I don’t think this would be appropriate if part of a sermon in a church service, but apparently, in this video, guest speaker Dennis Swanberg is performing a concert. There is definitely a place for humor in the Christian life and this story is outstandingly funny! It has had more than 9 million views on youtube. Enjoy!
HT: KDY
PENDULUM SWING – Though at one stage in Church history, the Church over-emphasized the wrath and judgment of God (many were rightly categorized as “hellfire and damnation preachers”); yet now the pendulum has fully swung the other way and all that many people have ever heard about is a very shallow and unbiblical idea of the love of God. People no longer live in the fear of God, and yet the Bible tells us “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” In His love, God sent His Son to save sinners from His fierce and just wrath against sin. How urgent it is that all flee to Christ for He is the only authorized refuge, the only Savior and holy sin-bearer for all who trust in Him.
(1) Thank you for all the messages sent to me expressing interest in my forthcoming book (mentioned yesterday here on the blog). Content wise, the book is finished, although it is being proof read to try to eliminate any glaring errors of spelling and such like before it is published in an e-book form. I feel like I have poured my very heart and soul into it. I now understand those who say writing a book is a lot like giving birth to a baby. It is hard to explain but there are many parallels.
I pray that the book may be a tool in the hands of the Lord to bless many in the Body of Christ. I dont know of any other material out there that fulfills the same purpose for which I wrote it and I hope it can be a practical guide for people. I also hope it could be a valuable resource for pastors and churches seeking to help those working through the most common objections to the biblical doctrine of election. There’s no pre-publication sign up to get the book but I will certainly keep you posted regarding its availability. Thanks once again.
(2) Ligonier has some items well worth checking out in their $5 Friday sale. Its worth checking out the selection this week to see if anything is of interest. Check out the $5 Ligonier sale here while supplies last.
(3) This morning I read Mike Riccardi’s article “The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News.” Mike builds on the insights of John Piper and gives us a wonderful reminder of what the Gospel does for us and where it is intended to take us. Mike writes:
In 2 Corinthians 4:4 Paul defines spiritual death as blindness to glory. Last Friday we looked into God’s prescription for that blindness. In the sovereign exercise of His will, God shines in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. He overcomes our resistance to the Gospel—caused by our blindness to glory—by giving us the light needed to see things as they actually are. This is the miracle of regeneration.
The Deepest Level of God’s Redemptive Work
Along with understanding this sovereign prescription, we observed that in 2 Cor 4:4 and 4:6 Paul outlines three levels of God’s redemptive work, and that as we progress through each level we come to greater depth and greater ultimacy in God’s work of salvation. God has shone in our hearts to give the Light (that’s level 1) of the knowledge, or of the gospel (that’s level 2), of the glory of God in the face of Christ (that’s level 3). This is the deepest level of the redemptive work of God. This is what our eyes are opened to see. This is what salvation is about!
Can you see that in the text? Paul calls the gospel “the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” And Scripture frequently speaks of salvation in these terms. Hebrews 2:10 describes Jesus’ ministry of salvation as “bringing many sons to glory.” 1 Peter 3:18 says that Christ suffered once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that He might bring us to God. And 2 Thessalonians 2:13–14 says it in a shockingly clear way: God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Did you catch that? The gospel is the means by which you will gain the glory of Christ. Our gospel is the gospel of the glory. This means that what the Good News consists in—what the gospel is about—is the glory of God in Christ. Seeing and enjoying the glory of God in the face of Christ is what makes the Good News good news.
I’m very thankful for the heavy emphasis that is being placed on gospel-centrality in contemporary conservative evangelism. It’s not uncommon to hear the glory of the gospel celebrated from many pulpits. But I hope that those who most readily identify themselves as gospel-centered realize that the gospel is glory-centered. We can (and must!) love the glory of the gospel. But we need to recognize that that gospel is the gospel of the glory. And therefore, when we preach the gospel, we must do so in a way consistent with the reality that what makes the Good News good news is that we can finally see and enjoy the glory of God revealed in the face of Christ.
The Scriptures Don’t Stop at Level Two
Unfortunately, many of the gospel presentations I hear stop at level two. So many Christians preach the gospel as if man was the ultimate goal in salvation. They tell people that Jesus died for them, and then they stop there. As if the Good News is that God just loved (wuvved?) us so much that He couldn’t live without us and so He died to be with us. But can you hear how much of us that makes? The problem is that that is not what God’s love does. God’s love expressed in His shining the Light of life into our dead hearts was not so that we would look at the Cross and see our worth, but so that we could finally see and enjoy His worth. We are not God’s ultimate goal in salvation. The gospel is the gospel of the glory. Ultimately, the reason that God saves any sinner is to manifest His own glory.
