Battling Depression

George Whitefield was used mightily by the Lord as an Evangelist. He is one of my all time favorite “dead guys.” Like Spurgeon (another of my favorites) he seemingly suffered with depression from time to time and on one of his seven trips from Britain to America, Whitefield was battling both depression and feelings of failure. He came through this ordeal by meditating on God’s love in Jesus Christ.

Nothing could possibly support my soul under the many agonies which oppressed me when on board, but a consideration of the freeness, eternity and unchangeableness of God’s love to me.

I need not fear the sight of sin when I have a perfect, everlasting righteousness wrought out for me by Jesus Christ. The riches of His free grace cause me daily to triumph over all the temptations of the wicked one…

May he enlighten me more and more to know and feel the mystery of his electing, soul-transforming love. Nothing like that, to support us under present and all the various future trials… But the Lord has apprehended us and will not let us go. Men and devils may do their worst; our Jesus will allow nothing to pluck us out of His Almighty hands.

– quoted in Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the 18th Century Revival (2 vols; Banner of Truth, 1970, 1980), 1:407

HT: Dane Ortlund

The Potter’s Hand

“But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” – Isaiah 64:8

Beautiful Lord, Wonderful Savior
I know for sure, all of my days are held in Your hands
Crafted into Your perfect plan
You gently call me into Your presence guiding me by Your Holy Spirit
Teach me dear Lord to live all of my life through Your eyes
I’m captured by Your holy calling
Set me apart, I know you’re drawing me to Yourself
Lead me Lord I pray

Chorus:
Take me, Mold me, use me, fill me
I give my life to the Potter’s hand
Call me, guide me, lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to the Potter’s hand

You gently call me into Your presence guiding me by your Holy Spirit
Teach me dear Lord to live all of my life through Your eyes
I’m captured by Your holy calling
Set me apart, I know Your drawing me to Yourself
Lead me Lord I pray

Take me, Mold me, use me, fill me
I give my life to the Potter’s hand
Call me, guide me, lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to the Potter’s hand

“…take me, mold me, use me, fill me, I give my life to the Potter’s hand.”

As Expected… Nothing Happened!

“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” – 2 Timothy 2:24-26

As expected… nothing happened! TODAY is not a day for gloating that we were right and Camping was proved wrong yet again. It should be a day of much PRAYER that God would give the gift of REPENTANCE to many Camping-ites who have abandoned the Churches and the proper and careful interpretation of the Bible.

This is no laughing matter. While the Bible itself is still true, Harold Camping has been proven to be an extremely dangerous false teacher. Families have been completely torn apart by this, decades old friendships have been destroyed, many animals have been put to sleep, while others have squandered their entire life savings buying ads in newspapers, renting billboards, printing materials, seeking to warn others of impending doom. Furthermore, scoffers will feel that they have been given fresh material for their scoffing, entrapping them further in their rebellious unbelief for which they shall one day face God’s certain judgment. Some will feel that their confidence in the Bible has been totally undermined (not realising that it is their faith in a false teacher and his false interpretations that have been exposed). Deceived people continue to deceive people and heresy is not a victimless crime.

Camping’s wreckless interpretations of the Bible were noted long before he came up with today’s date (May 21, 2011) for the greatest of all earthquakes to take place all around the world and for the rapture of the Church. It remains to be seen what the result of all this whole sorry mess will be.

A very small consolation; there is perhaps ONE good thing that did emerge in all this mayhem – many of us have found a very cool website that shows the time around the world here.

… but back to the topic….

Pastor Dan Phillips writes (at the pyromaniacs website) about 17 ways Harold Camping unknowingly and unwittingly is glorifying God here.

Dr. Kim Riddlebarger is not a happy “camper.” He writes:

“I see this tragic episode as one gigantic mess, which God’s people will be cleaning up for years. I, for one, am not very sympathetic to Mr. Camping, or to those who follow him. Here’s why:

1). He’s done this before. 1994? anyone??? If Camping lives much longer (he’s 89), he’ll likely do this again. As one of my favorite philosophers, Dirty Harry, once put it when his police superior questioned whether the serial killer (so wonderfully played by Andy Robinson) would continue to kill, Harry replied, “Of course he will. He likes it.” You cannot tell me that however Camping came to this particular date for the Lord’s return, and however sincere he might he be in his calculations, that the man does not love the media attention. Why else spend all that money on an “in your face” ad campaign with buses and billboards across the country? Camping likes the hubbub way too much. Since someone’s past behavior is the best predictor of their future behavior, if given the chance, Camping will do it again.

