Yearly Archives: 2011

A Simple Prayer Plan

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There are two ditches on the side of the road of Christian life. One ditch is lawlessness (antinomianism), and on the other side, the ditch of a harsh and hostile legalism that binds spiritual chains around us. Both of these extremes should be avoided always. Yet there is a road to walk if progress in sanctification is to be made, and as the saying goes, to fail to plan is to plan to fail.

Prayer Plan: No one wishes for something introduced only with good intentions, to then become a yoke of slavery on the neck. We must always remember that a failure to hold to a plan strictly does not mean our relationship with God is severed our soured in some way. Our performance is not the basis of our standing before God. The gospel of Christ is. Justification is by grace alone through faith alone in the Person and work of Christ alone.

Having said stressed that and made that very clear, it has to be said that it is very much a good thing to have a plan for prayer.

I read the following article by Mike Riccardi at the Cripplegate website and thought some excellent points were made:

In his classic, Desiring God, John Piper diagnoses that a main hindrance to prayer is our lack of planning. He tells us,

Unless I’m badly mistaken, one of the main reasons so many of God’s children don’t have a significant life of prayer is not so much that we don’t want to, but that we don’t plan to. If you want to take a four-week vacation, you don’t just get up one summer morning and say, “Hey, let’s go today!” You won’t have anything ready. You won’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned.

But that is how many of us treat prayer. We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing’s ever ready. We don’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. No time. No place. No procedure.

And we all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences in prayer. The opposite of planning is the rut. If you don’t plan a vacation, you will probably stay home and watch TV. The natural, unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality. There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer, you must plan to see it.

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Miscellaneous Quotes (26)

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The Greatest News in One Sentence: “That the greatest good (God) offers the greatest action (love) to the greatest need (wrath-owed sinners) by sending the greatest treasure (Jesus) in the greatest invitation (to everyone) into the greatest life (everlasting).” – Jared Wilson

“Paul ran from Christ; Christ pursued and overtook him. Paul resisted Christ; Christ disarmed him. Paul persecuted Christ; Christ converted him. Paul was an alien; Christ made him a member of the family. Paul was an enemy; Christ made him a friend. Paul was ‘in the flesh’; Christ set him ‘in the Spirit.’ Paul was under the law; Christ set him in grace. Paul was dead; Christ made him alive to God. How does one give reasons for this? He does not give reasons; he sings, Union With Christ (Grand Rapids, 1983), pages 86-87.

“A humble and prayerful spirit will find a thousand things in the Bible, which the proud, self-conceited student will utterly fail to discern.” – J.C. Ryle

“At the cross, God stormed the last bastion of the self, the last presumption that you were going to do something for him.” – Gerhard Forde

Robert Cunningham, professor of church history at Edinburgh 150 years ago, on the doctrines of grace:

“There is not a converted and believing man on earth, in whose conscience there does not exist at least the germ, or embryo, of a testimony in favour of the substance of the Calvinistic doctrine of election.

This testimony may be misunderstood, or perverted, or suppressed; but it exists in the ineradicable sense which every converted man has, that if God had not chosen him, he never would have chosen God, and that if God, by His Spirit, had not exerted a decisive and determining influence in the matter, he never would have turned from darkness to light, and been led to embrace Christ as his Saviour.

This is really the sum and substance of Calvinism. It is just the intelligent and hearty ascription of the entire, undivided glory of their salvation, by all who are saved, to the sovereign purpose, the infinite merit, and the almighty agency of God–the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” – Robert Cunningham, The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation (T&T Clark, 1862), 209

“Man’s will is free to follow his inclinations, but fallen man’s inclinations are always and invariably away from God.” – R.C. Sproul

“Jesus is no longer visible upon earth; but he has promised his spiritual presence to abide with his word, ordinances and people, to the end of time. Weary and heavy laden souls have now no need to take a long journey to seek him, but he is always near them, and in a spiritual manner, where his Gospel is preached… Therefore, come unto him. That is, raise your hearts, and breathe forth your complaints to him… He is just such a Savior as your circumstances require, as you yourself could wish for.” – John Newton, Works (Edinburgh, 1988), II:462.

