An excerpt from a message by Dr. Sam Storms:
Spurgeon’s Prophetic Preaching
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Monthly Archives: October 2013
The truth about Luther’s devotion to Mary
James Swan sheds some much needed light on the subject here.
Extra-Ordinary Works of the Spirit within Cessationist Theology
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Of the many trees in the Garden, God banned Adam and Eve from eating from one — just one (Genesis 2:16–17, 3:1–3, 11). Why?
Dr. John Piper recently gave the question some fresh thinking, which he shares in an episode of Ask Pastor John:
The function of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is to make sure that the pleasures of all the other trees in the garden are supremely pleasures in God.
The command went like this: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (Genesis 2:16–17).
So what was God saying in prohibiting the eating of one tree out of a million trees? He was saying, “I have given you life. I have given you a world full of pleasure, pleasures of taste and sight and sound and smell and feel and nourishment. Only one tree is forbidden to you. And the point of that prohibition is to preserve the pleasures of the world, because if you eat of that one you will be saying to me, ‘I’m smarter than you. I am more authoritative that you. I am wiser than you are. I think I can care for myself better than you care for me. You are not a very good Father. And so I am going to reject you.’ So don’t eat from the tree, because you will be rejecting me and all my good gifts and all my wisdom and all my care. Instead, keep on submitting to my will. Keep on affirming my wisdom. Keep on being thankful for my generosity. Keep on trusting me as a Father and keep on eating these trees as a way of enjoying me. There are 10,000 trees, every imaginable fruit. Just go eat. Be thankful. I have given them to you and see them as expressions of my goodness and savor them that way.”
And Satan comes along, and he takes that arrangement and says, “Hey, Eve, the meaning of that arrangement is: God is selfish. God is stingy. He is a skinflint.” So he took the prohibition of one suicidal tree and treated it as a prohibition of everything.
So the issue of the tree is this: Will we keep looking to God as the giver and lover and treasure of this garden so that all our eating is thanking and all our savoring is a savoring of God? Will we keep on experiencing every one of these tastes as a tasting of something like what God is, and in that sense a tasting of God? Will we keep on enjoying God in the enjoying of the trees?
That is what the forbidden tree was there to test.
I think a lot of people try to set that up as merely arbitrary: Will man obey? Or will he not obey? And they don’t put it in the context of his fatherly care and all the goods that he has given. I don’t think it is arbitrary like that.
It was a warning. “If you choose independence instead of God-dependence, you will lose the pleasure of the garden and God with it.”
“If you keep trusting me and enjoying me as your greatest delight and highest treasure, you will have this garden and I will be the pleasure of all your pleasures.”
The forbidding one tree is a way of securing that the pleasures of all the other trees in the garden are supremely pleasures in God.
Heaven for Eternity?
In an article entitled “Where God’s People Go When They Die,” Randy Alcorn writes:
Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. — 1 Thessalonians 4:13
When Marco Polo returned to Italy from the court of Kublai Khan, he described a world his audience had never seen—one that could be understood only through the eyes of imagination. Not that China was an imaginary realm, but it was very different from Italy. Yet, as two locations on planet Earth inhabited by human beings, they had much in common. The reference points of Italy allowed a basis for understanding China, and the differences could be spelled out from there.
The writers of Scripture present Heaven in many ways; for instance, as a garden, a city, a country, and a kingdom. We’re familiar with gardens, cities, countries, and kingdoms; they serve as mental bridges to help us understand Heaven.
Usually when we refer to Heaven, we mean the place where Christians go when they die. When we tell our children, “Grandma’s now in Heaven,” we’re referring to the intermediate, or present, Heaven. The term intermediate doesn’t mean it is halfway between Heaven and Hell, in some kind of purgatory or second-rate place. The intermediate Heaven is fully Heaven, fully in God’s presence, but it is intermediate in the sense that it’s temporary, not our final destination. Though it is a wonderful place, and we’ll love it there, it is not the place we are ultimately made for, and it is not the place where we will live forever. God has destined his children to live as resurrected beings on a resurrected Earth.
So, as wonderful as the intermediate Heaven is, we must not lose sight of our true destination, the New Earth, which will also be in God’s presence (because that’s what Heaven is, the central place of God’s dwelling).
Will Christians live in Heaven forever? The answer depends on what we mean by Heaven. Will we be with the Lord forever? Absolutely. Will we always be with him in exactly the same place that Heaven is now? No.
In the present Heaven, everyone is in Christ’s presence, and everyone is joyful. But everyone is also looking forward to Christ’s return to Earth, when they will experience their resurrection and walk on the earth again.
