Ten Percent of All Lepers Healed By Jesus Thank Him by Randal Pelton

TEN PERCENT OF ALL LEPERS HEALED BY JESUS THANK HIM


Luke 17:11-19

Lane Chaplin & Phil Johnson - Legalism and Worldliness

God Will Sustain You In Faith

"The assurance of the believer is not that God will save him even if he stops believing, but that God will keep him believing – God will sustain you in faith, He will make your hope firm and stable to the end. He will cause you to persevere."

John Piper

The Band Of Joy - "Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down"

Letter from a Jericho Ditch: God, Neighbor, and the Questions We Ask

How To Battle Anxiety With The Promises Of God

John Piper:

• When I am anxious about some risky new venture or meeting, I battle unbelief with the promise: “Fear not for I am with you, be not dismayed for I am your God; I will help you, I will strengthen you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

• When I am anxious about my ministry being useless and empty, I fight unbelief with the promise, “So shall my word that goes forth from my mouth; it will not come back to me empty but accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

• When I am anxious about being too weak to do my work, I battle unbelief with the promise of Christ, “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9), and “As your days so shall your strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25).

• When I am anxious about decisions I have to make about the future, I battle unbelief with the promise, “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Psalm 32:8).

• When I am anxious about facing opponents, I battle unbelief with the promise, “If God is for us who can be against us!” (Romans 8:31).

• When I am anxious about being sick, I battle unbelief with the promise that “tribulation works patience, and patience approvedness, and approvedness hope, and hope does not make us ashamed” (Romans 5:3–5).

• When I am anxious about getting old, I battle unbelief with the promise, “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46:4).

• When I am anxious about dying, I battle unbelief with the promise that “none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself; if we live we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose again: that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living” (Romans 14:9–11).

• When I am anxious that I may make shipwreck of faith and fall away from God, I battle unbelief with the promise, “He who began a good work in you will complete it unto the day of Christ” (Philippians 1:6). “He who calls you is faithful. He will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). “He is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

(HT Justin Taylor)

The Full And Free Offer Of the Gospel

Arthur W. Kuschke, Jr.; John Murray; Ned B. Stonehouse:

(1) We have found that the grace of God bestowed in his ordinary providence expresses the love of God, and that this love of God is the source of the gifts bestowed upon and enjoyed by the ungodly as well as the godly. We should expect that herein is disclosed to us a principle that applies to all manifestations of divine grace, namely, that the grace bestowed expresses the lovingkindness in the heart of God and that the gifts bestowed are in their respective variety tokens of a correspondent richness or manifoldness in the divine lovingkindness of which they are the expression.

(2) We have found that God himself expresses an ardent desire for the fulfilment of certain things which he has not decreed in his inscrutable counsel to come to pass. This means that there is a will to the realization of what he has not decretively willed, a pleasure towards that which he has not been pleased to decree. This is indeed mysterious, and why he has not brought to pass, in the exercise of his omnipotent power and grace, what is his ardent pleasure lies hid in the sovereign counsel of his will. We should not entertain, however, any prejudice against the notion that God desires or has pleasure in the accomplishment of what he does not decretively will.

(3) Our Lord himself in the exercise of his messianic prerogative provides us with an example of the foregoing as it applies to the matter of salvation. He says expressly that he willed the bestowal of his saving and protecting grace upon those whom neither the Father nor he decreed thus to save and protect.

(4) We found that God reveals himself as not taking pleasure in or desiring the death of those who die but rather as taking pleasure in or desiring the repentance and life of the wicked. This will of God to repentance and salvation is universalized and reveals to us, therefore, that there is in God a benevolent lovingkindness towards the repentance and salvation of even those whom he has not decreed to save. This pleasure, will, desire is expressed in the universal call to repentance.

(5) We must conclude, therefore, that our provisional inference on the basis of Matt. 5:44-48 is borne out by the other passages. The full and free offer of the gospel is a grace bestowed upon all. Such grace is necessarily a manifestation of love or lovingkindness in the heart of God. And this lovingkindness is revealed to be of a character or kind that is correspondent with the grace bestowed. The grace offered is nothing less than salvation in its richness and fulness. The love or lovingkindness that lies back of that offer is not anything less; it is the will to that salvation. In other words, it is Christ in all the glory of his person and in all the perfection of his finished work whom God offers in the gospel. The loving and benevolent will that is the source of that offer and that grounds its veracity and reality is the will to the possession of Christ and the enjoyment of the salvation that resides in him.

Read the entire article here.

