July 30, 2010

“A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.” – Calvin

July 15, 2010

Without the holiness of God, sin has no meaning and grace has no point. God’s holiness gives to the one its definition and to the other its greatness. Without the holiness of God, sin is merely human failure, but not failure before God ~ David Wells in The Courage to be Protestant

July 13, 2010

“A Believer is the result of the operation of God. Nothing less, nothing more.”

‎”But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find a way to say it and live for it and die for it. And…. you will not waste your life.” – John Piper

July 12, 2010

Jesus didnt die and say ‘it is possible,’ He died and said ‘it is finished.’

If any man doth ascribe of salvation, even the very least, to the free will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright -MARTIN LUTHER

July 6, 2010

“Americans think God punishing sin is unrighteous; Paul said God forgiving sin was unrighteousness—unless there’s the cross”

“The astonishing thing is that people can become religious without being converted. That is, they join churches and start reading the Bible and doing religious things with no change in the foundation of their happiness: It is still themselves. They are the ground of their joy”

“Feeling loved by God means feeling glad not only that He crushed His Son so that I can be forgiven, but that Hes crushing everything that takes away from my praising of the glory of His grace.”

“One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.”

“Regardless of what Leadership Network, Saddleback or Willow Creek may tell you, you can’t do church for pagans. That’s like saying that we can do Capitalism for Communists or sexual fidelity for practicing prostitutes. It just don’t work that way.”

“God ALMIGHTY has spoken and written a book. IT CAN’T BE BORING!!!! we are the problem! The world is boring!” – jonny P

“I have heard it said, ‘God didn’t die for frogs. So He was responding to OUR value as humans!’ This turns grace on its head. We are WORSE off than frogs. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with the contempt of being inconsequential in their lives. God did not have to die for frogs. The aren’t… BAD enough. We ARE. Our debt is so great, only a divine sacrifice could pay for it.”

I am quite sure that if God had not chosen me I would never would have chosen him; and I am sure he chose me before I was born, or else he never would have chose me afterward.

You weren’t made to be somebody. you were made to know Somebody.

“All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions. However different the means they employ, they all strive towards this goal. The reason why some go to war and some do not is the same desire in both, but interpreted in different ways. The will never takes the least step except to that end. This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves…” – Blaise Pascal

simul justus et peccator

At the same time righteous and sinner.

“Calvary is a blot upon the character of Deity if salvation by self be possible.” – C.H. Spurgeon

Christ died not simply to make justification a possibility but to actually justify those He died for. He died to save them, not to make them savable.

“One reason why many church kids go into blatant rebellion is because you’ll find moralism preached there instead of the Gospel.” – Lane Chaplin

We are far to easily pleased

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 around 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 the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at sea. We are far to easily pleased.

-C. S. Lewis

Is your desire to be used by God greater than your desire to know Him?

If so, you have an idol.

April 8, 2010

“The books are opened. Myriads of adoring seraphs and countless multitudes of anxious spectators await the grand result. The wicked, with trembling hands and throbbing hearts, with horror in their gaze and damnation in view, would be glad to lose their being. But the righteous are bold and without fear, for the judge is their Friend and their Savior. The righteousness in which they appear was performed by Him. The plea that they make He cannot reject: for it is the blood that He shed to atone for their sins and the promise He made to comfort their souls under expectation of this important event. “Abraham Booth on Judgment Day

I never made a sacrifice.

March 19, 2010

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

-David Livingstone

January 16, 2010

The Father speaks. “My Son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lay open to my justice. Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them.”

The Son responds. “Oh my Father. Such is my love to and pity for them, that rather then they shall perish eternally I will be responsible for them as their guarantee. Bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe thee. Bring them all in, that there be no after-reckonings with them. At my hands shall thou require it. I would rather choose to suffer the wrath that is theirs then they should suffer it. Upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt.”

The Father responds. “But my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite. Expect no abatement. Son, if I spare them… I will not spare you.”

The Son responds. “Content Father. Let it be so. Charge it all upon me. I able to discharge it. And though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures… I am content to take it.”"

December 22, 2009

“Most people today believe they’re saved because they’re trusting in the sincerity of their decision and not the work of Christ, nor the power of God in salvation.”

December 13, 2009

Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.

If damnation be justice, than mercy may choose its own object.

October 22, 2009

I know there have been a lot of books written about heaven, a lot of songs, and a lot of speculation. I am honestly getting tired of hearing it all because it is so man centered and not God centered. (anyone want to sing another verse of “I’ve got a mansion?”)

So what is heaven? it is awesome… let me try to describe it like this…

(I know that there are no nights/days or sleep in heaven. but for the sake of this example, I am going to use them).

