so that it is acceptable in the eyes of the sinner. It is paying attention to culture to become like culture and use many methods to win many people to Christ.

Engagement requires knowledge of restraints and liberties. We must be flexible and rigid. We need to know what we can lawfully do as Christians- the things that do not break commandments. And we need to know what is prohibited. We have to have a clear view of worldliness. We can’t go against our conscience if our conscience has been soaked in scripture. We must exploit all liberty to seeing more people saved without blaspheming God in the process. Paul is not saying- to the gambler I became a gambler. People abuse the concept this way.

In order to be open to win as many as we can to Christ we must know how far closed we need to be. This is liberalism. Our openness is not theological-we do not and should not compromise the truth of scripture. Liberalism does-they say homosexuality is ok- it’s not it’s a sin. Homosexuals must repent of their sin daily as I repent of my sin daily.

The other end of the spectrum is fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a holding onto everything- not only the essentials of scripture but also cultural values. A fundamentalist church doesn’t change-ever. It’s not looking for ways to be relevant to the society around it. They don’t spend time investing money into making literature look good or the church look welcoming and comfortable. A fundamentalist only takes notice of the preaching. Preaching is the focus. It’s the only hope for all we do. We are called to preach the word- this is the way Christ is exalted in hearts and minds. The error of the fundamentalism is that he/she doesn’t realise that there are external factors of the situation that reduce the number of people listening to the preached word. Would you go to a church without heating? Or without pews? Some might stay others would leave. We want to make sure that no-one is being pushed away by our weird cultural intricacies and characteristics. We need to paint our churches in neutral colours, have music popular to the current culture (not the same as the culture- it must be regulated by scripture but similar in style and sound), our leaflets and websites must look contemporary.

We must labour to be in the middle of fundamentalism and liberalism. Holding to the fundamentals of truth but allowing the externals or cosmetics of our Christianity to look different as time moves on, showing Brighton that the gospel is relevant.

What are the dangers of adapting to popular culture? The danger is worldliness. We need to know and re-access exactly what this means. Is dancing worldly? Can we find scripture to back up our position in condemning this? If it’s not worldly we should embrace for the sake of the gospel. If dancing is not wrong then dancing should be redeemed and used for the glory of God- not by everyone but just by some!
Is drinking wrong? What about smoking occasionally? I don’t believe these things are sinful. Therefore I would encourage Christian smokers to spread the gospel using their mutual interest.

We need to be aware that our hearts love to make any and everything and idol. Anything can be sinful. We need to be as ready to fast from culture as we to engage with it. Can we live without having a pint? If you can’t your sinning and you need to give it up for the sake of your own personal holiness. We are called to be holy and set apart. We cannot afford to sin in evangelism or get too close to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life but in order to be faithful we need to redeem as much as we can of this fallen world to use it in the worship of Christ by bringing others to know Him.

Did Jesus live out these principles? Did He fit in with the culture around Him? Yes-Christ is the ultimate example of cultural relevance. He became like us. He did everything He could to bring a message relevantly. Christ is the word made flesh. He didn’t come down in a blaze of light or glory. He came as a person to identify with us. He subjected Himself to some of the values of society- He lived a human life. We are called to live the same life because Christ said (John 20:21) ‘As the Father has sent me so I send you’. So we are to incarnate ourselves into culture become all things to all men to win them out of a sinful lifestyle and into the liberating gospel.

Questions to discuss:

In what ways are we to be servants of humanity?

Should the church change from generation to generation? Yes/No in what ways?

How should we think about methods in relation to the Holy Spirit’s work?

What is the difference between worldliness and engaging with the world?

What can we do specifically to ‘win more for Christ’ in these areas:
Speech
Clothing
Tracts
Social activities
Friendships

What does the doctrine of the incarnation teach us about Christ’s example of relating to culture?
What are the benefits of relating to culture?

What are the dangers of relating to culture?

How does Paul’s attitude of engagement promote humility within the church?

