I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. Psalme 122:1 (Geneva Bible)

THE MEDIATOR

Everlasting Creator-Father,

have destroyed myself,
my name is defiled,
the powers of my soul are degraded;
I am vile, miserable, strengthless,
but my hope is in thee.
If ever I am saved it will be by goodness
undeserved and astonishing,
not by mercy alone but by abundant mercy,
not by grace but by exceeding riches of grace;
And such thou has revealed, promised, exemplified
in thoughts of peace, not of evil.

Thou hast devised means
to rescue me from sin’s perdition,
to restore me to happiness, honor, safety.
I bless thee for the everlasting covenant,
for the appointment of a Mediator.
I rejoice that he failed not, nor was discouraged,
but accomplished the work thou gavest him
to do;
and said on the cross, ‘It is finished.’
I exult in the thought that
thy justice is satisfied,
thy truth is established,
thy law magnified,
and a foundation is laid for my hope.
I look to a present and personal interest
in Christ and say,
surely he has borne my griefs,
carried my sorrows,
won my peace,
healed my soul.
Justified by his blood I am saved by his life,
Glorying in his cross I bow to his sceptre,
Having his spirit I possess his mind.

Lord, grant that my religion may not be
occasional and partial,
but universal, influential, effective,
and may I always continue in thy words
as well as thy works,
so that I may reach my end in peace.

—from The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).

salme 17 (Geneva Bible)
The prayer of Dauid.

1 Heare the right, O Lord, consider my crye: hearken vnto my prayer of lips vnfained.
2 Let my sentence come forth from thy presence, and let thine eyes beholde equitie.
3 Thou hast prooued and visited mine heart in the night: thou hast tryed me, and foundest nothing: for I was purposed that my mouth should not offend.
4 Concerning the workes of men, by the wordes of thy lips I kept mee from the paths of the cruell man.
5 Stay my steps in thy paths, that my feete doe not slide.
6 I haue called vpon thee: surely thou wilt heare me, O God: incline thine eare to me, and hearken vnto my wordes.
7 Shewe thy marueilous mercies, thou that art the Sauiour of them that trust in thee, from such as resist thy right hand.
8 Keepe me as the apple of the eye: hide me vnder the shadowe of thy wings,
9 From the wicked that oppresse mee, from mine enemies, which compasse me round about for my soule.
10 They are inclosed in their owne fat, and they haue spoken proudely with their mouth.
11 They haue compassed vs now in our steps: they haue set their eyes to bring downe to the ground:
12 Like as a lyon that is greedy of pray, and as it were a lyons whelp lurking in secret places.
13 Vp Lord, disappoint him: cast him downe: deliuer my soule from the wicked with thy sworde,
14 From men by thine hand, O Lord, from men of the world, who haue their portion in this life, whose bellies thou fillest with thine hid treasure: their children haue ynough, and leaue the rest of their substance for their children.
15 But I will beholde thy face in righteousnes, and when I awake, I shalbe satisfied with thine image.

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David Legge
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Jason Robertson
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Mark Loughridge
Michael Beasley
Phil Johnson
Phillip M. Way
R.C. Sproul
Steve Weaver

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lorde Jesus Christ.

How many of you remember entering a book drawing at the beginning of last month? Well, on Sunday, at about 7:30 PM, deep in bowels of the Thirsty Theologian Complex, behind closed doors, amid hushed whispers and anxious nerves, two winners were selected to receive a copy of Assured by God: Living in the Fullness of God’s Grace. They are:

Bob Hayton

Bo Snagley

Congratulations, gentlemen. Now if you would just email me your mailing address, I'll get those out to you toute suite.

Uptate: The link above goes to Amazon. Monergism has it at a much better price.

I’ve watched more than one pastor work himself to exhaustion tending to one congregational need after another, while giving little time to study and delivering mediocre teaching from the pulpit. Not to be too hard on the pastor, that seemed to be what the congregation wanted—demanded, even. Is that the way it should be? Should the teaching ministry play second fiddle to other pastoral duties? John Owen didn’t think so.

   Under normal circumstances Owen believed and taught that “The first and principal duty of a pastor is to feed the flock by diligent preaching of the word.” he pointed to Jeremiah 3:15 and to the purpose of God to “give to his church pastors according to his own heart, who should feed them with knowledge and understanding.” He showed that the care of preaching the gospel was committed to Peter, and in him all true pastors of the Church under the name of “feeding” (John 21:15–17). He cited Acts 6 and the apostles’ decision to free themselves from all encumbrances that they may give themselves wholly to the Word and prayer. He referred to 1 Timothy 5:17—it is the pastor’s duty to “labor in the word and doctrine,” and to Acts 20:28 where the overseers of the flock are to feed them with the Word. Then he says,

Nor is it required only that he preach now and then at his leisure; but that he lay aside all other employments, though lawful, all others duties in the church, as unto such a constant attendance on them as would divert him from his work, that he give himself unto it. . . . Without this, no man will be able to give a comfortable account of his pastoral office at the last day.

