(1) I encourage you to check out the Reformation apparel by clicking on the Missionalwear logo to the right. There are some very cool items that have now become available for both men and women.

(2) Something to bookmark: Monergism Q&A – 22 Common Objections to Christianity from Skeptics by Steve Hays there are more than 700 posts on this blog covering a very wide range of topics. There is a listing of categories on the right hand side of this, the main page, and there is now also (at the top right) a search engine feature which allows you to search this blog for specific articles. I hope you enjoy this new feature.

(4) Ouch!!:

(5) A Reminder: Ligonier has some SUPER deals today in this week’s $5 Friday sale. The online sale starts at 8 a.m. EST and goes on for 24 hours or until items are sold out. Check out the $5 Ligonier sale here.

By the way, remember that for any purchase at Ligonier, click on the green Ligonier Ministries image to the right and when placing an order, use the code “EGRACE10” and it will give you a 10% discount as a reader of this blog.

(6) Some quotes I came across:

Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.” – Psalm 126:2

“Should we not see that lines of laughter about the eyes are just as much marks of faith as are the lines of care and seriousness? Is it only earnestness that is baptized? Is laughter pagan? We have already allowed too much that is good to be lost to the church and cast many pearls before swine. A church is in a bad way when it banishes laughter from the sanctuary and leaves it to the cabaret, the nightclub, and the toastmasters.” – Helmut Thielicke, Encounter with Spurgeon (Fortress, 1963), 26

“The church’s greatest troublemakers (now as then) are not those outside who oppose, ridicule and persecute it, but those inside who try to change the gospel.” – John Stott

“This distinction [between law and gospel] must be observed all the more when the Law wants to force me to abandon Christ and His Gospel boon. In that emergency I must abandon the Law and say: Dear Law, if I have not done the works I should have done, do them yourself. I will not, for your sake, allow myself to be plagued to death, taken captive, and kept under your thraldom and thus forget the Gospel. Whether I have sinned, done wrong, or failed in any duty, let that be your concern, O Law. Away with you and let my heart alone; I have no room for you in my heart. But if you require me to lead a godly life here on earth, that I shall gladly do. If, however, like a housebreaker, you want to climb in where you do not belong, causing me to lose what has been given me, I would rather not know you at all than abandon my gift.” – Martin Luther, quoted in C. F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel (St. Louis, 1928), pages 46-47.

“If you are not a loyal servant of the King, a sheep who follows the Shepherd, a disciple who has forsaken everything, or a believer who has turned his back on a lifestyle of sin, then you are neither a servant, a sheep, a disciple, or a believer – at least not yet. Repent and believe the Gospel, lest you die in your sins and face the eternal wrath of God as many professing christians before you.” – Justin Edwards

“I know I am nothing,” say you. Yes, but you would not even have had grace enough to know you were nothing if God had not given it to you. To be nothing is ours by nature: but to know that we are nothing and to confess that we are nothing is a gift of his grace.” – C. H. Spurgeon.

“Grace does not run in the blood, but corruption does. A sinner begets a sinner, but a saint does not beget a saint.” – Matthew Henry

“Of course any contemporary observer who saw Christ die would have listened with astonished credulity to the claim that the Crucified was a Conquerer. Had he not been rejected by his own nation, betrayed, denied and deserted by his own disciples, and executed by authority of the Roman procurator? Look at him there, spread-eagled and skewered on a cross, robbed of all freedom of movement, strung up with nails or ropes or both, pinned there and powerless. It appears to be total defeat. If there is victory, it is the victory of pride, prejudice, jealousy, hatred, cowardice and brutality. Yet the Christian claim is that the reality is the opposite of the appearance. What looks like (and indeed was) the defeat of goodness by evil is also, and more certainly, the defeat of evil by goodness. Overcome there, he was himself overcoming. Crushed by the ruthless power of Rome, he was himself crushing the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15). The victim was the victor, and the cross is still the throne from which he rules the world.” – John Stott, The Cross of Christ

“He turns the Roman gibbet of the cross into a triumphant chariot on which He rides in triumph over all His enemies.” – John Calvin