Monthly Archives: January 2021

How To Share Your Faith

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The book of Acts describes the early history of the church and it was far from “smooth sailing.” The Christians experienced great difficulties while at the same time there was a notable expansion of the gospel. When, early on, persecution of Christians commenced, God’s people were dispersed from their locations. That brought terrible disruption, as we might imagine. Yet, rather than this persecution meaning the end of the church’s witness, it resulted in Christians sharing their faith way beyond the normal parameters of their locality. As we know, God uses means to achieve His ends! Amazingly, our Sovereign God actually used the persecution of Christians to expand the rule of the Lord Jesus.

Luke (the author of Acts) describes the situation in these words: Acts 8:1 And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Then we read in v. 4:

Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Question: Who were preaching the word?

Answer: The Christians (but not the apostles)

Let that truth sink in: Though God used the apostles greatly to see conversions, the massive expansion of the early church occurred when the people of God (the normal, everyday, non spectacular, non superstar Christians) shared the word of God with others.

In a similar way, here in the 21st century, statistics tells us that while God uses well known preachers in our day to some degree, the vast majority (more than 80%) of those coming to faith in Christ, do so through Christians sharing the gospel with those they know and meet. That should be a great encouragement to us.

Some teachers overstate things when they say that evangelism is our ONLY purpose here on earth. When we go back to Creation, Adam and Eve in the garden had purpose to glorify God and obey Him well before there were any other people around to reach with His truth.

In the same way, each of us also have great purpose in living for God and obeying Him, even apart from evangelism. And yet, our pilgrimage here on earth is our only available time to reach others with the gospel. In heaven, with all the glorified saints of all ages there, we will have no need to share our faith, for all will know Him. It is here, at this time, we are called to be witnesses of Christ.

For the Wednesday Bible study, I made a recording of just less than an hour, walking through key principles for sharing the gospel with others. It may well be the first part of a longer series on the subject… we will see… but it is something vital to our task here on earth. I hope you find it to be a blessing.

https://embed.sermonaudio.com/player/a/12721238535822/

Did the Holy Spirit Indwell Old Testament Believers?

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Dr. David Murray, is the Professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He lives in Grand Rapids with his wife, Shona, and four children.

I found the following articles by Dr. Murray to be very helpful concerning the question “did the Holy Spirit indwell believers in Old Testament times?” He wrote four short articles on this theme and I will put them all together here. That makes this a lengthy post, but I think its best to have all the information in the one place. You can find the original articles at his blog site here.

Did the Holy Spirit indwell OT believers? By David Murray

A huge amount of ink and electrons have been devoted to answering that question. Personally, I can’t understand why this is deemed such a complex issue. It all really depends on our answer to this simple question: Were Old Testament believers believers?

If the Old Testament believers were real believers, the Holy Spirit indwelt them. No one can be born again, believe, or repent without the inward work of the Holy Spirit. And no one can stay a believer for one second without the ongoing internal work of the Holy Spirit – neither in the OT nor the NT. Without the Holy Spirit constantly in and at work in our hearts, we will immediately apostatize.

So, here are the options:

1. Old Testament “believers” were not real believers.

2. Old Testament “believers” believed by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit but kept believing without the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit.

3. Old Testament believers, like New Testament believers, believed and kept on believing as a result of the Holy Spirit’s initial and ongoing indwelling work in their hearts.

If #1 is true, then the Bible is not true (Jn. 8:56; Heb 11).

If #2 is true, then Old Testament believers were not as depraved as we are, as they did not need the ongoing indwelling work of the Holy Spirit. (And in some ways, this debate really is a debate about the nature of human depravity in the Old Testament. Could anything less or other than the indwelling of the Holy Spirit keep a believer believing, repenting, hoping, obeying, etc?)

If #3 is true, then the question that’s left is: “In what ways did the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit differ in the Old Testament compared to the New, especially post-Pentecost?” Everyone accepts there was a difference. But what was it?

That’s a question I’ll return to in coming days (there are some difficult texts to deal with that seem to contradict #3), but in the meantime let the weight, significance, and consequences of the three options clarify our thoughts.

Continue reading →

A word for my fellow Christian patriots

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I came across these words just now, written by a retired pastor and author, Dean Davis. Every word he writes resonates very deeply in my own heart also, and so I share these words with you in the hope that they will be used to lift and encourage your precious soul this day. – Pastor John Samson

A word for my fellow Christian patriots:

Years ago, a great preacher delivered a sermon entitled The Power of an Alternate Affection. He drew his inspiration from a ride home on his horse. Throughout the first half of the journey he had to fight the horse, which wanted to go back. But during the second half, he had to fight the horse from racing ahead, so badly did it want to get home. The horse experienced a change in affection, and with that, a fresh power to run towards its new goal.

The preacher’s point was that the miracle of the New Birth creates a new and powerful affection: an affection for God, Christ, and the things above. No longer is the Christian inclined to run towards the world, the flesh, and the devil. Now he is racing towards the Kingdom of God.

On this most consequential morning (Jan. 6) I want to draw upon this sermon to speak to the hearts of Christian patriots here in America. Like you, I have a deep love for the old America, which, per the Declaration and the Constitution, enshrined as supreme the value of faith and ordered liberty in the religious, economic, and political spheres, under the laws of nature and nature’s God. While (apart from what is revealed in Scripture) we can never know for sure what the future holds, God does enable us to see trouble coming (Pr. 27:12). The events of 2020 convince me that trouble is coming, and that the America I knew and loved may well be gone forever.

