Saturday, February 28, 2009
The Emptiness of the American Dream
From Shepherd's Fellowship:
(By Tom Patton)
Today's article is adapted from our new staff book, Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong.
Until sinners submit to the truth about God, they will never acquire what it is they truly seek. They become like the Samaritan woman at the well, confusing the true remedy for spiritual thirst with the temporary satisfaction of an earthly spring (John 4:14). Sadly, the unbeliever attempts the whole of his life to quench the unquenchable with something other than God. So he pursues fame, money, power, wealth, fitness, work, wisdom, education, love, or any other created thing that can perhaps quiet the desperate cry of his empty soul. But none of the things he finds—whether politics or popularity or creativity or anything else this world offers—can ever answer the call of his heart. He can pursue happiness, but he will never find it. As soon as he acquires one desire it turns into dust; as does the next, and the next after that, until life finally ends in disappointment.
This is the cotton candy fate of the American Dream that befalls all who embrace the cult of celebrity. From a distance it looks so appealing—a big and beautiful ball of glistening spun sugar. But those who finally get it, and taste it, find that it isn’t very filling. Sure, it is sweet for a moment. But it doesn’t bring lasting happiness. After a quick melt in the mouth it is gone forever . . . then what?
King Solomon understood this perhaps better than anyone else ever has. He was the richest, most famous, and most powerful man of his day. He was also the smartest, because God had given him supernatural wisdom. He used all of the resources at his disposal in the pursuit of his own happiness. He experimented with pleasure (Ecclesiastes 2:1-3), hard work (2:4–6); material possession (2:7–8); popularity and prestige (2:9–10); and even his own wisdom (2:12–14), all in an effort to find lasting joy. Yet he found it all to be empty, finally concluding that true joy and fulfillment cannot be found in the things of this world, but only in God (2:24–26; 12:13–14).
As Solomon learned after a lifetime of trial and error, if you want happiness in this life you must look to God. You must deny everything you once thought could give you happiness for the sake of following the risen Lord. His salvation is the satisfaction you seek. It cannot be found in fame and fortune, any more than it can be found at the end of a rainbow. It is only found in embracing the true source of all satisfaction, God Himself.
End of post.
Friday, February 27, 2009
The Gospel Is The Antidote To Everything
From The Gospel-Driven Church:
Once there were two brothers. You know their story, more than likely. One was wasteful, exploitative, wanton, licentious. One was rigid, moralistic, uptight, legalistic. Two brothers with two personalities and two sets of attendant sins. But their father loved them both and all that he had belonged to both of them equally.
This is how staggeringly awesome the gospel of Jesus is.
Two sisters. One is a busybody, the other kinda poky. One rarely Sabbaths; the other makes every day a Sabbath. The prescription for both is focus on Jesus.
Two Americans. One is a practicing homosexual and proud of it. The other is a practicing Baptist and proud of it. One trusts his feelings, the other trusts his actions. Both are in desperate need of Jesus for pretty much the same reason.
This is how wonderful the gospel of Jesus is. It's the skeleton key for all of humanity.
Medicine doesn't work this way. You don't treat spina bifida with drugs for leukemia. (At least, I don't think you do.) You don't give a decongestant to a kid with athlete's foot. For every condition, there is a specific treatment. Different symptoms, different fixes.
But the gospel isn't like that. It fixes everything.
We all exhibit a multitude of symptoms for our conditions, running the gamut from self-indulgent immorality to self-satisfying morality. Opposite ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between. Whatever your symptoms, the gospel is the answer.
There is no problem, pain, or perniciousness outside the universe-spanning scope of the gospel.
The gospel carries with it resurrection power.
So Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, rich or poor, smart or dumb, well or sick, bad or good . . . the gospel is the power to save for all who believe.
The gospel is the antidote to everything.
Posted by Jared
End of post.
Theology, Culture
From Christ Is Deeper Still:
I like Reformed theology. I believe it's what the Bible teaches. But I don't like Reformed culture. I don't believe it's what the Bible teaches.