Question?

"When does our behavior go from being IN the world to being OF the world?" 

We Care About All Suffering

"One truth is that when the gospel takes root in our souls it impels us out toward the alleviation of all unjust suffering in this age. That’s what love does!

The other truth is that when the gospel takes root in our souls it awakens us to the horrible reality of eternal suffering in hell, under the wrath of a just and omnipotent God. And it impels us to rescue the perishing, and to warn people to flee from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:10).

I plead with you. Don’t choose between those two truths. Embrace them both. It doesn’t mean we all spend our time in the same way. God forbid. But it means we let the Bible define reality and define love.

Could Lausanne say—could the evangelical church say—we Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering? I hope we can say that. But if we feel resistant to saying “especially eternal suffering,” or if we feel resistant to saying “we care about all suffering in this age,” then either we have a defective view of hell or a defective heart.

I pray that Lausanne would have neither."

John Piper - address to the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization

(HT Justin Taylor)

Worldliness

"Worldliness is any preoccupation with or interest in the temporal system of life that places anything perishable before that which is eternal."

John MacArthur

You Need the Gospel Every Day

(HT Erik Raymond)

Dream Theater Instrumental

Convergence 2010: David Platt

He Will Never Fail You

"Keep your eye simply on Him; let His death, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when you wake in the morning look to Him; when thou lie down at night look to Him. Oh! let not your hopes or fears come between thee and Jesus; follow hard after Him, and He will never fail you."

C.H. Spurgeon

PAUSING EACH SUNDAY TO RENEW OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD by Randal Pelton

PAUSING EACH SUNDAY TO RENEW OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

Joshua 8:30-35

Prayer For Friends In Haiti

I dear co-worker and friend emailed me tonight for prayer for her friends who are currently "locked down" in hiding from the demonstrators in Haiti. Their names are Erik, Megan, and Mary. They are on a missions trip and currently have no electricity or running water. We thank you for your prayers!

http://haiti.usembassy.gov/warden-messages-2010/multiple-violent-demonstrations-in-and-around-cap-haitien-november-15-2010.html

Arminians Can Breathe A Sigh Of Relief

Ligon Duncan:

George Barna (he of "there's no future for the local church" fame) has just released his latest survey results pertaining to the much ballyhooed Reformed Awakening, and he calms the faithful by assuring them that there is not in fact a new Calvinist under every rock. You can read more about it here.

The bad new is, of course, that I'm not sure that the way he has conducted this research actually tells us or can tell tell us much about the theological tendencies afoot today in the churches (especially in the evangelical neck of the woods). For instance, he speaks of the mainline church responses in the summary, but most of what is going on (in my experience of the YRR movement) is outside of those spheres.

At any rate, his conclusion is: "Move along. Nothing to see here" (with apologies to Obi Wan). And I think our response (from the Calvinist neighborhood) ought to be "fine," "whatever." Because we're not hoping, praying, thinking, writing, working, bleeding, preaching, pastoring and dying for our fifteen minutes of fame. We are out to quietly, faithfully, plug away for the glory of God in the churches and in the world, making disciples who know, believe, love and share the Gospel, and who live by grace the way their Lord commanded them.

Our report card, our only report card, comes on the great day when "the King of Glory passes on his way."

Read the entire article here.

David Gilmour, Royal Albert Hall - Guitar Solo

If God Forgives You, You Are Forgiven

"What do you do with the person who says, “I’ve asked God to forgive me about this, but I still feel guilty”? I hear that statement over and over again. I usually say to these people, “If you still feel guilty, then pray to God again. But this time don’t ask Him to forgive you for the sin that is haunting you. Rather, ask Him to forgive you for insulting His integrity by refusing to accept His forgiveness. Who are you to refuse to forgive yourself when God has forgiven you? When God promises to forgive His people when they repent, He is not playing games. If He says He will forgive you, then He will forgive you. And if God forgives you, you are forgiven.”

R.C. Sproul - The Intimate Marriage, p. 127-128.

Everybody Wants To Be Amused

"The church used to be a lightning bolt, now it's a cruise ship. We are not marching to Zion – we are sailing there with ease. In the apostolic church it says they were all amazed – and now in our churches everybody wants to be amused. The church began in the upper room with a bunch of men agonizing, and it's ending in the supper room with a bunch of people organizing. We mistake rattle for revival, and commotion for creation, and action for unction."