It may seem strange to say that the Heaven we go to at death isn’t eternal, but it’s true. Let me suggest an analogy to illustrate the difference between the intermediate Heaven and the eternal Heaven. Suppose you live in a homeless shelter in Miami. One day you inherit a beautiful house in Santa Barbara, California, fully furnished, on a gorgeous hillside overlooking the ocean. With the home comes a wonderful job doing something you’ve always wanted to do. Not only that, but you’ll also be near close family members who moved from Miami many years ago.
On your flight to Santa Barbara, you’ll change planes in Denver, where you’ll spend an afternoon. Some other family members, whom you haven’t seen in years, will meet you at the Denver airport and board the plane with you to Santa Barbara, where they have inherited their own beautiful houses on another part of the same vast estate. Naturally, you look forward to seeing them. Now, when the Miami ticket agent asks you, “Where are you headed?” would you say, “Denver”? No. You would say, “Santa Barbara,” because that’s your final destination. If you mentioned Denver at all, you would say, “I’m going to Santa Barbara by way of Denver.”
When you talk to your friends in Miami about where you’re going to live, would you focus on Denver? No. You might not even mention Denver, even though you will be a Denver-dweller for several hours. Even if you left the airport and spent a day or a week in Denver, it still wouldn’t be your focus. Denver is just a stop along the way. Your true destination—your new long-term home—is in Santa Barbara.
Similarly, the Heaven we will go to when we die, the intermediate Heaven, is a temporary dwelling place. It’s a wonderfully nice place (much better than the Denver airport!), but it’s still a stop along the way to our final destination: the New Earth. It will be great to see friends and family in the present Heaven whom we haven’t seen for a while. But like us, they will be looking forward to the resurrection, after which we will actually live on the estate that God is preparing for us.
Another analogy is more precise but also more difficult to envision, because for most of us it’s outside our experience. Imagine leaving the homeless shelter in Miami and flying to the intermediate location, Denver, and then turning around and going back to your city of origin, which has been completely renovated—a New Miami. In this New Miami, you would no longer live in a homeless shelter but in a beautiful house in a glorious pollution-free, crime-free, sin-free city. So you would end up living not in a new home but in a radically improved version of your old home.
This is what the Bible promises us—we will live with Christ and one another forever, not in the present Heaven, but on the New Earth, which God will make into Heaven by virtue of the location of his throne and his presence, and where he will forever be at home with his people.
May the Lord be with you
A short article by Adrian Warnock – original found not least because it is also clear that the Lord sometimes departs from someone. This was a major prompt for Saul’s jealousy of David.
As usual when considering something like this it is useful to look at other passages where this phrase is used. What are the marks of The Lord being with you?
God grants you success. Here, David’s success is attributed to The Lord being with him. We see the same thing in a number of other places, including Joseph in Genesis 39:1-3, and also 2 Kings 18:7. We see in Judges 1:19 that this success is sometimes only partial.
You receive favour from others. Here we see this described as the people loving David. For Joseph the favour leads to promotion.
Some will fear you. Saul here is not just jealous but actually terrified of him. Some leaders today inspire a similar sense almost of awe. Those who do shouldn’t abuse that.
God demonstrates steadfast love to you. (Genesis 39:21)
You inspire trust from others with minimal oversight. (Genesis 39:23)
Fame may be granted to you (Joshua 6:27). When we are evaluating successful ministries today, we do well to recognise that, at least in some cases, fame will have been granted someone because God is with them. We should not reflexly reject popular ministries.
Blessing is shared with those who are associated with the one God is with. (Judges 2:18). Note that when a Judge died Gods stopped overlooking his people’s sin.
God establishes your word. ( 1 Samuel 3:19-20). A major part of leadership is making decisions and having others want to follow them. Often ineffective leader’s words “fall to the ground” and simply be ignored?
The hand of The Lord is also associated with the miraculous (Luke 1:63-66).
In the New Testament a clear mark of God being with you is a great number of people being saved. (Acts 11:21). Spurgeon urged his students to expect salvations every time the word is preached.
Why is God with some people more than others? Mostly the answer to that seems to be simply grace. God is more favorable to some than others, though he does this in order that all may be blessed through his anointed.
But we do see hints that there are some things that we can do to increase the extent God is with us. So, for example, it is said of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 17:3-4 that God was with him because he walked obediently and purely before God rather than turning after idols.
No wonder then that we are wise to pray “God, be with me!” And when selecting a leader today we do well to choose someone who God is clearly with in a particular way.