2). Camping was disciplined by his church, and never once demonstrated the slightest hint of repentance. When Camping was removed from his office for his unbiblical speculations, Camping’s response was to declare that the church age was over, and that people should leave their churches! (see Bob Godfrey’s account of this–Godfrey on Harold Camping ). Harold Camping is not some grandfatherly old man who has weird views on things (every church has a few of these). This is a man, who, when he did not get his way, sought to create widescale schism and division in the church. How can we not conclude that many among his followers are schismatics who have followed their master in his sin?”

more here.

…. and my friend, Dr. James White at www.aomin.org writes:

As of the time of the posting of this article, Harold Camping has been proven a false prophet (again). Why? Because it is now 7pm standard time (yes, I remembered to factor in the daylight savings thing) in Guam, one of the first places on earth to experience the time of the “rapture” that Camping has predicted as a guaranteed biblical truth for years now.* And, according to the US Geological Survey (the clearing house for earthquake information from all over the world), no earthquake 10 or above on the Richter scale has taken place in that time zone…anywhere. Camping said the earthquake would be greater than anything known before, so I figure that’s at least a 10, probably more (since he said it would open all the tombs and throw the bodies of the dead out of their graves to be “shamed in God’s sight”). So, we begin the documentation,** which will continue through the day, of what some of us have been saying for a very, very long time: Harold Camping is a cult leader, a false teacher, and it is high time his followers finally admit it.

I have thought of some time of writing a lengthy open letter to Camping’s followers. I may well do so after the dust has settled, it all depends. I was thinking today about the categories of Camping followers, and I think I would break it down into three groups: 1) the hard-core, unsaved cultists, who love novelty and gnosis, not truth, and if they don’t keep following Harold, they will find someone else to follow, but will never follow truth; 2) the unsaved, simple, ignorant who found something compelling in his teachings; and 3) the few Christians who will, we are assured, be restored to truth and abandon his falsehoods. I would have something different to say to each of those groups, to be sure. I would be brief with the first; the second would require a lot of discussion that would be best done in person; and the third simply need to repent and return to their first love.

In any case, I will be glad when this day is over, the case is settled, the controversy over. I do not think my time has been wasted in refuting Camping: the lessons to be learned are many. But there is much else to be doing, and we must get to it.

One of the things we need to be doing is confessing, unashamedly, that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and that He will, in fact, return someday. We just need to do it biblically, just the opposite of Harold Camping and his sign-toting followers.

*I thought about using Christmas Island as my example, but after reading the incredibly complex discussion of just what time it is on Christmas Island…I decided not even the Lord could make heads or tails out of that mess, so I stuck with something a bit more…mundane.

** Don’t forget to visit www.rapturefail.org to register your “Rapture Fail” as well!

Q & A with Dr. R. C. Sproul and Ligonier Teaching Fellows

Watch as R.C. Sproul and Ligonier Teaching Fellows Sinclair Ferguson, Robert Godfrey, Steven Lawson, and R.C. Sproul Jr. engage in this round-table discussion (held on Thursday, May 19, 2011) covering topics such as dispensationalism, regeneration, sanctification, election, evangelism, the authority and inerrancy of Scripture and Harold Camping. Less than an hour in length, this video is very highly recommended.

Friday Round Up

(1) Next Tuesday, May 24, God willing, I will be hosting a one hour live call in radio program on the Andrew Tallman show. Andrew is going on vacation and has asked me to fill in. The show can be heard live across the Phoenix area at 6 pm (9 pm EST) and also live on the internet (same time of course) at www.kpxq1360.com

(2) Thanks for your prayers for “The Thief on the Cross” Gospel tract outreach in Kerala, India over Easter. 10,000 tracts were handed out and the feedback has been most encouraging – a very good response among the Indian people. There is now a desire to have a further 10,000 to 100,000 tracts printed in the Malayalam dialect which would be spread amongst 50 Gospel workers and ministers. Pappy Daniel in India is currently seeking out the best price for getting the printing done. I will give an update with more details here as soon as I know more.