Making Christ Look Great in Death

2008-11-20T13:17:00.000Z

The Atonement Debate

2008-11-19T12:02:00.003Z

“The emphasis on Yahweh’s apparent appetite for continuous appeasement through blood sacrifice, present within some Pentateuchal texts, is to be understood in the light of later prophetic writings as a reflection of the worship practices of the pagan cults of the nations that surrounded the people of Israel. However, the story of Israel's salvation is the story of her journey away from these primal practices towards a new and more enlightened understanding by way of Yahweh's self-revelation.” (Steve Chalke, page 38, The Atonement Debate)

Quotes (like the above) make me grieve. Quotes (like the one below) make me happy in God for all that He has done. He chose to become cursed.The execution of the Son was planned by the Father according to His perfect power to do whatever He pleases. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him to redeem me from judgement! He became sin for me so that I could become righteous in Him! The fair anger of God poured out on Christ for every sin I've ever committed because He loves me!! God, showing this clearly through the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant. Then the grand unveiling of the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world to break the bonds of my sin and release me to worship for eternity!

Hebrews 9:23-28
23 Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— 26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

Accountability

2008-11-19T09:50:00.003Z

At MPBC we've just started using this resource to hold each other accountable. It's a very thorough two page pdf form that a few of us complete and then send to each other every week.

Accountability gives us the opportunity to be honest and real about the sin we struggle with. It cultivates humility as we confess our faults to each other. It helps us to pray specifically for each other encouraging us to be the church that God has called us to be.

Other benefits of accountability from Andy Naselli:

Motivation: It is an added incentive to glorify God with our whole beings in very specific areas, including our minds, bodies, families, and time-which all belong to God (cf. 1 Cor 6:18-20).

Safety: It is a safety net. If one of us starts slipping or falls hard, two other concerned Christians are right there to catch him or pick him up with biblically informed advice and love.

Consistency: It facilitates (but does not automatically result in) consistent spiritual growth.

Specificity: It requires specific answers to specific questions. If someone asks “How are you doing?” it is very easy to cover up areas of our lives by blowing smoke about something else that may not be as significant.

Thoroughness: It holistically challenges us in multiple areas, rather than focusing on just a few.

Community: It establishes intimate, healthy relationships with fellow believers, rejecting a lone-ranger mentality.

Intensity: It encourages us to maintain a higher level of intensity. Although we may hold different convictions regarding the application of the gospel to lifestyle issues, we can identify with John Piper in his answer to Justin Taylor’s question, “What about your approaches to pop culture? Pastor Mark [Driscoll], you go to movies. You watch TV. You listen to modern music and go to comedy shows. Pastor John-you don’t! So John, how do you stay relevant by mainly avoiding pop culture? And Mark, as you take part in pop culture, how do you stay faithful and transformed rather than being conformed?” Piper replied, “My short answer is that I think I’m weak and therefore would probably become a carnal person if I plunged more deeply into movies than I do. That’s the first answer: Piper’s weak; he has to steer clear of certain kinds of things in order to maintain his level of intensity” (The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor [Wheaton: Crossway, 2007], pp. 152-54).

Reminder: It is a constant reminder of what is eternally important, and it cultivates a mindset that we live in between Jesus’ two victories, which parallel D-Day and V-E Day in World War II: a decisive battle (i.e., Jesus’ victory at the cross and empty tomb) has determined the war’s outcome, but one final battle remains to end the war (i.e., at Jesus’ return). We confidently expect that God will restore and consummate all things for His glory and our good, and until then, we struggle and yearn for that consummation while living for another time and another place (cf. Rom 8:17-25; 2 Cor 5:1-10; Col 3:1-5).

