Archive for May, 2009

Alistair Begg – In the Search of Meaning

Posted in Salvation with tags , on May 31, 2009 by Harry

truthforlife

Alistair Begg from “In Search of Meaning, part B”:

  • “Foolishness, when the Bible speaks about it, does not have to do with mental faculty, it has to do with moral rebellion”

Lord Jesus Christ, I am so foolish, give me your wisdom to see and follow your truth.

Lord Jesus Christ I am so full of guilt and have no peace, but you have died to bring forgiveness and the assurance of pardon

I trust you to be my saviour and by your grace turn away from my sin.

Lord Jesus Christ I am weak and ruled by sin, give me your power and rule in my heart and take charge of my whole life.

Ravi Zacharias – Why Violence?

Posted in Uncategorized with tags on May 31, 2009 by Harry

ravi2

  • From Just Thinking October Q & A, Part 1 “Response to Virginia Tech Massacre”
  • Why Violence?
    • When we desecrate everything sacred the only thing left is what Nietzsche talked about “the will to power”
    • The only way you can affirm yourself when your life is empty is to tell yourself there are somethings you can do and go down laughing
    • Emptiness spawned by disappointment by disappointment after all kinds of engagement leaves the heart with only one way to fulfill itself – the will to power, anger and violence
  • Moral decline in east vs. west
    • In the east there are geopolitical forces that keep people in line (ie, Islam) or culture (India) but erosion is occurring in east as well

Deuteronomy Intro from the New Bible Commentary

Posted in Israel, Old Testament with tags on May 30, 2009 by Harry

Hebrew Scripture

The theology of Deuteronomy has relevance to modern Christians, but it must be read carefully, and in the light of the coming of Jesus Christ. Christians see themselves as the chosen people of God (1 Pet. 2:9), though in a quite different way from ancient Israel. They are not a political nation, living among other nations, nor do they need a land of their own, criminal laws, or their own leaders for times of peace and war. No more do they look for a single place of worship on earth in which God is more present than in other places. The period in God’s dealings with human beings in the world when these things were important is past. Since Jesus came, God’s people is international, living under different political systems, and actively seeking to extend God’s kingdom in all the world. And, of course, it is no longer making sacrifices to atone for sin.

Yet the main lines of the theology of Deuteronomy remain relevant. The book teaches about the grace of God in making us his own, as well as about the need for us to respond to him in a wholehearted way, in love and obedience. For us too God has been made known, though now in Christ, who is himself the ‘Place’ where we meet him. Our covenant is a new covenant in Christ, in which, though as morally weak as ever Israel was, we are enabled to remain faithful. And the blessings of God are no longer thought of in terms of material prosperity, but apply both to this age and the age to come.
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Spurgeon Morning and Evening May 30th a.m.

Posted in Sin on May 30, 2009 by Harry

spurgeonCATCH THE FOXES FOR US, THE LITTLE FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINEYARDS.
- SONG OF SOLOMON 2:15
A little thorn can cause much suffering. A small cloud may hide the sun. Tiny foxes spoil the vineyards; and little sins do mischief to the tender heart. These small sins burrow in the soul and fill it with what is hateful to Christ, and thus our comfortable fellowship and communion with Him is spoiled. A great sin cannot destroy a Christian, but a little sin can make him miserable. Jesus will not walk with His people unless they drive out every known sin. He says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”‘ Some Christians rarely enjoy their Savior’s presence. How is this? Surely it must be an affliction for a tender child to be separated from his father. Are you a child of God, and yet satisfied to live without seeing your Father’s face? What! You are the spouse of Christ, and yet content to be absent from His company! Surely, you have fallen into a sad state, for the pure spouse of Christ mourns like a dove without her mate when he has left her. Here is the question: What has driven Christ from you? He hides His face behind the wall of your sins. That wall may be made up of little pebbles as easily as of great stones. The sea is made of drops; the rocks are made of grains: And the sea that divides you from Christ may be filled with the drops of your little sins; and the rock that almost wrecked the vessel of your life may have been made by the daily working of the coral insects of your little sins. If you would live with Christ and walk with Christ and see Christ and have fellowship with Christ, pay attention to “the little foxes that spoil the vineyard, for our vineyards are in blossom.” Jesus invites you to go with Him against them. He will surely, like Samson, take the foxes at once and easily. Go with Him to the hunting.

