Monthly Archives: October 2012

Ten Reasons for Expository Preaching

Posted on by
Reply

The late Dr. E.K. Bailey, founding pastor of the Concord Church in Dallas, entitled, “Ten Reasons for Expository Preaching.”

In this booklet, Dr. Bailey defines expository preaching:

“An expository sermon is a message that focuses on a portion of scripture so as to clearly establish the precise meaning of the text and to poignantly motivate the hearers to actions or attitudes dictated by that text in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Then Bailey gives ten reasons why the church desperately needs expository preaching:

1. Expository preaching creates a Bible-bringing congregation.

2. Expository preaching creates a Bible loving congregation.

3. Expository preaching a Word-conscious congregation.

4. Expository preaching forces the preacher to proclaim the whole counsel of God.

5. Expository preaching arms the people for spiritual warfare.

Expository preaching addresses the needs of people, which never occur to the preacher.

7. Expository preaching engenders tremendous interest in what’s coming next (in the text).

8. Expository preaching challenges the spiritual life of the preacher.

9. Expository preaching allows people to hear God’s word and not the preacher’s thoughts.

10. Expository preaching establishes the absolute authority of God’s Word as opposed to situational ethics.

Amen.

(Source)

Eternal Security

Posted on by
Reply

Pastor Jim McClarty on this vitally important subject:

R. C. Sproul answers the question, “What is the doctrine of eternal security?” as follows:

When we speak of the doctrine of eternal security, we’re using a popular description of a classical doctrine that we call the perseverance of the saints. What it means is that once a person has become quickened by the Holy Spirit, born of the Spirit, and justified through faith in Christ and therefore placed in a state of salvation, that person will, in fact, never lose his salvation. That is a very controversial point within the context of historic Christianity.

There are many Christians who do not believe that once a person is in a state of grace, he will abide in that state of grace. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, historically teaches the distinction between venial and mortal sins. Mortal sin is defined as being mortal because it has the capacity to kill or to destroy the justifying grace that is in the soul, and such a sin makes it necessary for a person to be restored to justification through the sacrament of penance. Other Christian bodies also believe that it is possible for a Christian to lose his salvation.

Advocates of eternal security say that our salvation is secure once it is wrought through faith and that nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ. It is based on some passages in Scripture, such as Paul’s teaching in Philippians. It is said that, “He who has begun a good work in you will perfect it to the end.” Also, the Scriptures talk about the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life. Not only does the Spirit regenerate us, or quicken us, starting the whole process of Christian living, but as the Bible tells us, God gives to each Christian the sealing of the Holy Spirit and the earnest of the Holy Spirit. That term is a little bit obscure in everyday vocabulary, although when we buy a home the real estate agent might ask us to make a little down payment that we call earnest money. That is an economic phrase we use, and it is used in Scripture in that same way. An earnest was a down payment, an absolute guarantee that the balance would, in fact, be paid. When God the Holy Spirit puts a down payment on something, he doesn’t renege on the payments. God the Holy Spirit does not give you an earnest that becomes less than earnest. He’s deadly in earnest to finish what he has begun with you.

Also, the concept of being sealed by the Spirit draws from the ancient language of the signet ring of the emperor. When something was sealed and affixed with the imprimatur of the king or the owner, then it became his possession. I think we have to make this qualifier: If it were up to us, I don’t think any of us would persevere, and we would have very little to be secure about. However, the concept as I understand it biblically is that God promises that no one will snatch us out of the hands of Christ, that he will preserve us.

My peace I give to you

Posted on by
Reply

“A Brain Tumor and Exalting Christ” – Steve Fernandez, Senior Pastor of Community Bible Church, Vallejo, California and President of The Cornerstone Seminary provides a brief update on the joy and peace he finds in Christ, despite having been recently diagnosed with a GBM brain tumor.

Philippians 1: 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, 19 for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, 20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Can We Enjoy Heaven Knowing of Loved Ones in Hell?

Posted on by
Reply

From the 2010 Ligonier National Conference.