How not to treat your Pastor

2008-11-11T23:26:00.002Z

If his sermon is longer than usual, “He sends us to sleep.”
If it’s short, “He hasn’t bothered.”
If he raises his voice, “He’s shouting.”
If he speaks normally, “I can’t hear a thing.”
If he’s out visiting, “He’s never at home.”
If he’s at home, “He never visits.”
If he talks finance, “He’s too fond of money.”
If he doesn’t, “Nobody knows what he’s up to.”
If he encourages mission, “He wears everybody out.”
If he doesn’t, “The church is dead.”
If he takes time with people, “He goes on and on.”
If he is brief, “He never listens.”
If he decorates the church, “He’s spending too much money.”
If he doesn’t, “He’s letting everything go.”
If he is young, “He lacks experience.”
If he is old, “He ought to retire.”
And, if he dies?
Well, of course, nobody could ever take his place.

(HT: Jeremy Walker)

The Epistle of Barnabas

2008-11-11T23:15:00.006Z

Theology Network has recently uploaded the Epistle of Barnabas. Barnabas was one of the early Church Fathers who spent time travelling around with Paul. He was martyred in AD 61 and was thought of by some to have written the epistle to the Hebrews.

Learning to Love the Gospel

2008-11-11T12:51:00.005Z

I had a great time this morning giving a devotion at Olivet English Language School. I even managed to keep it within the time limit!

Here are my notes:

We need to work on learning more and feeling more. Today I want to help us all to cultivate a greater love for the gospel. We should want more of God. We need to love and enjoy more of Him!
Philippians 3:1. Paul says: ‘For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe.’
Reminding ourselves of basic truth is not a waste of time. Learning more about Scripture is great but we also need to be treasuring what we already know.
So I want to look at 1 Corinthians 15 to remind ourselves of the gospel-so that we will fall in love with it again in a fresh way!

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:1-5

1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,
2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

This is the essence of the gospel
What should we expect the gospel to do for us?
1) The gospel is a picture of God’s beauty. It’s God’s love demonstrated therefore when we think about the gospel we should desire more of God.
2) If we desire more of God this will lead to holy living- a life where we hate sin and love God.

1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you,
We only declare what is serious. Declaring is strong.
We need to show the world that the gospel is not a theoretically addition to philosophy. It’s not another way of life compatible with a post-modern society.
We need to be showing Brighton that the gospel deserves to be proclaimed because gospel living is the only way of living!

Colossians 1:28 says:
‘Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom’

Paul declares the gospel to the Corinthians because he loves them.
He declares the gospel because some of the Corinthians denied the resurrection from so Paul wants to correct them. He wants to get rid of their bad theology.
He does it because he really cares about the church. He is working for their good and joy.

which also you received
The Corinthians have received the gospel. Why does Paul write it again? Paul explains this gospel again because the Christian life is a gospel-centred life.
Paul is telling the church that the gospel is not the basics of the Christian life that are left behind after you get saved. The gospel is the primary focus of everything; the gospel is the whole message of scripture. Every theological fact orbits around the gospel.

We will be remembering the gospel in Heaven as we sing:
‘Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honour and blessing.’ (Rev 5:12).

The gospel should be enjoyed. We love to eat our favourite food because it gives experience: Satisfaction. We know what the food tastes like because we’ve eaten it before. But we just need to taste it again because it’s so good. It’s the same with the gospel. We should be wanting to hear it again because it’s beautiful.

and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

We stand in the gospel. We are secure if we really believe that Christ died for our sins. The true Christian cannot lose their salvation.

Look at the if …if you hold fast that word which I preached to you.
When are only saved if we hold on to Christ.
Remember Lot’s wife. She turned around when fleeing from Sod and Gom and was destroyed.

What is believing in vain?
This is believing Christ for something other than himself.
Some people want Jesus just to help them out or just to make them feel God. Some people don’t want Jesus to rule over their lives.
Some only want the gifts that Jesus’ gives. True Christians want Jesus Himself. They love everything about Him!

3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
Paul gives the Corinthians the first message He received.
‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ is the centre of the gospel. The gospel tells us that we are more wicked and evil then we ever imagined yet more loved in Christ than we ever hoped for!
Because we are wicked Christ took our sins. Because we are loved Jesus wanted to die for us.