Ad Hominem
A Response to Jason Reed’s Conversion to Rome
Dr. James White: I responded to the “conversion testimony” (note how it is a story of conversion not to Christ, but to a system of religion) by former Southern Evangelical Seminary professor Jason Reed today. This is a very important discussion, and it is one I hope will be helpful to those watching the developments at SES in regards to a wave of apostasy to Rome. Very important lessons about how it is not enough to be “non-Catholic” but instead how one must have a passionate, positive commitment to the very heart of the gospel to truly understand the depth of Rome’s errors. I truly believe Reed’s testimony illustrates to the fullest the need for Christians to understand the true necessity of such truths as sola scriptura, sola gratia, and sola fide. Clearly, Reed never had any commitment, or, it seems, by his own testimony, meaningful knowledge, of these truths.
Miscellaneous Quotes (92)
“Touching His human nature, Jesus is no longer present with us. Touching his Divine nature, He is never absent from us.” – R.C. Sproul
“Conscience is the internal perception of God’s moral Law.” – Oswald Chambers
“Do you know what sparked the Great Awakening? It was a series of sermons Edwards preached in 1734 on ‘Justification By Faith’ in response to what he considered to be the greatest danger to America. Do you know what he saw as the greatest danger to America? It would ruin the colonies, Edwards said. ARMINIANISM – a plague that would rob God of His glory. It was a plague that would strip the church of the power of God and diminish the worship of God. It was a faulty theology that was centered upon man that brought God down to man’s terms. That’s what Arminianism is my friends.” – Steven Lawson
“If you were asked to define the difference between a Calvinist and a hyper-Calvinist, how would you do it? It is a question worth asking for this reason; I know large numbers of people who, when they use the term ‘hyper-Calvinist’ generally mean Calvinist [and vice-versa]. In other words, they do not know what a hyper-Calvinist is. A hyper-Calvinist is one who says that the offer of salvation is only made to the redeemed, and that no preacher of the Gospel should preach Christ and offer salvation to all and sundry. A hyper-Calvinist regards anyone who offers, or who proclaims salvation to all as a dangerous person. For what its worth, there is a society in London at the moment that has described me as a dangerous Arminian because I preach Christ and offer salvation to all!” – Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Great Doctrines Of The Bible)
Someone Said: “Christians can’t use ‘circular reasoning’ by trying to prove the Bible by quoting from the Bible!”
Ray Comfort Answers: The “circular reasoning” argument is absurd. That’s like saying you can’t prove that the President lives in the White House by looking into the White House. It is looking into the White House that will provide the necessary proof. The fulfilled prophecies, the amazing consistency, and the many scientific statements of the Bible prove it to be the Word of God. They provide evidence that it is supernatural in origin.
“The meaning of atonement is not to be found in our penitence evoked by the sight of Calvary, but rather in what God did when in Christ on the cross He took our place and bore our sin.” – John Stott, The Cross of Christ
“[The] term ‘decide’ has always seemed to me to be quite wrong. A sinner does not ‘decide’ for Christ; the sinner ‘flies’ to Christ in utter helplessness and despair saying — Foul, I to the fountain fly, Wash me, Saviour, or I die.
No man truly comes to Christ unless he flies to Him as his only refuge and hope, his only way of escape from the accusations of conscience and the condemnation of God’s holy law. Nothing else is satisfactory. If a man says that having thought about the matter and having considered all sides he has on the whole decided for Christ, and if he has done so without any emotion or feeling, I cannot regard him as a man who has been regenerated. The convicted sinner no more ‘decides’ for Christ than the poor drowning man ‘decides’ to take hold of that rope that is thrown to him and suddenly provides him with the only means of escape. The term is entirely inappropriate.” – Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) taken from: Preaching and Preachers, Zondervan, 1972, pp. 279-280.