Reformed theology is all about grace deciding to treat people better than they deserve, for the sheer glory of it all. Sometimes Reformed culture doesn't look like that, feel like that, taste like that. It gives people exactly what they deserve, as judged by the Reformed person. But who exalted him as judge in the first place? Our true Judge stepped down to become our Friend. That theology of grace must translate into the sociology of grace as we treat one another better than anyone deserves, for the sheer glory of it all.
"If our theology does not quicken the conscience and soften the heart, it actually hardens both; if it does not encourage the commitment of faith, it reinforces the detachment of unbelief; if it fails to promote humility, it inevitably feeds pride."
J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, page 15.
End of post.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Singing Has Gotten Entirely Out Of Hand
I am no opponent of singing, we are to sing God's praises in songs and hymns and spiritual song. Yes, but again there is a sense of proportion even here. Have you not noticed how singing is becoming more and more prominent? People, Christian people, meet together to sing only. 'Oh,' they say, 'we do get a word in.' But the singing is the big thing. At a time like this, at an appalling time like this, with crime and violence, and sin, and perversions, God's name desecrated and the sanctities being spat upon, the whole state of the world surely says that this is not a time for singing, this is a time for preaching. I am reminded of the words of Wordsworth about Milton, 'Plain living, and high thinking are no more.' It is almost true of us to say plain speaking and high thinking are no more. We are just singing. We are wafting ourselves into some happy atmosphere. We sing together. My dear friends, this is no time for singing. 'How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?'(Psalm 137:4). How can we take down our harps when Zion is as she is?
This is no time for singing, it is a time for thinking, for preaching, for conviction. It is a time for proclaiming the message of God and His wrath upon evil, and all our foolish aberrations. The time for singing will come later. Let the great revival come, let the windows of heaven be open, let us see men and women by the thousands brought into the Kingdom of God, and then it will be time to sing. (Revival, 63) - Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Christian ministry must be word-centered if it is to bear true and lasting fruit for God's kingdom. Our public gatherings for worship should be times when we simply read, preach, sing, and pray God's word, and administer the 'visible word,' the sacraments. (The Parables Of Jesus, 204) - Terry Johnson
End of post.
Monday, February 23, 2009
A Prayer For Those Who Want To Want God
From Between Two Worlds:
From A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit Of God:
O God, I have tasted Your goodness,
and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.
I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace.
I am ashamed of my lack of desire.
O God, the Triune God,
I want to want You;
I long to be filled with longing;
I thirst to be made more thirsty still.
Show me Your glory, I pray,
so I may know You indeed.
Begin in mercy a new work of love within me…
Give me grace to rise and follow You up from this misty lowland
where I have wandered so long.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
End of post.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Not In The Circumstances
From Christ Is Deeper Still:
"The central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism, nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us [nor, I would add today, postmodernism or materialistic consumerism or visceral sensualism or whatever]. All these are dangerous but not the primary threat. The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually or corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them."
Francis A. Schaeffer, No Little People, page 64.
End of post.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Adoption and Antinomianism
From The Thirsty Theologian:
Once a person is saved, he no longer needs concern himself with the law. Since he has been forgiven and justified, he no longer needs worry about sin — right? Orthodox Christianity has always replied, “wrong!” But why is that? If we are indeed freed from the law, what part does obedience play in our lives?
Many have found it hard to see what claim the law can have on the Christian. We are free from the law, they say; our salvation does not depend on law-keeping; we are justified through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. How, then, can it matter, or make any difference to anything, whether we keep the law henceforth or not? And since justification means the pardon of all sin, past, present and future, and complete acceptance for all eternity, why should we be concerned whether we sin or not? Why should we think God is concerned? Does it not show an imperfect grasp of justification when a Christian makes an issue of his daily sins, and spends time mourning over them and seeking forgiveness for them? Is not a refusal to look to the law for instruction, or to be concerned about one’s daily shortcomings, part of the true boldness of justifying faith?