—John Piper, Contending for Our All, 94-95

John Piper on the humility of John Owen:

Owen Humbled Himself Under the Mighty Hand of God

Though he was one of the most influential and well-known men of his day, his own view of his place on God’s economy was somber and humble. Two days before he died he wrote in a letter to Charles Fleetwood, “I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm, but while the great Pilot is in it the loss of a poor underrower will be inconsiderable.”
   Packer says that “Owen, [though] a proud man by nature, had been brought low in and by his conversion, and thereafter he kept himself low by recurring contemplation of his inbred sinfulness.” Owen illustrates this:

To keep our soul in a constant state of mourning and self-abasement is the most necessary part of our wisdom . . . and it is so far from having any inconsistency with those consolations and joys, which the gospel tenders unto us in believing, as that it is the only way to let them into the soul in a due manner.

   With regard to his immense learning and the tremendous insight he had into the things of God he seems to have a humbler attitude toward his achievement because he had climbed high enough to see over the first ridge of revolution into the endless mysteries of God.

I make no pretence of searching into the bottom or depth of any part of this “great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.” They are altogether unreachable, unto the [limit] of the most enlightened minds, in this life, what we shall farther comprehend of them in the other world, God only knows.

This humility opened Owens’s soul to the greatest visions of Christ in the Scriptures. And he believed with all his heart the truth of 2 Corinthians 3:18, that by contemplating the glory of Christ “we may be gradually transformed into the same glory.” And that is nothing other than holiness.

—John Piper, Contending for Our All, 103-104

It is relatively easy to learn facts. It is more difficult to apply them personally. It often takes considerable time for lessons to become embedded in our minds and be consistently reflected in our lives. John Owen was a man who excelled in personal application.

Commending in Public Only What He Experienced in Private

One great hindrance to holiness in the ministry of the Word is that we are prone to preach and write without pressing into the things we say and making them real to our own souls. Over the years words begin to come easy, and we find we can speak of mysteries without standing in awe; we can speak of purity without feeling pure; we can speak of zeal without spiritual passion; we can speak of God’s holiness without trembling; we can speak of sin without sorrow; we can speak of heaven without eagerness. And the result is an increasing hardening of the spiritual life.
   Words came easy for Owen, but he set himself against this terrible disease of inauthenticity and secured his growth in holiness. He began with the premise: “Our happiness consisteth not in the knowing the things of the gospel, but in the doing of them.” Doing, not just knowing, was the goal of all his studies.
   As a means to this authentic doing he labored to experience every truth he preached. He said,

I hold myself bound in conscience and in honor, not even to imagine that I have attained a proper knowledge of any one article of truth, mush less to publish it, unless through the Holy Spirit I have had such a taste of it, in its spiritual sense, that I may be able, from the heart, to say with the psalmist, “I have believed, and therefore I have spoken.”

So, for example, his Exposition of Psalm 130 (320 pages on eight verses) is the laying open not only of the Psalm but of his own heart. Andrew Thomason says,

When Owen . . . laid open the book of God, he laid open at the same time the book of his own heart and of his own history, and produced a book which . . . is rich in golden thoughts, and distinct with the living experience of “one who spake what he knew, and testified what he had seen.”

The same biographer said of Owen’s On The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded (1681) that he “first preached [it] to his own heart, and then to private congregation; and which reveals to us the almost untouched and untrodden eminences on which Own walked in the last years of his pilgrimage.”

—John Piper, Contending for Our All, 109-111

We will return with our regularly scheduled edification after this brief rant:

I recently had a conversation that went something like this:

Local insipid, soulless, Christian radio station: “Give your praise to the Lord / Come on everybody / stand up and sing one more / hallelujah / Give your praise to the Lord / I could never tell you / just how much good that it’s / gonna [sic] do you . . .”

Me: “Man, that is one annoying, stupid song.”

Annoying person singing along: “What’s wrong with this song?”

Me: “Where shall I start? OK, first, the melody, if you can call it that. It sounds like it was written by an asthmatic who can only sing two measures before stopping to gasp for air. But that’s not the worst of it. The words are horrible.”

APSA: “What’s wrong with singing praise to the Lord?”

