Calvin on the Purpose of the Law
When, under the guidance of the Law, we have advanced thus far, we must, under the same guidance, proceed to descend into ourselves. In this way, we at length arrive at two results: First, contrasting our conduct with the righteousness of the Law, we see how very far it is from being in accordance with the will of God, and, therefore, how unworthy we are of holding our place among his creatures, far less of being accounted his sons; and, secondly, taking a survey of our powers, we see that they are not only unequal to fulfill the Law, but are altogether null. The necessary consequence must be, to produce distrust of our own ability, and also anxiety and trepidation of mind. Conscience cannot feel the burden of its guilt, without forthwith turning to the judgment of God, while the view of this judgment cannot fail to excite a dread of death. In like manner, the proofs of our utter powerlessness must instantly beget despair of our own strength. Both feelings are productive of humility and abasement, and hence the sinner, terrified at the prospect of eternal death (which he sees justly impending over him for his iniquities), turns to the mercy of God as the only haven of safety. Feeling his utter inability to pay what he owes to the Law, and thus despairing of himself, he rethinks him of applying and looking to some other quarter for help.
- From The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 2 – Chapter 8.
Divisions Among You
“Those who think that unsound ministers ought never to be exposed and held up to notice, and men ought never to be warned against them, would do well to study this passage. No class of character throughout our Lord’s ministry seems to call forth such severe denunciation as that of false pastors. The reason is obvious. Other men ruin themselves alone: false pastors ruin their flocks as well as themselves. To flatter all ordained men, and say they never should be called unsound and dangerous guides, is the surest way to injure the Church and offend Christ.”
–J.C. Ryle, on John Chapter 10
HT: Crosstalk Blog
This quote is a sound refutation of the idea that criticizing professing ministers only brings division and dishonor to the body of Christ. Yes, sometimes pointing out the wolf among the sheep will create a dividing line where factions will take sides, but Scripture addresses this issue in 1 Cor 11:18-19:
For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. (more…)
AW Pink on Erroneous Evangelism
“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.” – Originally from article Saving Faith: Part 1 Signs of the Times. Cited in the DVD Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism
I believe this quote from Pink is essential in developing a biblical approach to evangelism. It’s all too easy to gain ‘converts’ by scaring the ‘hell’ right out of people by conjuring horrific imagery of an eternal state of suffering and misery. Who in their right mind would choose this fate over one of eternal bliss? Heaven and hell are not the primary issues we are faced with everyday; righteousness and wickedness are. The bottom line is that we don’t choose heaven and hell. We choose between righteousness and unrighteousness. Heaven and hell are simply the eternal consequence of our choices between the two. (more…)
In the Valley
Here is a great quote from an unknown source. If anyone can identify the author for me I would greatly appreciate it. Whoever penned this piece of divine wisdom should be given due credit.
“We pray for courage in times of tribulation – then question our Commander’s battle plan. We pray to be made perfect – then run at the first sight of the refining fire. We pray for brokenness – then flee the Potter’s hands. All too often our Savior’s merciful act of sanctification is met by our doubt when we discover that His path may lead us down the valley of the shadow of death. How foolish it is for us to demand peaceful green pastures, as if we expect to be carried to Heaven’s skies on “flowery beds of ease.” We erroneously see these valleys as periods of abandonment, when they are actually demonstrations of Christ’s perfect love. Our Father gives only good gifts to his children: this is His character, and as such is not subject to change. The man that proclaims his gratitude only when “the Lord giveth” has much to learn. When “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away”, man often forgets gratitude and screams injustice has befallen him. He searches for any visible exit, then sprints toward escape. But God did not design these tests so man could cheat. He designed these tests so man could be made more like the image of His Son. When we finally see God as truly good and merciful beyond compare, we will not flee. We will instead fall face down in the valley before the Lord of perfect love and worship His majestic sovereignty. This humble submission is where peace and joy can be experienced; the misery comes when we lean on our own understanding and attempt to climb out of the valley. My Commander will give me His strength, and I will stay in the valley He has ordained. When I pray to be made perfect by God’s grace, I will welcome His refining fire. When I pray for brokenness, I will rest in the Potter’s outstretched hands. Only then will I be able to repeat, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” – Unknown.
