God’s Providence in the Midst of Suffering

I recently received this quote via email from my professor of Church History as an encouragement to me (and anyone else who may be engaged in a similar battle). Apart from meditation on Scripture, reading about and listening to other saints’ struggles have been a most timely and necessary word of encouragement to continue the fight.

This particular quote is from Joseph Kinghorn, an English Baptist pastor, who in 1814, wrote the following “Advice and Encouragement to Young Ministers.” May it bring you as much encouragement as it did me.

“If you are designed to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, and to confirm those that are wavering, you may have your own mind severely tried respecting the truth you have believed; and do not be surprised, if you have to examine your whole system; to dissect it joint by joint; to scrutinize the evidence of every part–perhaps to call in question the truth of Revelation;–or to doubt the being of your God!  You may be rendered painfully familiar with the reasonings and objections of men, who would subvert the whole foundation of your hope and joy; you may be compelled to pursue an extensive course of inquiry, which otherwise you would have deemed quite unnecessary; and all this may be a discipline needful to fit you for your future warfare.

Thus you will be enabled to benefit others.  You will obviate those difficulties, which they dared not to mention: without giving their objections a formidable shape, you will apply principles which will establish their faith: and time will probably discover, that some who come to the house of prayer, returned thankful for the relief, which your previous difficulties enabled you to afford them.”

– Joseph Kinghorn, Advice and Encouragement to Young Ministers: Two Sermons. . . . Norwich, 1814. II 38.

No Comments »

Doubts Are About Fears… Not Facts

In this extremely insightful blogpost, Jon Bloom makes the point that just like the Israelites of the Old Testament who constantly fell into idolatry because of political pressures from surrounding nations, Christians today constantly fall into idolatry, as well, because of cultural pressures from the non-believing world.

More specifically, Bloom says this about the condition in which the Israelites lived in the OT:

The nations surrounding Israel had fruitful harvests and won wars. They grew wealthy, had many children, and flocks of livestock. Those nations mocked Israel’s invisible God and applied political pressure. These gods appeared to provide more immediate benefit than Israel’s God.

He then compares those conditions with the current conditions in which we live.

Those that serve other “gods” may prosper financially, accomplish impressive feats, wield power, have beauty. They may mock what you believe and apply cultural pressure to you. These gods may appear to provide more immediate benefit than your God.

Thus, Bloom concludes the following:

This battle is often not waged on the field of truth, but rather on the field of cravings and fears. The desires of the flesh and the eyes (1 John 2:16) are battles of appetite not reason.

Then, with this conclusion, he takes the issue of doubt head-on by saying the following:

And what of your last battle with doubt? Was it really based on a rational, fair comparison of truth claims? Or was it triggered by the fear-laden discouragement of circumstance, cultural consensus, or someone else’s confident contrary assertion?

Yes. And amen.

No Comments »

Trust/Joy/Peace in God STARVES Without the Word

John Piper gives a much-needed word to us about the necessity (not just the importance) of daily memorizing the Word to sustain our trust, joy, peace in God and love toward God. Here’s a quick excerpt:

Faith feeds on the word of God. Without a steady diet it gets weaker and weaker. If you are dissatisfied with your Christian courage and joy and purity of heart, check the way you are feeding your faith.

Compare the way you eat. Suppose that you start the day with a glass of orange juice. It’s good, and good for you. It takes you maybe five minutes to drink it, if you read the newspaper at the same time. Then you go off to work or school. You don’t eat anything else until the next morning. And you have another glass of juice. And so you go on drinking one glass of juice a day until you drop.

That’s the way a lot of Christians try to survive as believers. They feed their faith with five minutes of food in the morning, or evening, and then don’t eat again until 24 hours later. Some even skip one or two mornings and don’t give their faith anything to eat for days.

Now the effect of starving your faith is that faith starves. Not hard to understand. And when faith is starving, it is weak and not able to do much. It has a hard time trusting God and worshipping and rejoicing and resisting sin. It is gasping and stumbling.

Click here to read the rest.

No Comments »

9 Ways to Know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is True

Many non-believing skeptics and well-meaning, born-again Christians alike, at one point or another, question the veracity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. John Piper, in this article from Desiring God, gives nine compelling ways to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

Again, I think it must be clarified that these truths do not form the basis or the foundation of our faith or trust in Christ; the Holy Spirit enlightening our hearts to the glory of Christ in the Gospel is the only basis for our foundation (and one which we must continually ask the Holy Spirit to help us see and savor on a daily basis). However, these truths and all others (e.g. evidential apologetics) give weight to the hope that we already have.

1. Jesus Christ, as he is presented to us in the New Testament, and as he stands forth from all its writings, is too single and too great to have been invented so uniformly by all these writers.

The force of Jesus Christ unleashed these writings; the writings did not create the force. Jesus is far bigger and more compelling than any of his witnesses. His reality stands behind these writings as a great, global event stands behind a thousand newscasters. Something stupendous unleashed these diverse witnesses to tell these stunning and varied, yet unified, stories of Jesus Christ.