Galatians 3:13: ‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written: cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’. God condemned sin in the flesh. He was angry at Christ for our sin. We deserved to experience all of His anger in our body. He loves us that’s why He died. He loves us so much.
Our sin was punished in Jesus’ flesh.

Numbers 6:24-26 is the blessing that the Priest would say to the people:
The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
When Christ was on the cross He heard the exact opposite because of our sin.

‘The Lord curse you and abandon you, the Lord withhold His face from you and show wrath to you, the Lord take away the light of His countenance from you and give you no rest.’ This is what He went through for His children.

Christ enduring the curse for our sin isn’t the end of salvation. The aim of the cross is not the forgiveness of our sins. The forgiveness of our sins is a means to an end. God curses Christ to free us from the bondage of sin so that we can love Him. Worship and awe are the goals of the cross.
We come to the cross to be freed from sin to worship God. We get given power to break our love for sin and start adoring God.

The proper reaction is John’s reaction:
‘Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.’ 1 John 3:1

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
Paul got all his theology from the OT He loved the OT.
The OT shows us Christ’s death. The Bible is full of the gospel from start to finish.

4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
God died and was buried to ascend and make a spectacle of death. Death is defeated and has been conquered. Christ made death look weak!
We have all that Christ is as Christians therefore we are more than conquers. Death serves us. It helps us.
Paul wants the Corinthians to know that their faith is empty if Christ has not risen.
We can praise God tonight that He did rise because we are not in our sins. He has taken them. People saw Him as weak-they weren’t expecting God to die!But we know that He is our conqueror defeating all our enemies to bring us into everlasting happiness which is His own presence!!

How can you believe in a God who is so narrow minded?

2008-11-11T11:49:00.001Z

Help in Suffering Properly from the Life of John Bunyan

2008-11-06T21:39:00.009Z

Below are my notes from a Bible Study on the Life of John Bunyan. These notes are roughly based on John Piper's biography of Bunyan given at the 1999 Pastors Conference. I have edited Piper's message and added my own thoughts from my own reading of Bunyan.

Romans 8:18 ‘For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’…then Paul continues in verse 36: As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’’
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.’

We all will suffer. I haven’t suffered considerably at all yet. But I know I will. God promises it to me! Suffering will work to wean me away from my hunger of the world and bring me to want more of God. I know it will happen and maybe soon. So I’ve decided to research into one man’s suffering so that we all can be taught how to suffer properly.
So that we can suffer rightly; delighting in God, clinging onto Him, not despising the day of the Lord’s chastening- for whoever the Lord loves He chastens. We’re illegitimate sons and not co-heirs with Christ if we do not know suffering (Hebrews 12:7).

Let’s have a look at what John Bunyan can teach us on How to suffer well.

On quoting 2 Corinthians 1:9 where Paul says, "We had this sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God that raiseth the dead."

Bunyan comments,

‘By this scripture I was made to see that if ever I would suffer rightly, I must first pass a sentence of death upon every thing that can be properly called a thing of this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyment, and all, as dead to me, and myself as dead to them. The second was, to live upon God that is invisible, as Paul said in another place; the way not to faint, is to "look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’

In Bunyan’s preparation to suffer he saw that he wouldn’t be able to glorify God in suffering if idols were present in his life. He was intent on crucifying sin ‘even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyment, and all, as dead to me, and myself as dead to them’. The first lesson of suffering is counting it all loss for Christ. We can only have joy in Christ during suffering if we have a Christ to have joy in. If television or food or money or power or intellect is god in our day to day wealthy lives then why should God be God only in our suffering times. ‘To live upon God that is invisible’ is the starting point of counting ourselves dead to the world. If we are captivated with Him before suffering we shall be during suffering -only with a greater measure.

***
John Bunyan was born in Elstow, near Bedford,on November 30, 1628. His Dad was a godly man and a metal worker. Bunyan is said to have received two to four years of formal education. In 1644 his mother and sister died within one month of each other. One month after this Bunyan’s Father remarried.