(3) Ligonier has some great deals today on some excellent material in this week’s $5 Friday sale here. Remember, if you decide to purchase material, you can claim a further 10% discount on these and on ALL Ligonier products as a reader of this blog by using the coupon code: EGRACE10

(4) Quote: “A man has been found guilty, is now in prison, awaiting his execution. A friend comes to visit saying, “I have good news for you!” Eagerly the condemned man asks: “What is it?” The answer comes: “Be good.” In that message there is not a shred of good news. Yet many a minister of Christ holds forth to sinners under the sentence of eternal death a precisely equivalent message as gospel.” – R. B. Kuiper

(5) This kinda says it all…

Stay in your field of expertise

Stephen Hawking (pictured) recently portrayed heaven as being a fairy tale. N. T. Wright reponded with a brief article in the Washington Post‘s On Faith blog:

“It’s depressing to see Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant minds in his field, trying to speak as an expert on things he sadly seems to know rather less about than many averagely intelligent Christians. Of course there are people who think of ‘heaven’ as a kind of pie-in-the-sky dream of an afterlife to make the thought of dying less awful. No doubt that’s a problem as old as the human race. But in the Bible ‘heaven’ isn’t ‘the place where people go when they die.’ In the Bible heaven is God’s space while earth (or, if you like, ‘the cosmos’ or ‘creation’) is our space. And the Bible makes it clear that the two overlap and interlock. For the ancient Jews, the place where this happened was the temple; for the Christians, the place where this happened was Jesus himself, and then, astonishingly, the persons of Christians because they, too, were ‘temples’ of God’s own spirit.

Hawking is working with a very low-grade and sub-biblical view of ‘going to heaven.’ Of course, if faced with the fully Christian two-stage view of what happens after death—first, a time ‘with Christ’ in ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise,’and then, when God renews the whole creation, bodily resurrection—he would no doubt dismiss that as incredible. But I wonder if he has ever even stopped to look properly, with his high-octane intellect, at the evidence for Jesus and the resurrection? I doubt it—most people in England haven’t. Until he has, his opinion about all this is worth about the same as mine on nuclear physics, i.e. not much…”

HT: The Resurgence

What Happened?

What happened to the followers of William Miller when Christ did not return on October 22, 1844? Did they go back to the Bible and the Churches?

No, many gave up on the Bible and Christianity altogether; many became enamoured with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and their (false) prophecies, while others became Second Day Adventists under the “ministry” of Ellen White (who herself was very impressed with Miller).

What does this teach us?

It teaches us that the deceptive spirit behind Harold Camping’s teachings will still be very active, even after May 21 comes and goes. He already has them in his snare. Only God can reach these precious people, deceived by the deceiver.

Let us preach the truth with compassion and boldness and pray for God to open eyes.

Only the Father knows…

Matthew 24:36 says, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”

This seems to be problematic, for if there is something the Son does not know, would this not indicate to us that he is not omniscient (all knowing)? God is all knowing and yet this tells us that there is something Christ did not know. Pastor John, how do we reconcile this verse with the Christian concept of the Deity of Christ?

Thank you for your question. The verse is often raised by those in the cults who openly deny Christ’s Deity. However, a very satisfactory biblical answer to the question emerges when we understand and embrace some good theology.

The Council of Chalcedon (in 451 AD) outlined what theologians refer to as “the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union.” This Council is one of the great Ecumenical Councils accepted by Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and most Protestant Christian churches. It provides a clear statement as to what orthodox Christians believe concerning the Person of Christ, drawn of course, from the Biblical text. Translated into English it reads:

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

These are intentionally very precise theological statements. It is vitally important we get this right. Heresy awaits all who would veer from this safe biblical position. At Chalcedon it was affirmed that Christ was “perfect/complete in Godhood also perfect/complete in manhood, truly God and truly man.”

Christ is one Person with two natures, a human nature and a Divine nature. The full attributes of deity and the full attributes of humanity were both preserved without mixture or confusion. Christ does not have one nature which is a mixture of divine and human. No, He is fully God and fully man – one Person, with two natures. The human nature remains human with all the attributes of human-ness. The Divine nature remains divine and possesses and maintains all of the attributes of divinity.

In the Incarnation, the second person of the Godhead became a man. Colossians 2:9 says, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”

Regarding his humanity, Jesus learned about the world around him just as other children would do. Scripture tells us that he grew and became strong (Luke 3:23); there were times when he was thirsty (John 19:28), hungry (Matt 4:2) and was weary (John 4:6). These things show the humanity of Christ rather than His deity. God is never weary, thirsty or hungry. On the other hand, Jesus was also fully God, and, as God, he had infinite knowledge (cf. John 2:25; 16:30; 21:17). Continue reading

The Secular Mind

On yesterday’s Dividing Line program, a lady named Alex.

After the program, Dr. White commented that this call (and another like it later on in the show) illustrates “what we are up against in attempting to deal with a secularized younger generation – a generation that will soon be making moral decisions about cloning, the use of stem cells, nuclear weapons, and so much more. God have mercy.”