Monthly Archives: August 2016

The World’s Map, History and Purpose

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Here are three videos which are definitely not normally put together…

World Map

“All of us have seen a world map at some point in our lives before, but it is very difficult to imagine how certain countries and parts of the world compare to each other in size that are far apart. In this video, we explore why the world looks very different than how it is portrayed in the Mercator Projection map. We then explore how certain countries are unexpectedly larger or smaller than what they appear to be, and how some places look wildly different than our perceptions.”

World History (Year by Year)

The End & Purpose of the World

Those who walk merely by sight will almost always despair at the conditions in the sin-sick world around them. In this session, Dr. R.C. Sproul will remind us that the world ultimately exists to make manifest the glory of Christ. He will affirm that in the midst of our hardships or in the midst of decline, God is on His throne, working all things according to the good pleasure of His will. He will encourage us by saying that while we labor in God’s name, the Lord does indeed reign.

Children and “Big Church”

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Dr. John Piper – original source South Carolina writes in to ask: “Pastor John, I’m wondering if there are situations in which a separate children’s time — in Sunday school rooms, completely apart from the Sunday gathering — are necessary. Our church is wrestling through this issue, as many families have infants, some have wandering and noisy toddlers, there are rambunctious 5 year olds, and we have three children of varying ages with special needs (like autism and Down Syndrome). The struggle is: Most parents want a break and thus desire the separate time for children while the adult service is going on, yet the children workers wish they were in the adult service and feel limited in their ability to control the behavior of the children. What should we do?”

I hope there is a strong leader in your church because weak leaders will never be able to stand up against the onslaught of criticism that is going to come if you try to do what I am going to suggest. When I came to Bethlehem as a pastor in 1980, one of the first issues I had to deal with was about the children in worship. We didn’t have a lot of them, but they were starting to come. And the people all wanted to know, what are we going to do? Are we going to have children’s sermon in the middle, the little three-minute delay where the children walk to the front? Are we going to have children’s church and then they come back in, maybe, if they don’t disappear when they are 13? Or what are we going to do?

So, my wife, Noel, and I teamed up. We haven’t done this quite like this since. We teamed up because we both felt unbelievably strongly about this, and we staked our lives on it. We teamed up and wrote a paper for our people arguing that we not have children’s church and that we not have a mini-children’s sermon in the service, but that parents or other responsible adults — if kids don’t have Christian parents — bring their children to the service after about four years old. We provided a nursery until then and eventually those nurseries, I put it in quotes, “became very God-focused and nurturing times to help get little children oriented on God and ready to go with mom and dad to the big service.”

That article that we wrote is at the Desiring God website. It is called, The Family: Together in God’s Presence. And I am going to quote from it, but I am going to leave off the very thing everybody wants to know; namely, how do you control kids? And that is the part my wife wrote. And so, if what I say here is at least provocative enough to get your interest, then go to the website and search for the article and read what my wife had to say about that. But I think really the big issue is concepts of worship and concepts of parenting and concepts of how things are transmitted to kids. Continue reading →

The Torments of Hell

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pendulum3One of the many things the Puritans were known for was their “hellfire and brimstone” preaching. In something of a reaction against this (or perhaps better stated as an “over-reaction”), like the swinging motion of a pendulum clock, the Church in our day can generally be characterized as never addressing the realities of hell. Yet if anyone was a fire and brimstone preacher, it was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The gospels reveal Him speaking more about hell than of heaven. In fact, virtually everything we know about hell comes from the lips of Jesus.

Dr. John Gerstner’s words here ring true: “The idea of a hell that involves some kind of eternal punishment at the hands of a just and holy God is so profoundly difficult for us to handle emotionally, that the only person who would have enough authority to convince us of the reality of such a place would be Jesus Himself.”

If it had been Paul or Peter or John, I think we would be very inclined to simply dismiss what we read as the ramblings of some discontented apostle who was mad at the world. But in His infinite wisdom, God did not entrust any of these men to be the one to tell us about hell. It was Jesus.

I recently heard a sermon by Dr. Steve Lawson in which he listed seven characteristics of hell taught to us by Jesus in the gospel of Matthew. After making notes on Dr. Lawson’s sermon, and knowing I was preaching on what it means to be saved (based on the sermon passage Ephesians 2:8-10), I decided to include the same scriptures in my own sermon this past Sunday. The verses written out here are deeply sobering and give each of us much to meditate on. As we do, I think all of us will have a heightened sense of the gravity of our sin and a greater appreciation for the wondrous salvation we have in Jesus Christ. May they also cause us to seek to reach out to lost people all around us who desperately need the gospel. Here are the scriptures then, along with a couple of quotes and comments:

1. Hell – a place of Fire

Starting with John the Baptist’s words: Matt 3:10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire … 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

(God’s wrath already abides on the unbeliever – John 3:36; Rom 1:18)

Reminder: As believers in Christ, we have been saved from this.

Jesus – Matt 5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Hell – in Greek, is the word ‘Gehenna’. Gehenna was the garbage dump of the city of Jerusalem where refuge was burned. The stench reached the sky and the fire was always burning.

v. 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Reminder: We (believers in Christ) have been saved from this fiery hell. Continue reading →