At age 16 Bunyan was drafted into the Parliamentary Army were he witnessed one man dieing in front of him after being shot in the head with a bullet intended for Bunyan.
He is thought to have married at the age of 20 or 21 to a woman unnamed in his writings. They had 4 children the oldest of which was born blind.

Spiritually Bunyan described himself as having few equals: "... especially considering my years, which were tender, for cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming the holy name of God . . . Until I came to the state of marriage, I was the very ringleader of all the youth that kept me company, in all manner of vice and ungodliness."

During the first five years of his marriage Bunyan converted to Christ by the grace of God. He joined a non-conformist church pastored by John Gifford. His Spiritual Auto-biography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners recalls his painful journey to the place of assurance. Bunyan wrestled on several occasions with the doctrine of election; thinking that he was a reprobate, had committed the unforgivable sin and will be condemned to Hell.

He writes: "I feared that this wicked sin of mine might be that sin unpardonable." "Oh, no one knows the terrors of those days but myself." "I found it a hard work now to pray to God because despair was swallowing me up."

His conversion experience is probably best attributed to the moment when he describes himself walking through a field:

One day as I was passing into the field . . . this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And methought, withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he wants [=lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, "The same yesterday, today, and forever." Heb. 13:8. Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from that time those dreadful scriptures of God [about the unforgivable sin] left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God."

In 1655, Bunyan’s gift of preaching was discovered. As he preached people responded.
‘But I at first could not believe that God should speak by me to the heart of any other man, still counting myself unworthy; yet those who thus were touched would love me and have a particular respect for me’ and though I did put it from me, that they should be awakened by me, still they would confess it, and affirm it before the saints of God; they would also bless God for me, unworthy wretch that I am! and count me God’s instrument that showed to them they way of salvation.’

John Owen said about Bunyan: "I would willingly exchange my learning for the tinker's power of touching men's hearts.".

His wife died in 1658 leaving Buyan with four children, one of which was blind. Bunyan then re-married a woman named Elizabeth. One year after the marriage Bunyan was arrested and put in prison due to the act of Uniformity. The Act required Pastors to accept and use the common book of prayer, and become ordained by the Episcopal Church. In the August, 2000 Puritan pastors were forced form their churches.

Bunyan was not tortured in prison although he could have been executed for his offence.
Elizabeth looked after the children as a step-mum for twelve years and gave birth to two more during Bunyan’s imprisonment.

Bunyan comments:
‘The parting with my Wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling of the Flesh from my bones; and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great Mercies, but also because I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor Family was like to meet with should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I had besides; O the thoughts of the hardship I thought my Blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces.’

In 1672 Bunyan was released form prison under the Declaration of Religious Indulgence. He was licensed to pastor his church of 120 in Bedford again.

Bunyan was imprisoned for the second time in 1675 until 1676. During this time it is said the he wrote Pilgrims Progress.

Bunyan died in the August of 1688 from a fever caught when riding from reading to London. He died without the comfort of his family in the house of Strudwick the Grocer.

***
What was the effect of this suffering? How did it produce or make way for a greater amount of God-centeredness in his life? These five observations are taken from a biographical lecture on Bunyan by John Piper.

So what did Bunyan’s suffering do for him?

1. Bunyan's suffering confirmed his calling to write for the afflicted church.
The most well known Bunyan book is evidently Pilgrims Progress. Published in over 200 languages, it’s said to be the second best selling book of all time under the Bible. According to Whitefield "It smells of the prison. It was written when the author was confined in Bedford jail. And ministers never write or preach so well as when under the cross: the Spirit of Christ and of Glory then rests upon them."

In the year of it’s publication (1678) the book went through three editions. I first read Pilgrims Progress two years ago last Christmas and loved it! As I presume you know the book tries to capture the Christian life by following a man named Christian on his pilgrimage to the Celestial City. From the joys of the delectable mountains pictured as the church to Christian’s verbal battles with Mr Worldly Wiseman and other characters the book remains balanced in representing the true gospel in a Puritan style.