“How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Luke 11:13

In a sermon preached in 1740, Jonathan Edwards pointed out that we ask God for basically two kinds of things. We ask him for temporal blessings like health and jobs and family needs. We also ask him for spiritual blessings. But Edwards noted how much more frequently and fervently we ask for temporal blessings:

“They don’t need any preaching to stir them up to take thorough care to obtain those outward things… And if they begin to suffer for want of those things, how much do they make of their sufferings!… Had God nothing better to bestow upon you, when he had made you his children, than a little money or land, that you seem so much to behave yourselves as if you thought this was your chief good?… I am bold to say that God is now offering the blessing of his Holy Spirit to this town, and I am bold to say we may have it only for the asking.”

“You will not be able to extemporize good thinking unless you have been in the habit of thinking and feeding your mind with abundant and nourishing food. Work hard at every available moment. Store your minds very richly, and then, like merchants with crowded warehouses, you will have goods ready for your customers, and having arranged your good things upon the shelves of your mind, you will be able to hand them down at any time without the laborious process of going to market, sorting, folding, and preparing… Take it as a rule without exception, that to be able to overflow spontaneously you must be full.” – C. H. Spurgeon
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Fearfully and wonderfully made

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Psalm 139: 13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Here’s an animated video of how a baby develops:

Spurgeon’s One Qualm with Pilgrim’s Progress

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Charles Spurgeon loved John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. He first read the book as a young boy, and he began his commentary on the classic with these words: “Next to the Bible, the book I value most is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. I believe I have read it through at least a hundred times. It is a volume of which I never seem to tire; and the secret of its freshness is that it is so largely compiled from the Scriptures.” As Spurgeon said elsewhere, he loved Bunyan because Bunyan bled Bible. But he did have one qualm with the great book:

I am a great lover of John Bunyan, but I do not believe him infallible; and the other day I met with a story about him which I think a very good one.

There was a young man, in Edinburgh, who wished to be a missionary. He was a wise young man; he thought—”If I am to be a missionary, there is no need for me to transport myself far away from home; I may as well be a missionary in Edinburgh.”

Well, this young man started, and determined to speak to the first person he met. He met one of those old fishwives; those of us who have seen them can never forget them, they are extraordinary women indeed. So, stepping up to her, he said, “Here you are, coming along with your burden on your back; let me ask you if you have got another burden, a spiritual burden.”

“What!” she asked; “do you mean that burden in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress? Because, if you do, young man, I got rid of that many years ago, probably before you were born. But I went a better way to work than the pilgrim did. The evangelist that John Bunyan talks about was one of your parsons that do not preach the gospel; for he said, ‘Keep that light in thine eye, and run to the wicket-gate.’ Why—man alive!—that was not the place for him to run to. He should have said, ‘Do you see that cross? Run there at once!’ But, instead of that, he sent the poor pilgrim to the wicket-gate first; and much good he got by going there! He got tumbling into the slough, and was like to have been killed by it.”
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Should a Christian vote for a Mormon to be President?

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According to the New Testament, part of a Christian pastor’s job assignment is to warn his congregation concerning false teaching. It is entirely right for him to say that the Jesus of Mormonism is the begotten offspring of an exalted man and one of his many wives who lives on a planet circling a star named Kolob, and his “gospel” is the message of how you, too, can be exalted to godhood. He should point out that the Mormon (LDS) Church denies Christ’s full deity and the “god” they worship is not eternal but merely an exalted man who has achieved godhood by obeying certain laws. He should make it clear that Christianity is actually closer to Islam than Mormonism as both Islam and Christianity affirm monotheism (there is only one God) while Mormonism is one of the most polytheistic religions in existence. It is therefore right for him to say that it is certainly not in any way compatible with biblical Christianity. Where a pastor goes astray is when he then says to his congregation, “you should not vote for any presidential candidate who holds to such beliefs.” Even while he makes people aware of the theological facts, all should be encouraged to vote according to their conscience.

Since writing the above I have come across an interesting article by Dr. Al Mohler on this theme found here, as well as this one by Kevin DeYoung called Mormonism 101.

and the word was God

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Pastor John, I am told that members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW’s) are trained for upwards of five hours every week just to reach Christians. That is a whole lot of time, I am sure you would agree.

Dr. James White once told me of an encounter he had where a JW recited a 2-3 minute speech about John 1:1 that he had memorized concerning Greek words and constructions. At the end of the speech Dr White, a noted New Testament Greek scholar, pulled out his Greek New Testament from the shelf and handed it to the man and asked him to show him what he (the JW) was saying from the text.

“What’s that?” the JW asked.

“Dr. White said, “it’s the Greek of John chapter one that you are so busy telling me about.”

