Monthly Archives: January 2011

The Providence of God

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“Clarence Macartney told the story about Dr. John Witherspoon – a signer of the Declaration of Independence and president of the (then) College of New Jersey. He lived a couple of miles away from the college at Rocky Hill and drove horse and rig each day to his office at the college.

“One day one of his neighbors burst into his office, exclaiming, ‘Dr. Witherspoon, you must join me in giving thanks to God for his extraordinary providence in saving my life, for as I was driving from Rocky Hill the horse ran away and the buggy was smashed to pieces on the rocks, but I escaped unharmed!’

“Witherspoon replied, ‘Why, I can tell you a far more remarkable providence than that. I have driven over that road hundreds of times. My horse never ran away, my buggy never was smashed, I was never hurt.’

“So we must beware of thinking that God is only in the earthquake, wind, and fire; of thinking that manna but not grain is God’s food. Most of God’s gifts to his people are not dazzling and gaudy but wrapped in simple brown paper. Quiet provisions of safety on the highway, health of children, picking up a paycheck, supper with the family—all in an ordinary day’s work for our God.”

– Dale Ralph Davis, Joshua: No Fallen Words (reprint: Christian Focus, 2000), pp. 48-49

George Whitefield on Election

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Largely forgotten today, David Garrick said of him, “I would give a hundred guineas, if I could say ‘Oh’ like Mr. Whitefield.” In his lifetime, Whitefield preached at least 18,000 times to perhaps 10 million hearers. Here are three of his quotes concering Divine election:

“Whatever men’s reasoning may suggest, if the children of God fairly examine their own experiences – if they do God justice, they must acknowledge that they did not choose God, but that God chose them. And if He chose them at all, it must be from eternity, and that too without anything foreseen in them. Unless they acknowledge this, man’s salvation must be in part owing to the free-will of man; and if so, . . . Christ Jesus might have died, and never seen the travail of His soul in the salvation of one of His creatures. But I would be tender on this point, and leave persons to be taught it of God. I am of the martyr Bradford’s mind. Let a man go to the grammar school of faith and repentance, before he goes to the university of election and predestination.” From George Whitefield’s Journals (London: Banner of Truth, 1960), p. 491. Quoted in George Whitefield, Vol. 1 by Arnold Dallimore, p. 570.

“I hope we shall catch fire from each other, and that there will be a holy emulation amongst us, who shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the doctines of the Reformation can do this. All others leave freewill in man and make him, in part at least, a Saviour to himself. My soul, come not thou near the secret of those who teach such things… I know Christ is all in all. Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to do of His good pleasure.” (George Whitefield, Works, pp. 89-90).

“Oh, the excellency of the doctrine of election and of the saint’s final perseverance! I am persuaded, till a man comes to believe and feel these important truths, he cannot come to himself, but when convinced of these, and assured of their application to his own heart, he then walks by faith indeed!… Love, not fear, constrains him to obedience.” (George Whitefield, Works, p. 101).

The Gospel on a Blackboard

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I love this photo, taken this week from live teaching (for video) that Dr. R. C. Sproul was doing in Sanford, Florida.

From the words up on the blackboard its clear that Dr. Sproul’s subject is the Gospel of Jesus Christ – that Justification takes place because Righteousness is ANALYTICAL (true by analysis); SYNTHETIC (something is added); EXTRA NOS (from outside of us) by means of IMPUTATION (God crediting the believer with the righteousness of Christ, transferred to our account).