The Puritans had to face these “antinomian” ideas, and sometimes made heavy weather of answering them. If one allows it to be assumed that justification is the be-all and end-all of the gift of salvation, one will always make heavy weather of answering such arguments. The truth is that these ideas must be answered in terms not of justification but of adoption—a reality which the Puritans never highlighted quite enough*. Once the distinction is drawn between these two elements in the gift of salvation, the correct reply becomes plain.
What is that reply? It is this: that, while it is certainly true that jus tification frees one forever from the need to keep the law, or try to, as means of earning life, it is equally true that adoption lays on one the abiding obligation to keep the law, as the means of pleasing one's newfound father. Law-keeping is the family likeness of God’s children; Jesus fulfilled all righteousness, and God calls us to do likewise. Adoption puts law-keeping on a new footing: as children of God, we acknowledge the law's authority as a rule for our lives, because we know that this is what our Father wants. If we sin, we confess our fault and ask our Father’s forgiveness on the basis of the family relationship, as Jesus taught us to do—“Father . . . forgive us our sins” (Lk 11:2, 4). The sins of God’s children do not destroy their justification or nullify their adoption, but they mar the children’s fellowship with their Father. “Be holy, for I am holy” is our Father’s word to us, and it is no part of justifying faith to lose sight of the fact that God, the King, wants his royal children to live lives worthy of their paternity and position.
—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 222–223
End of post.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Are You A Sink Or A Faucet Christian?
From Kingdom People:
There are two kinds of Christians.
“Sink Christians” view salvation like they would a sink. The water of salvation flows into the sink so that Christians can soak up all the benefits: eternal life, assurance in the present, strength in times of trial. Those who adopt this mindset concentrate solely on what the Bible says God has done and will do for them.
“Faucet Christians” view salvation differently. They look at the world as the sink and themselves as the faucet. The blessings of salvation flow to them in order to flow through them out to the wider world. They rightly see that the Bible describes salvation as something that God not only does for them, but also through them.
- a quote from my forthcoming book, Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals
End of post.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Monday, February 09, 2009
Holiness
From A Puritan's Mind:
Something we should keep in mind during our worship before God.
Is the acknowledgement of God's Holiness Essential?
by Dr. David F. Wells
It is important to note that the shallowness of modern life derives not from its banality but from its having lost its moral bearings. Our Age like every age that has preceded it, interrogates the unknown with its own questions-questions that grow out of its needs and interests. Our questions today hardly ever go to the heart of moral reality, because modern life is hardly ever about moral concern. Christ seems to offer little of what this world is asking for It wants whatever is new; it looks for the next step in the journey of the human spirit. Christ did bring to completion much that was predicted or prophesied in the Old Testament, but he introduced few new ideas, and none that would suggest that the human spirit is embarked on a journey. Rather, he brought access to the world of moral reality from which sinners are alienated, and that is everything. He brought everything in himself, for he is God.
More than that even, Christ brought everything into harmony with the holiness of God. To be sure, this harmony has two entirely different expressions: justification and judgment. In both, the holiness of God comes into its full and awful expression. In the one case, it does so in him who bears the consequences of that wrath on behalf and in the place of those whom he represented; in the other case, it is expressed in the final and awesome alienation of those in whom God's judgment vindicates for all eternity his holiness.
It is this holiness of God, then, without which the Cross of Christ is incomprehensible, that provides the light that exposes modernity's darkness for what it is. For modernity has emptied life of serious moral purpose. Indeed, it empties people of the capacity to see the world in moral terms, and this, in turn, closes their access to reality, for reality is fundamentally moral. God's holiness is fundamental to who he is and what he has done. And the key to it all has been the loss of God's otherness, not least in his holiness, beneath the forms of modern piety. Evangelicals turned from focusing on God's transcendence to focusing on his immanence [pervading all creation]-and then they took the further step of interpreting his immanence as friendliness with modernity.
