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 →

Rescued From Hell

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Ephesians 2:8-10

It is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who tells us most about hell and its endless torments, speaking more about hell than He did of heaven. Exactly how we are rescued from this place is spelled out with great clarity in this passage.

Quotes of George Whitefield

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Whitefield2Come poor, undone sinner, come just as you are to Christ.

True conversion means turning not only from sin but also from depending on self-made righteousness. Those who trust in their own righteousness for conversion hide behind their own good works. This is the reason that self-righteous people are so angry with gospel preachers, because the gospel does not spare those who will not submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ!

Congregations are lifeless because dead men preach to them.

Other men may preach the gospel better than I, but no man can preach a better gospel.

The Lord Jesus sits in heaven, ruling over all, and causing all things to work for his children’s good.

God has condescended to become an author, and yet people will not read his writings. There are very few that ever gave this Book of God, the grand charter of salvation, one fair reading through.

I was honored today with having a few stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of a dead cat thrown at me.

If one evil thought, if one evil word, if one evil action, deserves eternal damnation, how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve, whose whole lives have been one continued rebellion against God!

You blame me for weeping, but how can I help it when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are on the verge of destruction.

As for the extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost, such as working of miracles, or speaking with divers kinds of tongues, they are long since ceased.

I believe I never was more acceptable to my Master than when I was standing to teach those hearers in the open fields. I now preach to ten times more people than I would if I had been confined to the churches.

Man is nothing; he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him” and “you dishonour God by denying election. You plainly make salvation depend, not on God’s ‘free grace’ but on Man’s ‘free will.’

Come away, my dear brethren, fly, fly, fly for your lives to Jesus Christ; fly to a bleeding God, fly to a throne of grace; and beg of God to break your heart; beg of God to convince you of your actual sins; beg of God to convince you of your original sin; beg of God to convince you of your self-righteousness; beg of God to give you faith, and to enable you to close with Jesus Christ.

Works? Works? A man get to heaven by works? I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand!

Let my name die everywhere, let even my friends forget me, if by that means the cause of the blessed Jesus may be promoted. Let the name of Whitefield perish, but Christ be glorified.

21 Misunderstandings of Reformed Thinking

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Dr. Sam Waldron, I had the privilege of speaking at the Reformation Preaching 2015 Conference. I was given the delicious, but in some ways difficult topic: Misunderstandings of Reformed Thinking. After some thought and seeking counsel, I entitled this message: 21 Misunderstandings of Calvinism.

There are a few things beside the native darkness and pride of the human heart that are a greater danger to the doctrines of grace than the widespread misunderstandings of those doctrines and their implications. The best solution to these misunderstandings is a study of the Reformed tradition itself and its clear statements about what the Bible does, and does not, teach regarding the doctrines of grace.

Before I addressed this important subject, I gave the conference four points of introduction. The first of those is the subject of this first post on those 21 misconceptions of Calvinism.

The Sources of These Misunderstandings

I distinguished three sources of misconceptions about Calvinism

The first was Arminian Misrepresentation. It is unquestionable that both today and in the past history of the church, Arminians have constantly repeated misrepresentations of the doctrines of grace. While these misrepresentations may have seemed to them the necessary implications of the views of their Calvinist opponents, they were made in many cases in spite of the clearest denials by the Reformed. It is unfair for anyone to charge their opponents with holding views that they deny even though they seem to be the logical implications of their positions. It is fair to point out that their views do lead to such implications. It is not fair to affirm that they hold or believe such implications when they explicitly deny them. Continue reading →

The Development of the New Testament Canon

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michael j krugerArticle: Michael Kruger – “An Essential Key to Understanding the Development of the NT Canon” – (original source the internet is packed with myths, mistakes, and misunderstandings about how the whole process really worked.

While there is no quick cure for such misconceptions, there is one essential key that really helps clear away the cobwebs. And that key is understanding the different categories of books in early Christianity.

We tend to think there are only two categories, those books that are “in” and those books that are “out.” But, early Christians were more nuanced than this. In fact, they divided up books into four categories. And understanding these categories will clear up a good number of the misunderstandings of the way the canon developed.

We will take our cue from the four categories laid out by the well-known fourth century historian Eusebius in Hist. eccl. 3.25.1-7:

1. Recognized Books. For Eusebius, these are the books that are universally recognized as canonical and have been for a long time. These include: the four Gospels, Acts, the epistles of Paul (including Hebrews), 1 John, 1 Peter, and Revelation (though he acknowledges the last one has some detractors). Put another way, Eusebius acknowledges that there has been a “core” canon (22 out of 27 books) in Christianity for some time.

What misconceptions does this refute? Some scholars continue to claim there was no canon until the fourth or fifth century. But the existence of this “core” of recognized books shows that is simply not the case. These books had been established for generations and there was never any meaningful dispute about them.

2. Disputed Books. These are books that have been subject to some ecclesiastical disagreement, but are still regarded as canonical because they “are nevertheless known to most” (3.25.3). Not surprisingly, these include the smaller books: James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John. The combination of recognized books and disputed books together form our 27-book canon.

What misconception does this refute? The category of disputed books reminds us that the boundaries of the canon were still “fuzzy” in the earliest centuries of Christianity and that it took a while for the church to reach a full consensus around these books. The canon was not dropped from heaven on golden tablets, but developed through the normal processes of history. And such processes aren’t always neat and tidy. Continue reading →

10 Things About the Immutability of God

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storms-sArticle: Dr. Sam Storms – “10 Things You Should KNow About the Immutability of God” – (original source and ultimately unworthy object of our affection and worship. It is imperative, therefore, that we proceed cautiously, and yet with conviction, in articulating these ten truths about divine immutability.

(1) To say that God is immutable is to declare that his character is eternally consistent. Immutability means that God is consistently the same in his eternal moral being. He will never get “better” than he has been for eternity. He will by no means ever get “worse”.

(2) This affirmation of unchangeableness, however, is not designed to deny that there is change and development in God’s relations to his creatures. We who were once his enemies are now by the grace of Christ his friends (Rom. 5:6-11). Divine immutability must never be interpreted in such a way that the reality of the “Word became flesh” is threatened (John 1:14). We must acknowledge that he who is in his eternal being very God became, in space-time history, very man. Yet the Word who became flesh did not cease to be the Word. The second person of the Trinity has taken unto himself or assumed a human nature, yet without alteration or reduction of his essential deity. He is now what he has always been: very God. He is now what he once was not: very man. He is now and forever will be both: the God-man.

(3) To say that God is immutable is not to say that he is immobile or static, for whereas all change is activity, not all activity is change. It is simply to affirm that God always is and acts in perfect harmony with the revelation of himself and his will in Scripture. Continue reading →