Saved through childbearing – 1 Timothy 2:15

Posted in 1 Timothy with tags on May 26, 2009 by Harry

15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

R.C. Sproul:

  • From “How to Study the Bible” and rule #5 “pay close attention to individual words”
  • This is the danger of dynamic equivalency translations
  • So many times in the bible debates are settled on the meaning of individual words
  • Words can have different meanings
  • Woman is to be saved in childbearing (1 Tim 2:15)
    • saved means salvation
    • saved also means from any type of danger or peril situation
    • Paul is not saying there are two ways for ultimate salvation
      • Justification by faith for men
      • Justification by having babies for women

Reformation study bible notes:

  • Probably not “brought safely” as some hold
  • Paul used “saved” as he normally did, meaning “redeemed from sin,” thereby contrasting being decieved into sin (v.14) with being saved from it
  • This allusion to Genesis highlights God’s statement to Eve after the fall concerning her role in childbearing 9Ge 3:16)
  • There have been three main interpretations of this passage:
    • 1.  Women are saved through the birth of Christ
    • 2.  Women are kept safe in childbirth
    • 3.  Christian mothers will demonstrate saving faith by being faithful mothers
  • Compare Paul’s words about widows and childbearing (5:10, 14)
  • Childbearing is clearly not the basis for salvation, but it is a prime example of the godly responsibility and labor that are to characterize faithful women who “work out” their salvation (Php 2:12)
  • If they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety
  • This qualification shows that Paul was not suggesting that childbearing is an act that merits salvation; this would contradict his doctrine of justification by grace through faith
  • Rather, his point seems to have been that these women in Ephesus who had been deceived by the false teachers needed to focus on their proper role and especially their attitudes (1:5, 19; 2:8-10)

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Spurgeon Morning and Evening May 26th a.m.

Posted in Uncategorized with tags on May 26, 2009 by Harry

spurgeon

CAST YOUR BURDEN ON THE LORD, AND HE WILL SUSTAIN YOU.  – PSALM 55:22
Care, even when addressed to legitimate matters, if it is carried to excess, has in it the nature of sin. Again and again Jesus exhorted His followers to avoid anxious care. The apostles reiterated the call; and it is one that cannot be neglected without involving transgression: For the very essence of anxious care is imagining that we are wiser than God and putting ourselves in His place as if we could do for Him what He has undertaken to do for us. We attempt to think of things that we imagine Him forgetting; we work to take upon ourselves a heavy burden, as if He were unable or unwilling to take it for us. Now this disobedience to His plain precept, this unbelief in His Word, this presumption that intrudes upon His province, is all sinful. But more than this, anxious care often leads to acts of sin. If we cannot calmly leave our affairs in God’s hand but attempt to carry our own burden, we will be tempted to use wrong means to help ourselves. This sin leads to a forsaking of God as our counselor and resorting instead to human wisdom. This is going to the broken well instead of to the fountain, a sin of which Israel was guilty in the past. Anxiety makes us doubt God’s loving-kindness, and so our love to Him grows cold; we feel mistrust, and in this we grieve the Spirit of God, so that our prayers are hindered, our consistent example spoiled, and our life one of self-seeking. Such lack of confidence in God leads us to wander far from Him; but if through simple faith in His promise we cast each burden as it comes upon Him and are “not … anxious about anything”‘ because He undertakes to care for us, it will keep us close to Him and strengthen us against temptation. “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

Spurgeon Morning and Evening May 25th a.m.

