Calvinism Is…

calvinist02“Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world’s Maker and King. Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of his will. Calvinism is a theocentric way of thinking about all life under the direction and control of God’s own word. Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible – the God-centered outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace. Calvinism is thus theism (belief in God as the ground of all things), religion (dependence on God as the giver of all things), and evangelicalism (trust in God through Christ for all things), all in their purest and most highly developed form. And Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God’s world as no more, and no less, than the outworking of his great preordained plan for his creatures and his church.”

– Excerpt from J.I. Packer’s Introduction to “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ” by John Owen

https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/packer_intro.html

The Old Puritanic Faith

spurgeon_chair-e1379528080265“A certain vainglorious party of Pretenders to intellect and culture tell us now that the old Puritanic faith is nearly extinct; there are only a few of us ignorant people who now hold the same truths as John Owen, John Bunyan, Goodwin, and Charnock; but all the elite of the world, those who have all the “sweetness and light” to themselves, the thinkers, the mental gentility have all been sensible enough to give their votes for something more suitable to the times.

In the name of God, we shall show them the difference yet, and by his Spirit He will din their ears with the gospel ram’s horn till they and their Jericho come down in a common ruin. The evangelical doctrine which shook Europe will shake it yet again, and England shall yet know that the self-same truth, for which her martyrs died and for which her Puritans fought on many a well-contested field, shall break the rationalism and ritualism of this land in pieces yet, and all else that standeth in the way of the true gospel of the living God.

We are not afraid nor discouraged, but we cry mightily unto the King that we may once more lift up a shout because of his presence, for then human philosophy shall be ashamed, and old Rome shall know, and all the cubs of the beast of Rome shall know, that the Lord liveth, and his invincible truth shall win the day.”

– Charles Spurgeon

What Child Is This? (Part 1)

Text: Isaiah 9:1-7

The uniqueness of this Child, born into our world marks the major division of all human history, at least according to the western calendar: B.C. to A.D. Why would this be? Who exactly is this One and what exactly would He do? The answers to these questions reveal so much because what He would do tells us a great deal about what we most need!