The man then admitted that he did not know how to read Greek. He had memorized a very lengthy speech (no doubt, provided by the Watchtower group) but could not read a single Greek word.
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The Lord God made it all

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If you open the videos up to become full screen presentations, I think you will find these to be visually stunning. As I watch, words from Isaac Watts’ famous hymn “When I survey the wondrous cross” immediately come to mind, namely, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small…” And what a realm of nature it is!

The first video represents a year’s compilation of time lapse work by Dustin Farrell. All shot on the Canon 5D2 and processed in Adobe After Effects. The majority of the shots are in my beautiful home state of Arizona. Goblin Valley State Park and Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah also make an appearance.

Landscapes: Volume One from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

In Volume 2 Dustin Farrell once again shows off some of the beauty found in the state of Arizona and some parts of Utah.

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

More can be found here.

A Fourfold Repetition of Denial

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I was shocked one day when studying the original Greek of Hebrews 13:5. In this verse there is a fourfold repetition of denial showing the absolute impossibility of God leaving or forsaking one of His own children (literally “I will not cease from holding you up”).

This repeated denial is brought out most clearly in the Amplified Bible where it says:

“for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down relax My hold on you)! Assuredly not!]”

The word of God has not failed

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Romans 9: 1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

After the crescendo of revelation in Romans 8, Paul now attempts to deal with an objection that he knows would be mounted against all he has communicated so far, namely, “If it is impossible for the people of God to be separated from God’s love, why is it that most of the Jews now stand in just such a condition?”

Most of Israel did not embrace Jesus as Messiah. As such, there is no salvation for them. Paul desires this with a fervent passion (Romans 10: 1Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.) But it still needs to be explained why a nation who are His special chosen ones failed to come in to the kingdom of God at the very height of Israelite ministry, the time all the prophets had pointed to for generations; the coming of the long awaited Messiah.

Many theologians, in failing to recognize that this is indeed what Paul is seeking to do here, also fail to see the point of the three chapters of Romans 9-11. Some have even gone so far as to say that these chapters are something of an apolostolic digression – that Paul went down a theological rabbit trail – and we should wait for him to emerge back up from the hole at chapter 12, when he comes back to the point of our response to the gospel.

I could not disagree more. Paul is doing what he knows must be done – defend the integrity of God and His promise. Paul is a Jew and it grieves him tremendously that his fellow Jews (as a whole) failed to recognize Messiah when He came.

The theme of God’s righteousness is central to Paul in this epistle (Romans 1:16, 17; 3:21-27; 5:17-21; 8:4) and so he understands that God’s very righteousness is on the line if there are all the many promises made to Israel and in the end, none of them happen. “What is at stake ultimately in these chapters is not the fate of Israel; that is penultimate. Ultimately God’s own trustworthiness is at stake. And if God’s word of promise cannot be trusted to stand forever, then all our faith is vain.” – John Piper

That’s why all the opening verses of Romans 9 are a preamble to talk on this issue in the sixth verse – Paul wants to tell us with apostolic authority that God’s word has not failed at all and he wants to explain why this is the case.

On the way there, he tells us of his apostolic heart for Israel (verses 1-3). Paul was no mere theological brain without a heart. Paul was so consumed with love for Israel that if it were possible (which it isn’t) he would revoke his own election if it might mean the salvation of the Jews.

This is so important to recognize. Many who embrace the doctrine of election share no passion whatsoever to reach lost people. Paul proclaimed Divine Sovereignty in salvation at least as much as any other apostle, and yet no one could doubt Paul’s tremendous compassion for those lost in their spiritual blindness.

Some see election as a dampener to evangelism, yet they do so without any biblical precedent. For Paul, election is the fuel in the tank FOR evangelism… Just as Jesus has many others not of this fold, and that is why He must proclaim the kingdom elsewhere (John 10:16; Luke 4:43)… so Paul recognizes that God has His people everywhere and He must go reach them by preaching. Without election, evangelism would be tantamount to the frustration a salesman would have trying to sell his wares in a graveyard. The dead do not buy anything, and likewise, spiritually dead people do not come to Christ. God elects people and through the proclamation of the gospel (the effectual call, Romans 8:29-30), raises these ones to spiritual life (being born again or born from above) so that they respond in faith to the message.

THE SPIRITUAL PRIVILEGES OF ISRAEL

Jesus said “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). This is a fact borne out by the fact that the Old Testament is a Jewish book, Jesus is a Jew, and most of the New Testament was written by Jews also. Humanly speaking, Gentiles owe a great debt of gratitude to the Jews. Indeed, the very book we are reading (Romans) is written by a Jew.
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