Stay on Target…
Distinguished Scottish theologian Sinclair Ferguson has some sound counsel for pastors and teachers who preach from the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is a particularly relevant quote for the season I am currently in right now. Plus, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to use a Star Wars quote as a post title…
Too often preaching on the Gospels takes what I whimsically think of as the “Find Waldo Approach.” The underlying question in the sermon is “Where are you to be found in this story?” (are you Martha or Mary, James and John, Peter, the grateful leper . . .?). The question “Where, Who and What is Jesus in this story? Tends to be marginalized. The truth is it is far easier to preach about Mary, Martha, James, John, or Peter than it is about Christ. It is far easier to preach even about the darkness of sin and the human heart than to preach Christ. Plus my bookshelves are groaning with literature on Mary, Martha . . . the good life, the family life, the Spirit-filled life, the parenting life, the damaged self life . . . but most of us have only a few inches of shelf space on the person and work of Christ himself. Am I absolutely at my best when talking about him, or about us?
Disdaining Shock and Awe from the Pulpit
American Christendom has birthed a disturbing new trend with today’s wave of ultra-hip pastors who unabashedly spew foul language from the pulpit and openly discuss various sexual acts in lurid detail with their congregations. Allow me to share a nugget of wisdom from Charles Spurgeon that all these shepherds of God’s sheep should heed.
We need the divine influence to keep us back from saying many things which, if they actually left our tongue, would mar our message. Those of us who are endowed with the dangerous gift of humor have need, sometimes, to stop and take the word out of our mouth and look at it, and see whether it is quite to edification; and those whose previous lives have borne them amoung the coarse and the rough had need watch with lynx eyes against indelicacy. Brethren, far be it from us to utter a syllable which would suggest an impure thought, or raise a questionable memory. We need the Spirit of God to put bit and bridle upon us to keep us from saying that which would take the minds of our hearers away from Christ and eternal realities, and set them thinking upon the groveling things of earth. – Taken from Lectures to my Students: Chapter 14 -The Holy Spirit in Connection with our Ministry.
The Pressing Need of Today’s Church
“It is the studied judgment of this writer, and he is by no means alone therein, that doctrinal preaching is the most pressing need of the churches today”. “Doctrinal preaching is designed to enlighten the understanding, to instruct the mind, to inform the judgment. It is that which supplies motives to gratitude and furnishes incentives to good works”. “Doctrinal Christianity is both the ground and the motive of practical Christianity, for it is principle and not emotion or impulse which is the dynamic of the spiritual life”. “There is no doctrine revealed in Scripture for a merely speculative knowledge, but all is to exert a powerful influence upon conduct. God’s design in all that He has revealed to us is to the purifying of our affections and the transforming of our characters”. – AW Pink
The Society of Satan and His Gospel
“The gospel of Satan is not a system of revolutionary principles, nor yet a program of anarchy. It does not promote strife and war, but aims at peace and unity. It seeks not to set the mother against her daughter nor the father against his son, but fosters the fraternal spirit whereby the human race is regarded as one great ‘brotherhood.’ It does not seek to drag down the natural man, but to improve and uplift him. It advocates education and cultivation and appeals to ‘the best that is within us.’ It aims to make this world such a comfortable and congenial habitat that Christ’s absence from it will not be felt and God will not be needed.” –A.W. Pink
As I prepared to post this I was reminded of a similar quote from a recent article by Dr. Michael Horton entitled ‘Christless Christianity: Getting in Christ’s Way’ originally published in the May/June 07 issue of Modern Reformation magazine. (more…)
Spurious Conversions
“In the church where I ministered in South Wales I used to stand at the main door of the church at the close of the service on Sunday night, and shake hands with people as they went out. The incident to which I am referring concerns a man who used to come to our service every Sunday night. He was a tradesman but also a heavy drinker. He got drunk regularly every Saturday night, but he was also regularly seated in the gallery of our church every Sunday night. On the particular night to which I am referring I happened to notice while preaching that this man was obviously being affected. I could see that he was weeping copiously, and I was anxious to know what was happening to him. At the end of the service I went and stood at the door. After a while I saw this man coming, and immediately I was in a real mental conflict. Should I, in view of what I had seen, say a word to him and ask him to make his decision that night, or should I not? Would I be interfering with the work of the Spirit if I did so? Hurriedly I decided that I would not ask him to stay behind, so I just greeted him as usual and he went out. His face revealed that he had been crying copiously, and he could scarcely look at me. The following evening I was walking to the prayer-meeting in the church, and, going over a railway bridge, I saw this same man coming to meet me. He came across the road to me and said, ‘You know, doctor, if you had asked me to stay behind last night I would have done so.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I am asking you now, come with me now.’ ‘Oh no,’ he replied, ‘but if you had asked me last night I would have done so.’ ‘My dear friend,’ I said, ‘if what happened to you last night does not last for twenty-four hours I am not interested in it. If you are not as ready to come with me now as you were last night you have not got the right, the true thing. Whatever affected you last night was only temporary and passing, you still do not see your real need of Christ.’ That is the kind of thing that may happen even when an appeal is not made. But when an appeal is made it is greatly exaggerated and so you get spurious conversions”. – Martyn Lloyd Jones
Piper on Justification
Justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone does not lead to more sinning. On the contrary, it is the only sure and hopeful base of operations from which the fight against sin can be launched. All the bombers that go out to drop bombs on the strongholds of sin remaining in our lives take off from the runway of justification by faith alone. The missiles that we shoot against the incoming attack of temptation are launched from the base of justification by faith alone. The whole lifelong triumphant offensive called “operation sanctification” – by which we wage war against all the remaining corruption in our lives – is sustained by the supply line of the Spirit that comes from the secure, unassailable home-base of justification by faith alone. And it will be a successful operation – but only because of the unassailable home base. – Dr. John Piper
John Piper on The Origin of Faith
You did not make the cross effective in your life by faith. The cross became effective in your life by purchasing your faith.