Posted in Prayer on May 25, 2009 by Harry

spurgeon

BLESSED BE GOD, BECAUSE HE HAS NOT REJECTED MY PRAYER.  – PSALM 66:20

In looking back upon the character of our prayers, if we do it honestly, we shall be filled with wonder that God has ever answered them. There may be some who think their prayers worthy of acceptance—as the Pharisee did; but the true Christian, who sees things clearly, must surely weep over his prayers, and if he could retrace his steps he would desire to pray more earnestly. Remember, Christian, how cold your prayers have been. When in your closet you should have wrestled as Jacob did; but instead your petitions have been faint and few—far removed from that humble, believing, persevering faith that cries, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Yet, how wonderful to know that God has heard these cold prayers of yours, and not only heard, but answered them. Reflect also how infrequent have been your prayers unless you have been in trouble, and then you have gone often to the mercy-seat: But when deliverance has come, what happened to your constant supplication? Yet, even though you have stopped praying as you once did, God has not stopped blessing. When you have neglected the mercy-seat, God has not deserted it, but the bright light of His glory has remained visible between the wings of the cherubim. How marvelous that the Lord should pay attention to our intermittent spasms of prayerfulness that ebb and flow with our needs. What a God He is to hear the prayers of those who come to Him when they have pressing concerns but neglect Him when they have received a mercy; who approach Him when they are forced to come but who almost forget to address Him when benefits are plentiful and sorrows are few. Let His gracious kindness in hearing such prayers touch our hearts, so that from now on we may be found “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.”

Envy, Jealousy and Related Sins

Posted in Envy with tags on May 23, 2009 by Harry

respectable-sins

  • From Bible Study 5/17/09
  • based on the book Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges

I. ENVY:

  • the painful and often time resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by someone else (Covetousness is nothing more than wanting that same advantage for ourselves.)

Conditions for Envy:
1. We tend to envy those with whom we most closely identify.
2. We tend to envy in them the areas we value most.
(We may not even want the better circumstance of our neighbor, we just resent their having them.)

Is it Serious?

Romans 1:28-29 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy

Galatians 5:19-21 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Read more »

Posted in Dependence, Salvation with tags on May 23, 2009 by Harry

spurgeon

THE LORD WILL FULFILL HIS PURPOSE FOR ME. – PSALM 138:8

It is clear that the confidence that the psalmist expresses is a divine confidence. He did not say, “I have enough grace to perfect that which concerns me—my faith is so steady that it will not falter—my love is so warm that it will never grow cold—my resolution is so firm that nothing can move it.” No, his dependence was on the Lord alone. If we display a confidence that is not grounded on the Rock of ages, our confidence is worse than a dream; it will fall upon us and cover us with its ruins, to our sorrow and confusion. The psalmist was wise; he rested on nothing less than the Lord’s work. It is the Lord who has begun the good work within us; it is He who has carried it on; and if He does not finish it, it never will be completed. If there is one stitch in the celestial garment of our righteousness that we must insert ourselves, then we are lost; but this is our confidence—what the Lord begins, He completes. He has done it all, must do it all, and will do it all. Our confidence must not be in what we have done, nor in what we have resolved to do, but entirely in what the Lord will do. Unbelief insinuates: “You will never be able to stand. Look at the evil of your heart—you can never conquer sin; remember the sinful pleasures and temptations of the world that beset you—you will be certainly allured by them and led astray.” True, we would certainly perish if left to our own strength. If by ourselves we navigate the most frail vessels of our lives over so rough a sea, we might well give up the voyage in despair; but thanks be to God, He will complete that which concerns us and bring us to the desired haven. We can never be too confident when we confide in Him alone, and never too eager to have such a trust.

Casting Crowns “Lifesong”

Posted in Lifestyle with tags on May 22, 2009 by Harry

casting crowns lifesong


Empty hands held high
Such a small sacrifice

If not joined with my life
I sing in vain tonight

May the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to You

Chorus:
Let my lifesong sing to You
Let my lifesong sing to You
I want to sign your name to the end of this day
Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to You

Lord, I give my life
A living sacrifice
To reach a world in need
To be Your hands and feet

So may the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to you

(Chorus)

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Let my lifesong sing to You

(2x)

(Chorus 2x)

Spurgeon Morning and Evening May 22 a.m.