Me: “Nothing, but if you’re praising the Lord because of how much good it’s going to do you, you’re not really praising the Lord. You’re practicing self-help therapy.”

APSA: “You’re so picky.”

Me: [Sigh . . .]

I can’t stand it. Discernment is out. Ignorant enthusiasm is in. According to a scientific study I am about to make up, 92.7% of American Evangelicals don’t know Paul of Tarsus from Paul McCartney. They don’t know Simon Barjonah from Paul Simon.

They think John Bunyan needed a podiatrist, and that Polycarp & Spurgeon are fish.

If Christian radio is a fair representation of Evangelicalism at large—and, according to the study cited above, it is—then Evangelicalism is a dead movement, utterly bankrupt theologically and intellectually brain-dead. If there was a convention for truly artistically gifted CCM performers, all the participants could ride in one car. If all the Christian broadcasters who are able to distinguish R. C. Sproul from Joyce Meyer had a party, they couldn’t get up a Bridge game. If all the Christian publishers who know the difference between John Owen and John Eldredge went to the gym, they couldn’t field a basketball team*. If . . .

[Sigh . . .]

I’ve recently been told that this blog has become boring and degenerated into nothing but dry theology. Here’s one small attempt to prove otherwise. Stay tuned for more dry theology next week.

A poll was taken in California asking if people thought illegal immigration was a serious problem. The results showed that 29 percent said, “Yes, there is a serious problem.” But 71 percent said, “No es una problema seriosa.”

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. Psalme 122:1 (Geneva Bible)

HYMN 12. (C. M.)
Christ is the substance of the Levitical priesthood.
by Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

he true Messiah now appears,
The types are all withdrawn;
So fly the shadows and the stars
Before the rising dawn.

No smoking sweets, nor bleeding lambs,
Nor kid nor bullock slain;
Incense and spice of costly names
Would all be burnt in vain.

Aaron must lay his robes away,
His mitre and his vest,
When God himself comes down to be
The offering and the priest.

He took our mortal flesh, to show
The wonders of his love;
For us he paid his life below,
And prays for us above.

“Father,” he cries, “forgive their sins,
For I myself have died;”
And then he shows his opened veins,
And pleads his wounded side.

—from The Psalms & Hymns of Isaac Watts. Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book II: Composed on Divine Subjects (Soli Deo Gloria, 1997).

salme 24 (Geneva Bible)
A Psalme of David.

1 The earth is the Lordes, and all that therein is: the worlde and they that dwell therein.
2 For he hath founded it vpon the seas: and established it vpon the floods.
3 Who shall ascende into the mountaine of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place?
4 Euen he that hath innocent handes, and a pure heart: which hath not lift vp his minde vnto vanitie, nor sworne deceitfully.
5 He shall receiue a blessing from the Lord, and righteousnesse from the God of his saluation.
6 This is the generation of them that seeke him, of them that seeke thy face, this is Iaakob. Selah.
7 Lift vp your heads ye gates, and be ye lift vp ye euerlasting doores, and the King of glory shall come in.
8 Who is this King of glorie? the Lord, strong and mightie, euen the Lord mightie in battell.
9 Lift vp your heads, ye gates, and lift vp your selues, ye euerlasting doores, and the King of glorie shall come in.
10 Who is this King of glory? the Lord of hostes, he is the King of glorie. Selah.

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Jason Robertson
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Mark Loughridge
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Phillip M. Way
R.C. Sproul
Steve Weaver

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lorde Jesus Christ.

It has been said by some (Phil Johnson, for one) that Postmodernism is little more than Modernism warmed over. John Piper draws the same conclusion from the following series of quotes by J. Gresham Machen as he opposed Modernism.

“It makes very little difference how much or how little of the creeds of the Church the Modernist preacher affirms, or how much or how little of the Biblical teaching from which the creeds are derived. He might affirm every jot and tittle of the Westminster Confession, for example, and yet be separated by a great gulf from the Reformed Faith. It is not that part is denied and the rest affirmed; but all is denied, because all is affirmed merely as useful or symbolic and not as true.”

“This temper of mind is hostile to precise definitions. Indeed nothing makes a man more unpopular in the controversies of the present day than an insistence upon definition of terms. . . . Men discourse very eloquently today upon such subjects as God, religion, Christianity, atonement, redemption, faith; but are greatly incensed when they are asked to tell in simple language what they mean by these terms.”