Christ tasted death for everyone who has faith. Because the faith of everyone who believes was purchased by the death of Christ.
– John Piper
True Discernment
“Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather, it is telling the difference between right and almost right.” – Charles Spurgeon
I don’t know if there is a greater need in the Body today than the gift of discernment. The number of teachers and preachers in the modern church who sound good and seem right but truly are not, has multiplied exponentially just in this generation. I have rejected a great number of fine-sounding televangelists, teachers, authors and bible commentators over the past couple of years that I had once respected. So much so in fact, people often wonder if there is anybody I do like.
Fair question.
My answer is ‘oh yes, a great many fine teachers exist, you just have to seek them out, because most refuse to parade themselves or exploit fellow brethren.” (more…)
Has God Performed a Work in You?
“Since Scripture declares that all who are truly saved are the workmanship of God [Eph 2:10], then the question I must ask is, ‘Have I been the subject of that workmanship?’ The question is not the sincerity of my decision, or my resolve, or my whatever-I-want-to-call-it. The question is not, ‘What have I done with reference to Christ and his salvation?’ The essential question is this: ‘Has God done something in me?’ Not, ‘Have I accepted Christ?’ but, ‘Has Christ accepted me?’ The issue is not, ‘Have I found the Lord?’ but, ‘Has he found me?’” - Albert N. Martin
Church on the Downgrade
This is one of the most amazing quotes I have ever read from the pen of Charles Spurgeon. Did he really write this over 100 years ago? The Downgrade Controversy Spurgeon fought against was at heart the same battle the church is fighting against today in the Church Growth/Seeker Sensitive movement.
Spurgeon never compromised his commitment to Sola Scriptura. Will we stand with him?
“An evil resides in the professed camp of the Lord so gross in its impudence that the most shortsighted can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years it has developed at an abnormal rate even for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out as the Puritans did, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses. (more…)
The One Thing Pastors Must Never Forsake
“In the great day, when the muster-roll shall be read, of all those who are converted through fine music, and church decoration, and religious exhibitions and entertainments, they will amount to the tenth part of nothing; but it will always please God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Keep to your preaching; and if you do anything beside, do not let it throw your preaching into the background. In the first place preach, and in the second place preach, and in the third place preach.
Believe in preaching the love of Christ, believe in preaching the atoning sacrifice, believe in preaching the new birth, believe in preaching the whole counsel of God. The old hammer of the gospel will still break the rock in pieces; the ancient fire of Pentecost will still burn among the multitude. Try nothing new, but go on with preaching, and if we all preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, the results of preaching will astound us.“
- Charles Spurgeon
To Fight or To Frolic
“In the early days, when Christianity exercised a dominant influence over American thinking, men and women conceived the world to be a battleground. Our fathers believed in sin and the devil and hell as constituting one force, and they believed in God and righteousness and heaven as the other. By their very nature, these forces were opposed to each other forever in deep, grave, irreconcilable hostility. Humans, our fathers held, had to choose sides-they could not be neutral.