Posted in Trials and Suffering on May 22, 2009 by Harry

spurgeon

HE LED THEM BY A STRAIGHT WAY. – PSALM 107:7

Changing circumstances often causes the anxious believer to ask, “Why is this happening to me?” I looked for light, but darkness came; for peace, but faced trouble. I said in my heart, my mountain stands firm, I shall never be moved. Lord, You hide Your face, and I am troubled. Only yesterday I could read my title clearly; but today my evidences are blurred, and my hopes are clouded. Yesterday I could climb the mountain and view the landscape and rejoice with confidence in my future inheritance; today my spirit has no hopes, but many fears; no joys, but great distress. Is this part of God’s plan for me? Can this be the way in which God would bring me to heaven? Yes, it is even so. The eclipse of your faith, the darkness of your mind, the fainting of your hope—all these things are just parts of God’s method of making you ready for the great inheritance, which you will soon enjoy. These trials are for the testing and strengthening of your faith—they are waves that wash you further upon the rock—they are winds that steer your ship more quickly toward the desired haven. What David wrote then will be true of you: “he brought them to their desired haven” (verse 30). By honor and dishonor, by evil report and by good report, by plenty and by poverty, by joy and by distress, by persecution and by peace—by all these things your spiritual life is maintained, and by each of these you are helped on your way. Do not think, believer, that your sorrows are out of God’s plan; they are necessary parts of it. “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom.”‘ Learn, then, to “count it all joy … when you meet trials of various kinds.”‘

O let my trembling soul be still,

And trust Thy wise, Thy bolt’ will!

I cannot, Lord, Thy purpose see,

Yet all is well since ruled by Thee.

Do you believe Christians should watch T.V. for entertainment?

Posted in Lifestyle on May 21, 2009 by Harry

tv remote

  • The following are Pastor Braden’s notes from Men’s Bible Study 5/16/09
  • Watching T.V. may be an area of Christian liberty, but should it be?  The following scriptures give me a lot to think about.

1 John 2: 15-17  “15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”

Read more »

Matthew 18:3

Posted in Dependence, Matthew, Trust on May 21, 2009 by Harry

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

ESV Study Bible notes:

  • The humility of a child consists of childlike trust, vulnerability, and the inability to advance his or her own cause apart from the help, direction, and resources of a parent.

Reformation Study Bible notes:

  • Not because children are innocent, but because they are dependent and make no pre-tense of being otherwise

J.I. Packer on the Second Commandment

Posted in Uncategorized on May 20, 2009 by Harry

ji-packerFrom Knowing God:

The point is clear. God did not show them a visible symbol of himself, but spoke to them; therefore they are not now to seek visible symbols of God, but simply to obey his Word. If it be said that Moses was afraid of the Israelites borrowing designs for images from the idolatrous nations around them, our reply is that undoubtedly he was, and this is exactly the point: all man-made images of God, whether molten or mental, are really borrowings from the stock-in-trade of a sinful and ungodly world, and are bound therefore to be out of accord with God’s own holy Word. To make an image of God is to take one’s thoughts of him from a human source, rather than from God himself; and this is precisely what is wrong with image-making . . . . He has spoken to and through his prophets and apostles, and he has spoken in the words and deeds of his own Son. Through this revelation, which is made available to us in holy Scripture, we may form a true notion of God; without it we never can. Thus it appears that the positive force of the second commandment is that it compels us to take our thoughts of God from his own holy Word, and from no other source whatsoever.

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Spurgeon Morning and Evening May 19th a.m.

Posted in Lifestyle on May 19, 2009 by Harry

spurgeon

I HAVE SEEN SLAVES ON HORSES, AND PRINCES WALKING ON THE GROUND LIKE SLAVES. — ECCLESIASTES 10:7

Upstarts frequently steal the highest places, while the truly great struggle in obscurity. This is a riddle in providence whose solution will one day gladden the hearts of the upright; but it is so common a fact that none of us should complain if we face the experience. When our Lord was on earth, although He is the Prince of the kings of the earth, yet He walked the footpath of weariness and service as the Servant of servants. It should then be no surprise if His followers, who are princes in His line, should also be looked down upon as inferior and contemptible persons. The world is upside-down, and therefore the first are last and the last first. Consider how the servile sons of Satan lord it in the earth! What a high horse they ride! How they exalt themselves. David wanders on the mountains, while Saul reigns in state; Elijah is complaining in the cave, while Jezebel is boasting in the palace. Yet who would wish to take the places of the proud rebels? And who, on the other hand, might not envy the despised saints? When the wheel turns, those who are lowest rise, and the highest sink. Patience, then, believer, eternity will right the wrongs of time.
Let us not fall into the error of letting our passions and sinful appetites ride in triumph, while our nobler powers walk in the dust. Grace must reign as a prince and make the members of our bodies instruments of righteousness. The Holy Spirit loves order, and He therefore sets our powers and faculties in proper rank and place, giving the highest room to those spiritual faculties that link us with the great King; let us not disturb the divine arrangement but ask for grace to keep our body under control and bring it into subjection. We were not made new to allow our passions to rule over us, but in order that, as kings, we may reign in Christ Jesus over the triple kingdom of spirit, soul, and body, to the glory of God the Father.