Dr. R.C. Sproul brought the conference to a close with a message entitled “Can We Enjoy Heaven Knowing of Loved Ones in Hell?” To address this topic, he read from Revelation 21:1-8 and also from Romans 8:19-30. Alex Chediak made these summary notes:

INTRODUCTION
They called it “the shot heard around the world.” It kicked off an 8-year war of independence for the United States of America. But an event took place prior to that in the city of Boston: The Boston Massacre. This event touched Ethan Allen in Vermont, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Sam Adams, and John Adams. In the Boston Massacre, British troops fired upon unarmed civilians.

Do you know how many civilians were killed in the Boston Massacre? Just five. Nothing compared to the destruction of Canaanites. Every time we come together to worship we have a taste of heaven. But what came to the Canaanites (or to the world in the days of Noah) was a taste of hell.

The final consummation of the reign of God over his creation must and will certainly involve separation. There will be an antithesis between those who are faithful and receive their inheritance in the family of God and partake of the inestimable joy of heaven. And there will be those outside the camp who are consigned to the lake of fire. Streets of gold on the one hand, fire and brimstone on the other. Any attempt to water this down exposes ourselves to the curse of God.

So: How Can We Be Happy in Heaven if Our Loved Ones Are in That Lake?

REVELATION 21:1-8
In verse 4 we read, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Heaven is a place where God personally wipes away our tears. And when He wipes them away, they never return. Expelled are death, disease, pain and sorrow. For all who dwell in heaven will drink freely from the water of life.

TWO EMBARRASING EVENTS FROM MY SEMINARY DAYS
Event #1: We had been in chapel at the seminary (a very liberal seminary). Sproul listened reluctantly to a sermon that disrespected and dishonored everything that is precious to those who love the Reformed faith. Sproul walked out of chapel with Dr. Gerstner and they were walking to the parking lot. Dr. Gerstner walked in large strides. And Sproul said to Dr. Gerstner, “If Calvin had heard that sermon, he would have rolled over in his grave.” And Gerstner corrected Sproul in mid-sentence to inform him that Calvin has entered eternal felicity which could not by any means be disturbed.

Event #2: One student asked Dr. Gerstner, “How can I be happy in heaven if I’m aware that one of my loved ones is in hell?” Dr. Gerstner responded: “Don’t you know that when you are in heaven you will be so sanctified that you could look at your own mother in hell and rejoice in the display of the justice of God.” And Sproul burst out laughing, informing Dr. Gerstner that his statement was absolutely ridiculous.

ROMANS 8:19-30
The latter verses comprise the golden chain, the order of salvation. We often read these verses and debate predestination, forgetting to discuss the end or the goal of predestination. The purpose of predestination is that we be conformed to the image of Christ. We are elected in Christ, for Christ, to be brought into conformity to Christ.

At these Ligonier conferences, we often focus on the doctrine of justification. It is the article by which we stand or fall. But the end of the chain is not predestination, or justification, or effectual calling. What is it? Glorification. When is the last time you heard a sermon on glorification.

There are three reasons why we worry about our future happiness in heaven when we discover that our friends or family and possibly even our own spouse is not there.

1. We don’t know who God is.
We are so baffled by God’s holiness that more often than not we are offended by it.

2. We don’t know who we are.
We say “to err is human” and thus minimize our sins and unholiness.

3. We don’t know what glorification entails.
Yes, we will get new bodies and not need glasses, hearing aids, or numerous medications. But do we meditate on the fact that there will be no need for light, because the Lamb of God will illumine everything. But that which will be most conspicuously absent in that place is sin. There won’t just be a new heavens and earth, our sanctification will reach its destination. Glorification is not exaltation. It is the perfection of our sanctification.

Dr. Sproul explained that he used to do a demonstration in seminary. I’d select one student to play Jesus. Another person to represent Hitler. And a third student represents the Apostle Paul. [Dr. Sproul believes that Paul was, apart from Jesus, the most holy man to have ever walked the earth.] So on this continuum between Hitler and Jesus, where do we put the Apostle Paul?

He is close to Hitler. There is a chasm between both Hitler and Paul (on the one hand) and Jesus (on the other). The chasm is so immense that the separation between Hitler and Paul is negligible.