“We preachers do not preach hell enough, and we do not say enough about sin. We talk about the gospel and wonder why people are not interested in what we say. Of course they are not interested. No man is interested in a piece of good news unless he has the consciousness of needing it; no man is interested in an offer of salvation unless he knows that there is something from which he needs to be saved. It is quite useless to ask a man to adopt the Christian view of the gospel unless he first has the Christian view of sin. But a man will never adopt the Christian view of sin if he considers merely the sin of the world or the sins of other people. Consideration of the sins of other people is the deadliest of moral anodynes; it relieves the pain of conscience but it also destroys moral life. Many persons gloat over denunciations of that to which they are not tempted; or they even gloat over denunciations, in the case of other people, of sins which are also really theirs. King David was very severe when the prophet Nathan narrated to him his sordid tale of greed. ‘As the Lord liveth,’ said David, ‘the man that hath done this thing shall surely die.’ But Nathan was a disconcerting prophet. ‘And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.’ (II Samuel 12:5, 7) That was for David the beginning of a real sense of his sin. So it will also be with us.” – J. Gresham Machen
“You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by a few great things. If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on for centuries and into eternity, you don’t have to have a high IQ or EQ; you don’t have to have to have good looks or riches; you don’t have to come from a fine family or a fine school. You have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things, and be set on fire by them.” – John Piper: Boasting Only in the Cross, 2000
John Newton: “When we are deeply conscious of our defects in duty. If we compare our best performances with the demands of the law, the majesty of God, and the unspeakable obligations we are under; if we consider our innumerable sins of omission, and that the little we can do is polluted and defiled by the mixture of evil thoughts, and the working of selfish principles, aims, and motives, which though we disapprove, we are unable to suppress; we have great reason to confess, ‘To us belong shame and confusion of face.’
But we are relieved by the thought, that Jesus, the High Priest, bears the iniquity of our holy things, perfumes our prayers with the incense of his mediation, and washes our tears in his own blood.
This inspires a confidence, that though we are unworthy of the least of his mercies, we may humbly hope for a share in the greatest blessings he bestows, because we are heard and accepted, not on the account of our own prayers and services, but in the beloved Son of God, who maketh intercession for us.” (“The Intercession of Christ,” Sermon 47, The Works of John Newton, vol. 4, 1820 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2007), 531)
“Anything that keeps me from my Bible is my enemy, however harmless it may appear to be.” – A.W. Tozer
“Theology therefore, is to us, the ultimate and the noblest of all the exact teaching arts. It is a guide and master plan for our highest end, sent in a special manner from God, treating of divine things, tending towards God, and leading man to God.” – William Ames
“Love is not maximum emotion. Love is maximum commitment.” – Sinclair Ferguson
“We cannot use the doctrine of sanctification to renegotiate our acceptance with God.” – Scott Clark
The Parable of the Sailboat
Dr. Michael Horton, 2007, Evangelism Conference, Phoenix, Arizona:
Imagine you have a sailboat which has all the “bells and whistles” on it (a radio, fish finders, satellite, the most advanced mapping system imaginable, so that it can literally steer you to your destination).
You head out of the harbor under full sail.
After some time you find yourself in the middle of the ocean and there is a dead calm (there is no wind). Your radio tells you that there is a large storm coming.
It could be a very dangerous situation and you are now in trouble because right where you are, there is no wind at all and you are “dead in the water”. You do not have an engine, you depend on the wind – so you start paddling.
You are thrilled to have all the necessary technology to navigate your course, but all this technology can only tell you the depths of the trouble you are now in. What you need is the wind and the sail to get you back to the harbor.
A lot of Christians speed out of the harbor under full sail and get lost out there in the middle of the sea. They love the technology and want to hear of a new place to go, something to do because they are genuinely filled with gratitude for what God has done for them, but then eventually, the directions become another yoke of bondage if they do not get the wind (of the Gospel) in their sails.
What we assume is that we need the wind of the Gospel to get us out of the harbor; now people need the right equipment. But what we need to say is “no… they need the wind and the equipment, ALL the time.”
We need them for different things.
The law cannot do anything more in sanctification than it did in justification, but my relationship to the law is different than it was before – so that now, I am happy with the instruments and technology, because I WANT to follow where these instruments are directing me but ONLY the gospel can fill my sails and get me there.
So we do not live a law driven life, we live a GOSPEL driven life and a law directed life. The law directs but it cannot save. It tells you where to go but it cannot get you there. That is why we need to have the Gospel preached regularly.
Sermons that end with “how are you doing with all this?” do not put wind in your sails. That’s because on a good day, whatever the specifics of the question are, my answer is “honestly, what you are saying does not describe me, but it does describe Christ and His perfect righteousness, and He is not only given for me but indwells me by His Spirit.”
Sanctification is living out the effects of our union with Christ.
Whenever we say “we need more practical preaching” we are saying “we need more law” – now maybe we do need more law… more guidance as to what indeed is the will of God for our lives, but just know what you are saying when you say you need more practical preaching.
“Practical” means direction.. and maybe you do need this, but just realize what you are getting. If you think that “practical” is going to drive the Christian life, you’ve got another think coming.
If the GOSPEL is not plastered right, front and center, even for Christians who FAIL at those directions (Romans 3:20), then it is only going to lead to deeper and deeper despair.