Bunyan is said to be the author of 58 books from various genres. He wrote children’s literature, doctrinal expositions such as his book on prayer, allegory (the pilgrims progress, holy war, the Life and Death of Mr Badman). He wrote controversy (books on Quakers and baptism), poems as well as his own Spiritual Auto-biography named ‘Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners’.
All of this came from a man who had no formal education and didn’t read Hebrew or Greek. Yet he was used of God and fulfilled the example of Acts 4:13 ‘Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marvelled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.’

Apart from The Pilgrims Progress I’ve only read two other books by Bunyan, Grace and Abounding and a short book named ‘the Heavenly Footman.’ This writing seeks to give a description of the man that gets to Heaven. How does the elect person live in the world so that they will not get caught up with earthly riches but treasure Christ who is invisible? How can we press on to win the prize? It is an exhortation to push on, persevere to the end and not look back in case we are consumed like Lot’s wife. The book reminds us to not be passive in pursuing the goal of heaven as some do. We can’t rest on the doctrine of eternal security until we have made our calling and election sure.

His writings from jail and suffering indicated the joy and peace that comes from a God who Bunyan had not yet seen but yet believed.

2. Bunyan's suffering deepened his love for his flock
An excerpt from his book Christian Behaviour proves this point:

Thus have I, in a few words, written to you before I die, a word to provoke you to faith and holiness, because I desire that you may have the life that is laid up for all them that believe in the Lord Jesus, and love one another, when I am deceased. Though then I shall rest from my labours, and be in paradise, as through grace I comfortably believe, yet it is not there, but here, I must do you good. Wherefore, I not knowing the shortness of my life, nor the hindrance that hereafter I may have of serving my God and you, I have taken this opportunity to present these few lines unto you for your edification.

Bunyan loved the gospel ministry counting imprisonment as a small price to pay for being a preacher of the gospel. He said:

"My heart hath been so wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work, that I counted my self more blessed and honoured of God by this, than if I had made me the emperor of the Christian world, or the lord of all the glory of the earth without it! O these words, ‘’He that converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death (James v.20). ‘’The fruit of righteousness is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise’’ (Prov. xi.30). ‘’They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever’’ (Dan. xii. 3). ‘’For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For ye are our glory and joy" (1 Thes. ii. 19,20). These, I say, with many other of a like nature, have been great refreshments to me.’’

He loved the duty of preaching and the duty of rejoicing in his congregation of 120 people.

3. Bunyan's suffering opened his understanding to the truth that the Christian life is hard and that following Christ means opposing the system of this world.
In his book The Greatness of the Soul Bunyan pleads for his readers to persevere (as he did with the book The Heavenly Footman) and not waste our lives.

The book is based on Mark 8:36-37:"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" His purpose? "awaken you, rouse you off of your beds of ease, security, and pleasure, and fetch you down upon your knees before him, to beg of him grace to be concerned about the salvation of your souls."

Bunyan bears the mark of a Puritan by clearly illustrating the cost, commitment and sacrifice of the Christian life. As Christ put it ‘For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost.’ (Luke 14:28). Commenting on John 15:2 2 ("Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes"), he writes:

"It is the will of God, that they that go to heaven should go thither hardly or with difficulty. The righteous shall scarcely be saved. That is, they shall, but yet with great difficulty, that it may be the sweeter."

In his book The Excellency of a Broken Heart he says,
"Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some men seem to think . . . . It is wounding work, of course, this breaking of the hearts, but without wounding there is no saving. . . . Where there is grafting there is a cutting, the scion must be let in with a wound; to stick it on to the outside or to tie it on with a string would be of no use. Heart must be set to heart and back to back, or there will be no sap from root to branch, and this I say, must be done by a wound."