C.S. Lewis on Pride (from Mere Christianity)

Posted in * Favorites, Pride on May 18, 2009 by Harry

C.S. Lewis

In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison —you do not know God at all.  As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud  man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

That raises a terrible question.  How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious?  I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people:  that is , they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound’s worth of Pride towards their fellow-men.  I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap.

Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is  making us feel that we are good —above all, that we are better than  someone else — I think we can be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about  yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.  It is better to forget about yourself altogether.

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Isaiah 55:8-9

Posted in * Favorites, Isaiah, Will - God's with tags on May 16, 2009 by Harry

isaiah

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

ESV Study Bible notes:

  • “thoughts are not your thoughts”
    • that is, they are as high above man’s thoughts as the heaves are above the earth
  • “neither are your ways my ways”
    • In the immediate context, this is an appeal to people to exchange their sinful “thoughts” and “ways”  for God’s, which ar e higher (nobler and more magnificent).
    • More broadly, theologians have recognized that God, the incomparable Creator, is far above his finite creatures and beyond their ability to describe him or comprehend him fully; though they may know him truly, such knowledge is always partial and imperfect.

      • But because God is perfectly wise in all his thoughts and ways, his people can take great comfort amid hardship and when inevitably they are unable to understand the mysteries and tragedies of life. and vastly superior to the expectations of human intuitions

Spurgeon Morning and Evening May 15th a.m.

Posted in Salvation with tags on May 15, 2009 by Harry

EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES IS FREED FROM EVERYTHING [JUSTIFIED, KJV].spurgeon
- ACTS 13:38
The believer in Christ receives a present justification. Faith does not produce this fruit later on, but now. So far as justification is the result of faith, it is given to the soul in the moment when it closes with Christ and accepts Him as its all in all. Are those who stand before the throne of God justified now? So are we as certainly and as clearly justified as those who have entered into the portals of heaven. The thief upon the cross was justified the moment that he turned the eye of faith to Jesus; and Paul, at the end of his life, after years of service, was not more justified than the thief who had no service at all. We are today accepted in the Beloved, today absolved from sin, today acquitted at the bar of God’s judgment. What a soul-stirring thought! There are some benefits that we will not be able to enjoy until we enter heaven; but this is our immediate possession. This is not like the corn of the land, which we can never eat until we cross the Jordan; but this is part of the manna in the wilderness, a portion of our daily nutriment with which God supplies us in all our comings and goings. We are now—even now—pardoned; even now are our sins put away; even now we stand in the sight of God accepted, as though we had never been guilty. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”‘ There is not a sin in the Book of God, even now, against one of His people. Who dares to lay anything to their charge? There is neither speck, nor spot, nor wrinkle, nor anything remaining upon any one believer in this matter of being justified in the sight of the Judge of all the earth. Let our present privileges awaken us to present duty, and now, while life lasts, let us spend and be spent for our sweet Lord Jesus.

Deuteronomy 17:2-8

Posted in Deuteronomy, Israel, Old Testament with tags , on May 15, 2009 by Harry

2 “If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, 4 and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones. 6 On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. 7 The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Matthew Henry's Commentary

From Matthew Henry’s Commentary:

  • Be it (worshipping of false gods) ever so indusriously concealed, he(God) sees it, and be it ever so ingeniously palliated, he (God) hates it: it is a sin in itself exceedingly heinous, and the highest affront that can be offered to Almighty God.
  • That it is a transgression of the covenant.
  • It was on this condition that God took them to be his peculiar people, that the should serve and worship him only as their God, so that if they gave to any other the honor which was due to him alone that covenant was void, and all the benefit of it forfeited.
  • Other sins were  transgressions of the command, but this was a transgression of the covenant.
  • It was spiritual adultery, which breaks the marriage bond.

Isaiah 52:14-53:12 The Fourth Servant Song

Posted in * Favorites, Isaiah, Old Testament, OT Messianic Prophecies with tags on May 14, 2009 by Harry

isaiah

4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

  • Isaiah wrote these words circa 700 B.C.
  • The entire passage is listed on the next page

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