“The improvement appears in the physical conditions of life, but in the spiritual realm there is a corresponding loss. The loss is clearest, perhaps, in the realm of art. Despite the mighty revolution which has been produced in the external condition of life, no great poet is now living to celebrate the change; humanity has suddenly become dumb. Gone, too, are the great painters and the great musicians and the great sculptors. The art that still subsists is largely imitative, and where it is not imitative it is usually bizarre.”

“In view of the lamentable defects of modern life, a type of religion certainly should not be commended simply because it is modern or condemned simply because it is old. On the contrary, the condition of mankind is such that one my well ask what it is that made the men of past generation so great and the men of the present generations so small.”

—J. Gresham Machen, quoted in John Piper, Contending for Our All, 134-136

I have, in the last few years, begun avoiding controversy. I’ve lost the formerly-urgent desire to have my say about the latest hot topic. I’ve lost interest in blogs that thrive on controversy. I seldom engage in internet forum debates anymore. I no longer rush to buy the latest books on the popular heresies of the day. I would rather think on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report (Philippians 4:8).

To be honest, however, there is still a part of me that is spoiling for a fight. There are two reasons for this: first, as a fallen sinner, there is a desire to shut the mouths of idiots and demonstrate my own brilliance; second, there is a legitimate desire to stand up for the truth, to be “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” (2Corinthians 10:5). But I have difficulty engaging in controversy without allowing the former motivation, which is none other than pride, to come to the forefront, exalt my own cleverness, and steal God’s glory.

In short, I have difficulty speaking the truth in love. John Piper shows how Francis Schaeffer, a man who did not shrink from controversy, addressed this problem:

Francis Schaeffer: Sweet-Singing Twentieth-Century Swan

One of the swans who sang most sweetly in the twentieth century was Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984), the founder of L’Abri Fellowship. He was a wise and humble apologist for the Christian faith, and the model for many of us. In 1970 he wrote an essay called The Mark of the Christian. The mark, of course, is love. He based the essay on John 13:34-35 were Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
   Schaeffer spent most of this essay exhorting the church to disagree, when it must, lovingly. Schaeffer’s view of biblical truth, like the swans in this book, was so high that he would not let the value of truth be minimized in the name of a unity that was not truth-based. Therefore, he dealt realistically with two biblical demands: the demand for purity and holiness on the one hand and the demand for visible love and unity on the other hand.

The Christian really has a double task. He has to practice both God’s holiness and God’s love. The Christian is to exhibit that God exists as the infinite-personal God; and then he is to exhibit simultaneously God’s character of holiness and love. Not his holiness without his love: this is only harshness. Not his love without his holiness: that is only compromise. Anything that an individual Christian or Christian group does that fails to show the simultaneous balance of the godliness of God and the love of God presents to watching world not a demonstration of the God who exists but a caricature of God who Exists.

Schaeffer knew that, in general, the necessary controversies and differences among Christians would not be understood by the watching world. You cannot expect the world to understand doctrinal differences, especially in our day when the existence of truth and absolutes are considered unthinkable even as concepts.

You cannot expect the world to understand doctrinal differences, especially in our day when the existence of truth and absolutes are considered unthinkable even as concepts.
   We cannot expect the world to understand that on the basis of the holiness of God we are having a different kind of difference, because with are dealing with God’s absolutes.

This is why observable love becomes so crucial.

Before a watching world, an observable love in the midst of difference will show a difference between Christians’ differences and other people’s differences. The world may not understand what the Christians are disagreeing about, but they will very quickly understand the difference of our difference form the world’s differences if they see us having our differences in an open and observable love on a practical level.

Therefore, Schaeffer called controversy among Christians “our golden opportunity” before a watching world. In other words, the aim of love, in view of God’s truth and holiness, is not to avoid controversy, but to carry it thorough with observable practical love between the disagreeing groups. This is our golden opportunity.

As a matter of fact, we have a greater possibility of showing what Jesus is speaking about here, in the midst of our differences, than we do if we are not differing. Obviously we ought not to go out looking for differences among Christians; there are enough without looking for more. But even so, it is in the midst of a difference that we have our golden opportunity. When everything is going well and we are all standing around in a nice little circle, there is not much to be seen by the world. But when we come to the place where there is a real difference, and we exhibit uncompromised principles but at the same time observable love, then there is something that the world can see, something they can use to judge that these real are Christians and that Jesus has indeed been sent by the Father.

—John Piper, Contending for Our All, 163-166

I have recently finished reading a series of books by John Piper called The Swans Are not Silent. You may have read the several excerpts I have posted as I read. In my mind, nothing short of Scripture serves to inspire and encourage like the biographies of great saints of the past. This series has been especially good that way.