You die and go to heaven. The first thing you notice is that God is SO AWESOME and GREAT, IT WOULD KILL YOU.  The day continues and Christ continues to appear so much greater and valuable that it CONSUMES you. You live in pure bliss and joy so much that you can’t think of anything else. Finally… somehow you manage to fall asleep….

You wake up the next morning and God is TEN THOUSAND TIMES greater than the day before. IT WOULD KILL YOU (if possible). As the day goes on, He becomes even MORE CONSUMING than you could have ever dreamed of, even the day before. You live in something so great that nothing on earth could even begin to fathom… you finally manage to fall asleep….

The next day, you are awakened by the glory of God, TEN MILLION TIMES greater than the day before. IT WOULD KILL YOU. The day continues, and you realize that for ETERNITY, CHRIST is all consuming. You will never begin to see the end of this INFINITE and GLORIOUS God – The God so great that the very creatures created to praise Him (Seraphim) can’t even look at Him. Glorious in Holiness. Fearful in Wonders. Greatly to be Praised.

Now, I know this doesn’t sound that appealing to a lot of you. The reason is that you want heaven, you just don’t want God to be there when you get there, because He isn’t God of your life now.

Not everyone is going to heaven though. God’s wrath stands on every person because of their sin. You must have this removed. Since there is nothing you can do, Jesus Christ paid the debt.  You must repent and believe the Gospel. Please talk to me if you have any questions.

September 25, 2009

“God saved you from God. It was God who was arrayed in the armour and weaponry of a soldier. Coming after you. In His holiness, and His justice. God coming after you. To do vengeance against you. To cause you to pay for all that you have done against Him, and He is able to return His sword to the sheath now because Christ has died. Christ saved you from the wrath of an almighty God. Hell is just a revelation of that. God saved you from Himself, God saved you for Himself and God saved you by Himself.”

September 19, 2009

God is the only Person for whom self-exaltation is an act of love. “He exalts himself to show mercy to you” (Isaiah 30:18).

September 17, 2009

“Feeling loved by God means feeling glad not only that He crushed His Son so that I can be forgiven, but that He’s crushing everything that takes away from my praising of the glory of His grace.”

June 4, 2009

The hardened disobedience of men’s hearts leads not to the frustration of God’s plans, but to their fruition.

April 11, 2009

“I have a great need for Christ; I have a great Christ for my need.”
– Spurgeon

“Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is Himself the way.”
-Karl Barth

“I had rather be in hell with Christ, than be in heaven without Him.”
– Martin Luther

“Defend the Bible? I would as soon defend a lion! Unchain it and it will defend itself.”
– C. H. Spurgeon

March 21, 2009

If any of you should ask me for an epitome of the Christian religion, I should say that it is in one word – prayer. Live and die without prayer, and you will pray long enough when you get to hell.

-Spurgeon

March 20, 2009

Let this truth be our foundation: that there is more mercy in Christ than there is sin in us.

War

March 8, 2009

Ed Welch, in preparation for his book called A Banquet in the Grave (Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2001), said: . . . there is a mean streak to authentic self-control. . . Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin. . . . The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desire is a declaration of all-out war. . . . There is something about war that sharpens the senses . . . You hear a twig snap or the rustling of leaves and you are in attack mode. Someone coughs and you are ready to pull the trigger. Even after days of little of no sleep, war keeps us vigilant.

There is a mean, violent streak in the true Christian life! But violence against whom, or what? Not other people. It’s a violence against all the impulses in us that would be violent to other people. It’s a violence against all the impulses in our own selves that would make peace with our own sin and settle in with a peacetime mentality. It’s a violence against all lust in ourselves, and enslaving desires for food or caffeine or sugar or chocolate or alcohol or pornography or money or the praise of men and the approval of others or power or fame. It’s violence against the impulses in our own soul toward racism and sluggish indifference to injustice and poverty and abortion.

Christianity is not a settle-in-and-live-at-peace-with-this-world-the-way-it-is kind of religion. If by the Spirit you kill the deeds of your own body, you will live. Christianity is war. On our own sinful impulses.

February 22, 2009

The amount we sin is directly proportional to how much we fear God.