2. Nobody has ever explained the empty tomb of Jesus in the hostile environment of Jerusalem where the enemies of Jesus would have given anything to produce the corpse, but could not.

The earliest attempts to cover the scandal of resurrection were manifestly contradictory to all human experience—disciples do not steal a body (Matthew 28:13) and then sacrifice their lives to preach a glorious gospel of grace on the basis of the deception. Modern theories that Jesus didn’t die but swooned, and then awoke in the tomb and moved the stone and tricked his skeptical disciples into believing he was risen as the Lord of the universe don’t persuade.

3. Cynical opponents of Christianity abounded where claims were made that many eyewitnesses were available to consult concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

“After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:6). Such claims would be exposed as immediate falsehood if they could. But we know of no exposure. Eyewitnesses of the risen Lord abounded when the crucial claims were being made.

4. The early church was an indomitable force of faith and love and sacrifice on the basis of the reality of Jesus Christ.

The character of this church, and the nature of the gospel of grace and forgiveness, and the undaunted courage of men and women—even unto death—do not fit the hypothesis of mass hysteria. They simply were not like that. Something utterly real and magnificent had happened in the world and they were close enough to know it, and be assured of it, and be gripped by its power. That something was Jesus Christ, as all of them testified, even as they died singing.

5. The prophesies of the Old Testament find stunning fulfillment in the history of Jesus Christ.

The witness to these fulfillments are too many, too diverse, too subtle and too interwoven into the history of the New Testament church and its many writings to be fabricated by some great conspiracy. Down to the details, Jesus Christ fulfilled dozens of Old Testament prophecies that vindicate his truth.

6. The witnesses to Jesus Christ who wrote the New Testament gospels and letters are not gullible or deceitful or demented.

This is manifest from the writings themselves. The books bear the marks of intelligence and clear-headedness and maturity and a moral vision that is compelling. They win our trust as witnesses, especially when all taken together with one great unifying, but distinctively told, message about Jesus Christ.

7. The worldview that emerges from the writings of the New Testament makes more sense out of more reality than any other worldview.

It not only fits the human heart, but also the cosmos and history and God as he reveals himself in nature and conscience. Some may come to this conclusion after much reflection, others may arrive at this conviction by a pre-reflective, intuitive sense of the deep suitability of Christ and his message to the world that they know.

8. When one sees Christ as he is portrayed truly in the gospel, there shines forth a spiritual light that is a self-authenticating.

This is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:6), and it is as immediately perceived by the Spirit-awakened heart as light is perceived by the open eye. The eye does not argue that there is light. It sees light.

9. When we see and believe the glory of God in the gospel, the Holy Spirit is given to us so that the love of God might be “poured out in our hearts” (Romans 5:5).

This experience of the love of God known in the heart through the gospel of Him who died for us while we were yet ungodly assures us that the hope awakened by all the evidences we have seen will not disappoint us.

No Comments »

Proper Relationship Between Faith and Obedience, Part 1

Entirely by God’s grace, the question I’ve been wrestling with recently (pretty severely, I might add)  - namely, What is the proper relationship between faith and obedience; Gospel and law? is becoming clearer and clearer.  Just constant prayer and research and studying and meditating and searching for answers on this subject has led me to this book by Michael Horton titled, Introducing Covenant Theology.

Now, though I continue to maintain that nobody should rely exclusively on any one theological system, I also recognize that, in many cases, systems are good for precisely that, namely, systematizing and categorizing certain theological concepts.  It just so happens that Covenant Theology seems to have the best explanation regarding this particular Law/Gospel issue.

And so, I will be posting up excerpts (in several different parts) from Horton’s book which deals with this particular issue.

If the Sinai covenant (that is, the Covenant of Works) is no longer in force and we are “under grace” – that is, under a covenant of promise rather than of law – is, any principle of law excluded for the New Testament believer?  … What is the place, if any, for the law in the Christian life?

If we are asking this question, we can be assured that we have correctly understood the gospel as good news. After several chapters of expounding the message that sinners are justified by faith apart from works, Paul asks in Romans 6:1, “What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?”

If the preaching of the gospel we have heard leads us to wonder whether we can dispense with the law altogether, then it has been  correctly heard.  But Paul’s answer to the question, of course, is a resounding “No!”  His response is not like that of a law covenant.

In other words, he does not say, “If you do continue in sin, you will suffer the consequences (loss of rewards or even loss of salvation).”  Rather, his reply is that it is impossible for those who have been baptized into Christ’s death to remain in the tomb; they have been brought forth by the Spirit into new life. The good news just keeps getting better and better, and it is enough to save us from not only the guilt but the tyranny of sins as well.

But does this new obedience just happen without our needing to follow any prescribed code?  Wouldn’t such a view of the law as normative mean a relapse to the killing letter of the law when the Spirit has made us alive in Christ?

To be continued…

No Comments »