Until our glorification, our concerns and our sympathies rest more with wicked human beings. But not so after our glorification. Then, we will share a greater resemblance with Jesus, and thus there will be a chasm between us (together with Jesus) and unredeemed humanity. When we are glorified, our passion will be for the vindication of God’s name.

CONCLUSION
Because we are so Hitler-esque, we can relate to monstrous sinners more than we can relate to Jesus Christ. That’s why we find the doctrine of hell so repugnant. That’s why we feel sorry for Uzzah when he’s killed for touching the ark (2 Sam. 6), or Aaron’s sons who were struck down for playing at worship (Lev. 10). We don’t feel as sad for the slight Uzzah and Aaron’s sons imparted to the glory of God.

But the day will come when our passion and our identification with the glory of God will be so great that our sympathies will be with God and not with our fellow creatures who belittle God’s glory. We are not there now. But in our glorification we shall be.

The full message can be viewed at this link.

Now Available Down Under

Posted on by
3

Readers in Australia may be interested to know that the paperback edition of my “Twelve What Abouts” book is now available in many bookstores throughout the country as well as through the Koorong ministry online it is available here.

In the USA, there is currently a 50% discount available at this link.

Someone put together these quotes from the book:

“You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) It is true to say “Mission Save the Elect” becomes “Mission Accomplished.” (Rev 5:9)”

“God’s attributes are not a buffet line of options. We are not invited to choose the attributes of God that we like best and leave the others. We have no right to say, “I’ll give Sovereignty a pass, but I’ll take the love.”

“Unbelievers do not lie awake at night fearful of meeting God because all the Church has told them is “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” They have no concept of the need to flee from the wrath to come.”

“God ordains both the ends and the means. The end is His elect coming to saving faith. The means is: The proclamation of the Gospel.”

“Without election, evangelism would be much like a salesman trying to sell his products in a graveyard.”

“The natural man is so hostile towards God that if he could kill God, he would, even if it meant the end of his own existence. He also hates the fact that God is sovereign. When I speak of God’s sovereignty, I mean that God does what He wants, when He wants, the way He wants, without asking anyone’s permission.”

Friday Round Up

Posted on by
Reply

(1) The Presidential race has seemed to be particularly bitter and nasty this year. Because of that, Mitt Romney’s speech on Thursday evening at the Al Smith dinner in New York was a breath of much needed fresh air. It was hilarious.

If you did not see it, here it is:

(2) There’s a variety of resources in this week’s Friday Ligonier $5 sale worth considering. They can be found here.

God Ordains Both the Ends and the Means

Posted on by
Reply

Dan Phillips, at the Pyromaniacs blog site wrote a short article entitled, “A stick, salt water, salvation — and us.”

“God works through means,” we say.

And it’s true. In fact, He usually works through means. That is to say, God uses some portion of His creation to affect some other portion of His creation.

This is maybe better understood if we think of the one occasion in which God used no means: the creation of the universe. Unless you wish to press the thought that God used His word (Ps. 33:6), God did not create the universe by means of anything in the universe. One timeless moment; the triune God alone; the next (first!) moment, a word, and bam! — the universe.

Otherwise, He uses means. Adam must feed himself, must build a shelter. Eve must make clothes. Noah has to cut down a lot of trees. And so on.

Now, sometimes the means are plain and proportionate. Right now, I’m tapping keys, and letters are appearing on the screen. No letter appears without a tap; a tap produces a letter. Or a space. Means, simple and straightforward.

And then there’s this scene:

The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. 16 Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. 17 And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. 18 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”
19 Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, 20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. (Exodus 14:15–22)

What obvious causal relationship was there between Moses lifting his staff, and that great body of water cleaving in two? None. Zero. If he’d poked it in the sea, he’d have displaced a bit of water. But holding it out? No relationship whatever. After all, this is a walking stick. It isn’t some wand from Hogwarts.

Yet, would the waters have parted, had Moses not stretched out the staff? No.

So though there was no direct causal relationship between Action A and Action B, the former was necessary for the latter. Why? Because God ordained it to be so. Because God ordained to use the means of Moses raising his staff. When Moses did what God told him to do, God accomplished what Moses was unable to effect.