Solid in Sovereign Grace

February 15, 2009

IT is a great thing to begin the Christian life by believing good solid doctrine. Some people have received twenty different
“gospels” in as many years. How many more they will accept before they get to their journey’s end, it would be
difficult to predict. I thank God that He early taught me the Gospel and I have been so perfectly satisfied with it that I do
not want to know any other. Constant change of creed is sure loss. If a tree has to be taken up two or three times a year
you will not need to build a very large loft in which to store the apples.
When people are always shifting their doctrinal principles they are not likely to bring forth much fruit to the glory
of God. It is good for young Believers to begin with a firm hold upon those great fundamental doctrines which the Lord
has taught in His Word. Why if I believed what some preach about the temporary, trumpery salvation which only lasts
for a time I would scarcely be at all grateful for it. But when I know that those whom God saves He saves with an everlasting
salvation, when I know that He gives to them an everlasting righteousness, when I know that He settles them on an
everlasting foundation of everlasting love and that He will bring them to His everlasting kingdom—oh, then I do wonder
and I am astonished that such a blessing as this should ever have been given to me!
I suppose there are some persons whose minds naturally incline towards the doctrine of free will. I can only say that
mine inclines as naturally towards the doctrines of Sovereign Grace. Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters
in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude that God has never let me act as they have done! I
have thought if God had left me alone and had not touched me by His Grace what a great sinner I should have been! I
should have run to the utmost lengths of sin and dived into the very depths of evil! Nor should I have stopped at any vice
or folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that I should have been a very king of sinners if God had let me alone. I cannot
understand the reason why I am saved except upon the ground that God would have it so.

How well do you know your Bible?

February 14, 2009

A Short Quiz For those who think they know their bible.

You are not allowed to use the Bible or any other Biblical help; nor may you ask the opinion of others, nor in books unless otherwise instructed. The only time the Bible may be used is when it explicitly tells you to read the passage and comment on it.  You have 5 days to complete it.  

Some young people who knew their Bible well:
The Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, Jesus Christ: 30 years old.
John the Apostle: ? (His age may range from 17-31??
Aurelius Augustine: 37
John Calvin: 22 (He had his first chaplainry at age 12)
Christopher Love: 27
Jonathan Edwards: 15
Richard Baxter: 23

There are:
296 questions,
183 terms to define,
and 31 practical application questions at the end. (more…)

February 10, 2009

“When Jesus calls a man, He bids him come and die” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

February 8, 2009

“God does not amuse us with his miracles, but arouses the senses of men, which he perceives to be in a dormant state.” – John Calvin (taken from his commentary on Luke 1:66)

Lincoln’s Logic on Slavery Applied to Abortion

January 23, 2009

On January 12, 2009 Samantha Heiges, age 23, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for drowning her newborn in Burnsville, Minnesota. If she had arranged for a doctor to kill the child a few weeks earlier she would be a free woman.

What are the differences between this child before and after birth that would justify it’s protection just after birth but not just before? There are none. This is why Abraham Lincoln’s reasoning about slavery is relevant in ways he could not foresee. He wrote:

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you. (“Fragments: On Slavery“)

There are no morally relevant differences between white and black or between child-in-the-womb and child-outside-the-womb that would give a right to either to enslave or kill the other.

-John Piper/Justin Taylor

January 18, 2009

To be made a curse is so horrible (Gal. 3:13), that the last thing we would hear before we stepped into hell would be all of creation standing to its feet and applauding because God has rid the earth of us.

Wrath of God – Paul Washer – Sermon Jam from I'll Be Honest on Vimeo.

A Savior from hell…

January 2, 2009

The nature of Christ’s salvation, is woefully misrepresented by the present-day “evangelist.” He announces a Savior from hell–rather than a Savior from sin! And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire–who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness!

The very first thing said of Him in the New Testament is–”You shall call His name Jesus–for He shall save His people…[not "from the wrath to come," but] from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Christ is a Savior for those realizing something of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, who feel the awful burden of it on their conscience, who loathe themselves for it, and who long to be freed from its terrible dominion. He is a Savior for no others. Were He to “save from hell” those still in love with sin, He would be a minister of sin, condoning their wickedness and siding with them against God. What an unspeakably horrible and blasphemous thing, with which to charge the Holy One!

True, as the Christian grows in grace, he has a clearer realization of what sin is–rebellion against God; and a deeper hatred of and sorrow for it. But to think that one may be saved by Christ, whose conscience has never been smitten by the Spirit, and whose heart has not been made contrite before God–is to imagine something which has no existence in the realm of fact. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor–but the sick” (Matthew 9:12). The only ones who really seek relief from the great Physician, are those who are sick of sin–who long to be delivered from its God-dishonoring works, and its soul-defiling pollutions.

As  Christ’s salvation is a salvation from sin–from the love of it, from its dominion, from its guilt and penalty–then it necessarily follows, that the first great task and the chief work of the evangelist, is to preach upon SIN: to define what sin (as distinct from crime) really is, to show wherein its infinite enormity consists, to trace out its manifold workings in the heart, to indicate that nothing less than eternal punishment is its desert!

Ah, preaching upon sin will not make him popular nor draw the crowds, will it? No, it will not; and knowing this, those who love the praise of men more than the approbation of God, and who value their salary above immortal souls, trim their sales accordingly!

December 10, 2008

November 23, 2008

If I want my own way rather than God’s, it is quite obvious that I shall want my own way rather than the other man’s. A man does not assert his independence of God to surrender it to a fellow man, if he can help it.

-Roy Hession

Newer Posts »