These books are a great entry-point into the history and theology of the Christian church. Rich in theology and fascinating in history, yet written on a level that should be easily understood by anyone of high school age and up, they will whet your appetite for more—more history, more theology, more of God’s working through the ages.

Titles in the series are:
• The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God's Triumphant Grace in the Lives of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin
• The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd
• The Roots of Endurance: Invincible Perseverance in the Lives of John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce
• Contending for Our All: Defending Truth and Treasuring Christ in the Lives of Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen

The thumb-nail sketches of great theologians of the church from Augustine and Athanasius to J. Gresham Machen show us that the struggles we face are not greater than those that Christians have faced since the beginning of the church; that the heresies that are prevalent today are the same attacks on the truth that Satan has been using for centuries; that the truth that has sustained God’s people is the same truth that sustains us today; and that the one true God upon whose grace we rest is as faithful today as he has always been—“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”

What is your attitude toward the Word of God? Do you approach it casually, or with awe and reverence?

   In ancient times the prophets felt the greatest fear when they received a message from God or an angel. Even Moses could hardly endure this great terror. Since the Word had not yet become flesh, they could not understand it because of its abounding glory and their own great weakness. But now, after the Word has been made flesh, it has become very captivating and is imparted to us by men of our very own flesh and blood. That, however, does not mean we should love it less or treat it with less reverence. It is the same Word as before, even though it does not come to us with terror, but with winning love. Those who do not want to love and honor it now, must at last endure all the more anguish.

—Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans, trans. J. Theodore Mueller (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1954), 17.

Things I’ve Learned after It Was Too Late

• Never touch a sensitive part of your body when you’ve been cutting jalapeños.
• Don’t smoke a pipe under a ceiling fan. The fire will get hot enough to roast marshmallows. The marshmallows will taste bad. OK, I never did that. The marshmallow part, I mean.
• Don’t forget to put a sling on your rifle and then shoot a deer half a mile from your pickup when there is no way to drive in. Carrying a rifle in one hand and dragging a deer with the other is a lot of work.
• Be careful what you say in front of your children.
• Swallowing a live grasshopper is stupid, even if your friends offer you two dollars to do it.
• If you’re given a month to do an assignment, and you think you can wait until the last week to do it, the assignment will take at least two weeks.
• If your wife asks you if you liked the new recipe, the answer is “Yes.”
• When you go camping, don’t let your five-year-old son drink all the pop he wants all day long, and then tuck him into his sleeping bag without first visiting the bathroom.
• Simply naming a tobacco “Presbyterian Mix” does not make it doctrinally sound.
• Men and women are more different then they appear.
• God may not help everyone who helps themselves, but if you don’t help yourself, your kids will eat all the cookies before you get any.
• That cake your wife baked that you snitched a piece from? That was for church.
• If you buy a rare book on eBay for sixty dollars, two identical copies will sell next week for twenty-five.
• Shipping from Australia is really expensive.
• All the really good old books are owned by an antiquarian bookseller in Australia.
• When your wife is nine months pregnant, don’t suggest naming the child Jonah.
• I’m not as funny as I think I am. See above.
• Your sins really will find you out.

If you weren't a Newhart fan, you won't get this. It won't be even slightly humorous. Kind of like a lot of my jokes.

The Last Newhart

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. Psalme 122:1 (Geneva Bible)

Invitation
by George Herbert (1593–1633)

urn in, my Lord, turn in to me;
My heart’s a homely place;
But Thou canst make corruption flee,
and fill it with Thy grace;
So furnished it will be brave.
And a rich dwelling Thou shalt have.

It was Thy lodging once before,
It builded was by Thee;
but I to sin set op’n the door,
It rendered was by me.
And so Thy building was defaced,
and in Thy room another placed.

But he usurps, the right is Thine;
Oh, dispossess him, Lord.
Do thou but say, “This heart is Mine.”
He’s gone at the first word.
Thy word’s Thy will, Thy will’s Thy power,
Thy time is always; now’s mine hour.

Now say to sin “Depart;
And, son give me thine heart.”
Thou, that by saying,
"Let it be," didst make it,
Canst, if Thou wilt, by saying,
“Give to Me,” take it.

—from Worthy Is the Lamb (Soli Deo Gloria, 2004).

salme 31 (Geneva Bible)
To him that excelleth. A Psalme of David.