Now to the abrupt payoff.

Tell me how this relates to Romans 10:8-17, and what effect this truth should have on you and me.

Don’t let me down.

Tom Chantry commented…

The only thing that made holding out a rod over the sea effective was the fact that God had ordained it, and the only reason Moses could have thought to do it was that God told him to.

Similarly, the only reason preaching is ever effective to the saving of souls is that God ordained it to be so, and the only reason it occurs to us to preach is that God told us so.

Having little time to unpack all the implications, I’ll stick to two that jump to mind.

1. As a preacher, I should feel about as much pride of accomplishment when someone is saved as Moses should have felt when the sea parted. I had about as much to do with it as he did.

2. For a preacher / church to decide that preaching isn’t likely to work and we ought to try something else is roughly equivalent to Moses deciding to chuck rocks into the sea instead of holding out his staff.

Lots to ponder here… Selah.

Meet John Hendryx

Posted on by
Reply

Pastor Batzig interviews my friend John Hendryx, the man behind www.monergism.com

PB: John, I’m sure our readers would like to know something about the man behind Monergism. Would you mind sharing a brief testimony and tell us how you came to embrace and love Reformed Theology?

JH: Thank you Pastor Batzig. I am honored that you would take the time out of your busy schedule.

Since I have basically been in a cave without much outside contact for the past 10 months, I have not had much opportunity to interact with people as I usually would. Those months were spent hunkered down developing our most recent project: a best-of–the-web MP3 by Scripture Library. So it is a pleasure to speak with you. But you asked that my testimony be brief, so let’s get right to it.

You first asked about the man behind Monergism … Well, “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” Much more interesting is the Person he and his website are pointing to. I really want to talk about the LORD, about what He has done, and what He is now doing. My conversion and my life in Christ is a demonstration of the sheer grace of God … how the LORD can take a hopelessly lost and darkened sinner and, without an ounce that sinners’ help, translate him from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of light and life.

Interesting you should ask about my testimony and my embrace of Reformed Theology in the same breath, because they are actually one and the same.

I was a 19-year old sophomore at the University of Colorado, Boulder deeply entrenched in New Age Occultism, which was essentially to a mixture of Hinduism, Tantric Buddhism, Occult practices, pseudo-Christianity and solipsism or the worship of the Self. It was partly drug induced and partly arrived at through deep periods of meditation and lots of metaphysical literature … Then one day while reading the Bible I came across Deuteronomy 18 which reads:

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. 13 You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, 14 for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.”

This passage struck me right between the eyes. It instantly put the fear of the Lord in me because it revealed to me the inconsistency in my understanding of God. The weight of the text immediately drove me to my knees to pray to the Lord. I remember my prayer: “Lord, if everything I believe is wrong I want to know. Please just show me what is truth is. Nothing else matters” Well, it was the Lord who put that prayer into my heart and the Lord who answered that prayer. It led to a series of events (which for brevity sake I will spare you) that led me to read another verse …a verse that the Lord actually used to save me: Romans 9:15-16:

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

It was with these words that the Lord opened my eyes to the Gospel. The scales fell from my eyes and I recognized for the first time that He is God, and I am not. I despaired of all hope in myself and was given a new vision accompanied by a renewed will to take hold of the grace of God in Christ. The previous false understanding I had of Jesus and his mission were, at once, swept away by the Hand of the Lord and I now, by the grace of God, understood that there was no hope in me or anything else, save in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. … He implanted in me a new heart, a new understanding and a new life which I could not have possibly come up with on my own. So from this reading of the Scripture together with this life-changing experience, you can see why your two questions are actually one. The Lord was gracious by revealing to me, at the moment of my conversion, that Jesus deserved the glory for all of it. It was simple and profound and even though I did not know what Reformed Theology was, (and would not read about it till much later), I was born in Christ knowing, from His own words, that salvation is of the Lord ….all a work of God. It was the most radical paradigm shift possible. My understanding went from “I am God” to “I am not God” … from “I can save myself” to “only Jesus can save me”.

Full interview here.