Listen to what Scripture says about God’s motivation, His goal, in saving sinners:
•Isaiah 43:25 – “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake.”
•Ezekiel 36:22 – “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.”
•Titus 2:14 – Christ “gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession.”
•And in the opening section in Ephesians 1, Paul says three times that salvation is designed for the praise of God’s glory (Eph 1:6, 12, 14).A God-Centeredness that is Really Man-Centeredness
Of course, few Christians are going to deny that; a lot of people are happy to confess that we should be God-centered. The problem is that they may be happy about being God-centered because they really believe that God is man-centered. Then their God-centeredness is really man-centeredness. They say their joy is in God, but really their joy is in themselves. They’re happy to worship God, just as long as God worships them.
But the love of God displayed in the Gospel is not that He makes much of us! The love of God displayed in the Gospel is He shines Light that cures our blindness to glory, and thus liberates us from our suicidal love affair with sin so that—rather than only being able to be satisfied by being made much of—we can be entirely satisfied in the depths of our souls by making much of Him forever. We are freed to find our joy in the exaltation of Another.
Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. But finish the sentence! He did that for a purpose: so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. And what is eternal life? John 17:3: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, Father, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” God’s goal in sending Christ was not to show humanity how valuable we were; His goal was to give us the eyes to see how valuable He is. He shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
God’s Love to Us is not First to Us, but to Himself
But because so many people have imbibed our culture’s distorted definition of love as being made much of, many people—maybe some of you reading this—have a hard time feeling loved when they hear that God loves them for His own sake. But loving someone is not making them feel good about themselves. Loving someone is doing what is best for them. And what is best for me, and best for you—what will most satisfy our souls and give us true and abiding joy—is to see the glory of God for which we were made. God’s own self-exaltation isn’t arrogance, but love.
And there is a wealth of satisfaction in feeling loved that way. I feel so safe, so protected, so loved by the fact that I am not uppermost in God’s affections, but that He is. Because I am not the basis of my security; He is. In fact, we will never understand the sweet fullness of what it means to be loved by God—we will never know the breadth and length and height and depth of this love that surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:18–19)—until we understand that God’s love to us is not first to us, but to Himself.
John Piper nails it: “God loves His glory more than He loves us and…this is the foundation of His love for us” (Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 7). Because it is in loving Himself, in magnifying Himself, in displaying Himself, that you and I are able to see and enjoy the only thing that can truly satisfy our heart: the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Conclusion
The Good News is not merely that Jesus died for us. The Good News is that Jesus died for us in order to bring us to God (1Pet 3:18). The Good News is not merely that God gave His beloved Son for us. The Good News is that God gave His beloved Son for us to bring us to an eternity of seeing and knowing and loving and worshiping Him. The loving, atoning work of Christ in the gospel is a means to a greater end: that the people God has created would finally glorify Him by enjoying and being satisfied by His glory—the glory for which they were created (Isa 43:7).
Let us never forget that the gospel we proclaim is the gospel of the glory.
“To get at the nature of that faith, or some other virtuous disposition? Here’s the way J. Gresham Machen answers this question in his 1925 book What Is Faith? ‘The true reason why faith is given such an exclusive place by the New Testament, so far as the attainment of salvation is concerned, over against love and over against everything else in man is that faith means receiving something, not doing something or even being something. To say, therefore, that our faith saves us means that we do not save ourselves even in slightest measure, but that God saves us.’
In other words, we are justified by faith alone, and not by love, because God intends to make it crystal clear that he does the decisive saving outside of us, and that the person and work of Christ are the sole ground of our acceptance with God.”
–John Piper, Think! The Life of the Mind and the Love of God
Some time back I alerted readers that I was seeking to finish writing a book by the end of the month of November. Well here in my office as I look at the clock it is 11:25 p.m. on Thursday, November 30 and I am pleased to say that with the deadline I set myself only 35 minutes away, the writing content of the book is now finished! Praise the Lord!
Here’s the contents page:
FOREWARD BY JOHN HENDRYX
A WORD TO THE READER
THE PLACE TO START: AMAZED BY COMMON GRACE
A SURPRISING JOURNEY
WHAT ABOUT THE LOVE OF GOD? (PART 1)
WHAT ABOUT THE LOVE OF GOD? (PART 2)
WHAT ABOUT FREE WILL?
WHAT ABOUT GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE?
WHAT ABOUT JOHN 3:16?
WHAT ABOUT 2 PETER 3:9?
WHAT ABOUT 1 TIMOTHY 2:4?
WHAT ABOUT MATTHEW 23:37?
WHAT ABOUT 1 TIMOTHY 4:10?
WHAT ABOUT JOHN 12:32?
WHAT ABOUT REPROBATION?
WHAT ABOUT LOST LOVED ONES?