1 In thee, O Lord, haue I put my trust: let mee neuer be confounded: deliuer me in thy righteousnesse.
2 Bowe downe thine eare to me: make haste to deliuer mee: be vnto me a stronge rocke, and an house of defence to saue me.
3 For thou art my rocke and my fortresse: therefore for thy Names sake direct mee and guide me.
4 Drawe mee out of the nette, that they haue layde priuilie for mee: for thou art my strength.
5 Into thine hand I commend my spirit: for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of trueth.
6 I haue hated them that giue them selues to deceitfull vanities: for I trust in the Lord.
7 I wil be glad and reioyce in thy mercie: for thou hast seene my trouble: thou hast knowen my soule in aduersities,
8 And thou hast not shut me vp in the hand of the enemie, but hast set my feete at large.
9 Haue mercie vpon mee, O Lord: for I am in trouble: mine eye, my soule and my bellie are consumed with griefe.
10 For my life is wasted with heauinesse, and my yeeres with mourning: my strength faileth for my paine, and my bones are consumed.
11 I was a reproch among all mine enemies, but specially among my neighbours: and a feare to mine acquaintance, who seeing me in the streete, fled from me.
12 I am forgotten, as a dead man out of minde: I am like a broken vessell.
13 For I haue heard the rayling of great men: feare was on euery side, while they conspired together against mee, and consulted to take my life.
14 But I trusted in thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my God.
15 My times are in thine hande: deliuer mee from the hande of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.
16 Make thy face to shine vpon thy seruant, and saue me through thy mercie.
17 Let me not be confounded, O Lord: for I haue called vpon thee: let the wicked bee put to confusion, and to silence in the graue.
18 Let the lying lips be made dumme, which cruelly, proudly and spitefully speake against the righteous.
19 Howe great is thy goodnesse, which thou hast layde vp for them, that feare thee! and done to them, that trust in thee, euen before the sonnes of men!
20 Thou doest hide them priuily in thy presence from the pride of men: thou keepest them secretly in thy Tabernacle from the strife of tongues.
21 Blessed be the Lord: for hee hath shewed his marueilous kindenesse toward me in a strong citie.
22 Though I said in mine haste, I am cast out of thy sight, yet thou heardest the voyce of my prayer, when I cryed vnto thee.
23 Loue ye the Lord all his Saintes: for the Lord preserueth the faithfull, and rewardeth abundantly the proud doer.
24 All ye that trust in the Lord, be strong, and he shall establish your heart.

ecommended
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Bret Capranica
David Legge
David Strain
Jason Robertson
John MacArthur
Mark Loughridge
Michael Beasley
Phil Johnson
Phillip M. Way
R.C. Sproul
Steve Weaver

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lorde Jesus Christ.

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; . . . Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts . . . unto vile affections . . . to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient . . .

   Notice in the text [Romans 1:18–32] the steps or stages of (heathen) perversion. The first step of their idolatry is ingratitude: they were not thankful. So Satan showed Himself ungrateful over against His Creator before he fell. Whoever enjoys God’s gifts as though he had not graciously received them, forgotten the Donor, will soon find himself filled with self-complacency. The next step is vanity: they “became vain in their imaginations.” in this stage men delight in themselves and in creatures, enjoying what is profitable to them. Thus they become vain in their imaginations, that is, in all their plans, efforts and endeavors. In and through them they seek whatever they desire; nevertheless, all their efforts remain vain since they seek only themselves: their glory, satisfaction and benefit. The third step is blindness; for, deprived of truth and steeped in vanity, man of necessity becomes blind in his whole feeling and thinking, since now he is turned entirely away from God. The fourth step or stage is man’s total departure from God, and this is the worst; for when he has lost God there remains nothing else for God to do than to give hem up to all manner of shame and vice according to the will of Satan.
   In the same way also, man sinks into spiritual idolatry of a finer kind, which today is spread far and wide, ingratitude and love of vanity (of one’s own wisdom, of righteousness, of, as it is commonly said, of one’s “good intention”) prevent man so thoroughly that he refuses to be reproved, for now he thinks that his conduct is good and pleasing to God. He now imagines he is worshiping a merciful God. Whereas in reality he has none, indeed, he worships his own figment of reason more devoutly that the living God. Oh, how great an evil ingratitude is! It produces desire for vain things, and this again produces blindness; and blindness produces idolatry, and idolatry leads to a whole deluge of vices. Conversely, gratitude preserves love for God and so the heart remains attached to Him and is enlightened. Filled with light, he worships only the living God and such true worship is followed immediately by a whole host of virtues.

—Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans, trans. J. Theodore Mueller (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1954), 29–30.

Tim Challies wrote yesterday on 10 Tips to Read More and Read Better. It’s a helpful article; I especially liked his final point:

Read What Your Heroes Read - A couple of years ago, while at the Shepherds’ Conference, a young man who was in ministry but had not had opportunity to attend seminary asked John MacArthur what he would recommend to this man so he could continue learning and continue growing in his knowledge of theology. MacArthur’s answer was simple: He said that this pastor should find godly men he admires and read what they read.