For them it must be life or death, heaven or hell, and if they chose to come out on God’s side they could expect open war with God’s enemies. The fight would be real and deadly and would last as long as life continued here below. People looked forward to heaven as a return from the wars, a laying down of the sword to enjoy in peace the home prepared for them…
How different today. The fact remains the same, but the interpretation has changed completely. People think of the world, not as a battleground, but as a playground. We are not here to fight; we are here to frolic. We are not in a foreign land; we are at home. We are not getting ready to live, but we are already living, and the best we can do is rid ourselves of our inhibitions and our frustrations and live this life to the full.”
- AW Tozer
The True Shepherd
“Ah, brethren, this is the mark of every true shepherd whom Christ sends – he comes in by the door, that is, the blood of Christ. He speaks of sin, because he has seen its greatness; he speaks of pardon, because he has been forgiven; of blood, because he has felt its power. ‘He that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.’ No other qualification will do. All the learning at colleges will never make a minister. All the eloquence in the world will never make a minister.”
- Robert Murray M’cheyne
The Only Acceptable Gospel
We must never confuse our desire for people to accept the Gospel, with creating a Gospel that is acceptable to people.” – Oswald Chambers
Blessed Assurance Through Holiness
I gleaned the following snippets from the article ‘The Practical Implications of Calvinism’ by Albert N. Martin. I highly recommend reading it in its entirety.
Have you been brought to see your own corruption in sin in such a measure that the first two beatitudes are true of you?’ The only people in the world who are truly blessed are those who have been so wrought upon by the Spirit that they are not strangers to these two things: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted’. How does God make men truly blessed, truly happy? First of all, he makes them sad at the sight and sense of their own impoverishment in a state of sin. What is poverty of spirit? Is it some kind of pseudo-pietistic attempt to convince myself that I am a miserable worm and a wretch? Not at all! Poverty of spirit results from just getting a sight of what you really are, and seeing that you are nothing and have nothing and can do nothing that can commend yourself to the grace and saving favour of God; it results from the conviction that he could make you an eternal monument of his righteous wrath, and let you perish in the eternal burning. Have you known an inner stripping that has brought you to poverty of spirit? to holy mourning? to the recognition that your sin has been against the Sovereign God? Have you been brought to the place where you hate your sin enough to forsake it and cleave only to Christ? (more…)
Spurgeon on Revivalism
Sometimes we are inclined to think that a very great portion of modern revivalism has been more a curse than a blessing, because it has led thousands to a kind of peace before they have known their misery; restoring the prodigal to the Father’s house, and never making him say, “Father, I have sinned.”
It very often happens that the converts that are born in excitement die when the excitement is over.
–Charles Spurgeon
CS Lewis on Old Books Vs. Modern Books
None of us can fully escape this blindness [of our age], but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us…. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them. – CS Lewis
Great Quotes: Spurgeon on Sin and Redemption
Charles Spurgeon once said, concerning Sin and the total depravity of the human heart;
“One sin can ruin a soul for ever; it is not in the power of the human mind to grasp the infinity of evil that slumbereth in the bowels of one solitary sin.“
Spurgeon once spoke of Christ’s redemption on the cross in this manner;
“it seemed as if Hell were put into His cup; He seized it, and, At one tremendous draught of love, He drank damnation dry.”
The State of Modern Evangelicalism
“If I see aright, the cross of popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosom of a self-assured and carnal Christianity. The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it.” – AW Tozer
This is perhaps my favorite quote concerning the postmodern trends in the church. It eloquently and succinctly sums up the man-centered apostasy of this age. Today’s popular evangelicalism diminishes the cross of Christ, while exalting man’s efforts to attain its benefits. Surprisingly, this was written over 50 years ago. Imagine what Tozer would think of the circus church acts so prevalent in our congregations today!
In modern American society, we have been desensitized by all the forms of amusement we give ourselves over to on a day-to-day basis. For us, witnessing this sort of worldly entertainment in the church appears perfectly natural. We are quite comfortable disengaging our intellect, and by extension our discernment, to enjoy a good show. The church needs a wake-up call from the Holy Spirit to snap us out of our half-conscious media-induced zombie state, making us keenly aware of God’s Holiness. Once we understand the righteous character and majestic nature of God through the lens of the holy scriptures, we should bow our knees in reverence, fear, and awe. After an experience like that, we should all grieve at the foolishness we have wrought in the House of God.
Oh Lord, reveal yourself to us in all your glory that we may see the error of our casual, irreverent approach to your throne as we enter into the Holy of Holies. May we all repent and glorify your name with thankful, grateful hearts.
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