WHAT ABOUT PRAYER AND EVANGELISM?
AS THE KING’S HERALD
SOME RECOMMENDED READING
What happens next?
I will submit the draft of the book to a couple of proof readers to look for spelling errors and such like; then once that is done, I will submit the book to the publisher. God willing, a short foreward by John Hendryx will then be written and bada boom bada bing – it should be available within the next couple of weeks.
I was going to write a lengthy introductory chapter talking about what the book is all about, who it is written for and who will gain the most from it. In the end I just wrote this:
Question: WHY THIS BOOK?
Answer: For the glory of God
Question: WHO IS THIS BOOK WRITTEN FOR?
Answer: Christians who believe the Bible is the word of God and who wish to gain a biblical understanding of God’s electing grace in Christ.
Question: WHO WILL GAIN MOST FROM THE BOOK?
Answer: Those who are willing to test and examine their traditions and hold them up to the light of Scripture, the sole infallible rule of faith for the people of God.
This is not an easy process at times, more for emotional rather than intellectual reasons. Many of us have been told things by highly respected people in their lives (such as the person who led us to Christ, or a revered pastor or Bible teacher, or a father or mother in the faith) which, upon analysis, may not in fact be true. Sometimes, to actually test such statements can feel like an act of betrayal on our part. Yet, it is vital for all who desire to be led by the Spirit of truth to yield to Him leading rather than maintain an emotional allegiance to what many call “theological love lines.”
Question: WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE BOOK?
Answer: That each Christian who reads it will enjoy more of their blessed inheritance in Christ, knowing the Father’s love, grace and mercy in ways they might never have known before.
Interested?
Read on…
Two people have read excerpts from the book and at various times, both have indicated that they were moved to tears. Tears, because God touched them very deeply during the reading. How encouraging this was to me. I am praying that God will touch many people as they ineract with the content.
This book has been born out of a lot of mental and heartfelt wrestling with the Scriptures over many years. Only the Lord knows the depth of my own personal struggle to come to see the truths I write about, yet it has been the most grace filled and loved filled journey of my lifetime – a rediscovery of the God who went looking for His wayward sheep. My prayer is that God will use it in any way He wishes to cause many of God’s precious people to be edified in their faith.
Thanks so much for all your prayers. May God use this little book like he did the small smooth stone in the sling of a young man named David and fell the giant called “tradition” in many hearts and minds.
Traditions can be very strong. This truth is perhaps never more reflected than in how this particular verse is usually interpreted.
I recently asked an adult group to turn to Matthew 23:37 in their own Bibles and follow along with me. I told them to listen to my words while reading the text in front of them. I asked them to pay close attention to my words because I alerted them ahead of time that I would be omitting two important words from the text while I read it out loud. I told them that I wished to see if they could identify which two words I was omitting.
I read the verse out loud as follows:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, and you would not!”
There was silence from the group.
Then I repeated the process. As I completed the second reading I looked and saw heads buried in their Bibles, but no one spoke up. No one said a word.
I waited another 20 seconds and then said “alright, let me read it again” and repeated the process.
What happened next?
Well, even when telling them to watch out for my intentional omission, it was only after my fourth reading through of the verse that one individual raised their hand to indicate they had the correct answer. Fourth time through one of the adults spotted the fact that I had omitted the words “your children” from the reading.
I acknowledged the correct answer and then the fifth time through, I read the text the way it actually reads in the Bible, this time emphasizing the words I had previously failed to include.
Matthew 23:37 actually reads:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered YOUR CHILDREN together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”
What difference does this all make? Everything in the world, as I will seek to explain.
Continue reading
by Keith & Kristyn Getty
By faith we see the hand of God
In the light of creation’s grand design
In the lives of those who prove His faithfulness
Who walk by faith and not by sight
By faith our fathers roamed the earth
With the power of His promise in their hearts
Of a holy city built by God’s own hand
A place where peace and justice reign
We will stand as children of the promise
We will fix our eyes on Him our soul’s reward
Till the race is finished and the work is done
We’ll walk by faith and not by sight
By faith the prophets saw a day
When the longed-for Messiah would appear
With the power to break the chains of sin and death
And rise triumphant from the grave
By faith the church was called to go
In the power of the Spirit to the lost
To deliver captives and to preach good news
In every corner of the earth
We will stand as children of the promise
We will fix our eyes on Him our soul’s reward
Till the race is finished and the work is done
We’ll walk by faith and not by sight
By faith this mountain shall be moved
And the power of the gospel shall prevail
For we know in Christ all things are possible
For all who call upon His name
We will stand as children of the promise
We will fix our eyes on Him our soul’s reward
Till the race is finished and the work is done
We’ll walk by faith and not by sight