This is something I’ve tried to do more in recent years. Of course, that means I often find myself reading over my head. All of my favorite teachers are head and shoulders—and probably navels—above me in every way, and they didn’t get that way by reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I often find myself reaching for the fruit on the higher branches. I can’t always reach it, but my reach increases as I stretch.

Anyway, this post is really going nowhere, except to ask you, the reader, who your favorite theologians are. Who has influenced you most profoundly? List as many as you like, but I’d like to see, at the top of the list, at least one living and one dead theologian, if you can.

My most influential living teacher is, by far, John MacArthur. The first serious Christian book I ever purchased was The Gospel According to Jesus. I discovered R. C. Sproul some time later. After that, everything else in the bookstore seemed so light and worthless. I’m thankful that today there seem to be a great increase in good quality, Biblical writing. Certainly, there is an abundance of worthless fluff and downright heresy in Christian bookstores today, but I really believe there is also a resurgence of solid Reformed theology as well.

It is more difficult to name one dead theologian to top the list. I have not read a large amount of any one, but rather small portions of several. I suppose, having been raised Lutheran, and having learned Luther’s Small Catechism and attended a Lutheran bible school, that Luther has influenced me more than I know (which is quite a lot). More recently, as I have begun reading the Puritans, William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour—which I am reading   v e r y   s l o w l y—has given me more to think about than any other single book. This is the “Christian living” book to replace all of those flaky “How to _____” and “Seven steps to a _____” books in the bookstore.

So, those are my most influential authors, living and dead. Who are yours?

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. —Galatians 2:16

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. —Ephesians 2:8–9

For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. —Romans 2:13

Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. —James 2:24

Contradictions! The Bible is full of them. How are we to make sense of this? Let’s ask Dr. Luther:

   Here [in Romans 3:1–20] the question arises: How can a person be justified without the works of the Law, or how can it be that justification does not flow from our works? For St. James writes: “We see how that by works a man is justified, and and not by faith only” (Jas. 2:24). So also St. Paul: “Faith . . . worketh by love” (Gal.5:6); and: “The doers of the law shall be justified” (Rom. 2:13). To this we reply: as the Apostle distinguishes between the law and faith, the letter and grace, so also he distinguishes between the works resulting from these. He calls those deeds “works f the Law” that are done without faith and divine grace, merely because of the law, moved by either fear of punishment or the alluring hope of reward. By works of faith he calls those deeds which are done in the spirit of (Christian) liberty and flow from love to God. These can be done only by such as are justified by faith. Justification, however, is not in any way promoted by the works of the Law, but they rather hinder it, because they keep a person from regarding himself as unrighteous and so in need of justification. When James and Paul say that a man is justified by works, they argue against the false opinion of those who think that (for justification) a faith suffices that is without works. Paul does not say that true faith exists without its proper works, for without these there is not true faith. But what he says is that it is faith alone that justifies, regardless of works. Justification therefore does not presuppose the works of the law, but rather a living faith which performs its proper works, as we read Galatians 5:67.
   By the law is the knowledge of sin (3:20). Such knowledge of sin is obtained in two ways. First, by meditation (of the Law), as we read in Romans 7:7: “I had not know lust except the law had said, thou shalt not covet.” Secondly, by experience, namely, by trying to fulfill the Law, or we may say, through the Law as was assure to fulfill its obligations. Then the Law will become to us as occasion to sin, for then the perverted will of man, inclined to evil, but urged by the Law to do good, becomes all the more unwillingly and disinclined to do what is good. It hates to be drawn away from what it loves; and what it loves is sin, as we learn from Geneses 8:21. But just so, man, forced by the Law and obeying it unwillingly, sees how deeply sin and evil are rooted in his soul. He would never notice this, if he did not have the Law and would not try to follow it. The Apostle here only mentions this though, since he intends to treat it more fully in Chapters 5 and 7. Here he merely meets the objection that the Law would be useless if its works could not justify.

—Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans, trans. J. Theodore Mueller (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1954), 59–60.

“I believe in God.”

I’ve had some interesting conversations that began with that statement. Sadly, few who make it can honestly drop that little preposition: in. Most people I know will say, yes, I believe in God, but when confronted with what God has said about himself and about them, have to admit that, well, no, I don’t actually believe that. Then I have told them that it isn’t those who believe in God who will be saved, but only those who believe God. And this is the great stumbling block.