The loss of the traditional vision of God as holy is now manifested everywhere in the evangelical world. It is the key to understanding why sin and grace have become such empty terms. What depth or meaning, P. T. Forsyth asked, can these terms have except in relation to the holiness of God? Divorced from the holiness of God, sin is merely self-defeating behavior or a breach in etiquette. Divorced from the holiness of God, grace is merely empty rhetoric, pious window dressing for the modern technique by which sinners work out their own salvation. Divorced from the holiness of God, our gospel becomes indistinguishable from any of a host of alternative self-help doctrines. Divorced from the holiness of God, our public morality is reduced to little more than an accumulation of trade-offs between competing private interests. Divorced from the holiness of God, our worship becomes mere entertainment. The holiness of God is the very cornerstone of Christian faith, for it is the foundation of reality. Sin is defiance of God's holiness, the Cross is the outworking and victory of God's holiness, and faith is the recognition of God's holiness. Knowing that God is holy is therefore the key to knowing life as it truly is, knowing Christ as he truly is, knowing why he came, and knowing how life will end.
It is this God, majestic and holy in his being, this God whose love knows no bounds because his holiness knows no limits, who has disappeared from the modern evangelical world. He has been replaced in many quarters by a God who is slick and slack, whose moral purposes turn out to be avuncular [as from a friendly uncle] advice that we can disregard or negotiate as we see fit, whose Word is a plaything for those who wish merely to listen to themselves, whose Church is a mall in which the religious, their pockets filled with the coin of need, do their business. We seek happiness, not righteousness. We want to be fulfilled, not filled. We are interested in satisfaction, not a holy dissatisfaction with all that is wrong.
This is why we need reformation rather than revival. The habits of the modern world, now so ubiquitous [exists throughout] in the evangelical world, need to be put to death, not given new life. They need to be rooted out, not simply papered over with fresh religious enthusiasm. And they are by this point so invincible that nothing less than the intrusion of God in his grace, nothing less than a full recovery of his truth, will suffice.
In this regard, the death of theology has profound ramifications. Theology is dying not because the academy has failed to devise adequate procedures for reconstructing it but because the Church has lost its capacity for it. And while some hail this loss as a step forward toward the hope of new evangelical vitality, it is in fact a sign of creeping death. The emptiness of evangelical faith without theology echoes the emptiness of modern life. Both have elected to cross over into a world in which God has no place, in which reality has been rewritten, in which Christ has become redundant, his Word irrelevant, and the Church must now find new reasons for its existence.
Unless the evangelical Church can recover the knowledge of what it means to live before a holy God, unless in its worship it can relearn humility, wonder, love, and praise, unless it can find again a moral purpose in the world that resonates with the holiness of God and that is accordingly deep and unyielding-unless the evangelical Church can do all of these things, theology will have no place in its life. But the reverse is also true. If the Church can begin to find a place for theology by refocusing itself on the centrality of God, if it can rest upon his sufficiency, if it can recover its moral fiber, then it will have something to say to a world now drowning in modernity. And there lies a great irony. Those who are most relevant to the modern world are those most irrelevant to the moral purpose of God, but those who are irrelevant in the world by virtue of their relevance to God actually have the most to say to the world. They are, in fact, the only ones who having anything to say to it. That is what Jesus declared, what the Church in its best moments has known, and what we, by the grace of God, can yet again discover.
(An excerpt from "No Place for Truth: Or whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology")
End of post.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Arthur Pink - In Heaven
"Come unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden--and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
There is also a FUTURE rest beyond any that can be experienced here, though our best conceptions are most inadequate of the glory awaiting the people of God.
In Heaven, there shall be a perfect resting from all of our sins--for nothing shall ever enter there, which could either defile or disturb our peace. The Christian yearns to be done with sin forever--that there may never again be anything in his heart or life dishonoring unto the One who has redeemed him at such infinite cost. He pants for perfect conformity to the image of Christ, and for unbroken fellowship with Him.
What it will mean to be delivered from indwelling corruptions--no mortal tongue can tell. The plague of their hearts is a constant occasion of grief to the saints--as long as they are left in this wilderness of sin. It is a burden under which they groan, and from which they long to be delivered. The closer a believer's walk with the Lord, and the more intimate his communion with Him--the more bitterly he bewails that sin within him, which is ever fighting against his endeavors after holiness. Therefore it was, that the Apostle cried out, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death!" (Romans 7:24) But blessed be God, we shall not carry this burden beyond the grave--the hour of death will free us from all indwelling evil.