This concept has been lost in some churches. Salvation has become easy: an on the spot quick decision into the church community rather than decision that will radically transform a whole worldview and lifestyle. Salvation has often become reduced to completing a simple prayer instead of living a life characterised by hating sin and enjoying God. Raising a hand, praying a prayer, or completing a course, does not evidence salvation. Those methods can and are used by God. They can profit but I believe that they deceive more people than they bless.

It’s hard to enter the Kingdom. Luke 13:24 ‘Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.’

Salvation is identified by the endurance of sufferings with joy. This is what Bunyan found. His sufferings allowed him to experience Christ’s words when He said: "The way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matt. 7:14).

4. Bunyan's suffering strengthened his assurance that God is sovereign over all the afflictions of his people and will bring them safely home.
Denying the Sovereignty of God leads to discomfort. If we do not embrace the fact that God has appointed who will suffer (Rev 6:11), and at what times they will suffer (Acts 18:9-10), and the type of sufferings they shall endure (Acts 9:16) then we have a problem. Denying that God is sovereign over suffering (meaning he not only permits but plans the suffering) will paralyse a whole theological system and leave you with a God whose plans have been ultimately distorted and upset. This Arminian God provides no comfort for the Christian because the Arminian can’t say to the suffering saint ‘I did that for your good’ instead He will say ‘I’m sorry about this suffering or that suffering but I’m trying to make it better.’

For Bunyan the centre of his Christian understanding was found in the Sovereignty of God. Therefore the backbone of Bunyan’s joy during pain was God’s sovereignty as found in Genesis 50:20 ‘what you meant for evil God meant for good’.

The Sovereignty of God during trials brings comfort and joy! We can say ‘It’s working for my good. My Father has planned this for my exceeding weight of glory. My King leads me to suffering so that I can submit more of myself to him.’

In his book Seasonable Counsels: Advice to Sufferers this is what he says
"It is not what enemies will, nor what they are resolved upon, but what God will, and what God appoints; that shall be done. . . . No enemy can bring suffering upon a man when the will of God is otherwise, so no man can save himself out of their hands when God will deliver him up for his glory. . . We shall or shall not suffer, even as it pleaseth him."

Shall we except from God good and not evil?

"Let me beg of thee, that thou wilt not be offended either with God, or men, if the cross is laid heavy upon thee. Not with God, for he doth nothing without a cause, nor with men, for . . . they are the servants of God to thee for good. (Psalm 17:14 KJV; Jer. 24:5). Take therefore what comes to thee from God by them, thankfully."

5. Bunyan's suffering deepened in him a confidence in the Bible as the Word of God and a passion for Bible memory and Biblical exposition as the key to perseverance.
During Bunyan’s time in Prison he said this:

‘’I never had in all my life so great an inlet into the Word of God as now. Those scriptures that I saw nothing in before were made in this place and state to shine upon me. Jesus Christ also was never more real and apparent than now. Here I have seen him and felt him indeed. . . I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this place, and of my being with Jesus in another world. . . I have seen that here that I am persuaded I shall never, while in this world, be able to express.’’

One scene from The Pilgrims Progress captures well what it is to have faith in the promises of God. Christian has been locked away in Doubting Castle until he makes a discovery: a key in his chest pocket called ‘promise’….

What a fool I have been, to lie like this in a stinking dungeon, when I could have just as well walked free. In my chest pocket I have a key called Promise that will, I am thoroughly persuaded, open any lock in Doubting-Castle." "Then," said Hopeful, "that is good news. My good brother, do immediately take it out of your chest pocket and try it." Then Christian took the key from his chest and began to try the lock of the dungeon door; and as he turned the key, the bolt unlocked and the door flew open with ease, so that Christian and hopeful immediately came out.

The point is that Bunyan wouldn’t have had access to this key if he didn’t memorise the Bible. He had the scriptures stored is his heart, he studied scripture intently. Spurgeon puts it like this:
"He had studied our Authorized Version . . . till his whole being was saturated with Scripture; and though his writings . . . continually make us feel and say, 'Why, this man is a living Bible!' Prick him anywhere; and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak with out quoting a text, for his soul is full of the Word of God."
I pray that God would help us to suffer well to the glory of God!