Here are a few words from Luther on what it means to believe God:

   Abraham believed God (4:3). This must be understood in the sense that Abraham was always ready to believe God. He steadfastly believed God. This fact we learn from Genesis 12 and 13, where we are told that Abraham believed God who called and commanded him to leave his country and go into a strange land. Again he believed God when, according to Genesis 1:22ff., he was commanded to slay his son Isaac, and so forth. Whatever he did, he did by faith as the Apostle declares in Hebrews 11:8–10. So also what is stated in our text (v.3) is said of Abraham’s faith in general, and not merely with regard to the one promise recorded in Genesis 15:4–6. To believe God means to trust him always and everywhere.

—Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans, trans. J. Theodore Mueller (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1954), 66.

"It's just so weird to hear him say stuff like that . . . Seriously, 'If you want to relieve stress, go to the Word of God'? Ha, ha! Oh, my goodness!"

OK, will everyone please stop telling me emergents are Christians? Can we just dispense with that fiction? Good, that's settled.

. . . the armless man attacked her brother.

"They got into a big confrontation, a verbal confrontation and a fist fight . . .

I know it's not really a funny story, but an "armless man" in a "fistfight" just cracks me up.

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. Psalme 122:1 (Geneva Bible)

THE PRECIOUS BLOOD

Blessed Lord Jesus,

efore thy cross I kneel and see
the heinousness of my sin,
my iniquity that caused thee to be
‘made a curse’,
the evil that excites the severity
of divine wrath.
Show me the enormity of my guilt by
the crown of thorns,
the pierced hands and feet,
the bruised body,
the dying cries.
Thy blood is the blood of incarnate God,
its worth infinite, its value beyond all thought.
Infinite must be the evil and guilt
that demands such a price.
Sin is my malady, my monster, me foe, my viper,
born in birth,
alive in life,
strong in my character,
dominating my faculties,
following me as a shadow,
intermingling with my every thought,
my chain that holds me captive in the
empire of my soul.
Sinner that I am, why should the sun give me light,
the air supply breath,
the earth bear my tread,
its fruits nourish me,
its creatures subserve my ends?
Yet thy compassions yearn over me,
thy heart hastens to my rescue,
thy love endured my curse,
thy mercy bore my deserved stripes.
Let me walk humbly in the lowest depths
of humiliation
bathed in thy blood,
tender of conscience,
triumphing gloriously as an heir of salvation.

—from The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).

salme 38 (Geneva Bible)
A Psalme of Dauid for remembrance.

1 O Lord, rebuke mee not in thine anger, neither chastise me in thy wrath.
2 For thine arrowes haue light vpon me, and thine hand lyeth vpon me.
3 There is nothing sound in my flesh, because of thine anger: neither is there rest in my bones because of my sinne.
4 For mine iniquities are gone ouer mine head, and as a weightie burden they are too heauie for me.
5 My woundes are putrified, and corrupt because of my foolishnes.
6 I am bowed, and crooked very sore: I goe mourning all the day.
7 For my reines are full of burning, and there is nothing sound in my flesh.
8 I am weakened and sore broken: I roare for the very griefe of mine heart.
9 Lord, I powre my whole desire before thee, and my sighing is not hid from thee.
10 Mine heart panteth: my strength faileth me, and the light of mine eyes, euen they are not mine owne.
11 My louers and my friends stand aside from my plague, and my kinsmen stand a farre off.
12 They also, that seeke after my life, laye snares, and they that go about to do me euil, talke wicked things and imagine deceite continually.
13 But I as a deafe man heard not, and am as a dumme man, which openeth not his mouth.
14 Thus am I as a man, that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofes.
15 For on thee, O Lord, do I waite: thou wilt heare me, my Lord, my God.
16 For I said, Heare me, least they reioyce ouer me: for when my foote slippeth, they extol themselues against me.
17 Surely I am ready to halte, and my sorow is euer before me.
18 When I declare my paine, and am sory for my sinne,
19 Then mine enemies are aliue and are mightie, and they that hate me wrongfully are many.
20 They also, that rewarde euill for good, are mine aduersaries, because I follow goodnesse.
21 Forsake me not, O Lord: be not thou farre from me, my God.
22 Haste thee to helpe mee, O my Lord, my saluation.

ermons Albert Mohler Alistair Begg Bret Capranica David Legge David Strain

Jason Robertson John MacArthur John Piper Mark Loughridge Michael Beasley Paul Lamey

Paul W. Martin Phil Johnson Phillip M. Way R.C. Sproul Steve Weaver Thabiti Abyabwile

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lorde Jesus Christ.

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Romans 5:3-5