In Heaven, there will be perpetual rest from all our afflictions. Though afflictions are needful for us in this present scene, and when sanctified to us are also profitable; nevertheless they are grievous to bear. But a day is coming when such tribulations will no longer be necessary, for all the dross shall have been purged from the gold. The storms of life will all be behind, and an unbroken calm shall be the believer's portion forever and ever!
Where there shall be no more sin--there shall be no more sorrow! "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes! And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever!" Revelation 21:4
"Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then I would fly away, and be at rest!" Psalm 55:6
End of post.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Richard Baxter - Praying For The World
"My soul is much more afflicted with the thoughts of the miserable world, and more drawn out in desire of their conversion than heretofore. I was wont to look but little further than England in my prayers, as not considering the state of the rest of the world; or if I prayed for the conversion of the Jews, that was almost all. But now as I better understand the case of the world, and the method of the Lord’s Prayer, so there is nothing in the world that lies so heavy upon my heart as the thought of the miserable nations of the earth. It is the most astonishing part of all God’s providence to me, that he so far forsakes almost all the world and confines his special favour to so few; that so small a part of the world has the profession of Christianity, in comparison of heathens, mahometans and other infidels! And that among professed Christians there are so few that are saved from gross delusions, and have but any competent knowledge: and that among those there are so few that are seriously religious, and truly set their hearts on heaven. I cannot be affected so much with the calamities of my own relations or the land of my nativity, as with the case of the heathen, mahometan, and ignorant nations of the earth. No part of my prayers are so deeply serious, as that for the conversion of the infidel and ungodly world, that God’s name may be sanctified, and his kingdom come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven; Nor was I ever before so sensible what a plague the division of languages was which hinders our speaking to them for their conversion; nor what a great sin tyranny is which keeps out the Gospel from most of the nations of the world. Could we but go among Tartarians, Turks, and Heathens, and speak their language I should be but little troubled for the silencing of eighteen hundred Ministers at once in England, nor for all the rest that were cast out here, and in Scotland and Ireland. There being no employment in the world so desirable in my eyes, as to labour for the winning of such miserable souls: which maketh me greatly honour Mr. John Eliot, the Apostle of the Indians in New England and whoever else have laboured in such work."
End of post.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Tim Conway - The Necessity of Preaching the Resurrection in Evangelism
Great teaching here by Tim Conway. Also, there's an interesting part at the 1 hour 44 minute mark where Tim tells us what the problem is with The Way Of The Master's method of evangelism.
End of post.
Paul Washer - The Lost Doctrine Of Regeneration
We would recommended anyone who has not read Justification and Regeneration by Charles Leiter to get a copy of it.
End of post.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Do We Really Need TV?
From Underdog Theology:
"If all other variables are equal, your capacity to know God deeply will probably diminish in direct proportion to how much television you watch. There are several reasons for this. One is that television reflects American culture at its most trivial. And a steady diet of triviality shrinks the soul. You get used to it. It starts to seem normal. Silly becomes funny. And funny becomes pleasing. And pleasing becomes soul-satisfaction. And in the end the soul that is made for God has shrunk to fit snugly around triteness.....TV is mostly trivial. It seldom inspires great thoughts or great feelings with glimpses of great Truth. God is the great, absolute, all-shaping Reality. If He gets any air time, He is treated as an opinion. There is no reverence. No trembling. God and all that He thinks about the world is missing. Cut loose from God, everything goes down.....So there are good reasons to try a TV fast. Or to simply wean yourself off of it entirely. We have not owned a TV for thirty-four years of marriage except for three years in Germany when we used it for language learning. There is no inherent virtue in this. I only mention it to prove that you can raise five culturally sensitive and Biblically informed children without it." (emphases mine)
- John Piper, Pierced by the Word, 18
End of post.