And so, with a humble submission to the Sovereign Lord who alone knows the future, I want to encourage you with this word: In days ahead it may well be necessary for us to ask the Lord to produce in us a deep change of affection. We will, of course, always love the old America, as President Trump and many other great patriots still do. But it seems likely to me that that America is gone forever.

I hope I am wrong. But if I am not, I see only one solution, one path to soundness of mind and a steady, ongoing experience of the love, hope, and joy for which we were created. We shall have to transfer much of our affection for our earthly homeland to our heavenly. We shall have to set our minds–and our affections–on things above (Col. 3:1f). As never before, we shall have to attach our love and loyalty to a City and a Nation whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10).

During his days on earth, the Lord Jesus depicted his Church as a City set upon a hill, and as the Light of the World. As the new America collapses still more fully into the darkness and chaos of the World-System, multitudes of frightened souls will be looking for truth, order, stability, security, peace, joy, hope, and love. As they look, they will need to see the Church at her very best, as a bright and shining City settled on a heavenly mountain high above the dark valleys and dangerous roads below. But for that to happen, you and I as individuals will have to experience, as never before, the power of alternate affection: an affection for the City and Homeland of God, and for their King.

I cannot imagine ever losing my love for the old America. But what I can see, and what helps me in this time of deep loss and sorrow, is that all that was good, and true, and beautiful in the old America was actually on loan to us from the Homeland above; and that we have it in spades forever, with no possibility of loss, when we are safe and sound in Jesus Christ.

In the months and years ahead I will be asking the Lord to help me experience the power of an alternate affection, so that I am not overwhelmed by sorrow and anger at the loss of my earthly country, but filled with the hope, joy, and love that so abundantly fills the City of God. In the power of those affections I will still fight to preserve the old America, but will do so as never before with my hope and affections set upon the New.

Please pray for me as I do, as I shall for you.

Love and Blessings to you all in 2021.

Dean Davis

Does Christology Matter?

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Article by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson – original source: https://www.ligonier.org/blog/does-christology-matter/

“We all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us one and the same Son, the self-same perfect in Godhead, the self-same perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man … acknowledged in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably … the properties of each nature being preserved.”

So wrote the church fathers in the Definition of Chalcedon in AD 451. But even if they spoke “unanimously,” their doctrine of Christ sounds so complex. Does it really matter?

Given the sacrifices they made to describe Christ rightly, one can imagine that if these Christians were present at a group Bible study on Philippians 2:5-11, they might well say to us, “From what we have heard, it never mattered more.”

Imagine the discussion on “Though he was in the form of God … emptied himself” (Phil. 2:6-7, RSV). Says one: “It means Jesus became a man for a time and then went back to being God afterwards.” “No,” says another, “He only emptied himself of His divine attributes and then He took them up again.” “Surely,” says another (not pausing to reflect on the miracles of Moses, Elijah, or the Apostles), “He mixed humanity with His deity—isn’t that how He was able to do miracles?”

Does it really matter if those views are wrong, indeed heretical, so long as we know that Jesus saves and we witness to others about Him? After all, the important thing is that we preach the gospel.

But that is precisely the point—Jesus Christ Himself is the gospel. Like loose threads in a tapestry—pull on any of these views, and the entire gospel will unravel. If the Christ we trust and preach is not qualified to save us, we have a false Christ.

Reflect for a moment on the descriptions of Christ above. If at any point He ceased to be all that He is as God, the cosmos would disintegrate—for He is the One who upholds the universe by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3). If He were a mixture of deity and humanity, then He would not be truly or fully human, and therefore would no longer be one of us and able to act as our representative and substitute. He could neither save sinners nor succor saints. This is why Hebrews emphasizes that Christ possesses a humanity identical to ours, apart from sin. No mixing or confusing here.

Most of us are sticklers for clearly describing anything we love, be it science, computing, sports, business, or family life. Should we be indifferent to how we think and speak about our Savior and Lord?

This is why the church fathers, and later the Westminster divines, stressed that God’s Son ever remained “of one substance, and equal with the Father” and yet, in the incarnation, took “upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties and infirmities thereof, yet without sin… . So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion” (WCF 8.2).

What makes this statement so impressive is that it safeguards the mystery of the incarnation while carefully describing its reality. The Son’s two natures are not united to each other, but they are united in His one person. So in everything He did, He acted appropriately in terms of His deity or His humanity, one divine person exercising the powers of each nature in its own proper sphere.

This, then, underscores the value of the church’s creeds. They were written by men who had thought more deeply and often suffered more grievously than we do. They spoke out of a deep love for Christ and His people, concerned for a lost world. Their testimony helps us in three ways:

  1. It protects us by setting boundaries for our thinking.
  2. It instructs us by helping us see biblical truth expressed in its briefest form.
  3. It unites us, so that everywhere in the world, Christians can share the same clear confession of who Christ is and what He has done.

Does it really matter? In light of the sacrifices our forefathers made in order to articulate the grandeur of the person of our Savior and what Christ had to be in order to save us, you bet it matters.