Leonard Ravenhill

Driscoll Middle School Trick Play

Idolatry Robs Us Of Our Joy

Tullian Tchividjian:

"This means that suffering itself does not rob you of joy—idolatry does. If you’re suffering and you’re angry, bitter, and joyless it means you’ve idolized–and felt entitled to–whatever it is you’re losing. Entitlement and self-pity stem from our belief that we deserve more than what we’re getting–love, attention, respect, approval. The gospel, however, frees us to revel in our expendability! The gospel alone provides us with the foundation to maintain radical joy in remarkable loss. Joylessness and bitterness in the crucible of pain happens when we lose something (or think we deserve something) that we’ve held onto more tightly than God.

As Paul Tripp so probingly asks, “How is your present disappointment, discouragement, or grief a window on what has actually captured your heart?” When we depend on anything smaller than God to provide us with the security, significance, meaning, and value that we long for, God will love us enough to take it away. Much of our anger and bitterness, therefore, is God prying open our hands and taking away something we’ve held onto more tightly than him."

Read the entire article here.

Watch Over Their Soul

“Precious, no doubt, are these little ones in your eyes; but if you truly love them, then often think about their souls. Nothing should concern you as greatly as their eternal destiny. No part of them should be so dear to you as that part which will never die.

“This is the thought that should be uppermost on your mind in all that you do for your children. In every step you take about them, in every plan, and scheme, and arrangement that concerns them, do not leave out that mighty question, ‘How will this affect their souls?’

“A true Christian must not be a slave to what’s currently ‘in-fashion,’ if he wants to train his child for heaven. He must not be content to teach them and instruct them in certain ways, merely because it is customary, or to allow them to read books of a questionable sort, merely because everybody else reads them, or to let them form bad habits, merely because they are the habits of the day. He must train with an eye to his children’s souls. He must not be ashamed to hear his training called odd and strange. What if it is? The time is short—the customs of this world are passing away. He that has trained his children for heaven, rather than for the earth—for God, rather than for man—he is the parent that will be called wise in the end.”

JC Ryle

(HT Shepherd's Notes)

Religion Vs Redemption

Two Great Truths

"There are two great truths which from this platform I have proclaimed for many years. The first is that salvation is free to every man who will have it; the second is that God gives salvation to a people whom He has chosen; and these truths are not in conflict with each other in the least degree."

C.H. Spurgeon

Ending Extreme Poverty

(HT What's Best Next)

God Is The Satisfaction Of Our Hearts

"Nothing makes God more supreme and more central than when a people are utterly persuaded that nothing – not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends – is going to bring satisfaction to their aching hearts besides God. This conviction breeds a people who passionately long for God on Sunday morning. They are not confused about why they are here. They do not see songs and prayers and sermons as mere traditions or mere duties. They see them as means of getting to God or God getting to them for more of His fullness."

John Piper - Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, p 239

Randy Alcorn On Generosity

(HT Randy Alcorn)

James Hamilton - God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment

(HTJames Hamilton)

The Word Can Unite

"I love this Book. I love this Book way more than the Institutes… or way more than Jonathan Edwards.

An Arminian who is a lover of this Book – and you can smell humility on that guy, an absolute submission to this Book – man, can I go a long way with that guy! I can talk to him all day long.

But if a Calvinist comes along who never quotes this Book, but just quotes Calvin – I don’t want to spend any time with him. I’m not interested. He’s just always blabbering away. He’s read some latest catechism or some latest book, and he’s on to this doctrine or that doctrine… I want to say: “Would you give me a verse?! Give me a verse. I just want to hear God come out of your mouth!”

In that sense, I hope that I’m a winsome person. If an Arminian says, “Look, I think that everything I say is in this Book.” I say: “Me too! Let’s talk! Let’s go to this Book together. Let’s worship the God we see in this Book.” It’s amazing how far you can go with those people."

John Piper

(HT Trevin Wax)

John Calvin On John 3:16

"The outstanding thing about faith is that it delivers us from eternal destruction. For He especially wanted to say that although we seem to have been born for death sure deliverance is offered to us by the faith of Christ so that we must not fear the death which otherwise threatens us. And he has used a general term, both to invite indiscriminately all to share in life and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also significant in the term ‘world’ which He had used before. For although there is nothing in the world deserving of God’s favour, He nevertheless shows He is favourable to the whole world when He calls all without exception to the faith of Christ, which is indeed an entry into life."

John Calvin

(HT Barry Wallace)

Counterfeit gods - Tim Keller

God Is Strength - Francis Chan

Humility As A Trait Of Reformed Spirituality

Perhaps the greatest fault of American Reformed communities since Puritan times is that they have cultivated an elitism.