Help us Lord to suffer well!

Jesus, Bunyan, and Me

2008-11-05T19:30:00.007Z

I'm being blessed by the life of John Bunyan at the moment. Christ is teaching me what it is to suffer well as Bunyan did.

I'm preparing a Bible study on his life for MPBC tomorrow night (at 730).
Here's a little quote that I intend to use. Bunyan is referring to the privilege of ministry.

"My heart hath been so wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work, that I counted my self more blessed and honoured of God by this, than if I had made me the emperor of the Christian world, or the lord of all the glory of the earth without it! O these words, ‘He that converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death' (James v.20). ‘The fruit of righteousness is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise’’ (Prov. xi.30). ‘They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever’ (Dan. xii. 3). ‘For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For ye are our glory and joy" (1 Thes. ii. 19,20). These, I say, with many other of a like nature, have been great refreshments to me.’’

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, paragraph 286, page 87

Luther's First Thesis and Last Words

2008-10-31T19:32:00.006Z

491 years ago today, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg.
He wanted to debate the sale of indulgences with his fellow university professors. So he wrote in Latin.

But a nameless visionary translated the theses into German, carried them to the printing press, and enabled their dispersion far and wide. Luther ended up with more than he bargained for, but he proved to be no coward in defending the discoveries he was making in Scripture.

Read the rest of the post by David Mathis here.

Biblical Prayer

2008-10-30T23:05:00.001Z

Two Sermons on Hosea

2008-10-29T11:54:00.003Z

Last Sunday MPBC had the privalege of listening to my good friend Tom Brand (facebook him -he needs more friends!) preach two sermons on the book of Hosea. I was only able to hear the evening message but I can say God changed my heart through the message. View the sermon series here.

Sermons preached at MPBC feature on the right hand column of this page.

All Things For Good: The Worst Things Work for Good to the Godly- when God hides His face

2008-10-25T20:33:00.012+01:00

In this next section Watson deals with how desertion works for the Christian's good. Watson understands this concept from Song of Solomon 5:6 'My beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone'. 'When God withholds sweet manifestations of His favour, He does not look with such a pleasant aspect, but veils His face, and seems to be quite gone from the soul.'

'God is just in all His withdrawing. We desert Him before He deserts us. We desert God when we leave off close communion with Him, when we desert His truths and dare not appear for Him, when we leave the guidance and conduct of His Word and follow the deceitful light of our own corrupt affections and passions.'

How does desertion work for our good?

Desertion can only happen to the Christian. Therefore if God leaves us it is evidence that we're born again. When we don't see the presence of God in our lives we start to crave for it. The non-Christian can't experience these cravings for the Spirit
'Desertion curses the soul of sloth'. In other words we are convicted of spiritual laziness when God takes His presence from us.
Desertion works for good because it makes the Christian desire the presence of God again. When you don't see God's presence in your life you can't take it for granted. When we understand that we are empty without God we realise that 'the lovingkindess of the Lord is better than life.' (Psalm 63:3)
Desertion works for our good because it makes sin seem more bitter. 'Sin made God desert His temple (Ezek 8:6). Sin causes Him to appear as an enemy, and dress Himself in armour. This makes the soul want to pursue sin with a holy malice, and seek to be avenged of it.'
Desertion works for our good because it makes us seek God. 'The deserted soul sends up whole volleys of sighs and groans. It knocks at heaven's gate by prayer; it can have no rest until the golden beams of God's face shine.'
Desertion works for our good 'as it prepares the saints for future comfort.' The angels visited Jesus after He had been fasting. Desertion makes heaven sweeter for us.

'The Lord brings us into the deep of desertion that He may not bring us into the deep of damnation. He puts us into a seeming hell, that He may keep us from a real hell. God is fitting us for that time when we shall enjoy His smiles for ever. '