Ironically, the doctrine of election has been unwittingly construed as meaning that Reformed people have been endowed with superior theological, spiritual, or moral merit by God himself. The great irony of this is that the genius of the Reformed faith has been its uncompromising emphasis on God's grace, with the corollary that our own feeble efforts are accepted, not because of any merit, but solely due to God's grace and Christ's work.

The doctrine of grace, then, ought to cultivate humility as a conspicuous trait of Reformed spirituality.

George Marsden - 'Introduction: Reformed and American,' in Dutch Reformed Theology (ed. David Wells; Baker 1989), 11

(HT Dane Ortlund)

Wholehearted Commitment To Christ

"I remain convinced that the heart of the letter is a call to wholehearted commitment to Christ. James’s call for consistent and uncompromising Christian living is much needed. Our churches are filled with believers who are only halfhearted in their faith and, as a result, leave large areas of their lives virtually untouched by Christian values."

Douglas Moo - From the preface of the Pillar New Testament Commentary on the Letter of James

Reformed And Charismatic

Let The Past Sleep

"Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him."

Oswald Chambers

Psalm 19:1

Source: Hubblesite.org

A brilliant white core is encircled by thick dust lanes in this spiral galaxy, seen edge-on. The galaxy is 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light years from Earth. 
One light year = 5,865,696,000,000 miles

Slave By John MacArthur

(HT Erik Raymond)

Establishing Culture In The Home

Establishing Culture in the Home from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Corporate Participation In Worship

"A steady diet of performances by soloists or even choirs can have the unintended effect of undermining the corporate, participative nature of our musical worship. People can gradually come to think of worship in terms of passive observation, which we do not see modeled in the Bible. Such a diet may also begin to blur the line between worship and entertainment, especially in a television-sopped culture like ours, where one of our most insidious expectations is to be always entertained. Of course, this blurring is hardly ever intended. But over time, separating the “performers” from “the rest of the congregation” can subtly shift the focus of our attention from God to the musicians and their talent – a shift that is frequently revealed by applause at the end of some performance pieces. Who is the beneficiary of such applause?"

Mark Dever and Paul Alexander - The Deliberate Church, p. 117

Doug Wilson On The Great Commission

Doug Wilson:

"The commission is not to "make disciples" in our modern individualistic sense. That is included, and amen to it. But the commission as the Lord worded it says that we are to disciple the nations. To say that cultural transformation is not part of this is to completely overlook the direct object of that verb. We are to disciple the ethnoi, their hearts, souls, and minds, but also their court systems, and their film industries, and their politics, and their art studios, and their publishing industries. This certainly means discipling their citizens, and we start with that. But it is just the beginning.

If the point of this video is to start with personal evangelism, then absolutely. If the point is to head off those who want to have a bunch of missional stuff that by-passes gospel declaration, then great. But when we make individual disciples, and we move on to the institutional structures of their cultures and societies, we are not changing the subject. We are not moving on to another area. We are not abandoning the Great Commission. We are just getting started."

Read the entire article here.

Carl Trueman On Protestant Amnesia

Carl Trueman:

"Over at the webpage, Called to Communion, Catholic convert from Protestantism, Bryan Cross, has written a a very kind and thought provoking assessment of my comments on Roman Catholicism over recent years.

Bryan picks up on a point I have made numerous times, both in print and in the classroom, that Protestants need a positive reason not to be Catholic. This is a conviction I share with Catholics such as Francis Beckwith and, apparently, Bryan Cross. I cannot speak for them, but my conviction on this point derives from a number of conclusions I have drawn as a result of my academic research in sixteenth and seventeenth century Protestantism. First, it was clearly inconceivable to the typical theologian at the start of the sixteenth century that the church in western Europe would not be one. It had been so for centuries and, when the great rifts of the sixteenth century happened, it was truly something which shattered the established categories for thinking about the church. This is why both Protestants and Catholics spent much time and effort, at least until the Council of Trent, in trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Anyone who has ever read Martin Bucer will know of the pain he felt at the breach with Rome and then at the subsequent rifts in Protestantism."

Read the entire article here.

David Crowder Band - Heaven Came Down

Well - Grounded Confidence

"The deepest need that you and I have in weakness and adversity is not quick relief, but the well-grounded confidence that what is happening to us is part of the greatest purpose of God in the universe – the glorification of the grace and power of his Son - the grace and power that bore Him to the cross and kept him there until the work of love was done."

John Piper